iDude.org

A new line of iPods were announced by Steve Jobs today among other new things. Here, I am just going to comment on the new “touch” version and the iPhone.

The new iPod Touch is everything I hoped it would be. I had a major gut feeling that WiFi + Safari would be worked into it and it was. iTunes Mobile is in it which doesn’t surprise me so much.

I am going to hold off ordering it for a few months in hopes (unlikely) that a version with a bit more memory will come out. Lots of people are complaining in forums at Macrumors, Gizmodo and other sites that the 8 & 16gb is TERRIBLE. It is when you compare it to the “classic” version which has 80 & 160gb HDDs. I don’t think it is that bad considering it is flash based rather than HDD based which should lend to a longer life if you aren’t the type to upgrade EVERY time a new one comes out. I consider my music collection relatively large and diverse and it is only 11gb, which would leave 4.change leftover for other things such as the occasional video or hack. The “negatives” of the touch are outweighed by the new capabilities it wields like WiFi and Safari as well as other apps and hack-ability.

I am hoping that the iPod “touch” is as hackable as the iPhone, which I’m sure it will be. I am expecting to see some new applications come out for it such as a full email client, chat client, etc. Those programs would make it virtually a fully featured PDA, especially if someone can write or port an email client (like Evolution) that has an Exchange Connector for corporate email.

I am very excited about this product and hope it isn’t the last new item to be released before the holiday season.

On another note, I’m a bit disappointed at investors dumping Apple stock (AAPL) today on news that the iPhone was dropping $200 to a more “justifiable” $399 for the 8gb model and killing the 4gb version altogether, which should save a little in manufacturing costs as flash memory prices drop. I could easily see 16gb for the iPhone + 32gb for the iPod happening within the next year within the same price point. The more reasonable price will drive higher volumes for a device that is already the best selling “Smart Phone” in July 2007. I also have a strong feeling the exclusive AT&T relationship will end within or around the 1st anniversary of the release and Apple will openly support other carriers in driving proliferation of the iPhone.

Only time will tell…

The other day, while my wife was shopping at Walmart, I decided to make a little trip to the AT&T Store nearby.  They had a decent number of iPhone available on Launch Day, but I decided to wait until my current contract is up early next year.

It wasn’t too busy so I talked to the guy there at the store for a while about various smart phones, then I walked up to the huge fake iPhone display.

Sitting there was what looked like a normal sized iPhone display model sitting on the charging dock.  I asked the guy if it was real and he said “Of course”, So I picked it up and looked at it.  The screen was so clear and crisp that it looked fake. I tapped the weather button and up the weather came.

I’m not going to go into all the details that have been posted endless amounts of times on blogs.  Basically, the iPhone was the most beautiful handheld device I’ve ever used!  The interface was so fluid and simple that it took no instructional manual.  It is virtually 100% intuitive.

I wasted no time though getting into the phone part of it and called my buddy Mattbob.  He answered with a “Hello?” instead of his normal “Hey dude” since he didn’t recognize the number, and we talked for a few minutes.  I decided to then dial my brother, eDoug, and “merge” him into the call.  A couple “taps” later and we were all talking.  Doug had crappy service at work though so I dropped him out and went back to Mattbob.  Talked for a few minutes and was done.

I can’t say it would ever be that easy to do what I did on any other “Smart Phone”… I’ve owned Palm Treos and other Palm driven phones and it was never that simple.  Those others were clumsy without the stylus.

The touchscreen keyboard wasn’t too bad either, took a minute to get used to it, but it was ok once you did, it even corrected my last name which isn’t a common “Smith” or “Jones”.

Out of 10, I would give it a 9.2 … The only negative I noticed was the speed of the WiFi connection with trying to browse, but it may have been the stores connection.  Other than that, I really think it has some massive potential as they improve upon it and come out with new models down the road.

The coolest thing I can imagine Apple doing with it in the future is to create a “docking station” you can plug it into allowing you to have a full size monitor, mouse and keyboard.  The docking station could also offload some of the tasks to make it faster and/or provide more storage, etc.  This would basically allow you to have a PC in your pocket.

Found this video over on Mircat’s blog.

This is probably the funniest thing I’ve seen in a while! :)