02-23-2005, 09:16 AM

Rumors of a 6 gig ipod mini were true but no colour screen, which is not an issue for me because i believed it would have affected the battery life on already abysmal battery. However, what i am impressed with is the claims of up to 18 hours of battery on the mini! The only question i have is hopefully that new battery life claim applies to both the 4 and 6 gig models. I would probably order just the four but want to make sure that they are selling the updated 4 gig ipod.

The 20 gig ipod got a slight price drop, 10 bucks to be exact on apple.ca, and there is no more 40 gig ipod to be found. This definitely reflects Apple's decision to promote their ipod photo line as colour screens represent the future of the ipod line.

The 40 gig ipod photo has been dropped from the lineup and a new 30 gig model has replaced it. Forgive me if I am incorrect but it does look like there has been a price drop on the 60 gig ipod photo. The ipod photo line has been pricey and I think the 30 gig model will sell more units for this lineup.

The updates for the mini are not exciting but definitely necessary to reflect the offerings of the competitor, i.e, better battery life, up to 6 gigs of memory and most importantly - competitive pricing.

For myself, I want to see a review of the updated pods to find out if the new estimated battery life will hold up before i purchase a mini but so far it looks very promising and Apple looks to definitely keep the lock down on the mp3 player market.

Well Done Apple!

02-23-2005, 09:20 AM

Wow, just went to the Future Shop website and checked the 40 and 60 gig ipod photo prices, $649 and $769. The current lineup of the 30 and 60 run @ $439 and $569. But i believe th new models come with fewer accessories but like I said previously, the price drops will be more meaningful to the majority of interested customers.

02-23-2005, 09:22 AM

It really seems that the "classic" iPod is going to be sorted out...

But also the iPod becomes even more PC-friendly:
No more Firewire cable, except for the iPod 20GB and the U2 iPod...

02-23-2005, 09:38 AM

If u go to the main US site and cilck on "new to the store" and the description under the ipod ,it says that there are five new colors?????? how are there five new colors ....i can only see 4??? Am i blind!!!! :bone:

02-23-2005, 10:00 AM

its the arm bands that are the new colours as i read?

personally i dont like the fact that they have killed off the 40Gb model, i personally think that they should have kept it and just left the 20Gb and 40Gb models?

02-23-2005, 10:10 AM

Looks like they didn't catch the word "five" on that particular page-- everything else is correct (pricing, products).

For what it's worth, I think Apple is going in the wrong direction now. The whole point of iPod was simplicity, and now the product line is getting crowded.

I don't see the point of having both a 4 and 6 GB unit in the Mini line-- they should have just replaced the 4 with the 6 and reduced the price to $229.

Also, I don't see the advantage of the iPod photo at all. It reminds me of those cartoon grandmothers who say "let me show you photos of my grandchildren" and then their wallet accordions out to about a thousand photos. My kids are cool and everything, but I can't think of anyone beyond their grandparents who would want to see photos that I'd be carrying with me. The only good I see in it is being able to transfer photos from your camera to the iPod, thus saving flash memory space on your camera.

Steve won't add an FM tuner to the iPod, but he will add all this other stuff. I don't get it. 'Course, he's the visionary, not me. :-)

02-23-2005, 10:31 AM

It's because the iPod photo is not targeted towards you. I have heard of business professionals, photographers, archetects, doctors, biologists, etc etc that are in love with the iPod photo.. why? because they can carry around photos of what they need for their business.. they can bring their presentation in a small iPod instead of a laptop.. many many reasons.. when something from Apple does not appeal to you, it usually means that you are not the target audience, not that they did a flop.. I seldom every see that from Apple.

02-23-2005, 10:40 AM

I think I might save for a Mini after all! Gotta love the new price drop. But we'll see how I spend me money next month. ^^ Having my own apartment will be expensive, and hard work. ^^

Anyone need a catsitter? XD (thats what I do for a living, take care of cats, volunteer at cat shelter, etc. Its fun! And fuzzy. XD)

Oh, the blue iPod mini is so cute! ^^ I'm dying for an NPC player, but I'm selfish, I want one with alot of memory, and a flash screen so I can play games. Silly, I know, and I'm scared that I'd lose the iPod shuffle *its so tiny. O__O*

(this from the person getting a Mac Mini next big cheque, nya. XD)

02-23-2005, 11:20 AM

Any word on whether a software update for the original iPod mini's will give us 18 hour battery life? That is amazing! I'd sell mine, just to buy a new one if I can get 18 hours. That's more than double the current battery life.

02-23-2005, 12:02 PM

thats upsetting. i have a mini now and i got in in december for 349.99. first it was the price drop, and now it's the 18 hours of battery life, and 100$ cheaper? AW!

02-23-2005, 12:42 PM

Originally Posted by Murlyn

when something from Apple does not appeal to you, it usually means that you are not the target audience, not that they did a flop.. I seldom every see that from Apple.

..perhaps I was wrong in assuming that when I posted my opinions they were considered opinions. If products do not appeal to me, that's all it means-- not that Apple had made a "flop" or that their business model is flawed.

:-)

Then again, I spent a looong time within the Reality Distortion Zone back in the early 90s with Steve and NeXT, so who am I to talk? :-)

02-23-2005, 02:24 PM

Originally Posted by shaun89

thats upsetting. i have a mini now and i got in in december for 349.99. first it was the price drop, and now it's the 18 hours of battery life, and 100$ cheaper? AW!

I know what you mean, it's all technology. The 30GB photo iPod is the same price I paid for my plain jane 10GB

02-23-2005, 02:58 PM

Guys, look at this! If you think closely into it, you'll notice how everything connects to everything else little by little. Lets see... Apple has increased the Battery life of the iPod mini to 18 hours. Now look at the rumored Bluetooth technologies possibly coming to our MP3 players. Apple has shown that increasing battery life is not a problem - in order to incorporate new technologies such as bluetooth, which may use up a good chunk of battery life.

Somebody could want a 1GB iPod Shuffle because of its size, yet having a nice amount of songs, for 1 GB. Now, you're obviously thinking, for $50 more, you can get a 4GB iPod mini...Well, what if somebody doesn't care about what they listen to, and when, if they love every song in their collection? Well, it makes sense.

Also, with all the weird stuff going on, like the dropping of the 40GB iPod Photo, you can't expect anything else than Apple working on something that's going to be unveiled. Well, this is just my opinion and why I think Apple has made all the right moves this time.

Longer battery life for the iPod minis? 6GB? Cheaper 4GB mini? Cheaper iPod Photos with still good amounts of storage? Well....soemthing is coming. And we all know it. When, is the question. Only time will tell.

02-23-2005, 03:11 PM

Originally Posted by caribiner23

Steve won't add an FM tuner to the iPod, but he will add all this other stuff. I don't get it. 'Course, he's the visionary, not me. :-)

Yeah. One thing annoying about certain apple-can-do-no-wrong fans is hearing people say that FM tuners are stupid. And thats just silly. MP3 and FM should be hand in hand since FM is where most of us hear a song for the first time before we decide to buy our mp3. So why not tie it in? The Zen Micro can use its voice recorder to record off the FM radio onto the built in hard drive. So thats utilizing pretty much every part of the device which is pretty impressive. But while the other guys are doing interesting stuff in order to give them an edge over apple, whats apple's response? A photo viewer.

On a more positive note, maybe the photo viewer is a stepping stone to getting video on there. now that would be pretty useful.

02-23-2005, 06:32 PM

Video is one of those things that I do not understand.. what would be useful about it? I'd love to hear some ideas on how it would be used regularly.. I think my mind is stuck in that area and I would like to get it unstuck