Apple announced a slew of new and upgraded products yesterday that disappointed some Apple fans who had hoped for an iPod phone. Pundits have begun yet another "Apple is becoming obsolete" mantra, but beating up on Apple is nothing new, and for nearly thirty years, the pundits have almost always been wrong about Apple. With cellphones challenging the iPod as a music player and Microsoft's new music player about to be released, it is easy to see why you might think Apple's best music days are behind it.
But yesterday will likely prove the pundits wrong again. While no new "gotta have it" devices were announced yesterday, the fullness of Apple's multimedia strategy has emerged, in many small ways, mostly with Apple's superb design leading the way.
The iPod Shuffle, the smallest iPod, was long overdue for an upgrade, and Apple made the diminutive player even smaller; it is now no bigger than an oversize postage stamp, and instead of somewhat cheap-looking plastic, it is housed in a beautiful brushed aluminum case with a built in clip--perfect for people who want to carry music but don't want another big gadget to lug around. This new Shuffle is also likely to be popular with sports enthusiasts.
The iPod nano, which has been wildly popular but heavily criticized for its easily scratchable case, has been redesigned in durable aluminum and now comes in five colors, along with more capacity and longer battery life.
The full size iPod has a 60% brighter screen, longer battery life, lower prices, and increased capacity for better handling of movies. Apple also rolled out a revamped iTunes Store that now sells music, audio books, podcasts, TV shows, and full length movies. This was no surprise, but Apple's design efforts for the store are stunning. You use the new iTunes software to access the store and shop for content, and the two work together extraordinarily well. Among the additions to iTunes is the ability to capture cover art for both music and videos, and a new cover art browsing feature is really impossible to describe in words--I did not pay much attention to it as I read about it, but when I saw it working on my computer, I was awestruck, and with more than 30 years of technology use under my belt, that's pretty hard to do.
Apple has labored for years to slowly integrate media as part of the "computer," and the work is beginning to pay off. The seamless integration of hardware, software, and content can't really be appreciated until it is experienced, and if Apple wins the media wars, it will not be because of any single product or service, but because of an end to end commitment to detail and design that bigger companies like HP and Microsoft have never mastered.
Apple also previewed a $299 box that connects to your TV, stereo, or HD flat panel television; the device has both cabled Ethernet and wireless network access so you can stream music, TV shows, or movies from your computer to your TV. This is where Apple is diverging from the rest of the industry. Microsoft's media vision is that the computer becomes the TV, which means you end up with the computer NEXT to the TV, which is not where most people want to use the computer for other tasks like email, the Web, and work. Apple's vision is that the computer can be anywhere in the home, and you can effortlessly pull your music and video to wherever you want to use it.
Community economic development check: In just about every rural community I have ever been in, leaders talk about the need to attract and retain young people. But when I ask for a show of hands to see how many of these leaders have iPods or have used iTunes, it is ordinary for none of them to have an iPod or to be familiar with how these devices are used. But virtually everyone under thirty has a music player, and nearly 80% of those have an iPod. If you want to attract and retain young people in your community, you need to know what interests them and why. Step One of a revamped economic development plan: Buy each of your key leaders an iPod and install iTunes on their computer (yes, it runs on Windows).