An Apple employee describes the Reality Distortion Field
http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Reality_Distortion_Field.txt
Damn. I want the iPod touch even though I have a perfectly fine mp3player in my mobile phone which I use every day. Maybe I can hold off the urge by convincing myself that I should only get it if I could afford a Squeezebox at the same time?
I’ve been waiting to get a new iPod for about 3 months now. I wanted to buy an 80gig, but I knew that the prices would come down before too long and didn’t want to buy a 9-month old mp3 player for full retail price.
I’m disappointed. After this announcement, I’m going to see if I can find one of the old 80gig-ers for less than $250. A touch screen iPod with 100+ GB storage, I’d buy it for $400, but the improvement in the classic is too minor and the “Touch” is too damned small. Oh well.
Apple now has 4 iPod lines for people who want a little bit of storage and only one for people who want a lot. Boo.
The Touch has Wifi? I’m going to have to pop my iPod cherry.
So, if the new Ipod is $249, does that mean they’ll be discounting the previous Ipod Video in order to sell them off? That’s what I’m hoping. I see a refurbished 5th-generation 80GB for $220, but none of the 30GB model.
Incidentally, I see the new ones supposedly require USB 2.0. That’s lousy, they should work with older Macs than that. Maybe the 2.0 is only required for video or other new features.
I’m pretty sure that USB is backwards compatible. If you only have a 1.0 port, it’ll just run at 1.0 speeds.
That is correct. And let me tell you not to bother trying to transfer 80GB at USB1.0 speeds.
But it won’t charge the iPod and sending files over is definitely going to drain the battery.
As for firewire, forget about it. I tried to use firewire to move songs over on my 5G and it was a no-go.
**This just in: iPhone owners will get $100 credit.
**
Read here – An open letter from Steve Jobs to iPhone customers.
That really sucks. The new iPhone adopters agreed to the price at the time, why should they get any credit now?
Because these are the people that you don’t want to piss off. They made the iPhone a success. You want them on your side for your next product launch.
You’re right, they shouldn’t get the credit now. They paid the price for being an early adopter. In no other business do you get treated like this.
This is classic Apple Kool-Aid. They knew the huge price drop would get everyone all riled up. Then when the credit and apology comes out, it gets huge publicity and make all the “people that you don’t want to piss off” (i.e. fanboys) even happier than they were before. Apple pockets the $100 and makes a lot of people happy and good PR. Actually they pocket more than the $100. Since the it’s store credit, they only actually lose whatever the cost to Apple is on the hardware the customers use the credit on.
Again, I’m no fan of Apple, but you’ve got to give it to them. They’re crazy smart.
I bet it doesn’t make the accountants happy!
Regarding the $100 Apple credit: if you’d been an early adopter, you’d feel a little snubbed over a $200 price drop in a product that’s barely three months old. Let’s not sit in a corner and say “I told you so”. It’s not like Jobs is putting $100 cold hard cash in everyone’s pocket. They’ve sold nearly a million of the things … that’s $100 million, give or take. He’s giving the customer base a little incentive to come and get even more stuff. Hardware is cheap and it’s not where the profit is usually made, in any industry. Services, warranties, software, labor, and other intangibles are where the money is.
It’s a cunningly brilliant move: give the complainers a concession which allows them to come and spend even more. Jobs knows that by giving away a little under the guise of altruism, the company stands to gain even more in return, not only in revenue but in nurturing the faith of Apple customers. You don’t actually expect that anyone’s gonna spend exactly $100, do you? No, because many will probably exceed it … by a few cents, by a few dollars, maybe even by a few hundred dollars … and Apple is counting on it. Heck, I think this could’ve very well been the strategy from day one.
I bet it makes them damn happy, since it’s a $100 store credit. “Well, I wasn’t going to buy that extra stuff, but hey I have $100 credit so why not…”
As for me, 16GB is plenty, and WiFi is the clincher. Time for my first ever iPod… 
Good for you! I’ve been an iPod owner since the first one, which I got for Christmas in 2001. But I completely skipped the 5th Gen. because I was waiting for widescreen.
Unfortunately, I was also waiting for widescreen with large capacity. I can only guess that the reason there’s no iPod Touch with a big-ass hard drive is because it would have been a power consumption or temperature nightmare for Apple to engineer. The product itself makes too much sense, from a consumer perspective, to not exist… unless it’s technically unfeasible.
So since it looks like a widescreen/high capacity iPod is at least 2 years off, and since I know I’m getting an iPhone next year anyway (buying both a Touch and an iPhone would be, well, stupid), I’m going to get the Classic. Not sure which size yet – I’ll have to assess how much I’d actually watch video on it.
Of course, the fact that I accidentally left my 40 GB 4th gen iPod on the bus yesterday has made my decision all the more easy. 
Does anyone know if the Touch comes with a wristband? I’d want to use an iPod while working out, but it doesn’t appear they’ve made a wristband for it yet.
Nope. Just the usual accoutrements: Slip case, the crappy earbuds, CD, instructions. You’ll probably have to wait a bit for the aftermarket Touch accessories to start showing up.