How attractive is the iPod Touch / iPhone in the UK?
Like a lot of people, I kept an eye on the Apple announcement today. I was actually amazed the BBC didn’t cover it more, considering the number of other journalists and bloggers in Television Centre for the feed from San Francisco. As each development was unveiled, it looked very cool and attractive. Then I started to think about the practicalities of each product.
- iPod Touch. The new iPod is similar to the iPhone, only without the phone and camera. Coverflow (the method of browsing music) is very nice, the Safari browser and iTunes Wifi store very cool - not to mention the other applications and access to YouTube. However - I’m not going to start getting out an iPod Touch at 10pm on the bus back from Newcastle. My Sony Ericsson K800i isn’t really attractive to anyone now. Wifi is also great - however, if I’m at home I have the laptop and if I’m out it’ll cost an arm and a leg. If on the train it’s extremely unreliable.
- iPod Classic. A seriously impressive 160GB could never consume all of the songs and video I own. Even if I did have that much material, there’s a lot of shows I’ve recorded that I can easily stick on the new Creative player and not the iPod, considering the availability of DivX. The range of shows on the iTunes store is nothing to get that excited about. Nice improvements with a good price point though.
- iPhone. Interesting developments here - especially with the price. The 4GB version is no more, and the 8GB version has $200 taken off the price tag. I’m a bit sceptical that the iPhone could be close to £200 in the UK, and even then who knows what the contract will look like with a monthly cost, minimum term and data rates. At $0.99 for a ringtone (on top of buying the song), I’d stick to the defaults.
Personally, at the moment, the best option looks like a Sony Ericsson K850i and the new Creative player. Getting a 5MP camera and FM radio, plus a media player with the same space as an iPod Touch with SD card slot, with the ability to play back a lot of video I’ve encoded sounds pretty good. When wifi here improves significantly in speed, reliability and cost the iPod touch will be totally worth it, and when the mobile companies come up with a very attractive offer for the iPhone, for me anyway it’ll get a whole lot more interesting.
I also started thinking about the radio speculation. I only listen to FM radio in the shower - there’s not a lot on commercial radio that’s really gripping. Start listening to internet radio, or music services like Pandora over wifi, and you’ve got another thing altogether. My closest wifi hotspot is at a McDonalds - the day Durham City gets free (or cheap) wifi like Norwich and I can have my lunch outside whilst listening to NPR, I’ll be first in line.
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