Apple holds “Rock & Roll” event, takes a big bag of “Meh”, sells it to the faithful
Steve Jobs re-took the stage today as Apple held another of their trademark media events, announcing updates to iTunes, the iPhone, and the iPod.
iTunes 9 is now released, which includes a slew of new genius-based features, but the one standout is that you can now share your iTunes library – by which they mean actually drag and drop files – with up to 5 computers on the same network. In fact, unless Engadget’s paraphrasing, the language Apple used is very telling:
Home sharing: we’re going to let you copy songs, TV shows, etc. with up to 5 computers in your house.
“Let” us? Thanks, big brother.
Also announced was the inclusion of a video camera in the new iPod Nano, which comes in 9 colours, 8gb and 16gb flavours, and sells for $149 & $179, respectively.
Missing was the hotly anticipated announcement of Apple’s long-sought-after Tablet device, instead opting to casually re-market the iPhone as a “pocket computer.”
Customers have figured something else out, it’s a great pocket computer. If you can get on WiFi, you can get on the internet and have a desktop-like experience.
You know what, he’s right. Because my desktop experience includes a mobile OS, a rigid stranglehold on what apps I’m allowed to install, an Email client that forces me to back out of it every time I want to check a different account, no Flash, lack of compatibility with all but ONE video format, and a complete inability to multitask. Yup, it’s a complete desktop-like experience.
My sarcasm is showing, but forgive me if I’m getting a little tired of Apple’s rhetoric. They’ve been evolving into snakeoil salesmen for some time now, but to say something like you don’t want a portable computer that isn’t pocketable and that the iPhone is a “desktop-like experience”; well, they may as well have called today’s event “You’ll believe anything we say, won’t you?”
That Apple is in fact working on a tablet computer seems to be a foregone conclusion, and it makes marketing sense that Apple would try to dissuade people from tapping into that market before theirs is released, but calling the iPhone a suitable replacement for a portable computer is hardly the carrot I need to keep my money in my wallet until this vapourware machine finally manifests itself in all its Apply glory.
All of Apple’s new hardware and software updates, including iTunes 9, iPhone OS 3.1, and the new camera-fitted iPod Nanos are available today.
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