The world's worst kept secret was confirmed today with Apple announcing a comprehensive and long awaited update to its entire line of the portable music devices, the world dominating iPod. Today's announcement really shows why Apple is dominating the portable entertainment industry - they truly understand the consumer experience and everything Apple does is end to end. That the key difference between Apple and its major rivals, Microsoft and Creative. Apple has the marketing muscle and chutzpah to pull off major partnerships that really enhances the consumer experience in buying and enjoying their portable entertainment content. More on this later. This is a first impressions LifeSpike take on today's announcements and reviews the changes across the entire product range. Please feel free to disagree (or agree !) using the forum link at the end of this article.

iPod shuffle

The only update here is that Apple has released a (PRODUCT) RED version of the shuffle and has aligned the other colours with the new colour scheme of the nano. One word : boring.  Time to move on. Seriously, what's the point with buying a shuffle ? I never liked the original shuffle and I still don't think much of the current model. Scrap it and invest the R&D in the rest of the product range.

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iPod nano

The nano received a huge change and I wonder if it can still be called a nano. The biggest change being that the nano has moved into a different form factor and is no longer the classy diminutive slimline design that captured the world's attention when it was first released. When I first saw the leaked photos of the nano, I was thinking that surely this cannot be it. There's no way Jonathan Ives would sign off on something that ugly. But perhaps it's growing on a little since those initial rash thoughts. But my judgment is still out as to whether this "fatboy" form factor is better than the original design.

The main reason for this change is to accomodate the large 2" display, ostensibly for watching videos. But what can you see on a 2" screen ? I can understand that Apple does not want to alienate its most popular iPod, the nano, and leave it high and dry without video capabilities. But I'm dubious that any prospective nano owner would buy this device for watching video.

The best thing about the new form factor is the ultraslim profile of the new case - only 6.5mm thick.  The nano also sports a re-designed user interface to take advantage of the additional real estate offered by the 2" screen. And Apple has also brought the cool Coverflow interface to the nano. 

Essentially Apple has gambled that more capabilities will still endear the nano to its consumers despite the larger form factor. Time will tell.

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iPod classic

The original iPod loses its special status as just "iPod" and picks up a "classic" suffix. The classic picks up a new all metal enclosure and most importantly, gets bumped up to 160Gb of storage. The classic is the only iPod in the range with a hard drive as the storage device. All the other iPods have migrated to flash. The classic has been relegated to niche status with the retention of the hard drive as the screen is not large wide enough for proper video consumption. So it really only good for folks who want to bring their entire music library around with them.

The classic is also endowed with the latest version of the user interface. I'm predicting that in a year's time, the classic and nano lines will be merged with the nano form factor winning. There's just not enough differentiation between the two models to justify the costs of keeping two different product configurations. And 160Gb is overkill. Once the nano moves beyond the puny 8Gb limit to something like 32Gb, it will kill the classic.

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iPod touch

This is the iPod I wrote about recently - the iPhone without the phone. And it's a stunner ! This is a worthly sixth generation upgrade to the current video iPod. This is the iPod where video reigns supreme. Music afficionados should stick with the classic for the storage space. But if portable video is what you want, then this is the iPod for you. As I have already eluded to, the only disappointment with the touch is its paltry 16Gb of flash storage. I can understand the design considerations that went into the use of flash - speed, battery life and size - but 16Gb for a video player is really pushing it.

As its name implies, this iPod is one of two iPods endowed with the revolutionary multi-touch interface that debuted with the iPhone earlier this year. With Mac OS X being the engine behind this interface, this is really proving to be an interesting platform for additional Apple and third party applications to be built for it. Oddly enough, this iPod does not have games support unlike the nano and classic ! And no address book or notes either - what gives ??

The other killer feature which sets the iPod touch apart from its rivals is built in wifi and web browser. This really moves the iPod beyond a portable entertainment device to something closer to a ultramobile PC. Despite its storage restrictions, I'm definitely buying this iPod.  The added advantage of flash storage is this iPod has an ultraslim profile as well. 

This is not the perfect iPod but it's the best darn iPod Apple has released thus far (not counting the iPhone).

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iPhone

The biggest change with the iPhone is the unexpected price reduction. Apple has shaved US$200 off the original retail price of the 8Gb iPhone. This presents a huge challenge for the consumer as the 8Gb iPhone is at the same price point as the 16Gb iPod touch. I wouldn't be surprised that there will be a 16Gb iPhone released very soon as given the tradeoff between the 8Gb iPhone and the 16Gb iPod touch, many if not most consumers would go for the latter.

Many early adopters are quite upset by this rapid price reduction. If you are one the aggrieved iPhone owners, TUAW has some good advice for you. 

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