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New iPod touch

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Re: New iPod touch

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree. Mine is still going after 5 years of use so I'm expecting to have to replace it any time now. The 128G option is acceptable but, since I'm touching that now, I'll have to thin my library a bit. Still, its better than the 64G and smaller.

Do you truly need your entire library on your device at any one time? 160GB of songs is roughly 111 days of continuous listening (assuming ~1MB/min, but I do admit that number goes up with higher bitrate content). Nobody truly needs that much music at any one time.

The point is to not have to manage it.

Re: New iPod touch

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you truly need your entire library on your device at any one time? 160GB of songs is roughly 111 days of continuous listening (assuming ~1MB/min, but I do admit that number goes up with higher bitrate content). Nobody truly needs that much music at any one time.

The point is to not have to manage it.

The point is flawed. If you aren't going to listen to 90% of your library, why even waste space for it? For that 0.00000001% chance when you remember you loved Fall Out Boy as a teen and want to relive those memories?

Re: New iPod touch

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think with the current climate of everything being streamed, CPU and speed are a lot more important than available storage. This is especially true for the large mobile gaming market, where it's a lot more likely that a parent will buy an iTouch for $199 for their kids to play with vs getting them an iPhone (which wasn't realistic before the refresh due to hardware limitations) It will be interesting if this refres…

I prefer to "own" my music rather than streaming it, and I'm aware that I'm not really in the target audience for this device.

Same here. I'm also not in the target demographic, and that's fine.

Steaming services are relatively useless out here unless you've somehow cached everything you want to listen to. Mountainous terrain with spotty coverage, long distances along service deadspots, etc. But, I'm likely not in the age group that "gets" the obsession with streaming. I'd rather have my music on a device that's with me.

Re: New iPod touch

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is to not have to manage it.

The point is flawed. If you aren't going to listen to 90% of your library, why even waste space for it? For that 0.00000001% chance when you remember you loved Fall Out Boy as a teen and want to relive those memories?

I guess, but the other side of it is that lots of people have the $200 to waste on such a piffling concern.

Re: New iPod touch

#55
post #28

I wonder if they will ever put the GPS in the iPod, or if they consider that a big differentiator for the iPhone.

I think the GPS receiver comes "for free" with the phone hardware (the DSP/antenna package). So, I doubt it, just because it wouldn't add much and would cost significantly more (both in components and battery life). With this kind of device, you're only online when in wifi, so location-aware services are limited too. i.e. what would you do with the GPS info? Maybe photo tagging?

GPS receivers are getting absurdly cheap, and I believe there are GPS/gyro or GPS/accelerometer combos that are even cheaper.

I think it is really all about the batter life.

Re: New iPod touch

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is to not have to manage it.

The point is flawed. If you aren't going to listen to 90% of your library, why even waste space for it? For that 0.00000001% chance when you remember you loved Fall Out Boy as a teen and want to relive those memories?

Right but the alternative is to have to go through and decide what music I might listen to.

Re: New iPod touch

#57
post #49
post #20

Sweet glad to finally see iPod Touch getting some modern love, just wished they came with bigger screens. Does Android have a comparable device? i.e. Internet/Music sans-phone in your pocket that's great at capturing quality vids/pics? Edit: The Samsung Galaxy Camera 2 looks close: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/samsung-galaxy-camera-2

I'm sure the Android ecosystem has many equivalents, but they'll never be very high profile. The cellular hardware inside phones doesn't add too much to the cost, so customers are better off just buying a phone and not putting in a SIM card. I'm pretty sure Apple sells the $200 model of the Touch at a bit of a loss, which they can do because people who buy and iPod Touch rather than an iPhone will probably buy a lot…

I very much doubt Apple sells anything at a loss. It's really not their style. Their margins are the envy of the entire industry, and Apple takes home 90% of cell phone profits[0]

The fact that they can create a phone/device with "inferior" tech and sell it at blockbuster margins proves to me that most people aren't interested in specs, but rather the whole experience and ecosystem. This is something Apple understands well and invests heavily in experience.

[0] http://www.cnbc.com/2015/02/09/dominant-apple-takes-90-of-sm...

Re: New iPod touch

#58
I feel silly for being excited about this, but I'd love it if they carried over these color options to the new model of iPhone. The blue is very sleek.

Re: New iPod touch

#59
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is flawed. If you aren't going to listen to 90% of your library, why even waste space for it? For that 0.00000001% chance when you remember you loved Fall Out Boy as a teen and want to relive those memories?

Right but the alternative is to have to go through and decide what music I might listen to.

I mean, there are smart playlists that can be based on last played date (eta: or ratings, or play count, for that matter. Honestly the iTunes smart playlists are a powerful but hugely underused feature), and iTunes fully supports selective syncing where you can just sync certain playlists you like and the smart playlist, and nothing else. iTunes was built as a music management system. Regardless of the crud that has been added on since, that's still what it is at its core.

Re: New iPod touch

#60

It's weird that they are stuck to the 4" screen size with the iPod Touch. I fully expected them to make one the size of iPhone 6, like every previous iPod Touch.

The problem with the iPod Touch is that it highlights exactly how hefty the margin is on an iPhone. 64gb iPod = £249. 64gb iPhone 6 = £619. If the only difference was GPS/Cell and a slightly larger battery it would hard to defend charging £370 for that.

But there are other differences. As with the previous generation iPod Touch, they actually cut a lot of subtle corners. Sure, there is some margin in the iPhone related to the cell plan subsidy, but there are some real cost cutting measures in there too. I think a reasonable way to think about it is that with the iPod Touch there is a strong incentive to compromise on the subtle things that users don't notice; the things Jobs always claimed they never compromised on (total fib).

The iPhone 5 vs. iPod Touch 5 was probably the closest the two ever came, the Touch's processor was still running with the 4S's processor/GPU/RAM and the 4's camera, and the body materials weren't equivalent.

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