How d’ya like them Apples?

Apple Keynote September 2007

With almost 110 million iPods sold to date, September 5^th 2007 marked Steve Jobs unveiling of a new/ revamped iPod range said to be the best ever. Well they were always going to better their predecessors but to what degree?

Hold up folks, before we get to that, Jobs wants to talk about ringtones for the iPhone. Oh no, Apple’s gone all Jamster. I can’t stand them at the best of times and certainly don’t want to pay an extra 50p on top of the 79p I just shelled out for a track. Not only that but surely the whole concept of buying ringtones is not only established but perhaps more crucially soon to be redundant as many people have turned to creating their own.

With the shuffle having no more than a lick of paint the first in the new range to be announced is the new iPod video or ‘Classic’ as it is now called. This variation on the established video iPod boasts up to an impressive 160GB capacity but not the widescreen display many were hoping for. Fear not for the unveiling of the ‘Touch’ with 1/10th of the Classics storage. Yes ladies and gents that’s 16 GB enabling you to store, well, I suppose a fair bit of your music collection and maybe a couple of episodes of Family Guy. I think they said something about a Safari web browser, Wi-Fi and a nice widescreen display but all I heard was 16 GBs. Looking to replace my 3 year old player I was logically hoping to better not only its looks, but storage too. In short it could prove to be a revolutionary new product but not in its current state.

As for the collaboration between Starbucks and Apple; I’ve already got access to iTunes music store as part of my Wi-Fi enabled iPod Touch, so why then do I need a Starbucks logo to point me in the direction of that McCartney number they have on a loop each and every time I pop in for a chai tea latte? It’s for that very reason I’m listening to my iPod in the first place.

Arguably most tempting of the range is the revised nano which now incorporates video on its dazzling 2 inch screen, an intuitive cover flow interface and according to the Keynote more storage? Long story short, it doesn't, which is a shame.

The presentation concluded with a $200 decrease in the price of the iPhone. Surely this is all good for the consumer, no? Well you try telling that to the million odd people who already shelled out for one in the first two months of sale. Well, funnily enough this is exactly what Steve Jobs has tried to address on the apple website by offering a $100 credit voucher to existing iPhone customers. Albeit a nice gesture it’s one they shouldn't have had to make. Still, did I mention you can get ringtones for these things now?!

M Fowler

Shrink My Tunes - Lets make things small!

So the new iPod Touch is amazing and touchy and oooh look it's got a big screen, so i can view all my media.... oh wait, i can't cos it's already full.

Apples new POD on the block may look the business and if smearing your grubby fingers all over the same screen that you actually want to watch, floats your boat, I'm sure you'll be joining numerous Apple fans in spending hundreds of your hard earned pounds on another beautifully designed, but essentially flawed piece of kit (read our review of Steve Jobs latest Keynote here).

However, thanks to 'Shrink My Tunes' you can now fit twice as much music (doesn't work on video yet) on to your MP3 player, without apparently any drastic loss in quality. They claim to use 'content sensitive heuristic algorithms' developed by NASA apparently to reduce the file size of your favourite track. The software is small at 2MB and is currently PC only, and offers little in the realms of options with regards to your file encoding, but it seems like a good place to start.

The offer of halving the space taken up on your MP3 player is too good to pass up, unless of course your music ends up sounding like it was recorded in you mums bathroom. According to Wired, it has varying results, and the claim to reduce 5MB songs to 1.5MB only really applies to people willing to listen to 'internet radio quality' music. However, when reduced by 50% the quality was fairly acceptable. Hear for yourself over at Wired, where they've uploaded a couple of trial clips.

Will this make the new iPod Touch a bigger success? I doubt it, i think it'll have more impact on the new improved iPod Nano, which i liked the look off a lot and am much more inclined to purchase.....