This one goes to eleven

ipod photoThe iPod Photo has been causing me some headaches. Mostly because the hype has been so strong around the Mac web, but no one has really been able to tell me why I'd want one. (note: this is only about the iPod Photo... my thoughts on the 'U2 Special Edition' can be summed up with: "How 80's. And not in a good way")

This is basically the crux of the problem: I try to go into things with an open but cautious mind. If I don't understand something, I assume I'm missing something until I've exhausted all angles... which includes listening to what others have to say. When the original iPod was introduced, I understood the product. Even if I thought it was too pricey for my tastes, I understood the functionality people were forking their cash over for.

When Apple shipped the cube, I didn't understand the product. I understood the features in the product, but didn't really understand the functionality or why those features existed as a separate product. I tried to keep an open mind as possible, thinking: "I'm sure Apple did both external and internal market research on the viability of this product. What do they know that I don't?" I never really figured it out, and nobody ever explained it to me.

I'm in the same boat with the iPod Photo, recently released by Apple. I just don't understand it, and again, most of the blog hype generally centers around "It's so cool" and "I know what I want for Christmas". Weirdly enough, it's primarily Mac-based weblogs who are saying this stuff, which made me a little antsy, and in almost all of the happy blurbs, no one talks about why it is really cool. They'll list features, but that's about it.

To go over those features... well, the iPod Photo does photos, for either $500 (40 gigs) or $600 (60 gigs). This isn't the iPod itself getting photo capability, but rather it's being billed as an entirely new product. There's some increased battery life, and it claims you get 15 hours for listening to music, and up to 5 hours of doing sideshows plus music. The interface is exactly the same as the previous iPod, with the exception that now the screen is in color: all two inches of it. It's a hair thicker than a regular iPod, and about an ounce heavier... probably due to the increased battery capacity, as it takes longer to charge, too.

Before I really wanted to make up my mind one way or the other, I wanted to actually see and play with one first, as well as bounce some questions off the owners. I've been able to see two of them, and playing with it went well. Looks just like an iPod, works just like an iPod, feels just like an iPod. You can tell the difference in weight, and while it's odd to think of the iPods actually getting larger, it's not that big of deal.

The questions with the owners didn't go so well, though. They all said they loved it, but when I asked them why, it was hard for me to make sense of the answers... it was like they were reading from a pamphlet, but not actually using them.

I can take all of my photos with me to show people cool x y z.

I got some raised eyebrows when I said "Do people want to look at your photos?", so I then had to explain that I meant it in a more general sense. You see, I see people looking at a picture on little LCDs all the time. 95% of the time, it's because the person is in the photo, it's just been taken, and they want to see how it turned out. The iPod Photo doesn't have a camera, so this is out, and those people will be using their phones or digicams.

camera phone photoWhen alcohol is involved, this can get really amusing, and is usually followed by "Email me that!". (fyi, that's me on the right, having to get under a light at a pub so the picture would turn out)

However, people just never seem to crowd around someone's camera phone so they can see all their saved snapshots of their pet cat. If they're in a pinch they might be checking out the pictures from the last drunken outing, but even then not really: these screens are really tiny, and not a whole lot of fun to view pictures on. Really think about it how small two inches is. They're the equivalent of previews, not a real viewer, and that's why people email/sync the pictures to their home computer for real viewing.

That itself brings in an interesting thing I don't quite understand, namely that the iPod Photo requires you to use your computer as your home base. Well, I do understand it, I just don't quite understand what it is trying to solve in the equation and how it'll really be used. Perhaps if it had a camera... Most people with enough photos to really be interested are going to have a camera phone or a digicam which they'll be using while they're out, then sync it to their computer.

I'm having a really hard time imagining someone being out and taking photos, then viewing them on their camera, then going back to their computer and importing them, doing whatever they want to with them, and then buying an iPod photo so they can export them to the iPod Photo and carry them around. After checking in with these people, that seems to be about the gist of it... after the initial fun of trying to show everyone their photos, they've just kinda stopped. As in, cold turkey... not even updating the photos on it.

I can take all my photos with me, so I can see x y z whenever I want.

I guess I can kind of understand this, it's sort of like the equivalent of your sweetheart's snapshot in your wallet, except the snapshot in your wallet will be bigger and better quality. I can however imagine someone sitting on a train or plane and wanting to check out their sweetheart for a moment, but it seems like a feature that'll get such small use that it's the sort of thing that gets tacked onto the feature set, not something you build an entire product around.

I can play color games!

This one kinda got me into trouble again, as at first they didn't appreciate my response: "All three of them?". You can play a few games on the iPod Photo in color now, and it's actually four: Music Quiz, Solitaire, Brick and Parachute.

This got more amusing when I asked how often he actually played them, considering his cell phone comes chock full of them which he is always adding... because I often steal his phone to play whatever new Java game he's downloaded to it. Basically, no harm in them being on there, but if you have the money for a $600 MP3 player, your cell phone probably has an order of magnitude more.

I can connect it to the TV!

The idea seems to be, you can plug the iPod into your TV with an A/V cable, and get a nice slideshow of your photos along with your music. To put it more simply, the iPod becomes a $600 floppy disk in the most expensive sneakernet system ever devised.

This one just seems so odd to me, and I'm not saying that there aren't times you wouldn't want to slap up photos onto the TV. But if it's at home, it just seems cumbersome and silly... this is the kind of thing you'd expect people to pay $100 for as an accessory to the iPod, something specialized that does a much better job of getting what you have on your computer onto the TV. If this was something added to an Airport Express equivalent, that you could hook up to your TV, forget about it, and then direct the signal from iPhoto at the drop of a hat, OK.

If you want to take your photos to go show grandma, that's something. Except that was practically the entire basis of the gawd-awful Web appliance informercials starring Tom Arnold, which bled a slow death as people realized there were other ways to do this that weren't so cumbersome (don't gloat too much, Apple had it's own frightening late-night infomercials then). If it was a little more general-purpose, that might be kinda cool: throw your Powerpoint/Keynote file onto it, slap it into the projector and only have to carry your iPod to give your presentation.

Anyways, again I asked how often they'd actually done it: one of them had done it twice, the other had done it three times. In the first case, the guy did it once to check and see if it worked, and then went over to his girlfriend's and did it on her TV to show off his new toy. Hasn't done it since, and probably won't.

The second guy did much the same, except it would have been four times: on one of the times he was going to take it somewhere, he forgot the A/V cable... and on another time, he hooked it up to his TV across the room while plugged into AC power so he could have some nice eye candy to his music, as the TV passed the audio to his stereo. Coincidentally, by passing it through his stereo, it negated his Airport Express being plugged into the stereo, and he now had to get up to change anything... didn't last long.

It not only shows album art, it shows it in color!

I asked what I thought was an innocent question: "How often do you look at your iPod screen while you're listening to music?" Seems like an honest enough question... in my experience, the vast majority of time people who are using their iPod (or any portable music player) are doing other things while they use it. They might be walking, driving, reading... I've seen people futzing with the interface now and again, but once they've had it for awhile they can do what they want without even looking at the iPod... meaning it never leaves their pocket.

So yes, iTunes will automatically download album art to the iPod Photo, which you can view in a small corner of its 2" screen while a song is playing. But how often are you in a position to stare and look at the screen?

It's for families.

Someone said this to me when I asked them what they thought, and it just confused the hell out of me. Nothing they said made me any less confused, so I won't even bother repeating it... I think they were groping too.

It's got a color screen!

Ah, now we're getting somewhere here. That's an immediate and noticeable change from the older iPod, along with the storage capacity that actually outdoes some of their portable computers. And iPod Color sounds just a little lame. iPod Extreme sounds even lamer, but that hasn't stopped Apple before.

On the whole, what it seems to come down to is the addition of the color screen, but trying to make it a little less boring than just a color screen. At least, no one has been able to explain in a few sentences why the iPod Photo functionality is tres hawtt. Normally this is the part where they turn up their nose and say something along the lines of, "How could I explain the sheer coolness to someone too stupid to realize how cool it is in the first place?"

Which is fine, but if that's what you're working with, then this one goes to eleven.

(Update: Added the camera phone pic, which I'd forgotten)

yummy alcohol posted button Posted by drunkenbatman
    November 14, 2004, at 03:08 PM


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