Nanooo, Nanooo
A lot of things going on here, which means the site is going to be quiet over the next few days while I try to squeeze a bunch of stuff in that just isn't getting done so the dreams of running up sand dunes will go away. Lots of cool stuff, it just kinda sucks one can't think of it and then have it happen without actual effort.
However, Apple wrapped up their "special media event", which means my inbox is getting humped by a bunch of excited readers, and one good humping deserves another...
Everything about this is screaming Lame. If you read Convergence Kills and its redux, you probably also think this is the future of everything, but it doesn't mean the first few rounds aren't going to kinda suck.
The phone looks bad. The name is horrifying. The website is... Make Me Dance. It's a funhouse mirror reflection of what's supposed to happen when two large marketing departments combine, and it basically seems to have hardly any storage for your songs.
Glancing around the site, everything seems to be worded so you don't have a real idea of how much memory the phone is coming with, nor how many songs it can handle to start -- it's all about the fact that it can be 'pre-upgraded' to handle 100 songs. It's really only interesting in what we don't know, as in what had to take place behind the scenes to birth this.
Highlight of my day. Seriously.
It claims a bunch of new features, but it isn't that big of a deal. Parental controls are cool, and things like Smart Shuffle seem just fine, and things like Album reviews are a nice Amazon.com-ish touch... However, acting like this is the first version to carry a search box at the top is a little comical.
Bygones, as I only have eyes for the new "streamlined interface", which basically entailed ditching metal for something akin to the unified look (It seems darker?) while throwing away the margins of the app as they did with Mail.app.
Brent Simmons was the first one I saw do this with NetNewsWire, and I'm so glad he started this trend. iTunes just won itself some major points in my head, and I can only hope the Finder is soon to follow.
I'm undecided about where they moved the volume slider to, but mad love to whoever convinced the upper ups to ditch the margins and the metal. I'm going to have to come up with some sort of DrunkenBlog service-to-the-community award for situations such as this.
Another flash-based player to replace the iPod mini. Notable primarily in its similarity to the iPod Shuffle, the iPod nano seems like a pretty sweet replacement for the iPod Mini, with only a few things coming to mind...
- It's always weird to see Apple introduce something with color variations, only to see them replace it with something that has zero options. Back in the iMac days, their coloring deal caused them a lot of problems with resellers, because two out of the
xavailable colors would sell well while the resellers were stuck with the stock of everything else -- and Apple wouldn't let them pick and choose what stock they carried. - USB 2.0 interface again... I'm really thinking Apple has basically given up on FireWire, and it's only a matter of time until it slides off of some of their computer offerings. It's implementation in the G5's (Including the iMac G5) has horrible speed bugs that have never been fixed, and it's done nothing to push FireWire 800 down the chain, and if you want more than what USB 2.0 provides they happen to sell a nice big XSan which connects via FibreChannel.
R.I.P., FireWire. You coulda been a contender.
- The name is kinda lame. Obviously they're trying to piggyback on the nanotech mindshare, but in this case it's:
- Not the smallest product in the line.
- Giving me Mork and Mindy flashbacks. I keep wanting to say "Nanoooo, Nanooo".
This may well just be my own weirdness.
From what I can see I'm actually really digging this as replacement for the iPod mini, but if Apple is going to hype up special media events, they might want to be careful, as they aren't going to mean a whole lot going forward. Everyone knew the iTunes phone was coming, and this is just a new product in the line...
One of the more amusing aspects of this "special media event" was that most of the details leaked around the web days in advance of the event itself. Larger news orgs were saying what they were hearing was coming, and even people like Kevin Rose were spot on in dishing the goods on their blogs. This comes on the tail of having their thunder stolen over the switch to x86, etc.
This wouldn't be a big deal, except Apple is suing some websites over this kind of thing yet not others. I.E., ThinkSecret is being sued to be stomped out of existence, while AppleInsider and PowerPage have been served with papers telling them to hand over names.
It comes to mind that whatever effect Apple legal thought they'd have on leaks via legal intimidation of those outside the company just doesn't appear to be working.
Posted by drunkenbatmanSeptember 07, 2005, at 03:56 PM
Comments (42)
Posted by: Oliver at September 7, 2005 04:13 PM
This really does look like the end of Firewire. The last rev of the iPod lost the cable in the box, but at least it was still supported.
This time, it looks like the nano doesn't even support firewire at all!
http://www.apple.com/ipodnano/specs.html
iPod nano: USB through Dock connector
iPod: USB 2.0 and FireWire 400 (with FireWire cable, sold separately)
Bummer.
Posted by: Twist at September 7, 2005 04:16 PM
iTunes still needs a ton of work IMHO. I have a half finished post from my days of working for The Apple Blog that I need to finish up and stick on my site about it. Basically I use MacAmp Lite X 9 time out of 10 because iTunes can't keep up with the way I manage my music (my iBook acts like an iPod shuffle sort of because of limited hard drive space versus the size of my music collection).
Posted by: Jim at September 7, 2005 04:18 PM
Is giving me Mork and Mindy flashbacks. I keep wanting to say "Nanoooo, Nanooo".
This may well just be my own weirdness.
Funny how sick (brilliant?) minds think alike. "Nanoo, Nanoo" was the first thing that came to mine too...
Ah, Shozbot...
Posted by: Oliver at September 7, 2005 04:19 PM
Didn't safari loose the margins before NNW?
Posted by: Michael May at September 7, 2005 04:21 PM
Yeah, why are Apple saying that searching is a big bonus in this version of iTunes, it's practically the same as v.4. love the look though.
The phone is just another phone. nothing special there, I dunno why Apple are bothering much with it.
Strange as it may seem, I am getting no flashbacks of any tv shows from the iPod nano. At least, none that I don't usually get.
and couldn't Apple have set up a torrent of iTunes? their server stuck me on 6 MB after an hour of stopping and starting and i had to restart it (speed problems their end, not mine)
Posted by: Honk Schew at September 7, 2005 04:21 PM
Brent had the first "Aqua" app to throw away margins (to subdue the pin stripes?) that wasn't a text editor but I believe Safari was the first Apple app. It was metal though.
Posted by: RM at September 7, 2005 04:22 PM
Honestly I think the Apple hype machine was just misinterpreted here. This is no "Way beyond" the rumor sites. They said 1000 songs in your pocket changed everything, now here's another 1000 song device. Which is actually the high end version. And is a gig smaller than the old 1000 song device. . . OK so they fell short, BUT they fell short of something that was meant to have lower expectations. . . Which is actually kinda worse.
Posted by: the valrus at September 7, 2005 04:30 PM
Gapless playback, please. APPLE, LISTEN TO ME. I BEG OF YOU.
Ace interface redesign though.
Posted by: Oliver at September 7, 2005 04:34 PM
I was wondering what was so new about the search capabilities...
then i saw the Edit>show search bar menu.. :-)
Posted by: Adrian at September 7, 2005 04:36 PM
From seeing the screenshot of iTunes 5, I thought that finally iTunes is available written in Cocoa for us Mac users. Seeing the system requirements at the download page as Mac OS X 10.2.8 or later had me worried that this might not be the case. So it's not. Bummer.
Still not being able to click and drag to select multiple rows like in the Finder, Mail, Address Book, iCal, ... is frustrating. I see the point of moving the volume slider to the right, as now there's not that much space wasted horizontally, but I still don't like it positioned there. Funny, if it was Cocoa it might be possible to just edit the .nib file. But it's not.
Does anybody else think that even the small font size looks space wasting now that the outer hull has been torn off?
Posted by: Oliver at September 7, 2005 04:48 PM
Sitting here trying to figure out why Apple is slowly dropping Firewire support in the iPods, it suddenly hit me.
x86
USB is Intel's baby and is supported at the core level - firewire is not. Apple would have to add firewire support separately/afterwards, which would cost time and money.
Wanna bet the x86 macs don't have firewire built-in?
Posted by: Matthew Fitzsimmons at September 7, 2005 04:50 PM
Have you looked at the search bar? I think that's what the new search feature is all about. Basically, it lets you quickly narrow down what the search term is searching for.
Posted by: john at September 7, 2005 05:00 PM
Although I really like the look and especially, the feel of the ipod mini to the point where I'd consider it a design icon, I suspect that there are too many problems with a harddisk-based player for kids on the move to make it feasible. One year's warranty and a fair amount of support necessary must be eating away at some of its success. So goodbye fragile Mini and hello Nano - may you prove to be sturdy and just as striking with your lanyard earphones..
Of itunes 5, something's changed under the hood too; it doesn't stutter that much when there's traffic running in the background of my 450 mhz G4. Unmoved by the phone, though.
Posted by: coyotej at September 7, 2005 05:06 PM
> Wanna bet the x86 macs don't have firewire built-in?
Hmm, I would probably take you up on that, because I could win lots of money. Keep in mind that editing digital video is a big deal on the mac, and DV/Firewire is still a preferred method of transfer. On top of that, there are plenty of x86 machines with IEEE1394 ports. It would surprise me to see Apple stop supporting it, the Firewire market (outside of iPods) is too big.
Posted by: vastheman at September 7, 2005 06:08 PM
Parental controls are great! I can finally get rid of that stupid, useless podcasts item in the source list!
Posted by: Stanley at September 7, 2005 06:28 PM
DB you make it sound like Apple is deliberately hiding tech specs on the ROKR from users, but it's right in the FAQ:
>How much flash storage will I need to store songs on my phone?
>Most ROKR phones will come bundled with 512 MB flash cards,
>which allows you to store up to 100 average-length songs. If your
>phone doesn’t come with a 512 MB card, you will need 128MB of
>available flash storage space to store 25 average-length songs on
>your phone. To store 50 average-length songs on your phone,
>you will need 256MB of available flash storage.
Good call on the "nanoo" part though :)
Posted by: nougatmachine at September 7, 2005 06:41 PM
I don't think convergence (God I hate that word) kills the iPod, I just think it kills joy. How could anyone have predicted the iTunes phone to have been anything except for lame? Phones need a way to input numbers; music players are designed to not *need* any input at all. The level of slickness when comparing the iPod Nano to the ROKR illustrates the point: the iPod interface is great because it's made with a specific purpose and fulfills it nicely. Convergence phones are bound to be hamstrung by their constant need to become as general-purpose as even a computer is, without the benefit of the (for lack of a better term) "full-sized" input devices.
Either that, or they'll make a phone with a click wheel on one side and a keypad on the other. Blah, that doesn't sound good to me either. People have been rambling about "convergence" (argh, can we please get a less annoying buzzword already?) for years. I'll believe it when I see it.
Posted by: eggsnatcher at September 7, 2005 07:11 PM
DB you make it sound like Apple is deliberately hiding tech specs on the ROKR from users, but it's right in the FAQ:
I was thinking the same as DB, but was looking through the motorola and cingular site. Even clicking "Buy Now!" I still couldn't see any memory specs!
Posted by: Bob Ippolito at September 7, 2005 07:52 PM
The *playlist folders* in iTunes 5 made my day. Finally!
Posted by: Jack at September 7, 2005 07:52 PM
> Wanna bet the x86 macs don't have firewire built-in?
>Keep in mind that editing digital video is a big deal on the mac, and DV/Firewire is still a preferred method of transfer. It would surprise me to see Apple stop supporting it, the Firewire market (outside of iPods) is too big.
They could drop it from the consumer models and only support it through some kind of adaptor, and then offer a PCI type card on the towers.
Posted by: Jay Tuley at September 7, 2005 08:11 PM
Recalling from various Literature || Apple Zealotry FireWire 400 is More Expensive && More Complex && A Bit Faster than USB 2.0. Getting rid of firewire 400 for this much Smaller && Cheaper ipod seems like a good trade off to me.
Personally, most of my firewire 400 devices are bus powered, and none of my usb 2.0 devices are bus powered, so I use my iPod mini on usb 2.0 so it doesn't upset the rest of the firewire devices when I have them all plugged in at the same time without an extra powered hub.
Posted by: Steve Hubbard at September 7, 2005 08:35 PM
The iPod nano looks great - or at least it did until I realized the headphone jack is at the bottom of the player - the idea being that you are somewhat 'encouraged' to use the convenience of Apple's new lanyard...
Posted by: Anthony at September 7, 2005 08:49 PM
They could drop it from the consumer models and only support it through some kind of adaptor, and then offer a PCI type card on the towers.But Apple would never sabotage a machine like that!
Posted by: Dan at September 7, 2005 09:09 PM
> Either that, or they'll make a phone with a click
> wheel on one side and a keypad on the other. Blah,
> that doesn't sound good to me either.
No, no, no. See, what they should've done is make the world's first (er... second) rotary cell phone! That would've been AWESOME!
Posted by: Bruno Renato at September 7, 2005 10:09 PM
Probably the greatest new thing on iTunes 5: you can now create VBR AAC's, and that is a good thing. It was possible to do that through Quicktime 7 in a very torturous process, but it's now an option. The only bummer is that iTunes won't display the AAC as VBR in the list, nor give its real bit rate. Hmmm.... maybe I should file a bug?
Posted by: at September 8, 2005 12:30 AM
The level of slickness when comparing the iPod Nano to the ROKR illustrates the point: the iPod interface is great because it's made with a specific purpose and fulfills it nicely. Convergence phones are bound to be hamstrung by their constant need to become as general-purpose as even a computer is, without the benefit of the (for lack of a better term) "full-sized" input devices.
Considering how well implemented the calendar and clock features are on the iPod Nano, I have to disagree with you. Convergence devices suck because no-one's managed to do it well. Throw a decent design team at the task and I'm sure you colud have a really slick Phone/PDA.
Posted by: Cap'n Hector at September 8, 2005 12:43 AM
I hadda chance to use an iPod nano and my impressions are really simple:
It's a flash iPod, with all that entails…smaller, thinner, and with extra shiny.
All the features of a HD-based iPod, none of the fat!
Posted by: Oliver at September 8, 2005 12:46 AM
Apple would never switch to Intel. Apple would never make a low-cost 'headless-iMac'. Apple would never make a two button mouse.
Apple will never drop firewire..?
Ok, I take the point that firewire is still a big deal in the DV market, and the DV market is still a big deal for apple.
So I revise my prediction:
The switch to Intel will bring with it the end of firewire 400 in Macs. Firewire 800 will still be supported (maybe across the whole product line, but maybe just in high-end, pro models) for those that need the bandwidth for DV. But this time next year firewire will be pretty much dead for mac users at the consumer level.
Posted by: Dave at September 8, 2005 04:31 AM
it just kinda sucks one can't think of it and then have it happen without actual effort
YES! Yes it does suck! Lots!
Something Should Be Done.
So glad someone else has noticed this, I thought it was just me.
Posted by: Ian Betteridge at September 8, 2005 09:09 AM
"Apple would never switch to Intel. Apple would never make a low-cost 'headless-iMac'. Apple would never make a two button mouse."
The difference between those and dropping Firewire is simple: All those were rooted in wishful thinking by the Macheads. Apple has been planning to switch to Intel for years. It's intro'd headless consumer machines before, going back to the huge-selling LC. And a two button mouse... well even Jobs used two button mice.
Yet the fact is that Firewire is ubiquitous in digital video, and Apple's focus in the consumer and education markets emphasises DV with iMovie. Most PCs come with Firewire these days - I haven't seen one (except for the super-cheap models) that doesn't for at least a year.
Posted by: ajit at September 8, 2005 09:42 AM
Firewire is not going anywhere because in Digital video you cannot do without.
For consumer machines including iMac G5, it would make sense but something like a powermac. I am sorry there is no way in hell I am getting one without a firewire.
LaCie and some other drive makers make some drives exclusively with firewire. This is a pro thing. But I do wish firewire would have become mainstream but oh well.
Posted by: Ajay K. at September 8, 2005 10:26 AM
Whatever problems brushed metal may have had at least it didn't provide iTunes with a horrible-looking one pixel line between the source listing on the left and the music on the right, as is currently the case. Theming is in order.
Posted by: M at September 8, 2005 05:23 PM
I think getting Madonna in the iTunes music store was the biggest news.
Boring. Stupid. A smaller iPod mini? Another infitesmal upgrade to iTunes for no good reason? A lousy phone? One more twist of that knife Apple stuck into Firewire's vitals with the 3rd gen iPod? So? Just send out a press release.
Seriously, Apple, what if you threw a big press event and nobody came? Keep this up and we'll find out.
Posted by: M at September 8, 2005 05:33 PM
You know, I think infinitesmal has more letters than I gave it credit for.
Posted by: JD at September 8, 2005 06:56 PM
Is it possible that the firewire was dropped for economical / size restrictions, not because Apple's trying to kill it? Perhaps the chip they're using inside would be to big / expensive to include USB *and* Firewire?
On a device as thin as a pencil, it's gonna take some tight (pun intended) design to get two ports on.
And you sure can't drop USB in favor of FW, as much as I personally wish you could.
Posted by: dirkstoop at September 8, 2005 07:29 PM
now we'll just have to wait for the iPod nanook Yellow Snow Special Edition™
Posted by: dirkstoop at September 8, 2005 07:42 PM
I can feel the new diclaimer already:
do not eat iPod Shuffle, ESPECIALLY do not eat iPod nanook Yellow Snow Special Edition. I repeat: *do not* eat the yellow snow!
(sorry, couldn't resist)
Posted by: allan at September 9, 2005 12:45 AM
> On a device as thin as a pencil,
> it's gonna take some tight (pun
> intended) design to get two ports on.
Not really - it's already been solved
by the dock connector:
http://tinyurl.com/bvogk
Posted by: Matthew Schinckel at September 9, 2005 02:43 AM
Gapless playback?
iTunes > Preferences… > Playback
✓ Crossfade Playback, 0 seconds
Seems to work for me.
Posted by: Jacob Vance at September 10, 2005 11:41 AM
Setting crossfade to 0 almost gets the job done. It still leaves a brief hiccup of a pause that sound jarring on records like Abbey Road, Sgt. Pepper, or American Idiot.
"However, acting like this is the first version to carry a search box at the top is a little comical."
Try typing something in the search box ;-)
Does that look new?