[Dublo7]

I'm actually quite impressed by the new Nano. I have no need for one, and I won't buy one, but still, I think it's a pretty sweet and sexy device. 

 

[basementdweller]

Those who are arguing whether or not apple created the market are splitting hairs.  It is true that apple did not actually create the market, but prior to the ipod there simply was not much of a market; in other words they managed to mold the product for the masses in a way that prior companies simply failed to do.  Yes, there were other mp3 players before the ipod.  I remember, back in the late 90's, a friend of mine was showing off the first mp3 player any of us high school kids had ever seen and, while neat, it didn't catch on with any of us nor the masses simply because memory capacity wasn't there yet(I think it had 64mb).  Some years later a college buddy pulled out an ipod while we were going to lunch and I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seen.  I went home.  I did some research.  I came to the conclusion that the Creative Zen had superior sound quality and I went that route.  This was the time when mp3 players really started to take off and for the life of me I couldn't understand why people flocked to apple.  They did so because they hadn't done an A/B comparison between apples sound quality and other players of the period and because, I would find this out later, apple really did nail the user interface.  Of course marketing helped, but really it was the player.  Sound quality doesn't matter to a group that, as a whole, are concerned about the stock earbuds that come with a player because they have no intention of upgrading; most people just want something that works when they want to use it and they want something that they can easily operate without having to think about.  We hackers, tinkerers, and audio snobs really are in the minority.
 
As for the new players, I don't know.  Will I buy one?  Probably.  Do I want to?  Absolutely not.  I know Apple's sound quality is suspect and I personally think they are overpriced.  I really want a better eq in a player.  However, I am in desperate need of a new pmp.  My latest attempt to escape Apple led me to the creative x-fi2 which sounds better than my battery starved 1gb Nano, but after living with it for a while I am fairly certain Creative farmed out the user interface portion of development to a competitor who wisely sabotaged the device and convinced creative to leave off so much as a pause button...I frequently end up listening to songs I hate while working out simply because I forget to delete them after the workout and the process of unlocking the player to hit skip is too arduous and time consuming.  So, it's time to dig a little deeper and find a replacement.  Sony seems like a good bet, but it's 32gb model is priced the same as Apple's 64gb touch, doesn't play .flac and carries with it one unique feature(the noise cancellation) which is completely useless without the proprietary headphones.  Ahhh, there's light at the end of the tunnel in Cowon's J3....but then after doing some research it is possibly an amazingly speced bricking device.
 
I am certainly not an Apple fanboy.  I want better sound quality.  I want variety.  However, in arguments levied against Apple's innovation, which appears to be going on here, I can only judge the company by the products of their peers.  While, to me, a lot of Apple's Ipods have pretty much reached a point of stagnation in regards to development, have taken steps backwards(shuffle with no buttons), and continue to focus on features not needed for an mp3 player while disregarding any attempt to improve the device's sole reason for being(sound) I simply have not found a better alternative.  It is as if competitors have given up and are content to fight over whatever is left of the market-share.

 

[penartur]

If interface is critical for you, look at the Zune; its interface is much better than apple's.
Also, Ipods do not support .flac too but apple, zune and sony are supporting their lossless formats (ALAC for apple, WMA Lossless for MS and ATRAC Lossless for Sony (only PCM if you'll get non-japanese one)).

 

[elfary]

Quite surprising that all 2010 Apple portable devices have not increased storage. The capacity area seems to be frozen since the 2009 line up.
 
Disappointing on one hand but a money saver on the other
 
Does anybody know what's going on on the solid state memory market ?

 

[fdhfdy]

have to admit I like the looking of new nano.

 

[kite7]

Appearance the new nano does not look bad but I'm sure the functionality of the click wheel nanos are superior. Why does anyone need a touchscreen that small?

 

[RedSky0]

The nano should have been the new shuffle. I mean really, is there any place for a player without a screen these days?

 

[penartur]

Quote:

Why does anyone need a touchscreen that small?

Because apple said that touchscreen is cool and that you need an apple player with the touchscreen.

 

[neosoul]

Quote:

Yes. They aren't going to change anytime soon and it will be at least 2 years before non hard disk memory catches or surpasses 160GB.

It already has surpassed 160gb in the 1.8' format, the price is just somewhat prohibitive at the moment. 256gb flash drives that will fit the Ipods are over $700

 

[Bennyboy71]

No custom EQ, no dice.

 

[tnmike1]

wonder how the new Nano will fit with Ray's smaller-profile amps like Shadow and Mustang.   My biggest complaint of those amps was their dimensions when coupled with the Nano; i.e., Nano was longer than those tiny amps.  May have to see what the fit is like. COuld be one of the better fits for portability

 

[Somnambulist]

Yikes, no wonder they're still stuck at 64GB. Need the SSD market to really take off so prices get more competitive and Apple (and Cowon, Sansa, Hifiman, Teclast, blah blah) can buy larger capacity drives without having a massive mark up over previous models.
 
Also the Nano uses an uber simple UI, no iOS so it should be dead easy to use. I still think it's best application would be paired with a watch strap with the clock left on, unless you're playing music.

 

[hydora]

Where is iPod Classic with 240GB HDD capacities which I was expected!!

 

[cooperpwc]

Memory Freeze
 
It's bizarre. A year has passed and no Apple portable player was upgraded in memory terms - not the iPhone, nor the Touch, Nano or Shuffle. (The Classic didn't change at all.)
 
Two posiible answers come to my mind. One is that memory is currently too expensive. Is it? The other possibility is that Apple doesn't want to cannibalise its profits. For example, if the Touch went  to 128 and 64 GB respectively, the expectation, as in the past, would be that the prices for those larger and smaller models would stay the same as before. A number of people might then move to the smaller 64 GB model that would otherwise currently buy it as the larger. The same phenomonon might apply even more greatly to the Nano. For many people, 16 GB might still be enoiugh.
 
For me, it's a lost year. I thought that the iPhone would hit 128 GB next year. Now I have my doubts. Anyway they certainly made it easy to stick with my 32 GB iPhone 3GS.

 

[crowley]

Im not liking the new ipod nano much, the screen seems really small to the point where it loses functionality
OTH, I like the new touch, specially with the new camera