Five Questions For Steve Jobs About Yesterday’s Introductions
Sep 6th, 2007 | By James Lewin | Category: General 
Apple’s introductions yesterday were largely unsurprising, but Apple managed to deliver its strongest line of iPods ever, take iTunes store into wireless territory, and solidify its entry into the smartphone market.
While the event ended the mystery of what Apple would introduce, it raised new questions:
- Why is Apple stiffing first-adopting iPhone owners? Apple dropped prices on the iPhone by $200 after two months, which is pissing off a lot of the people that feel like they supported Apple by standing in line and getting an iPhone early on. Apple could minimize this issue by offering a store credit, a service credit or some other type of credit.
- When are the iPhone and iPod touch going to get Web publishing features? They are both powerful wireless devices with Web support.¬†User-generated media is one of the biggest trends on the Internet. So¬†why isn’t there a keyboard accessory for these devices, so people could use them to edit their blogs?¬†Why¬†no support for recording audio and posting it to the Web? Why no ability to browse the drive and upload photos to blogs? Why can’t we use Wi-Fi to sync podcasts both from the Web and to the Web?
- Why such a lame approach to ringtones? Apple is adding a ringtone option to iTunes, but it only works with one out of six song in the iTunes store. Third-party tools already make it easy to use any audio as a ringtone on the iPhone. How about a Garageband Share As Ringtone feature?
- Why doesn’t the iPod touch have¬†Google Maps, Stocks, Notes & Weather? These apps are all nice features of the iPhone, but are missing from the touch. iPod owners need maps, too!
- How long will Apple milk the iPod shuffle? The shuffle is getting long in the tooth, $79 for a 1GB device with no screen no longer sounds so great, even if it comes in new colors like Red.
Got other questions? Let us know in the comments!
I think #4 will be answered soon, in a positive fashion. It connects to the net and has Safari. I guess they didn’t lay all the cards out at once.
Question #1 is a tough one. I think Apple knew that they were going to sell the iPhone for $399 all along, and did the $200 bump because they knew loyalists would buy it. Which they did.
Why doesn’t the new wi-fi iTunes store support podcasts?
1) Please get over the price drop. If you didn’t think the iPhone was worth $600 when you bought it, you should have kept your wallet in your pocket. This stuff happens. Of course, this price drop was extremely fast. But perhaps that’s the marketplace we’re in now.
2) I can see this point. As a podcaster (sometimes, though it’s been a while), I can see the iPhone or new iPodT as a good Podcasting recording and posting platform. Though it would probably only act as a dumb recorder and not the podcasting platform apple would probably prefer. Now, allow playback WHILE recording and mixing would be cool. Just don’t think we’re up to that point technically yet.
3) I agree completely with this. It’s just apple bowing to the greedy media companies.
4) I agree with this as well. Though I never saw the point to a dedicated stocks app. And I could do without Notes if I could email stuff to myself. Here’s hoping they bring Mail and Gmaps to the iPodT with an update.
5) With the flash-based nano, I agree. The shuffle was nice for a flash option for jogging and working out. But with the whole line moving towards NAND memory, it’s hardly neccessary.
Love Podcasting News. Read it every day. Hurts me to see such a whiney post here.
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Curtis – great question. I’d like to see that too, along with the ability to automatically download podcasts directly from your iPhone or iPod touch. My guess is that there’s no competitive reason to put effort into this yet – everybody else is so far behind with podcasts.
Steve – thanks for kind words and sorry if the post seemed whiney to you. I think the questions we raised are valid ones, though. Clearly Steve Jobs realized that the #1 issue we highlighted – stiffing early adopters – was a big deal. He moved quicly to address the issue.
The Apple approach to ringtones is not consumer-friendly – it only works with 1 in 6 of the songs on iTunes, and won’t let you make ringtones from your personal work. This is pretty clearly broken, too.
The biggest thing for me, though, is that I’d like the option to use the iPhone to publish content. That’s because I like the iPhone, & it’s a powerful tool. It needs to join the user-generated content revolution, though, and there’s not that much that is needed to make this possible.
[…] Five Questions For Steve Jobs ..About Yesterday‚Äôs Introductions (tags: Apple Steve-Jobs iPod iPhone news) […]
I bought one at $599 and am as happy as a clam (hmmm… how happy “is” a clam?). The Jobs’ rebate is welcome but not necessary — this is the best piece of technology I’ve ever owned (and I’ve owned a lot) at ANY price.
My answers to the questions you pose:
1) Jobs already addressed this. And in doing so kept Apple in the headlines for another news cycle. Can’t buy this kind of publicity: “Customers upset that iPhone is being sold so cheap.” They will sell a heck of a lot more at this price point and unlike Pinky and the Brain will actually take over the world.
2) This will be coming.
3) There’s a nice drag-and-drop utility from Ambrosia Software that does this.
4) You can get all these through the Safari Web browser. Buttons will quickly come from third party hacks. Until Apple adds more apps to the iPhone to differentiate it (and they will), you can’t blame them for not putting the kitchen sink in the Touch.
5) If you don’t like it, don’t buy it. They are a nice piece of fashion bling for people with lots of disposable income, and also good starter iPods for young kids or those with limited budgets. Apple should keep innovating at the top end, while keeping a simple, affordable product that most can afford.
Don’t knock the Shuffle. It’s perfect for people who want something less obtrusive. I take mine when I go on runs or when I’m at the gym.
It’s also a great second iPod. Would you really want to sweat at all over your brand-new iPhone?
Why didn’t apple keep the 2nd Gen Nano design, and just add more capacity? Why do I need a video player with only 4/8GB of storage? I use mine for exercise, and I have the 30GB video iPod. Plus, the little buggers are ugly.
They could have crushed the competition with a 16GB model to answer what Creative put out.
I won’t be putting my 2G red nano out on the curb any time soon.
[…] Actually, if I had something to be unhappy about it’d match the questions that PodCasting News asked of Apple. […]
[…] Gizmodo has picked up the question we raised last week, wondering “Why Apple is crippling the iPod touch?” […]
[…] Since the introduction of the iPhone, we’ve been lamenting the fact that Apple has left its √ºber-phone out of the revolution in user-generated content: User-generated media is one of the biggest trends on the Internet. So¬†why isn‚Äôt there a keyboard accessory for these devices, so people could use them to edit their blogs?¬†Why¬†no support for recording audio and posting it to the Web? Why no ability to browse the drive and upload photos to blogs? Why can‚Äôt we use Wi-Fi to sync podcasts both from the Web and to the Web? […]