Is Apple Starting To Phase Out The iPod?

If you own both an iPhone and an iPod Touch and sync music and movies to each, you’ll notice that when you go to play that media, the icons look a bit different. On iPhone the app to play your music and movies is called “iPod”. On the iPod Touch it is a bit different. There you have “Music” and “Movies”.

Well in the fall when Apple officially releases iOS 5 the “iPod” app is going away. Instead things will look and work like an iPod Touch with a separate music and videos app. For people using an iPhone and iPad you’ll see this when you launch the “Music” app for the first time.

So what exactly does this mean? Is Apple just trying to get its’ products streamlined have the same experience no matter what device you’re using? Perhaps. But it might go deeper than that. This change might be pointing to the fact that the iPod brand might be going away sometime in the near future.

I’m sure the iPod Touch is still selling, and pretty well. There is still to this day not ONE competitor to this device (at least in the US). We were supposed to see a thing called the Samsung Galaxy Player, an Android device that does everything an iPod can and more, this spring. The device has been released overseas but is still absent from the shelves in US stores.

I wrote about this device a few months ago, saying that it is the one Android device I would buy immediately if it were available. But it’s still not here, and the iPod Touch still has no competition.

It’s funny because I really believe that Apple will be winding down the iPod Touch brand once Android is finally ready to compete. That is what Apple does. They are always ahead of the game.

I think there are two reasons behind all this. One, while the iPod Touch is still selling,

sales have been dropping each passing year, as a number of sites have reported recently. Another thing is that you can get everything that an iPod Touch provides in an iPhone or an iPad, in which case are usually only a few hundred dollars more and in my opinion, provide more value in things like storage.

I think we can expect to find out how this will play out in a few months when the new iPhone is announced as this is typically the time when new iPods are announced. There has been speculation that there will be a lower end model of iPhone, possibly with 3G, that will replace the Touch. While I think adding 3G is a bit much and somewhat far fetched, I do believe we’ll see some sort of combining of the product lines this fall.

It’s either that or Apple just wanted to take the nice looking iPod app and replace it with this disgusting orange music note.

My Hopes And Predictions For iOS 5

This is going to be big folks.

As we near June 6th, which kicks off Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference, I honestly have a similar feeling as I did as a kid when Christmas was approaching.  

We’ll see a near final version of OS X Lion, a revamp of Apple’s computer operating system as well as the launch of Apple’s iCloud service.  This is also the event in which we can expect to get a glimpse of the next generation iPhone which normally launches soon after the event, and while that has been rumored to not be happening this year, there is still a LOT to be excited about.  For me, iOS 5, the software that powers Apples’ iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch is what to look forward to most.  Click through to find out why. 

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The Beastie Boys Understand The Reach Of Non Flash Mobile Devices

The Beastie Boys, one of my all time favorite hip hop groups, understand technology quite well.  

Several weeks ago I wrote a post about a band that had created an entire album on an iPad 2.  I thought the idea was great but when I visited their site I was disappointed to see that the method to play their album on their home page required Flash.  

Why create an entire album on a non Flash device and then require Flash to play it?  Sure they had a link to iTunes a couple of menus deep on their site, but the Flash requirement on the home page really irked me.  Many people commented on my post that you can technically reach more of an audience by using Flash because not all web browsers can handle HTML5 audio properly yet.

I see your point but guess what?  There are millions of people who own iPhones and iPads and that number is skyrocketing quickly.  And the majority of people who might listen to an album created on an iPad 2 likely have an iPad 2 or an iPhone or iPod touch.  So why alienate what is most likely a good chunk of your target audience, by requiring Flash?   

The Beastie Boys understand this.  Their new album “Hot Sauce Committee Part Two”, set for release May 2nd, was unfortunately leaked as most albums are these days.  What’s worse, it was a poor quality copy of the clean version of their album.  

Rather than having a low quality version of their work be the only version of the album  out there until release, they decided stream the full version via their website.  

And again, guess what?  It works whether you have Flash installed or not.  It works on all mobile devices.  And it works well.  The Beastie Boys are in tune with todays technology, and aside from their awesome music, is just another reason to love them.  

Pre-Order Hot Sauce Committee Part Two Here or listen to the whole album at BeastieBoys.com

Samsung Galaxy Player Still M.I.A. Oh, And It’s Ads Are Bizarre

If there were an Android product that were on the market right now I would buy to keep, it would be the Samsung Galaxy Player.  Sure I’ve tried a couple Android phones but as good as they were, they couldn’t hold up to the quality experience of an iPhone.  Still, I would love to have an Android device around just for experimental purposes.  And if this were on the market right now, I’d go out and buy one today.  And I’m sure there are lots of other people who would too!  The iPod and iPod Touch have had zero competitors (no, Zune doesn’t count) for their entire existence.  And with how popular Android has become the SGP would have to be mildly successful at the very least.  

They are supposed to ship in two flavors, a four inch model and a five inch.  I don’t know why they don’t just make one the same size as an iPod Touch, perhaps they want to continue the trend of Android having poor battery life.  There is no doubt that these large displays play a factor in that.  Moving on, they are supposed to come with front and back facing cameras as well as micro-SD slots upgradeable to 32gig.  Nice.  They will ship with Android 2.2 Froyo, and claim to be upgradable to 2.3 Gingerbread, most likely when Gingerbread is a year old (sorry I had to).  One feature they tout is DLNA compatibility, a feature I reviewed on the HTC Thunderbolt that I absolutely love.  

So where is this thing?  I typical Android fashion this device was teased to the masses last year  and early this year with a release date of “sometime in spring”.  Could you please be more vague?  Oh and by the way, it’s spring right now so maybe you might want to update us on that.  

The main thing though I wanted to point out most though, is the Galaxy Player website.  This thing is WEIRD man.  They are definitely trying to be different with these ads but they are just super odd.  It’s made up to look like a newspaper with breaking news of a convenience store robbery and features a bunch of different characters which all used the Galaxy Player in different ways during the event.  You have characters such as the “hot girl”, “kung fu master”, and of course “the robbers”.  You can’t make this stuff up!  Watch the video of “the hot girl” below.  

I mean seriously, how odd is that?  What’s funnier is that this awkward clip BARELY shows you anything about the product!

I was speaking with a co-worker yesterday who told me that “the only reason the iPad is so popular is because of the marketing”.  I retorted, “So 100% of the iPad’s success is from marketing?”  ”Yes”, he replied.  This couldn’t be more wrong.  Sure marketing can play a HUGE role in the success of a product, but you have to start with a good product before anything else.  Apple has awesome products that are only bolstered by great marketing.  If the product was crap, the marketing might help, but in the end, wouldn’t save a poor product.  The Samsung ads are just bizarre and barely show you what this product can do.  

Back to the Galaxy Player website.  Once you have had your fill of extremely weird videos, you can scroll to the bottom of the page and some short blurbs about features of the device.  At the end of each blurb there is a link which says “Watch related video”.  These links bring you BACK to the odd character videos.  Ugh what are they thinking???

One last thing about this site I’d like to point out is they heavily market the fact that you can change the battery.  So much so that they have a video of this very practice.  An old grandma finds that the battery on her player is near death and shows us all how easy it is to swap it out with your spare.  I know this technically is a “good feature”, but I’m under the opinion that if the battery of my device won’t last a whole day, then I don’t want that device.  

In conclusion I’ll say this: When the Galaxy Player comes out, I’ll be one of the first in line to get one.  Who knows when that will be though.  At this point I just don’t trust these companies that flash their fancy new gadget in front of you at tech events and then say, “It will probably, be coming out around [insert season here]”.  They are almost never accurate and then they wonder why people complain when they don’t deliver.  And they aren’t helping themselves with these weird ads.  You can’t tell me with a straight face that these ads are going to be a big factor in the sales of these products.  You just can’t.  Yes I’ll buy one, but what about the average consumer who has only heard of the iPod Touch for the past five years?

One more video for your enjoyment.  ”The Kung Fu Master”:

If You Sync Gmail Contacts On An Apple Mobile Device, You Should Read This

How To Keep GMail Contacts In Sync Over The Air

When setting up you GMail account on your brand new iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch, I’m sure you just go ahead and click on the GMail icon during setup.  Well I’m going to tell you why it’s better not to do it that way. 

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