Apple's Counter-Intuitive (R)Evolution

On 09.09.09 Apple released iTunes 9, along with a bevy of other media related software and product updates. True to form, most of the releases around this time of the year are geared more towards the day-to-day consumer and user. That's why we saw new specs for the iPod Classic, and nothing about a tablet.

Going in, we at The Times expected a few things, and we got most of them. We expected OS 3.1 for the iPhone and iPod Touch. We expected iTunes 9 and got that with the ability to manage your apps built it (ed - thereby killing about three months of work we had done on a piece about that, thank you very much!)

There were a few things we expected to get but didn't. We felt that they were going to sneak in The Beatles catalogue, but deep down knew that wouldn't happen as the event was named after a Rolling Stones song (the simplest clues tend to be the most accurate). We also expected to see the end of the iPod Classic line, a development we were openly dreading. We are happy to report that the Classic is alive and well and getting fatter while staying slim, being bumped up to 160 GB.

There were three things we were not expecting. One was the reappearance of Steve Jobs. A lot of people felt that he would wait until WWDC when normally the big Apple announcements come. There was also a feeling that he would wait until he could do something like hold up an Apple Tablet. Why he came back now is anyone's guess, as there was nothing in this event that was truly revolutionary, unless you're really invested in iTunes.

The second was the placement of the iPod Touch. When they started talking about how people were using the Touch and iPhone as mobile computing platforms, we held our breath. We still believed that the Tablet was months away from being announced, but a lot of this seemed to say that they were going to spring some information about it. Instead, they went after the mobile gaming platforms: Nintendo DS and PSP.

This felt very schizophrenic. On one hand they were bragging about how powerful the mobile platform was, how it compared to the laptop, and the bevvy of apps available. On the other hand, they landed on the "funnest iPod" spot. It felt like there was a missing slide or missing statement there, like they were saying "Yes, it's a computer...but not yet, and we know we can do more with it." Traditionally they do feature games more at these September events so it wasn't a big surprise, but it felt like there was a mistake there.

The third was the camera and other advancements in the Nano. We understand that the Nano is the biggest individual seller, but we are mystified but the sheer amount of features being crammed into the device. Camera, speaker, and now FM radio, to name a few. We have always felt that its slim profile and meagre storage space limited the appeal and usefulness of this device. Apparently we were wrong. Of all the devices it got the greatest bump (depending on your opinion of openGL on the Touch), while what we still consider the top device in the iPod line, the Classic, got very little.

Some have complained about the Touch not getting a camera. Some of the panelists on MacBreak Weekly have surmised that it was a problem with the chip set. We think that this is missing the point. The iPod touch is basically the iPhone without a camera, cell phone, and carries a smaller price point. If Apple were to make the Touch too similar to the iPhone it would risk that business. The goal is to have enough differences between the two so that people actually have to make a conscious decision to go with either one or the other. Look at the entire Apple product line: there aren't too many small jumps between products, unlike say Dell or HP. We think it's a safe bet to say that you will never see a camera in the Touch until there is something worth a camera PLUS in the iPhone: say video calling, for example.

This might be why Apple is continuing to be so quiet about the Tablet: Apple doesn't just want to make a bigger Touch, but instead wants to make something that uses the Touch as a starting point, but winds up some place completely different in the end. Perhaps that was the missing slide that we were looking for during the presentation - the missing link between the Touch and the Tablet has yet to be discovered.