iPhone 4S cues up new iOS, holds back iPod touch, saves iPod classic

by Bill Palmer

The good news regarding Apple’s decision to go with an iPhone 4S this month instead of finding a way to get a full-on iPhone revamp to market in 2011 is that it hasn’t held up the launch of the new version of iOS. The operating system which should have come with the fifth generation iPhone has instead become a part of the iPhone 4S generation, including all of its features previewed in June along with the new Siri voice assistant feature. The bad news, at least for those who still care about the iPod, is that the entire iPod lineup appears to have been punted back by a year as a result. If there was to be an iPod touch 5 it likely would have mirrored the new hardware styling of the iPhone 5. Instead Apple has left the existing iPod touch 4 in place, spec for spec and feature for feature, with the singular exception of launching a white model. That move has in turn left the iPod touch stranded at a sixty-four gigabyte ceiling capacity (interestingly, now finally on par with the iPhone 4S and its new 64 GB ceiling), meaning that the iPod classic gets to live on another year. And there’s other fallout to the Apple lineup as well…

If it’s to be assumed that Apple product launches have been on the backburner of late as the company has had to deal with the transition to Tim Cook as CEO even as Steve Jobs was living out what Apple appears to now have known were his final days, then the company can be forgiven for serving up the iPhone 4S and very little else this month. But it’s worth pointing out that most Septembers have come with a full revamp of the iPod lineup, and this is the first year in half a decade that hasn’t happened. The iPod touch remains the same product. The iPod classic didn’t go away as a result, with its hundred and something gigabyte hard drive capacity the only reason it’s still on the market. The iPod nano, which was completely revamped last year, didn’t even get Apple’s usual off-year treatment in which the nano has traditionally seen cosmetic hardware changes in the years in which it wasn’t fully revamped. The iPod shuffle now enters its second identical year. Apple TV saw no hardware updates of any kind, a year after having seen its biggest (or smallest, based on physical shrinkage) revision to date. The iPad 3 or iPad 2S, which some expected would be spring in time for Christmas so the iPad could be positioned as a “new” generation heading into the holidays, never got a mention. Now it’s up to the iPhone 4S and iOS 5 to carry Apple’s momentum through at least the next season. And that’s actually a lot…

Siri voice recognition alone will sell a good number of iPhone 4S units, even to those who are upgrading from an identical-looking but significantly slower iPhone 4. Additionally, other iOS 5 features which have been extended to older iPhone models like the 4 and 3GS will run more slowly or a limited fashion on the comparatively outdated hardware, leading some to upgrade to a 4S who were quite adamant that they never would. Early iPhone 4S preorder sales figures point to a multitude of people not needing any convincing before buying. Overall, the iOS 5 feature set arguably brings more new major features and makes more fundamental changes to the iPhone experience than iOS 2 through iOS 4 combined. That makes the iPhone 4S, in a software sense, the biggest upgrade in iPhone history. And that’s a wave Apple will now attempt to ride through at least the end of the holidays, before regrouping in early 2012 with whatever comes next. Here’s more on the iPhone 4S and iPhone 5.

Updated 5:45pm PST with additional information on the iPhone 4

New iPod touch 4 stays at 64 GB not 128 GB, iPod classic click-wheel survives another year

The new fourth generation iPod touch saw a major overhaul today and gave users what they were looking for in terms of offering both a still camera and a camcorder, plus features like a faster A4 processor and even a front-facing camera and FaceTime – along with bonus goodies like Retina Display and and a gyroscope. But those (yours truly included) who were expecting the iPod classic to die a belated death today turned out to be wrong, as the one new feature the iPod touch didn’t gain was a 128 GB flash memory capacity. As such, the aging iPod classic is, for now at least, still available in Apple’s updated online store. The Classic now becomes the only iPod to still sport the click-wheel, which was first introduced back in 2004 with the iPod mini and for time was the default interface for all new iPod models.

But with the new sixth generation iPod nano ditching the click-wheel today in favor of an almost entirely touchscreen interface, the classic now stands alone. Only Apple knows why the hard drive-based iPod classic is still around, but the general assumption is that it’ll be gone the minute the iPod touch hits a comparable capacity, which in flash memory terms would be 128 GB, as flash always comes in a power of two.

Apple could possibly rev the iPod touch 4 to an expanded 128 GB model in the first half of 2011, but Apple’s history shows that it usually only updates its iPod lineup each September – so the safe bet now is that the iPod touch continues to top out at 64 GB until September 2011, and the iPod classic will be with us for at least another year. No word on whether the Smithsonian wants the aging iPod classic once Apple is done with it.

iPod touch and iPod nano could become iPad mini and iPad nano

With Apple just a few days away from introducing new iPods, here’s a thought: could the iPod be done for instead? The “iPod” brand name, while wildly successful in its time, is nine years old – and no one thinks of the iPod as being a hot or trendy product anymore, as Apple’s own iPhone and iPad have sucked all the excitement out of a product that five years ago was about as cutting edge as you could get. So how is it that the “iPod” might suddenly go away? Take a look at the current iPod lineup for clues.

The awkwardly named “iPod touch” isn’t even really an iPod in the traditional sense. Depending on ones viewpoint, it’s either an iPhone without any phone or mobile networking abilities, or it’s a three inch iPad. So why does it even bear the iPod brand name, when it bears almost nothing in common with the classic iPod beyond the fact that it plays music? So let’s say the “new iPod touch” ends up instead carrying a name like iPad mini.

The latest rumors from CBS have the iPod nano as we know it being replaced by something that looks like a half-size iPod touch, touch screen and all. There’s still a plenty of life left in the “iPod nano” brand name, but if you’re going to rebrand things, might as well go all the way. So would a “touchscreen iPod nano” instead become an iPad micro?

An then there’s the iPod classic, which still more or less sports the same click-wheel interface which surfaced back in 2004 and is an embarrassingly outdated product by Apple’s standards. Many (including us) expect the sole remaining hard drive-based Apple mobile product to go away entirely once the flash-based iPod touch (ahem, iPad mini?) finally reaches similar capacity levels – which could happen this week.

The iPod shuffle? Here’s the one iPod model that seems unlikely to be either canceled or rebranded. For one thing, it’s Apple’s only sub-$100 music player, and it would only likely go away if the iPod nano were about to drop to the $99 price point itself – which seems doubtful if the nano is indeed about to go touchscreen. And it would be difficult to find a way to rope the iPod shuffle into the iPad lineup (iPad invisa?) without really stretching for it.

But you never know. Apple intentionally took the iPod’s buzz factor away when it launched the iPhone in 2007, and the iPod has become even more of an afterthought in a year in which the iPad feels like the future while the iPod sounds like something you’d buy for your kid. Maybe now is too soon to pull the trigger. And perhaps throwing away altogether the cache still remaining in the iPod brand name would be foolish anyway. But it is interesting that the most exciting talk about this week’s possible new “iPod” products generally involves them becoming less like the iPod we once knew, and more like Apple’s other, hipper product lines whose brand name still sounds current.

New iPod touch, nano, shuffle, and classic: what to expect Wednesday

Next week’s Apple event likely means updates to some of all of the current iPod lineup. Here’s a common-sense look at what’s likely to change, and what’s likely to stay the same…

iPod touch: there will be a new iPod touch, the question is just how new it’s going to be. It’s well past time they get a camera into the thing, if for no reason other than the fact that there are so many photography apps that Apple is losing potential revenue on, because touch users can’t buy those apps. I’ve thought since 2007 that the iPod touch would only really make sense as a mobile communications device if it came with an optional cellular data plan, because what is the point of owning a pocket device that can do email and internet and Twitter and Facebook and Weather and Maps and all this other cool stuff, but only when you’re at home and you have your computer there anyway, or only at starbucks, a place you’re at just long enough to get the wifi code, type it in, fix the typo you just made, finally get onto the wifi, and by then you’re done with your coffee. And now the iPad has exactly that, an optional 3G chip with a nice little $15 a month data plan, I can’t help but wonder when Apple is going to get around to doing the same with the iPod touch.

iPod nano: is there anything the nano can’t do? But then again, Apple could sell the iPod touch at a loss and still make a big profit through app store sales. But the nano is a different beast. People buy music for it, but the lack of App Store sales for the nano makes me wonder at what point Apple gets tired of the nano not much money after the fact a blows the nano in favor of some kind of iPod touch mini. But then again, of all the apps your iPod touch, how many of them would you want to use at half size on a tiny nano touchscreen?

iPod shuffle: it’s just gonna keep getting smaller. The funny thing about the shuffle is it now has, what, eight times the capacity of the original shuffle, this time maybe it goes to sixteen times the capacity, and yet it still has that same interface motif of hearing one random song after another. But then again, if they put a screen and a click-wheel on it, then it becomes an iPod nano.

iPod classic: the iPod classic used to be 160 GB, and now it tops out at 120 GB, gee, I wonder why? The minute the iPod touch goes to 128 GB, the classic is gone, and for two reasons. One is that it’s still sporting an interface from 2004, which is to a company like Apple is embarrassing. And other other reason is that sales of the classic contribute nothing to App Store sales.

review: Livespeakr