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Were you dismayed and confounded by the iPhone madness of June 2007? Did it disgust and disturb you to see your friends and colleagues giddily wait in line to drop $600 for the most-hyped mobile phone in history?
Well that sniveling trickster, Steve Jobs is back, and he may be the only one laughing this time.
Jobs' announcement of a new iPod came as a surprise to nobody. It looks and functions exactly like an iPhone -- only it doesn't function as a phone (get to it, h4ck3rz). Check it out, it's $299 for 8GB, or $399 for 16GB and it requires access to a Wi-Fi network to access the Internet. Or, gasp, you can use the iTunes store for free from your Pod at Starbucks (the agreement does not indicate whether or not you can otherwise browse the Web on Starbucks WiFi -- will StarFucker Patrol be on guard?)
Also introduced: the third generation iPod Nano, which comes in 4GB ($149) or 8GB ($199) capacity, and, as tiny as it is, plays video on a two-inch screen ("Zoolander" unfortunately not included).
But there was a surprise announcement and it wasn't a very nice one at all.
Just ten weeks after Apple's most loyal fanboys and girls religiously threw down, the honeymoon is over.
Apple all-but confirmed that the iPhone's exorbitant price was a blatant ripoff by slashing $200 off the price of both the 8GB model iPhone (now $399) and the 4GB model (now $299 and to be discontinued). Will this scam that led to hundreds of millions in additional profit for Apple affect it's hopelessly devoted hardcore fan base? How about a consolation nano for the early iPhone adopters, eh Steve?
We're still waiting for the next iteration of the iPhone -- in, who knows... 10 more weeks??? -- which hopefully will be capable of functioning on AT&T's 3G HSDPA network, which is good and strong in Southern California. But at these much more attractive prices, you can't do much better for a phone as killer as the iPhone (WiFi, OSX Safari, 2.0MP Camera) -- even our friends who paid a fortune for one haven't found any reasons to complain. Until now.
Photos of the new iPod Touch and iPod classic -- with the capacity (180GB) to keep you rockin' for a good 3 months without repeating a track ($349, $249 for 80GB) -- after the jump.
The new iPod Touch:
The iPod Classic:
