October 12, 2005
iPod Video Pre-review: Happy then sad
So today was an interesting day.
I'd been hearing speculation of the iPod Video for a while now. And all the speculation and the artists renditions made me all excited for it. And in the first few hours after it was announced I was all excited, but now that the dust has settle a bit, I'm dissappointed and worried.
I think this release may signal the beginning of the end for the iPod. The nano was the last greatest thing, now Apple has to watch where they're going otherwise owning an Apple is going to be as embarassing as owning a Palm PDA.
Why I was excited:
1. I like my iPod. I like the styling and the UI works fine for me.
2. I thought, if my iPod could do video as well, that would be just great.
Why I soon became un-excited:
1. Apple did a piss poor job of adding video to the iPod.
So why did Apple do such a poor job? Everything in this product from the name to the design says that its an iPod that can play some video. They basically designed a new iPod and decided to add in video playback as an extra instead of a core element.
What errors did this lead to?
1. Screen
The screen is 4:3 and is 320x240 and is a measly 2.5 inches. Anybody out there looking to buy a non widescreen standard definition TV nowadays? Walk into any electronics store, what do you see? High definition widescreen tvs and the bigger the better. What format is TV programming all converting to? Widescreen High Definition.
2. Content
Maybe they should have waited till they had better deals with movie companies, but at this point all they have are music videos, pixar shorts, and some ABC tv shows. Ask anybody who has seen MTV in the past 10 years, does anybody watch music videos any more? And do you think people will pay to have a collection of music videos? And sure pixar shorts are great, I'm a big fan, but there are only a handful of them. The TV shows are a good touch, but I wish they were higher resolution and that they were widescreen. And it would have been nice to have a wider variety of shows. But this lack of good content leads to number 3.
3. Battery
Why oh why would you make a video device that can only play 2 hours worth of video on a charge. Imagine how annoying it would be if you bought a DVD player that only played the first 2 hours of a movie. This pretty much makes this gadget useless for watching movies. Even if you do end up watching a shorter movie, the battery is pretty much hosed leaving it useless to do anything else with.
4. Controls
How do you have a player of any sorts these days without fast forward? This one is just sort of mind boggling, but it just goes back to show how poorly video was excuted on the iPod.
5. Design
Apple didnt bother redesigning the iPod. Instead they stretched it a little to add some features and now it looks really ugly. Sure they can try and give it a slimming color, but its still butt ugly. Even the mockups we've seen online are a lot better.
Apple needs to pray now that portable mp3 media players don't take off without them. Because while the iPod is a great mp3 player, the iPod video may just suck as a media player.
Posted by Bryant at October 12, 2005 11:46 PM
Comments
Bryant ... the issue here isn't that this is the video iPod. Rather like you said this is a iPod that does video, according to apple sites: Apple is planning to release an actual video ipod that is widescreen some time next year for like movies and such. I do agree with you that the battery life is a sucky issue. They could have kept the same thickness and increased battery life. In my own opinion.
Posted by: MisterStinky at October 13, 2005 11:43 AM
The issue here is that this is iPod is worse than the original.
They added a horribly incomplete feature, marred the unit design all in an attempt to make a quick buck from end users.
Posted by: Bryant at October 13, 2005 03:53 PM
why is this iPod worse then the orginal? in terms of the base functionality of being an iPod, this one is better. Bigger screen, thinner, color, etc. Probably has the same battery life when it is playing music.
Remeber that this isn't the video iPod, just one that happens to be able to play video. Think of it as an iPod photo with a snap shot viewer of 30fps and a soundtrack.
Posted by: MisterStinky at October 13, 2005 04:57 PM
The thing is ugly as sin!
It would like if birkenstock put button snaps all over their sandals so they could add the feature of making it into a shoe. Sure you'll be able to sort of make it a shoe, but it won't be a good shoe, and when you're not using it as a shoe, now its a butt ugly sandal.
Posted by: Bryant at October 13, 2005 05:10 PM
i own birenstock clogs. they rock!
Posted by: Jesse at October 14, 2005 12:35 AM
But the thing is, they aren't selling it as a shoe. They are selling it as a sandel that also happens to be able to do shoe like fuctions if you want them to. And it isn't that ugly. wait to reserve judgement till you see it in person.
Posted by: MisterStinky at October 14, 2005 10:03 AM
I'm not going to wait to see it. Even without seeing it, why would you want to buy this when you know that they're releasing a real video player soon.
Posted by: Bryant at October 14, 2005 12:36 PM
cause maybe you don't have an iPod and you really don't need the video iPod that they are going to come out with ...
Posted by: MisterStinky at October 14, 2005 07:21 PM
Then apple should make a better cheaper ipod ala nano instead of trying to rip consumers off with a half baked feature.
Posted by: Bryant at October 15, 2005 01:24 AM
I have a PocketPC that can play video. SageTV is used on my computer and I use Auto Gordian Knot (AutoGK) to convert it to DivX format. Copying an hour long show sucks up only 350MB including MP3 audio. Resolution is only 320x240, but it plays back well on my 240x320 screen (played back landscape mode shows 320x240). Using a 2GB card, I can get 6 hours or more of video and it is cheaper.
The playback life of 2 hrs is bad, but they sell battery extenders for USB devices and I'm sure some entrepeneur will sell one for the iPod video.
One thing about the PocketPC is that it can do other things.... play games, OGG/MP4 playback, PDA capabilities. Plus now, ASUS sells a wireless 2.5" hard-drive enclosure that uses 802.11g (w/ access point) so that you can use 20GB hard drives for storage. I can transfer my videos from my computer to my PDA using 802.11g
The PDA is more versatile, cheaper, and more useful to me. That's why I won't buy one. Other people have other reasons, but Apple does things like Sony does. Closed architecture and proprietary systems. I'm happy for Steve Jobs and think that he's a very innovative person. It's great to be able to buy and play music videos.... God knows MTV won't show any videos of a hard-rock nature that are of interest to me. I'd rather pay $2 and download a video, but until someone comes up with a way to play it on my PocketPC, I'll have to pass.....
Posted by: Lauren Glenn at October 20, 2005 03:20 AM