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Apple Updates iPhone and iPod Touch 316

Posted by kdawson from the how-to-get-buzz dept.
u-bend writes "With little publicity Apple has released new, higher-capacity models of the iPhone and iPod Touch. The new iPhone boasts 16 GB of storage and is priced at $499 (the 8 GB model remains at $399), and the new iPod Touch has 32 GB, also priced at $499. Although the price is still pretty hefty, it indicates that the capacity/price ratio on these wireless flash-based players is starting to move in the right direction."
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Apple Updates iPhone and iPod Touch More

Apple Updates iPhone and iPod Touch

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  • Dammit, now I need another excuse (Score:5, Funny)

    by _xeno_ ( 155264 ) on Tuesday February 05, 2008 @04:14PM (#22312506) Homepage Journal

    Dammit, I had said that I didn't want an iPhone, but would like a device that was like the iPhone without the phone part.

    Then Apple released the iPod Touch.

    So I updated my excuse to be that it didn't have enough storage space, that I wanted at least 30GB of space before I'd make the leap.

    And now they've released a 32GB version.

    Now I need a new excuse explaining why I'm not going to get one...

    (Seriously, though, I do intend to grab one eventually - it sounds like exactly something I'd want - but not quite yet.)

    • Re:Dammit, now I need another excuse (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SargentDU ( 1161355 ) on Tuesday February 05, 2008 @04:28PM (#22312726)
      Just justify not having one because they cost too much and you do not have the money allocated for it. :)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by _xeno_ ( 155264 )

        Well, yeah, that's the real answer. Plus my current iPod still has quite a bit of life in it. When it finally does die, though, at least I have something to replace it with. With luck, the price will have gone down by then too.

        But the original intention was more of a joke about all the people (myself included) who posted about how they didn't want an iPhone when it was originally introduced.

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by MishgoDog ( 909105 )
          Damnit, I had exactly the same thought process as you...
          Except that I don't have the excuse of my iPod having life in it - my 3rd Gen, 4.5 year old beast is has the battery life of a mouse. A mouse with no batteries.

          Damnit. There goes (AU)$600...

      • Re:Dammit, now I need another excuse (Score:4, Insightful)

        by fredmosby ( 545378 ) on Tuesday February 05, 2008 @05:29PM (#22313772)
        It's odd that most people are willing to pay $20,000 for a car they drive 30 minutes a day but they aren't willing to spend $400 on a phone that they use all the time. Most people benefit more from having a good cell phone than a good car, and the difference between a good phone and a crappy phone is much more pronounced than the difference between a good car and crappy car.

        • Re:Dammit, now I need another excuse (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Paradise Pete ( 33184 ) on Tuesday February 05, 2008 @05:42PM (#22313980) Journal
          It's odd that most people are willing to pay $20,000 for a car they drive 30 minutes a day

          The problem with that comparison is that spending $20,000 on a car is one of the stupidest things that young people do. It's already an absurd amount of money, and if they figured out how much it actually cost them in future, if they would instead invest some of that money, then the decision to buy that car is completely brain-damaged.

          So then what your argument is saying is essentially "If you're so stupid that you would do X, then how can you not do Y, which is not nearly as stupid."

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by cp.tar ( 871488 )

            So then what your argument is saying is essentially "If you're so stupid that you would do X, then how can you not do Y, which is not nearly as stupid."

            Actually, it says "if you're so stupid that you would do X, then how can you consider Y stupid, since it is not nearly as stupid?"

            Anyway, I usually rant about a very similar phenomenon: people willing to spend $2000 on a computer, but then picking up the cheapest keyboard and mouse available.
            I, on the other hand, don't have a beast of a computer, but I have a decent monitor, a Unicomp SpaceSaver keyboard (basically a slimmed down Model M) and an MX Revolution mouse. I love my arms and eyes dearly and I

        • whats odd... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by EdelFactor19 ( 732765 ) <adam.edelstein@a ... pi.edu minus cat> on Tuesday February 05, 2008 @06:27PM (#22314608)
          except that many people spend a lot more than 30 minutes a day in the car. and even if you dont on average; chances are you will take a road trip in it and spend 5+hours in a single sitting. also, if you buy a piece of crap you can easily spend more on fixing it, or buying another piece of crap in the near future. its not an absurd amount of money either.

          there is a major difference though. if you dont also pay another seperate subscription fee for the internet and all that crap the iphone is useless. so its not just 400 anymore...

          also how often do you really use your cell phone everyday? I use mine in place of a land line, and not counting calls to my girlfriend i doubt i spend 30 minutes on the thing per day. I'm not going to spend 400 on a phone that does crap I don't need it to
          do because I have other things that do those things for me. Also the iphone isn't significantly better than many other phones out there now. You are trying to say that the iphone is a bentley to the blackberry curve being an acura and a razr (v3m) being a hyundai. the reality couldnt be further from the truth.

          what do you spend so much time on your phone doing anyhow? 'browing the internet?' oh see I have this thing called a computer in the form of a laptop that I use when I'm at work or at home. So i cant check my email while i walk from my office to my car and while i drive home? this is a problem how? "i listen to music" oh see i just listen via my laptop/mp3 player at work and my car stereo when i drive and my home stereo when im at home.

          most people Benefit from having a good cell phone more so than a good car? That part is interesting and I might agree; the problem is that you dont define what a good car or a good cell phone is. If you ask me a good cell phone is one that has reasonably good battery life, gets good reception, has plan condusive to my usage patterns, and allows me to use a headset (wired or bluetooth) with it. I don't care if it is color, plays music, makes toast, goes on the internet, plays games, etc. I care that it has good audio quality for phone calls. I would also argue that pretty much every phone out there meets this already. If I didn't have a digital camera, didnt have an mp3 player, and felt like I really needed to engage endlessly in text messages and browsing the net from my phone, sure its a good option. Other than that its just luxury crap. A better analogy would have been comparing someone spending 40K or more on a car. That's the person who should shutup.

          Buying a 20K honda accord that will likely last 10+ years wihtout needing a major repair can be a decent investment for someone coming out of college (not that your car is or should be considered as such, its an asset by definition but more often its a liability).
          and the difference between a 20K car and a 40k one can be a bit more pronounced. even a 14K car and a 20K car can be significant. you seem to toss those out as trivial and undetectable... i'm pretty sure you will notice the difference between a ford focus and toyota camry/honda accord, and if not today then when the ford dies in 4 years you'll notice the difference.

          The other difference is lifetime, the 20K car is expected to live > 6 years, I'd expect it to live more than 8 maybe 10+
          the iphone is definately not expected to live that long because a. there is no market for it when you are done with it in 2-4 years and b. because something else will come along and replace it.

          I would instead redirect your argument at headphones. You'll pay 400 for iphone, who knows what for your ipod and your music and your stereo, but you wont pay even 50 bucks for a remotely non garbage pair of headphones? (realistically i would say 100$ but I'll start at 50, plus most people are going to want that same pair to be 'bad enough' to be able to use at the gym or running. Or mattresses, you only spend 8 hours a day or more lying on it. But your concern is over a cell phone.

          my biggest gripe is "the difference

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by afidel ( 530433 )
            I take it you've never had a cellphone with true Internet connectivity? Every one of my friends who has would never go back to being without it. Realtime directions and the ability to do a quick search anytime anywhere is almost priceless. For instance I was recently on vacation in NC and due to weather running late so the BBQ place I had planned on having dinner at would have been closed by the time I got there. I pulled up Google Maps Mobile and entered the zip of the city I was approaching and the keywor

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by adisakp ( 705706 )
            there is a major difference though. if you dont also pay another seperate subscription fee for the internet and all that crap the iphone is useless. so its not just 400 anymore...

            First off, every iPhone plan includes internet access and costs not much more than a regular cell phone plan. You could easily pay more for a cell plan with the same features and have a crappier phone that can't make use of those features. Also using cars as an comparison to phones because there are no "subscription fees" (ong

        • Re:Dammit, now I need another excuse (Score:4, Interesting)

          by AmberBlackCat ( 829689 ) on Tuesday February 05, 2008 @07:45PM (#22315564)
          I, and a couple of other people, would be unemployed without my car. And we'd spend a lot of time close to home, not seeing each other much. We're all doing fine without an iPhone or iPod Touch.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by powerlord ( 28156 )
      Go with the "I want a device I can plug any old pair of headphones into."

      The iPhone (and I assume the Touch), have the headphone jack slightly recessed the plug won't work, unless it is straight with no excess rubber/plastic around the plug.

      Stupid design, all they needed to do was not recess the plug, but right now the hardware design is broken.

      • The iPhone (and I assume the Touch), have the headphone jack slightly recessed the plug won't work, unless it is straight with no excess rubber/plastic around the plug.


        Possibly an incorrect assumption [macworld.com]. (I have no firsthand experience, though, so don't take my word for it.)

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by necro81 ( 917438 )

        The iPhone (and I assume the Touch), have the headphone jack slightly recessed the plug won't work

        The headphone jack for the iPod Touch is flush with the bottom bezel, right next to the dock connector (visible in this 360 view [apple.com]). You should be able to plug in any set of headphones.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by berj ( 754323 )
        Incorrect assumption.

        The headphone jack is fully accessible on the iPod Touch.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by errxn ( 108621 )
      My excuse is not being able to get out of my f@#$ing Sprint contract without forking over another $200.

    • I'm sorry, but until Apple gets out of their exclusive contract with AT&T, the iPhone is a no-go for me. That's a show-stopper. I absolutely, positively, detest AT&T. In the past, they've screwed up my cable service, and they've screwed up my Internet access service twice. I simply do not have any faith that the company can do anything right. Plus, having been on Verizon for several years now, I'm happy to say that I'm not under one of those oppressive contracts, and they treat me rather well.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Firehed ( 942385 )
        I absolutely, positively detest all cell phone carriers. They all treat their customers awfully, overcharge, do a poor job of providing the services you're paying for, and do an abysmal job providing customer support. I've been on AT&T since a couple days after the iPhone launch, and they're no better or worse than Verizon who I used to use for my cell service. Any time I had to go into a Verizon store to get assistance, an upgrade, a new device, or really anything, it was an insane wait and I genera

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by shmlco ( 594907 )
        You'll still have to switch, since the iPhone and AT&T are GSM-based devices and networks, while Verizon is CDMA. Different frequencies, technologies, everything. Sprint's also CDMA, while T-Mobile is GSM, making TM your only other option in the US.

        "Why Apple would deliberately lock themselves out of a HUGE customer base of other carriers is beyond me..."

        Since T-Mobile is about a tenth the size of AT&T in the US, I'm not sure I'd call that customer base "huge".
    • Here's your excuse. No pen input.

      That means you can't take notes, or draw things. No handwriting recognition, etc..

      I was all set to buy an iPod Touch until I realized that this simple class of productivity app just wasn't included or even really capable of being used. Theoretically, they could use a tap-pad interface to enter notes, but that's clumsy and doesn't allow for free-form entry.

      Good job Apple on the 32GB, now how about making it just a tad more useful.
      • You actually want a stylus? Wow. Why don't you just buy a Newton and call it a day?

        Seriously though... if there are enough people who want a stylus, presumably that could be addressed with the SDK. All you need is a stylus with a tip that has similar properties to a finger's conductivity and someone to write a version of MacPaint and away you go.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by man_of_mr_e ( 217855 )
          A newton isn't an iPod. Nor does it have 32GB of storage. It would be nice to have an SDK and the ability to do that, but so far no...
    • Call me when it has 3G with decent battery life. Until then I'm sticking with my Motorola Q. I travel way too much away from Wi Fi spots, and thankfully the places I do travel have great EDVO signals for the most part.

    • easy (Score:2)

      by nguy ( 1207026 )
      Just remember that the only software this wonderful piece of hardware talks to is Apple's iTunes software, that does it for me. There are plenty of nice media players. They aren't as pretty as the iPod Touch, but they're a lot more versatile.

      And for that kind of money you can almost get a Nokia N95, which also comes with GPS, a 3G phone, and tons of applications.
    • Borrow an iPod Touch from someone to play with and you'll find your justification. The people I know who have gotten one wish they had the original iPod (or something not-a-Touch).

      The main issue for people is that, although cool, the touch screen gets in the way of basic functionality. iPod in your pocket and you want to turn the volume up? You can't without taking it out, tapping on the screen a few times, then turning it up. Switching songs is the same way. With my iPod 5g, I can just hit the wheel throug

    • Re:Dammit, now I need another excuse (Score:4, Interesting)

      by dbc001 ( 541033 ) on Tuesday February 05, 2008 @07:35PM (#22315444)
      I just picked up a Nokia n800 for $240... Runs Linux, plays mp3s, views pdfs, plays video, has a Mozilla-based browser (with flash) - the list goes on. iPhone/iPod can only play mp3s if you load them through iTunes. It doesn't do pdfs at all, doesn't have flash, doesn't do video very well, etc.
    • Dammit, I had said that I didn't want an iPhone, but would like a device that was like the iPhone without the phone part. Then Apple released the iPod Touch.

      I waited for them to update the software so that it was really an iPhone without the phone, instead of crippled. They did that in January. And as luck would have it, my Palm T|X started acting up last week such that it was hard to use the handwriting recognition.

      Bought a 16G Touch, got it Friday. I played with an iPhone and thought it was a gre

  • 32 GB of flash?! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mrchaotica ( 681592 ) * on Tuesday February 05, 2008 @04:16PM (#22312532)

    You know, when you say "$499 for an iPod Touch" it sounds like a lot, but then you realize: manufacturers are charging twice that for 32GB flash hard drives. It's too bad it's not packaged usefully in the Touch; otherwise I'd cannibalize one for my laptop!

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by mrchaotica ( 681592 ) *

        The $190 one turns out to be a piece of crap if you read the reviews, and the next cheapest is $420. Of course, neither has the right form factor to fit in my 2.5" SATA drive bay anyway -- the cheapest to do that is the RiDATA, at $700.

        • I can find, in under 5 minutes of googling, no less than 2 other manufacturers with 32 GB SATA 2.5" drives, under $450 price point. So there goes the theory of "waah, manufacturers are charging twice that for 32GB flash hard drives."
        • Well, neither has your IPOD the right format for a 2.5" drive.
          Fact is that SSDs have VASTLY higher performance demands than an mp3 player (by orders of magnitues), and sell less.
          Thats why they are cheaper.

          A better comparison would be a 32Gbyte USB stick. And those are already here for $150
      • Not sure what you're looking at but the cheapest 32GB drive on there is $419. Unless when you say "32gb" you actually mean 32 gigabits which is 4 gigabytes then you can get one for $55.99.
    • Really? [newegg.com]

      And there are cheaper and more expensive models available. How about putting these up against a USB drive?

      The bottomline is that these prices are all artificial and just comes down to what the customer is willing to pay.
    • Yes, how about an iPod Touch with an SD card reader? I'm already using SD cards as camera memory, thumb drive memory, and car stereo memory. I don't want to buy new storage every time I buy a new portable thing, nor do I want to throw away storage when the portable thing gets replaced.

      (If you're curious, here is my car stereo [crutchfield.com]. I love having a USB port in the glove box!)

    • Re:32 GB of flash?! (Score:5, Funny)

      by moderatorrater ( 1095745 ) on Tuesday February 05, 2008 @04:50PM (#22313090)

      You know, when you say "$499 for an iPod Touch" it sounds like a lot
      It sounds like a soliciting charge just waiting to happen.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fermion ( 181285 )
      Or, to look at it another way, Apple charges on the order of $1100 for the 64GB flash drive in the Macbook air.

      Typically Apple has priced the iPod line to sell. The cost of the device is often about the same as the retail price of the storage media. Of course Apple contracts these in huge quantities, and is not as picky as they are with the pro machines. I imagine prices are falling, and it might be good to wait a year for a Macbook Air.

      As an aside, I hear a lot about newegg.com. I went there to se

  • Who cares? It's just a product refresh! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jmorris42 ( 1458 ) * <jmorris@[ ]u.org ['bea' in gap]> on Tuesday February 05, 2008 @04:19PM (#22312580)
    Seriously, who fscking cares if Apple is doing a normal product refresh? I bet Dell updates the memory/hdd/etc on serveral of it's products every week, don't see that making frontpage news on Slashdot. It even scrolled across foxnews for God's sake, how insane is that? Has everyone drunk that much of Steve's acid spiked Kool-Aid?

    This isn't a new product, it is just a ramp in the flash. Something EVERY flash based product does several times per year as prices and capacity get better. It is like announcing water is still wet.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kellyb9 ( 954229 )
      Shhhhhhh... you'll upset the Apple gods.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by je ne sais quoi ( 987177 )
      I care, so just relax already. I think a 32 GB ipod without a price increase also is worth at least looking at. Sure, it's only a normal bump in a product, but so what? I'm interested, I'm sure lots of others are interested too: The New York Times has this up today as well. You Apple haters sure are tedious, not every article needs to be about the end of the world you know.

    • "Has everyone drunk that much of Steve's acid spiked Kool-Aid?"

      <Looks around> Yes.

    • The insane part is that you're watching fox "news".
  • This seems to be an unusual year for Apple, in that most of their major innovations are in software, rather than with new gadgets and hardware. Instead of iPhones, new iMacs, etc...the real innovation I'm seeing is with iPhone software and the upcoming SDK, and the new Apple TV software. Of course, the MacBook Air is cool, but I want something powerful and it makes the MacBook Pro look much less attractive (and even dated) to me....

  • Flash memory prices (Score:2, Interesting)

    by lancejjj ( 924211 )
    $100 premium for an additional 16 GB of flash on the Touch, but a $100 premium for an additional 8 GB on the iPhone. Ouch.

    Although this is an unfair comparison - a decent-but-low-end 8 GB SD memory card retails for about $50; 16 GB for maybe $100. I'm not sure how the speed, power consumption, or reliability of the iPod memory compares with that of stock SD cards.

    • Re:Flash memory prices (Score:5, Informative)

      by The Only Druid ( 587299 ) on Tuesday February 05, 2008 @04:33PM (#22312824)
      The problem, as I understand it, is that the iPhone only has room for one flash chip, not two. This means that instead of using two 8 gig chips to give the iPhone 16 gigs, they need to use a single 16 gig chip. The iPod touch, on the other hand, has room for two chips. That's why the cost-to-added-gigs ratio is different.

  • It also indicates... (Score:5, Funny)

    by IBBoard ( 1128019 ) on Tuesday February 05, 2008 @04:31PM (#22312790) Homepage

    Although the price is still pretty hefty, it indicates that the capacity/price ratio on these wireless flash-based players is starting to move in the right direction.

    What it also indicates is that people are willing to pay extortionate amounts for flashy bits of gadget from Apple. Still.

    $500 is ~£250. I'm in the UK and bought a house in October. House prices are high at the moment, and the price of an iPhone is a third of my monthly mortgage! Hmmmm, three iPhones/iPods or one mortgage payment? Oh the tough decisions.

  • Say what? (Score:3, Informative)

    by eebra82 ( 907996 ) on Tuesday February 05, 2008 @04:32PM (#22312802) Homepage

    Although the price is still pretty hefty, it indicates that the capacity/price ratio on these wireless flash-based players is starting to move in the right direction.
    Starting to move in the right direction? It's been declining in a fast pace ever since I bought my first Samsung 32 MB mp3 player, which was about $400.
  • What is a good alternative? I really want those physical dimensions, a decent-display (480-by-320 seems pretty good), WiFi, a Touch screen (not to mention some of those widgets), and at least 4gb of space.

    What's out there that's worth getting?
    • I'd look into the Nokia N810 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N810 [wikipedia.org]) and a 2GB MicroSD Card. It's a few hairs bigger than the Touch, and only has the 2GB built-in (hence the MicroSD card), but it makes up for it with the 800x480 screen, GPS, webcam, and slide-out thumbboard. Also, Maemo (the Linux-based platform that the N810 and it's cousin, the N800, run on) seems to have a somewhat healthy development community, and plenty of ports of desktop Linux apps. Ars has a pretty thorough review here: http: [arstechnica.com]

    • Re:Good alternative to the Touch? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by filterban ( 916724 ) on Tuesday February 05, 2008 @05:51PM (#22314154) Homepage Journal
      I don't know, the Nokia N800 [wikipedia.org] probably comes closest to an iPod Touch.

      There really isn't a good comparison to the iPod Touch or iPhone because "elegant design" doesn't translate very well to a bullet point on a comparison chart (hence the famous Slashdot article [slashdot.org] about the iPod). It really comes down to whether the Apple touch interface, ease of use, and pretty hardware design are worth the extra cost to you or not.
  • Buy.com has 2GB Creative Zen's on sale for $80. It looks like the Zen can use SD cards and those are readily available in 32+GB sizes. Is the iPod really worth all of the hype? Is it really worth $400? Is it really twice as good as the $180 32GB version of the Zen?
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Gosh, I just upgraded my old MP3 player for new 2 gig model. It doesn't have a video screen, it doesn't make phone calls. It doesn't walk the dog. It doesn't shuffle. Hell, It doesn't even have a brand name on it, or on the box, or on the "instructions."

    Then again it's literally one inch square, looks cool in pink aluminum, and allows me to a) copy songs (or anything) to it from any computer and b) play music.

    For $30 it's EXACTLY what I need. [community-media.com]

    Guess I'm not in Apple's target market?
  • > the capacity/price ratio on these wireless flash-based players is starting to move in the right direction

    WTF does that mean? Apple have been shifting these units out the door as fast as they can make them. What previously was "not in the right direction" about that?

  • SO frustrating Apple..... (Score:4, Informative)

    by nlh ( 80031 ) on Wednesday February 06, 2008 @12:23AM (#22317578) Homepage
    It's now been over 6 months and 3+ major firmware revisions, and the damn iPhone still doesn't do some of the most basic functionals of a real PDA phone:

    -- No cut and paste
    -- No IMAP IDLE support (The best auto-check is every 15 minutes. Gee, thanks Apple. 1995 called and wants their email features back)
    -- No task list
    -- No way to sync notes
    -- No MMS messages.
    -- Etc.

    OOOO but 1.1.3 added the feature of being able to send SMS to multiple recipients. Yeah. Great. I was really waiting for that feature...so glad that put that higher on the list than any of the above. Now I can spam all my contacts and say generic impersonal things like "Happy New Year!! Best wishes!!". Ugh.

    It's such a frustration for me. I want to love this device -- I really do. But until Apple stops prioritizing features for 12-year-old girls over features to make the damn thing usable by a working adult, I will continue to complain and be sad. And the worst part is that EVERYTHING I (and the others like me) want can be done in software -- it's just a matter of someone getting priorities in line.

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