As most rumor sites had predicted, Apple did not announce a true video iPod. This is quite a disappointment for most of us. After all, the iPod hadn’t been updated in a year so we were entitled to a significant upgrade, right? Wrong.
Everyone should understand that it is very difficult to transform a product that was designed to do a single task very well into a platform that is many things to many people. Remember Palm? They had designed this great PDA and people started to ask for more. It eventually became the Treo, which offers great hardware and crappy software. Why, because it was never designed to be more than a simple PDA. Adding more and more features just made the product more unstable. At the end, they recognized the problem and decided that it was better to create a new OS from scratch.
At this point we do not know if Apple is doing the same mistake. However, it is clear to me that the latest firmware release is significantly different from the previous ones. First, it is now possible to install new applications (games). This is a clear indication that the iPod is progressively getting a more complex OS to run on. This is good news for those waiting for an iPhone. Without a decent OS it is simply not possible to expect a powerful handset. I am not convinced however that this OS is yet powerful enough to compete with Symbian or Microsoft. We will have to wait and see.
The second difference is that the iPod has now an API programmers can write to. It is still not a public API which definitively means that some things are missing, but it proves that Apple is working hard to get a decent platform that should attract many developers.
In most cases, the hardware outpaces the software. Palm, for example, never got it’s synchronization software right and Sony will probably not be able to have it’s online gaming network completely ready by the time they launch the PSP. In Apple’s case this is quite different, iTunes 7 is a great platform to deliver digital media and Front Row has been ready for quite a while. It really seems like Apple is being delayed by the hardware.
This should not come as a surprise. As I mentioned in my previous post, a larger screen (with the same resolution used now by Apple to sell it’s movies, 640*480) requires much energy. Better software and improved batteries can help improve battery life but it is simply not enough. The design must change radically and it will most likely require to replace the HD with flash memory which is still expensive. My bet is that Apple is waiting for component prices to drop before they launch the new video iPod.
There may be other reasons to delay the new product. Most people today still want the original iPod design and changing it radically just before the busiest shopping season of the year may not be such a good idea. It may be wiser to introduce the new product in January, as rumor sites have predicted, when sales cool off. Early adopters will buy product and generate enough interest during the year to generate windfall sales by the end of next year. After all, with the new iTunes software, games, lower prices and improved hardware it is not like Apple will face serious competition this year.