Michael Henley

I thought I would jump on this bandwagon, if only to prove that I don’t approve of or agree with everything Apple does from on high at Cupertino. As you will know, Apple held their special event on 5th September at Moscone West. After the first few months of iPhone sales figures etc had come in, Apple knew what we all said from the beginning – a 4GB iPhone was simply too small and the demand clearly wouldn’t be there if there was a larger capacity version around. Indeed the only reason I believe anyone would even contemplate buying one of the smaller capacity phones would be the price.

Having said that, if I were an iPhone owner (and one of the only reasons I am not is that I am in the UK), I would not be best pleased with Apple at the moment. Of course technology moves on, and buying at the wrong time is always a risk – I waited 6 months to buy this laptop simply because I read the rumours of an update on the horizon. Equally I would say that buying on the day of a product’s launch can’t possibly be too early. The early adopters were screwed over by Apple. Of course this won’t stop them from buying another Apple product – and it wouldn’t stop me. We all know the risks. I do object to the half-hearted measures Apple and Steve have put out there to try to placate their customers.

If they are $200 out of pocket, then how is a $100 store credit going to go anywhere to solving that? I would say that it should be either just paid back into their accounts so that they can spend their money anywhere, or they should be getting more. Profit is profit, but sometimes I wonder how long Apple’s rock-solid fanbase will keep the shit from sticking to them… This is the summary of Apple’s whole ethos though. They know that regardless of what they do, their ‘fanboys’ will keep defending them better than any $5,000/hr lawyer could, and so they are willing to sit in their airtight campus, not informing anyone of their upcoming products, and doing whatever they want. Their products are revolutionary, but that can only keep them safe for so long.

In saying this I am being quite hypocritical. I am writing this on my 3 month old MacBook Pro, listening to music on my 3rd Gen. iPod, and eagerly awaiting the 29th September when I will travel for over an hour to go to the Regents Street Apple Store simply to play with the new iPod touchs and worship at the altar of Steve. That said if I had bought a 4GB iPhone a few months ago, to have it discontinued, or if I had bought an 8GB iPhone only to have it dropped in price a few months later I wouldn’t be happy. This is primarily because I have found that Apple does not rush any decisions. This is one of the reasons I believe they keep so quiet about new products – so that they can plan out in minute detail what they are going to do over the few months after launch etc. This means that they have intended for a long time, possibly even before the launch of the iPhone, to drop the price in September. This is no doubt why they have only released the iPod touch now – they can now use the consumers of those as Guinea Pigs, and see if the demand for it, and for a 16GB iPhone, which I expect is on the horizon, is there. As John C. Dvorak says, never buy the first gen. of an Apple product. For once I am thankful I live in the UK, because we will probably get the 2nd Gen. of iPhone.

I wonder why Apple ever launched the 4GB iPhone – the only reason I can think of is that they were desperate to prove from the word go that their phone would beat all the competition simply because they made it, and so introduced a cheaper option to maximise sales figures of the iPhone as a whole. Still, I look forward to the 16GB (or larger because although more acceptable, 16GB is still too small for a device where video playback is one of the key features) iPhone and iPod touch, and will be buying one. It just hope that Apple don’t ‘suddenly’ figure out how to fit 32GB inside the 8mm thin case and revise the iPod touch up to Gen. 2….

Well I, as any loyal fan should have done, sat watching the Engadget live blog (as well as using Scott Bourne’s Jaiku – he was getting stuff out faster than Ryan Block over at Engadget at times!) of Apple’s ‘The Beat Goes On’ special event this evening (6pm – 7pm BST). I must say overall I was astounded. Steve and Apple seem to have done it again, and credit to them because their total secrecy on product development always could end up coming back to bite them on the backside…

The iPod nano refresh was unexpectedly the rumoured, and leaked nano, which for the past few weeks has been called ugly and fatty, among other things! The traditional iPod became the iPod classic, and saw relatively minor updates apart from the increase in size options to 80GB & 160GB, along with the new interface which includes that old favourite – CoverFlow. The renaming also meant that for the first time Apple could release two types of full size iPod. This came in the form of the much rumoured, and desired, iPod touch – the iPhone without the phone. This comes in 8GB and 16GB varieties, and is available (in the US at least) for pre-order, to be dispatched before 28th September.

On an aside there is no notice of these new releases on the Apple UK site, or on the Apple UK Store. Hopefully these will materialise soon!

Update: The new iPods, including the iPod touch, have since materialised on the Apple UK sites

Apple event tonight (6PM BST) at Moscone West. The fact that they are holding it here suggests it will be a fairly big affair, as this is where the hold their annual MacWorld Expo. Predictions for this evening seem to be that we will see new iPods – flash-based, new nanos & a full-screen touch video iPod (iPhone without the phone…). As well as this the title suggests that this event will also herald the addition of Beatles Music to iTunes. We will see…

This is something I haven’t heard about in a while. Saw a recent post about an evangelical website which some are now trying to get associated with the search term “Primitive Rubbish“. Will be interesting to see how this works out…

Since I began using technology, especially, but not exclusively, the internet I have noticed something. We are all sheep when it comes to technology. I say this because the culture that has grown up around technology is one of recommendation and to a certain extent, blind faith. I, for example, used to use Internet Explorer as my primary web browser, simply because I knew no difference. Upon recommendation from friends however, I almost instantaneously stopped using IE, and began using Mozilla’s Firefox browser, of which I am now a huge fan and couldn’t do without.

However it isn’t always like this, and it might not have been. Maybe it is just me, but I have a tendancy to move everything across instantaneously and in one go to the new system, such as when I started using Firefox over IE way back when, pushing the boundaries of what I do and seeing how the new system can enhance this. If this works well then I stick with it and that is that – if however it does not then I am left stranded and have to pick up the pieces, back-peddle and try to get back to where I was with the old system. This kind of blind leap of faith is the only way, in my opinion, to see whether the new system is up to what I need it to be, and as disruptive as it may be, it is necessary if the change is to be made.

This brings me back to the title of this post. Just like the Lemmings we jump off the cliff into the unknown based solely on the recommendation of a friend, colleague or trusted web personality. Sometimes we land on our feet, and even do so on better terrain than we were on before – but sometimes we land in the water and have to struggle to crawl back onto the old familiar platform we have known and loved for years….