Every time Apple introduces a new product they love to compare it to a common object that shows just how magically small it is. The MacBook Air fits inside an envelope. The iPod Classic is the size of a deck of cards. The iPad mini is thinner than a pencil. And the 4th generation iPad with Retina display is thinner than a penny! Wait, what?
A typo on Apple’s website says that the depth of the iPad is .37mm, which would make it about as thick as four sheets of paper copy. For sake of comparison a penny has a depth of 1.57mm, so the new iPad is hella skinny. Obviously the image should show .37 inches thick, not millimeters. We’re just surprised this little mistake has slipped through Apple’s perfectionist fingers without much notice.
The iPad mini is slated for release on Friday, and reactions are mixed: some see it as the device that finally takes the iPad line to iPhone-like mainstream popularity, while others see it as a shrunken down iPad 2 that can’t really compete with the competition in either specs or price.
So which will it be? To help predict, it might help to go back to the first “mini” sized iDevice Apple released: the iPod mini. Before that, there was just the iPod, shipping 1.5 million in a year. In 2004? The iPod mini helped increase the number of iPods sold by five times as many.
I love the iPod Classic. I don’t own one. But I love it all the same and wish it still played an important roll in my life, the way it used to back in 2006. Luckily, the iPod Classic is now alive on your computer.
Inventika Solutions created this virtual iPod Classic that functions just like the real deal. You can play music on it, move your mouse around the click-wheel to navigate through the menu options, and click play and fast-forward. It’s beautiful time waster for a Friday, so you should go play with it right now in honor of all the iPods you’ve loved.
The internet has been obsessed with the iPhone 5 so much the last few months that not much has been said about the iPod Touch. Last year Apple didn’t update the device, and some think it may go away altogether once the iPad Mini is released. Does Apple have one more update in the pipeline, and will it maybe look something like this?
Editor’s Note: We first posted this yesterday, but for readers who didn’t see it, we’re bumping it to the top of the page so people know what’s coming in just about three hours.
Hey, we know: after sixteen months of rumors, figuring out exactly what to expect from Apple’s “Let’s Talk iPhone” event tomorrow can be confusing. Well, let us break it all down for you. Here’s everything we know (or think we know) about what Apple’s going to announce tomorrow. It’s going to be a hell of a show.
This morning, a report surfaced that the next iPhone would come with 64GB of storage for the first time ever. It’s looking pretty solid.
At the same time, rumors have been bubbling up for the last couple weeks that Apple would soon be discontinuing the venerable iPod Classic… and today’s move to axe the iPod Clickwheel Games section of the iTunes Store certainly seems to confirm as much.
That’s a bummer. Okay, sure, iTunes Match and iCloud take some of the hurt out… but what if you want to carry your whole music collection around with you without having to sign up for a data plan? For customers like that, the death of the only 120+ gigabyte iPod is a bitter pill to swallow.
Don’t worry. A new 128GB iPod touch is almost definitely coming.
We all know that the writing is on the wall for the venerable iPod Classic. It’s a touchscreen world now, unfortunately, and with the global rollout of iCloud and the rise of streaming a la carte services like Spotify and Rdio, there’s just no reason for Apple to sell 160GB iPods anymore.
One casualty of all of this though? The apps. Before Apple rolled out the App Store for iOS, they experimented with software for the iPod, namely through iPod Click Wheel Games. Now Apple has killed off that section from its online store.
Looking to replace your aging iPod classic or iPod shuffle? Then it might be best to make a trip to your local Apple store sooner rather than later, because Apple could be about to axe these two devices by the end of this year.
Dying to get your hands on an iPad 2 before the weekend? Don’t order one from the Apple online store, then, because a whole host of Apple’s gadgets have had their shipping times mysteriously extended.