Apple iPod Event

OK, so I didn't cross the pond for the event. Which, on reflection, was probably a good things since there wasn't anything announced that hadn't been leaked earlier. Is the iPod end of Apple becoming more sieve-like or what? Anyway, whilst there were some interesting products to think about for Christmas presents (i.e. the new Nano) and the iTunes 8 update has a rather useful new Genius feature there wasn't any one thing that really floated my boat.

I downloaded the new 2.1 software for my (now first generation) iPod Touch and the iTunes 8 upgrade pretty much as soon as possible. You do have to look hard for some of the UI improvements (particularly on the Touch) but they're there. I'm not sure about the bug fixing for the Touch in this upgrade as recently mine has been pretty reliable. iTunes 8 has a new grid view for album art, which works well for podcasts as it shows you the number of episodes you haven't watched in a circle at the top left of each icon (like the mail notification on the Touch) and it also has Genius. It's this last feature in one guise which I will probably use most as I'm basically lazy and can't be bothered to make my own playlists, in its other guise (purchase recommendations) I can see it getting rather expensive so I may not pay much attention to that one. As to playlists (and this feature also exists in the Touch 2.1 software), Genius creates a new playlist from a specified track using other "connected" tracks from your existing library (or the sub-set on the Touch). I don't know how the algorithum works (and the iTunes implementation supposedly learns from data send up by each user) but it seems pretty decent to me. I've already started listening to stuff I'd forgotten I had.

All in all, not an earth shattering event but some nice polish to some already decent products.

iTunes Pricing - What are they thinking?

Having just got another email tell me of more interesting TV shows now available on the UK iTunes store - I pulled it up to find more spectacular examples of crazy pricing. Why is it that they think I'm going to buy something for more than I can get it on DVD from Amazon? The iTunes content can only be played on my authorised devices - so I can't pop round to watch any of it on my friend's plasma TV for example and I don't get any of the DVD extras either (OK so some of them aren't very good but there are others which are really worth watching). In some cases the price for buying a whole TV series is the same as or only a few pence less than buying each episode individually.

Frankly these guys really don't get it! Price the stuff competitively and folks like me will buy it. I'm not even talking about deep discounting just keep it competitive with DVD and it would be attractive - until then don't expect me to be buying much...

First iTunes Movie Rental

So now that we poor (in the sense of timing and selection but not pricing!) relations in the UK have iTunes movie rentals I thought I should try it out. The selection isn't all that extensive as yet (and a number of movies I would have loved to rent are only available to buy) but I did managed to find one that we wanted to watch.

I downloaded the movie entirely before we started watching, as we had timeos , I can't comment on the select and start straight away approach. The film played flawlessly. The picture quality was fine on our 32 inch LCD and probably equivalent to standard DVD levels. I am disappointed that HD movies are only available on the AppleTV (which hacks off those of us with Mac Mini media centres!) but since our TV is only 720p it's not a huge issue.

I can't say that I thought the 24 hour limitation applied in the States would have been an issue for me (though friends with very small children have said quite the opposite) it was nice to see that we have 48 hours in which to finish watching the film.

So overall the experience was pretty good. It's convenient and it works (no taking back scratched DVDs!); however, the pricing could have been better thought out. As I've mentioned before we have been getting increasingly poor digital reception so are in the market to watch more rented movies. If only the movies were cheaper we would probably be chewing through the available selection at a rate of knots. But with the pricing equivalent to DVD rentals (and without any access to special features etc.) there is a psychological barrier there - it just seems too expensive. If it was 99p for back catalogue films (of which they have plenty - which are showing for free on broadcast TV) I'd probably not worry about paying in order to get the convenience but at £2.49 I can't justify it.

Anyway, overall a good experience but the selection needs massive improvement, the pricing could be better and when are we going to be able to rent TV shows?