New iPods Are Lack-Luster?

A great deal of reports and articles regarding Apple's 'Showtime' event have described it as being disappointing and lack-luster. Not really surprising as this is usually the reaction of the press after such announcements… Apple did not introduce the flying car or the new bio iPod that you can swallow and which uses your own memory to store many terabytes of songs and videos and images, beaming them across the neural pathways directly to your eyes and ears.

Perhaps Apple did not introduce any groundbreaking new iPods. But then again, why would they? Apple is the uncontested leader of the market, new devices and new features generally come into play when a company is trying to get a foothold in a market and grow their share. But Apple is at the top, and they have been there for a long time; for them, this is about maintaining a status-quo now, and that is what the new iPod models do. They give you more value for the same sum of money, or - in some cases - for even less.

Of course, Apple has not stood there doing nothing, they never adopt that attitude, and they have been working on new fresh and revolutionary iPods, and the patents clearly show that. But such devices will not appear until they are needed. And currently Apple's position is not threatened by any other company, nor by any device. Why raise the bar when there is no need to do so… Milk the current iPods for everything they are worth and then move on to the next one, not the other way around.

Currently on the horizon, there is only one challenger, Microsoft's Zune. But with these 'lack-luster' new products, Apple has given Zune a blow. The new device - which is a rebranded Toshiba Gigabeat - was supposed to launch with a starting price of $299. This price was in tune with Apple's offerings at the time, but now the iPod starts at $249, which means that Zune has to at least match it - if not beat it - if it is to stand a chance and gain any traction on a market where the iPod is number 1. It might not seem like much, but it will undoubtedly add a few million dollars of red ink to Zune's launch plans. And if Zune does launch and does start getting traction, then Apple will unveil the next big thing, not before.