Apple’s more than used to the haters by now – people who proclaim each of the company’s new products a likely flop based on price, or grouse about another company’s product that’s almost but not quite the same. But time and experience have given Apple another benefit: the opportunity to see their haters proved wrong. Often repeatedly.
Having played with the 60GB iPod Photo a bunch, it’s fair to say that the haters have at best a 30% chance of proving right on this one.
Apple made at least three mistakes with the device – making its photo features less than intuitive to use in iTunes; seemingly requiring a potentially lengthy initial “optimizing” process for photos to be iPod-ready; and pricing it at a unfriendly $599.
But they’ve done at least as many things right. Very right. The iPod Photo’s new screen is wickedly beautiful, turning on quite unexpectedly with a vivid blue Apple logo (right) and using an interface that’s half iPod, half Mac OS X.
(The familiar abstract sun/clock “processing” logo appears on the screen, and subtle grey touches with colorful non-interactive icons recall Apple’s Aqua interface.) Higher resolution, an even better white backlight, and the use of the Myriad font seriously improve the iPod’s look and feel – much more readable text can fit on screen, too, and long song titles now scroll in lists, not just when playing back.
Photos look very good on the screen, and are far more identifiable in thumbnail view than one would expect. TV playback of the photos is reasonably easy, too, though it could be even better, and users can create slideshows on the fly using the iPod’s interface. Keeping your photos and music synced with the iPod should be a real snap once the initial transfers of your libraries are done, too.
