Ryan Collins

🕹️ Do Something Great! 😄

Tag: ipodtouch

  • Has Apple lost it?

    Apple announced the iPhone 5 today and updates to the iPod line. Most of
    the announcements were lackluster at best, but the event laid the
    groundwork for the rumored iPad mini event in October, which could be
    even more disastrous than the iPhone 5 event today.

    The iPhone 5 is a nice upgrade, thinner and lighter, but at the same
    time, it doesn’t have any feature that makes it a must upgrade for me
    and my iPhone 4. This is probably more of a testimonial on how good a
    phone the 4 is than what the 5 brings to the table. There are features
    in the next version of iOS that I won’t be able to use, such as
    turn-by-turn navigation, and, I’m assuming, Facetime over cellular, but
    since there are apps I can use to replace these missing features I’m not
    that worried about upgrading.

    What’s more disturbing about todays event was the iPod line refresh.
    Apple now sells the iPod shuffle, iPod nano, and iPod touch (the Classic
    is still available, but it hasn’t seen an update in 3 years). The iPod
    shuffle makes sense as an entry level music player, and at \$49, makes
    it pretty affordable. After the shuffle comes the nano, which doesn’t
    make sense at all. At least the 6th generation nano had a cool look and
    could be used as a watch, this 7th generation looks like an iPod touch,
    works like an iPod touch, but isn’t an iPod touch. Why would Apple waste
    engineering sources on the nano? They priced it at \$149, only \$50 less
    than the entry level iPod touch that includes the same amount of
    storage. I just can’t think of a use case where the nano makes a better
    purchase than the iPod touch.

    Then there’s the iPod touch. At the \$199 price point, they’re now
    selling the 4th generation iPod touch with 16Gb instead of just 8GB. No
    other changes in the now two year old device. If you want the new iPod
    touch which has several of the goodies of the iPhone 5, be prepared to
    shell out \$299. You do get 32Gb at this price but is it worth a third
    more than the iPod touch 4th generation.

    It’s the pricing of the iPod touch which is the most worrisome. Making a
    guess about the iPad mini launch next month, I bet that Apple will drop
    the iPad 2 and put the iPad mini in at the \$399 price. This would hand
    the Christmas shopping season to Amazon, Google, and possibly Barnes and
    Noble. The software for iOS is heads and shoulders above what is
    available for Android, but when a parent can pick up two Kindle Fire HDs
    for the price of one iPad mini, what choice do you think they’re going
    to make? I really doubt they’d price the iPad mini at the same price as
    the new iPod touch, but let’s say they do. It would still be a third
    higher than the Kindle Fire HD, although closer in price to the Nexus 7
    32GB.

    Apple has solid devices, well built, but their pricing expectations are
    all over the place. To me, it makes sense to:

    • keep the shuffle at \$49
    • place the old nano form factor (but with bluetooth) with 8GB at \$99
    • iPod touch 4th gen (8GB) (add bluetooth 4.0 and IPS screen) at \$149
    • iPod touch 5th gen (16GB) at \$199
    • iPad mini (16GB) at \$299
    • iPad 2 (16GB) at \$399
    • iPad 3 (16GB) at \$499

    I see more and more kids getting Kindle Fires, which is now at \$159.
    Apple has dominated the tablet space (and the mobile phone space in
    profits), but if they don’t price their products more aggressively, they
    will lose that dominance. Right now, a \$299 iPad mini would be a tough
    sell in my school district when I get get a Nexus 7 (which has better
    integration with Google Drive) for \$199. Forget about a \$399 iPad
    mini.

    p.s. Signs that Steve Jobs is gone: he would never have added that hand
    strap to the iPod touch.

  • Look out, there’s a new tablet in town and it’s HOT!

    Announcing the Kindle Fire

    Amazon announced a few new Kindles today, the most important, in my
    mind, is the Kindle Fire. It is a 7″ tablet running a specialized
    version of Android. The shocker was the price, \$199. With todays
    announcement, every school district that is looking at mobile devices
    will need to take a pause and examine what the Fire has to offer.

    At that price point, it undercuts the iPod Touch by \$30. It also
    sacrifices a camera and microphone. But it makes up for those
    deficiencies by offering a larger and better display. The main problem
    with the Fire would be the lack of applications for the educational
    market. Of course you have access to all the Kindle books, and the
    explicitly list full color children’s books for it, so it may be just a
    matter of time before educational software takes off on it.

    Does size matter?

    In our iOS pilot programs with iPod Touches and iPads it has become
    pretty clear that it is hard to convince teachers that the small screen
    of the iPod Touch can still be used for content creation. The students,
    I’ve noticed, don’t mind using the iPod Touch, so for them, size doesn’t
    matter. When it comes to content such as PDFs and books, the larger
    screen size would be very advantageous.

    Theft is also an issue in school, but the larger size of the Fire may be
    a deterrent. The Fire would also be able to be used by more than one
    student at a time due to it’s size.

    Waiting..

    I’m going to try to hold off any further mobile purchases until the Fire
    is released and I get a chance to use one. I could see it replacing a
    lot of iPod Touches this Christmas, it will be interesting to see what
    Apple has in store on October 4th. If the applications come, the Fire
    will be a very compelling device for school districts.

    What devices are you investigating for use in your classroom or
    district?

  • A Kindle, iPad, and iPod Touch walk into a classroom – #neotech2011

    Here are the slides with notes: Handout from my presentation. For
    those following along with Twitter here are the results of the poll:
    [][]

    I really enjoyed the conference, and want to thank everyone that was
    involved at putting it on. It was very well run (although I didn’t win
    the MacBook Air door prize… :-).

    (more…)

  • A Kindle, iPad, and iPod Touch walk into a classroom – #oetc11

    The slides are available on Google Docs.

  • The $99 mobile Internet Device

    Nvidia Plans To Power \$99 Mobile Internet Devices

    Nvidia has announced that it plans to power \$99 mobile internet
    devices with its Tegra 600 series chips, perhaps as early as this
    summer.

    If they can get an Android version released at \$99 that is something
    that could be a game changer in education. Although I’m a big fan of the
    iPod Touch being an option for a 1-to-1 program, a \$99 device with
    keyboard and more openness would easily make one-to-one programs a
    reality.

    It seems like I’m always waiting… 🙂

    ![][]