...for the iPod shuffle with video.

Well it's wider, 2.06 inches to 1.6 inches.

But it's also shorter, 2.75 inches to 3.5 inches, and also very slightly thiner, 0.26 inches to 0.27 inches.

In terms of volume it really is smaller than the old nano. Just under 1.5 cubic inches compared to just over 1.5 cubic inches. About 2.5% smaller.

It's also a lot cheaper than the old one (£30 or £40 cheaper) and it does video. A pretty good upgrade by anyone's standards.

You would think that a reporter in a town with so many bars would be in a better mood.

Can I get podcasts on this thing?

So I can get a 30GB Zune for the new MSRP price of $200 or a real iPod with 80GB for $250? Tough choice.

My only problems are:

1) I bought an iPhone about 20 days ago, and they just dropped the price $200. Grrr.

2) If I buy an iPod, I'd like the fancier touch version, but I need the 160GB storage. Couldn't they have made a 160GB touch??

Like The PS3, how can it be a "forward" step to make something BIGGER???

Also, what is the point in paying for an iPhone ringtone when someone will crack the system within 30 days? Apple knows it will fail but apple stives on the "not so bright" people who will pay for things that should be free!

On http://www.apple.com/ipod/whichipod/ 8GB on an iPod nano will hold "Up to 2,000 songs, up to 7,000 photos, up to 8 hours of video, or some of each", whereas an 8GB iPod touch will hold "Up to 1,750 songs, up to 10,000 photos, up to 10 hours of video, or some of each.

Where's the missing/added space gone/come from?

Corrected for new measurements:

Well it's wider, a third of a linguine to just over a quarter of a linguine.

But it's also shorter half a linguine to two-thirds of a linguine, and also very slightly thinner, 0.045 of a linguine to 0.046 of a linguine.

In terms of volume, it really is smaller than the old nano. Just under 0.05 grapefruit, compared to just over 0.05 grapefruit. About 2.5% smaller.

We can clearly see the advantages of the new unit system over the old, both in accuracy, and in readability!

...not!

Why on earth would I buy an over-priced media player so I can download over-priced music whilst drinking over-priced coffee?

I guess it's a match made in Fanboi heaven though.

Sheesh!

Seriously, are you one of those people who think it's cool to hate on everything? "Ohh, Apple didn't let me in. It must be because they suck, it couldn't possibly be because they know I’m a two-bit hack! Ohh, Starbucks is successful and somewhat fashionable, I hate that too. Look at my non-conformist ways, I’m so cool.”

This entire article could have been boiled down to a link to Apple’s site. You contributed nothing, Cade.

Tool.

"Also, what is the point in paying for an iPhone ringtone when someone will crack the system within 30 days? Apple knows it will fail but apple stives on the "not so bright" people who will pay for things that should be free!"

Whether these things should be free or not, those people you call "not so bright" are at least honest. Besides, the money for R&D has to come from somewhere right?

Surprising there was no mention of European iPhones.

I wonder if they will ever get around to flogging an unlocked iPhone for the old price. It would be well worth £300 for that. Anything but OhTwo.

After much deliberation I got an Archos 404 for $150, 30Gb of audio/video goodness with added bonus of a PDF reader. Drawbacks... apart from it being French none, presumably when it breaks down it says "Pffft" with a Gallic shrug. I also bought the DVR station for 70 odd dollars which allows me to directly encode composite video to MP4

that the iPod Touch is a PDA?

Only a total idiot would pay money for a ringtone they could easily make themselves, and now that same idiot has the opportunity to pay double for an additional 30s of song they already have.

Classic. I hope one day I can invent a license to print money like this.

Sadly, all Apple fanbois relate to their iPod Touches with Public Displays of Affection. Won't somebody think of the children?

As for re: Putz, that's just the reaction I would expect from an Apple fanboi. If you've followed anything Apple-related on El Reg, you would have known that Apple has banned El Reg from everything Apple-related, not just this one journalist. So no, it's not a he-hates-Apple thing. It's a running joke by now. And, oh my, the journalist has an opinion on the quality of Starbucks' beverages. He must have a personal vendetta against them to actually have the gall to speak his opinion in public. You're the tool, Mr. Putz.

I Use software on either side of the fence, as well as software that that sits upon it.

Starbucks is shite coffee though.

Shite

I wanted an Iced coffee once

shite!

Most people are paying $2.50 USD now for a fixed ring tone. This system is 20% cheaper and you set the ring tone. Still a rip off, but less so. Imagine spending the 2.50 and NOT getting the whole song.

iPod touch 8Gb - US $299, UK $399. 16GB - US $399, UK $539. Oh well I suppose it's cheaper tp ship from China to the States.

"This morning, at a San Francisco press event The Reg wasn't invited to"

Says it all really...

What more can I add, Steve already said it all.

I wonder if there will be a SDK for this thing. Probably at the same time as for the iPhone :-)

Could it be that Apple are not inviting El Reg to things because they are not blind hype merchants who gush about whatever device Jobs trys to pwn us with? I mean, seriously, when will people start seeing through this rubbish... the ipod is just an expensive mediocre mp3 player and the iphone is just an expensive overpriced mp3 player with a few badly implimented phone features.

Get a grip folks.

...only starbucks at moment but it seems a very significant development to me. How often do you hear a song that you'd like to buy when out? Quite often for me. This tech. Apple have included in iPodt could really increase impulse sales and make finding new artists easier. Think...

Billboard for band/album - stand near it an listen/buy album/song..

ditto at a concert

ditto at HMV et al

ditto authors book signing [talking book]

I assume Starbucks are taking a small cut from sales for allowing this free access. This sounds a very promising feature to me.

Feel free to disagree!

BTW all the fuss about the cost of Apple ring tones, people in the UK are subscribing to ringtones that are costing £5 per month/week!!! [not sure of cost be be honest] companies are makings millions out of ringtone sales

...anyone who comes to el reg to read an unbiased impartial factual IT report needs to seriously rethink things. I for one support the jobs bashing rants - they entertain me greatly, deserved or not!

But starbucks bashing is just too much like predictable, army surplus wearing, anti-fashion, sudo-elitist, pretentious reverse-snobbery. Starbuck makes good coffee - ok, their business practiceses were lifted straight from Hitler's WWII campaign... but the coffee is good, damnit!!! Better than costa, better than cafe sol and a _whole_ lot better than the muck that was being offered from filtered jugs sitting out for hours at a time in the local "coffee shops" that starbucks so unscrupulously backrupted.

Really got me laughing at the 99c ring tone thing though - 10 hour count-down until that's cracked, anyone?

"Waaah Wahhh Waaaaaaaaaaahhh Waaaahhhhhhh!"

I wouldn't invite you to my parties either.

"Whether these things should be free or not, those people you call "not so bright" are at least honest. Besides, the money for R&D has to come from somewhere right?"

Did you get paid to say that? Exactly how much R&D does it take to chop an MP3 down to 30 seconds? Do you have any idea how overpriced iPods are in the first place compared to their equivalents? *sigh* 3 years ago I got an iRiver that had twice the battery life of an iPod, record capability, an FM radio, all for cheaper than the iPod with an equivalent sized hard drive.

The new nano is actually slightly larger in volume - 1.4% - and heavier than the old nano - 23%. This is using the figures from the Apple website.

New: 69.8x52.3x6.5 mm = 23728.51 mm3, 49.2g

Old: 90x40x6.5 mm = 23400 mm3, 40g

The original poster is wrong is saying that it is thinner.

Your remarks assume that cost is the major factor in the higher UK pricing. It ain't necessarily so. Products cost more in the UK because enough people are prepared to get their wallets out & pay the higher prices. Until we effectively veto products selling at higher prices like this, manufacturers will, of course, keep charging the higher prices - we really have ourselves to blame, to a large extent!

I'm guessing... Damn defensive. I found the article pretty fair, it's right to rip on Apple for that ringtone joke for starters.

No camera, right? However, with OSX, Wifi and Safari is it possible to run Skype (for Wifi phone calls) on the iPod Touch? Better yet, will it run iChat for video calls with up to 5 participants like we can do on all other Macs? (w/o camera for Touch participants). If not, Why not?

"We couldn't even type that with a straight face."

Presumably that's the royal 'we' being used?

The rip-off isn't as severe as you seem to think, bearing in mind the fact that US prices are quoted excluding sales tax (as sales tax varies between states, counties and sometimes even adjacent towns) whereas UK prices are always quoted with 17.5% VAT applied.

So if you're comparing like with like (i.e. before-tax prices) it looks more like this:

8GB - US $299, UK $344

16GB - US $399, UK $465

So Apple has only hiked the price a maximum of 17% - you can blame HMRC for the rest of the difference. In fact, HMRC may be responsible for some of that 17% as well; I'm not sure how the import duty/tax landscape varies between the UK and the US.

I think a lot of people are missing the point here. Every El Reg Hack is duty bound to take the piss out of all the big IT names and people who support them (deserved or not, and in this case it's deserved). If they didn't have a scathing sense of humour they wouldn't get hired. And I, along with most other readers, support this!

As for Starbucks coffee being good, what?! There's a reason why Starbucks has no (or hardly any) foothold in any of the major coffee loving countries of europe - Italy, Spain etc... It's because it's shite. And also way over priced.

> There's a reason why Starbucks has no (or hardly any) foothold in any of the major coffee loving countries of europe

...yes there is. Those countries had good coffee shops to start with. Places where espresso isn't spelt with an 'X', and there's the right time of day to drink the right coffee. Where the coffee shop has been in the family for generations and locals would spit at starbucks as they passed by. If there were any places like that here, that's where I'd be (moaning about the lack of wi-fi no doubt), but there aren't - and never were. Right now, here in Ireland (and the UK and from what I've experienced of northern Europe and the USA) Starbucks sells the nicest coffee on the high street. They do. Take the pepsi challange. I'm not lying!

- Actually, I am lying! there is a newish outfit here called Coffee Angel selling from mobile units. Seriously good coffee - better than starbucks. The guy who runs them has quite successfully represented Ireland in Barrista competions. If there's one around that's where I tend to get my drug of choice.

But aside from that: Starbuck = not bad coffee

(Starbucks also throws buckets of extra caffeen in their drinks to make you hoplessly adicted ~ *shakes* ~ havent made up my mind if I aapprove of this practice yet)

>Every El Reg Hack is duty bound to take the piss

Very true - absolutely agree. I'd stop coming here if el reg stopped "biting the hand that feeds IT".

Mr. Metz has been nipping at the Haterade again.

Nice idea on the impulse buy, but not really different to what Starbucks already do, display a "now playing" with a CD on a stand.

HMV etc already have listening posts, and most of the time it's an instore radio that tells you the name of the track playing. If, at the very worst, you are truly stuck without knowing the song being played, there's a number you can call on your mobile to identify it. Expensive number, but my SE W880 has it built in now, it just sends about 20K to a server after sampling the music - hit rate = very high. Cost = barely noticable.

Is duh lickle hack upset cos he didn't get to go to duh party? diddums.