There have been reports in the last week or so that Apples “true” video iPod — the one where the entire front part of the player was both a viewscreen and a track wheel — has been substantially delayed.
Once rumoured for release as possibly as soon as this month, it looks more like Q4 this year is a more realistic release date. Sure, while product delays are often met with predictions of outright disaster — hello HD-DVD! — in this case, I think it’s actually a case of where a outwardly bad situation will pay off dividends down the road.
For one thing, this will alleviate any possibility of market fatigue. Apple had been putting so many iPods into the field that there was the possibility that one more this soon — no matter how revolutionary — may have been met with a collective “another one? But mine works fine.”
Especially from those of us who had just made a purchase of what we found out almost immediately was the false Video iPod. I dunno about you, but it kinda pissed me off that I spent $400 for a two-month-old product almost immediately dismissed as old hat. So I would have passed, thank you.
Secondly, the personal video-on-demand ‘verse has been growing so incredibly fast — it seems like every single day there is another announcement of more shows and movies going online — I think that it will be a few months before anybody but the early adopters can make sense of it all. And more importantly, figure out how and why they want to incorporate these new viewing choices into their lives.
At that point, Apple can answer their questions with their brand-new and super cool Video iPod, just in time for Christmas!!
What if, you may ask, somebody else takes the concept and does a True Video iPod knock-off prior to Apple releasing theirs? I don’t think it will matter: it’s not as if Apple was the first company to make an .mp3 player, but they were the ones to landed in the market at the perfect time with the perfect player, so at this point, the market is theirs to lose.