Thoughts on the Next Gen iPod

After seeing this year’s most recent keynote, and reading up on all the iPhone speculation, I have determined that I want one. Now, I’m not totally sure what I would do with it (because I already have a cell phone, a laptop, and three iPods), but that still hasn’t prevented me from wanting one. Badly.

However, as great as the iPhone is, it’s the phone component itself that I have the least use for. Now, I realize that the iPhone, as a phone, is way better than any other phone out there. But, at the moment, I just can’t afford to drop my current carrier, pay the $200 early termination fee, buy a $600 iPhone, and start up with Cingular. Maybe one day, but not any time soon. However, I might be in the market for a new iPod.

And it was this line of thinking that got me wondering what the next generation of iPods is going to look like. Because, as far as I’m concerned, Apple has only two choices: release an iPod that is an incremental update to the current version, or take the iPhone, strip out everything but the media features (i.e. the music & movie players), and sell that.

If Apple chooses the first option, expect the iPod to get a bigger hard drive (100GB would be my guess), longer battery life, brighter screen, and different colors. Like the Shuffles and Nanos, I would expect these iPods to come in the standard five matching colors. This would be an incremental update to say the least. But more importantly, it would send the message that Apple doesn’t want to compromise iPhone sales by making the iPods too cool.

In this case we can see the iPod reaching the limits of its functionality. And by that I mean that Apple’s position would become, “If you want music, buy an iPod. If you want anything more, buy an iPhone.” This is somewhat significant because it effectively limits the scope of what an iPod is. So, for anyone out there thinking that maybe the iPod would eventually grow into a super-PDA (think iPhone without the phone), you are SOL.

The second option would be for Apple to take the touch screen interface from the iPhone and graft it onto an iPod. Now, this approach has its own problems, the most significant of which (to me at least) is the iPod’s operating system. Apple can’t add the touch screen interface without also forcing the iPod to run OS X. But it wouldn’t even be the version of OS X that runs on the iPhone. Instead, it would have to be a heavily stripped down version that would only include the music and video portions.

To understand why this is necessary, one has to fully realize why this new touch screen interface is so amazing. It boils down to this: if Apple wanted to put a touch screen on the iPod but not run OS X, they could. However, it would be just like every other touch screen ever made. You use one finger as a glorified stylus to select what you want. You would get the same interface you find on PDAs and ATM machines. That interface is, for the iPod’s situation, inferior to the current click wheel.

Now look at the iPhone and all of the complex gestures you can use to interface with it. That added complexity has to be handled somewhere, either by running OS X or vastly expanding the current iPod’s software to handle the burden. And remember (because this is important), just getting it to work doesn’t count! Apple won’t ship an iPod whose user interface is harder to use than its current design. So, just because they can get such an interface to work doesn’t mean it will work well. The iPhone has a complex, open-ended operating system.  The current iPod has a very simple and very specific operating system. Welding a piece of the former onto the latter is not the recipe for a well-designed product.

I have no idea as to Apple’s long-term strategy in regards to these devices, but it seems to revolve around the question of whether or not to keep the iPod as a distinct product or ultimately merge it with the iPhone. Because in the long run, lower prices and better technology will make multi-function devices much more prevalent. If Apple wants to keep selling iPods in the face of future competitors they will have to adapt. And that means either adding more features (to justify the higher prices) or reducing the price (to stay competitive). I don’t know when Apple will stop selling iPods, but that day might be coming sooner than you think.