lifebsideben

(From Apple’s new iPod pages):

Slideshows Anywhere
Mesmerize friends and family with a glorious multimedia experience, offering them a breathtaking slideshow accompanied by the music you already have on your iPod Photo.

I don’t know about your friends and family, but I don’t think mine are going to be “mesmerized” by a 16-bit, 220×176, what, 2″ diagonal screen…? Breathtaking? Hmm.

My camera can do slideshows, hooked up to a TV, also. No music to accompany it (although I certainly can plug in my ipod to the tv at the same time). I dunno. It seems like a nice incremental add-on to the iPod, and how they’re actually getting an extra 3+ hours of playback time (I think my iPod claims 12 hrs, color ones 15) I don’t know… but that’s a nice improvement. Definitely not enough to plunk down another half-grand or so, though.

In fact, I typically take my laptop with me on trips where I’m likely to encounter a lot of family… and viewing photos on a 14.1″, 24-bit screen (or on TV–it’s got composite out), is easy there too. Actually, the 60GB iPod Photo costs $600–about the price of a really nice, used, or new entry-level laptop. But I guess you don’t get the pocket-able form factor: bad for typical mp3 usage, but I’d argue better for photo usage. I guess that’s the rub: is this device trying to do too much? For me, I think the answer is yes; but I think it’s likely to be a success, based on the reputation and cool-factor alone. Apple generally makes really well designed hardware and software… so I wish ‘em luck with it. It’s better than supporting a lot of the mediocre stuff so many other places put out!