Apple’s new iPods are just another evolutionary step

Apple’s new iPods have added new functions and elegance to the digital music experience but still seem to be transitory — considerably short of the next innovations consumers would like.

To be sure, Apple wanted new models out now, to offset the buzz sure to greet Apple’s most serious competition to date: Microsoft’s Zune player, expected to be released in time for holiday shopping.

The Zune reportedly will have a couple of features the iPod doesn’t have — like an FM radio receiver and the ability to wirelessly transfer music.

Don’t get me wrong; Microsoft isn’t going to cut iPod’s dominance anytime soon. But its entry into the field is another indication that the digital player’s evolution has only just begun.

A wish list

And I, for one, would like to have seen Apple speed it up a bit more than it did with its new slimmed-down and gussied-up Nano player and the big, beefy and now movie-playing Video iPod.

What do I want? Wireless earphones, for one. Imagine, no more tangled cords. I’d like wireless downloads and uploads of video, still pictures and music, for another. And I want something better than the iTV gizmo Apple promises for next year that will help get the downloaded video on your computer to your TV. How about direct transfer from your iPod to yourTV?

While we’re at it, let’s add a mobile phone to the iPod. I’m not talking about the dismally inadequate version Motorola has with the Rokr phone, I’m talking about an Apple-quality cell phone that holds at least as much music as the Nano does now.

This, I’m betting, is all coming. Someday.

But right now, we have the latest two iPods, run on upgraded software, and a revamped iTunes store for shopping and downloading music, TV shows and video.

The new top-of-the-line iPod is an 80GB model, priced at $349. It can hold up to 20,000 songs.

But music is not what that model is for, anyway; it’s for movies. The 80GB iPod can hold 100 hours of video — more than 50 movies, available through the iTunes store.

Movie downloads

They’re only from Walt Disney-connected movie studios now (Apple CEO Steve Jobs is on the board and the largest single stockholder in Disney), but other studios are expected.

I downloaded a movie (”The Village,” $9.95). It took about 18 minutes on my home broadband connection. I watched it. The two-and-a-half-inch screen on this new iPod is said to be 60% brighter than the old video model. I detected no difference.

But no matter how novel it is to watch a movie on an iPod, there’s no getting around the fact that it’s a very tiny screen.I was pleasantly surprised by the video iPod’s beefed-up battery life. On my old video iPod, the battery was pretty much drained after watching two 40-minute TV shows. On the new model, after watching a movie that lasted one hour and 48 minutes, the battery gauge was still half-full.

Longer lives

The new iPod Nanos also have much improved battery life — about 24 hours. They come in smaller, thinner, lighter anodized aluminum cases in five colors, starting at $149 for the 2GB model up to $249 for a new 8GB Nano.

My biggest disappointment with the new Nano was that the $39 lanyard earphones I bought for my old Nano no longer fit. With both the Nano and its big 80GB Video iPodbrother, the sound quality remains as full and rich as in previous models. And with slight design improvements, the click wheel and navigation functions on the latest models are even more intuitive and comfortable.

But, still, I want more.

And more is coming. Knowing Apple, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it before Christmas, just in time to make the Zune obsolete before it’s even released.