Early Adopter Blues and iPod Touch!

Last night I was having a look at The Unofficial Mac Weblog and reading the comments on "Apple lowers price of 8 gig iPhone to $399". These comments were posted before Steve Jobs decided to give early iPhone buyers a $100 credit. There seemed to be two distinct responses - the positive "That's the price you pay for being an early adopter" and the "Apple did me wrong" (in rather angry and sometimes unrepeatable language).

This must be one of the highest profile examples of the fact that all technology drops in price over time. Unfortunately Apple had to do damage control because it happened so soon.

To think of it, the second generation 8GB iPod Nano I bought late last year for almost $250 has been replaced by a a third generation iPod Nano with more features at a lower price (the new 8GB Nano goes for $199). However, this was only a $50 price drop after a year as well as a new generation.

After the iPhone price drop I was eventually convinced by my wife that I really don't want an iPhone. It took me a while to agree after I realized that a newer generation of the iPhone is very likely to be released while I would be still tied to a two year contract to AT&T.

The iPod Touch is another matter entirely. Basically an iPhone without the phone (and without the contract) I've long thought that it would be pretty cool if it was ever released. Of course an MP3 player with built-in Wi-Fi is nothing new. CNET's Crave blog's First Look at the iPod Touch mentions the Archos 605 WiFi. However, even the smallest capacity Archos 605 weighs 9.2 oz, in comparison to the iPod Touch's 4.2 oz. Admittedly, the Archos 605 series features a 4.3 inch screen instead of a 3.5 inch screen, and the capacity starts at 4GB and goes all the way up to 160GB. For less than the price of an 8GB iPod Touch (why do I struggle not to call it the iTouch?) you can get a 30GB Archos 605.

A quick comparison:
iPod Touch dimensions: 4.3 x 2.4 x 0.3 inches.
Archos 605 dimensions: 4.8 x 3.2 x 0.8 inches.
The Archos 605 has a whole slew of accessories which can turn it into a DVR.
The iPod Touch is almost as revolutionary as the iPhone, and just as cool...