Confessions of a User Experience Junkie

TUAW illustrates what I’ve been thinking about the nano branding: the new nano isn’t an evolution of the old, it’s a new product category (or maybe an evolution of the shuffle). It’s different enough that keeping the same name leads to expectations of the product.

This is similar to what happened when the mini was retired and replaced by the nano, but not quite. In 2005, the nano was everything the mini was and more. Now, the old nano isn’t really being replaced by the new. Over its lifetime, the nano became more and more of a convergence device, and in the past year buyers apparently started thinking that a better convergence device — the iPod touch — was a better buy despite it not being “nano” sized. Thus, this year they’ve made it official that the iPod touch is what buyers who wanted something like last year’s nano should want.

Of course, that’s what Apple surely wants, too — the touch is the most expensive iPod, and probably the highest-margin one, too. (Then again, the $229 8GB model looks like a desperate attempt to claim a low price point in the face of high component costs, so margins might be lower on that one.) But I doubt that’ll matter: with last year’s touch outselling last year’s nano already, and the iOS platform in general skyrocketing in popularity, people who might have gone for last year’s nano will flock to the touch anyway.

Oh, and to address the TUAW post’s other complaint: I suspect the new touch’s anemic photo resolution won’t hold back a significant number of buyers. Three reasons:

• Touch customers are already people who don’t completely buy into the convergence-device bandwagon — they already keep their iPod and phone separate. And if they were on the old touch, they were already carrying around a separate camera anyway… they won’t mind keeping a little point-and-shoot or a DSLR around for better pictures, and for those times when they have only the iPod handy, any built-in camera is better than none.
• Touch customers are young, and kids these days seem more interested in uploading to YouTube than to Flickr. Who cares if the still pictures are “meh” if the video’s good? (Besides, if the iPod’s sensor is anywhere near as good as the iPhone 4′s, the pictures will come out a heck of a lot better than they would’ve from most other <1 megapixel cams.)
• The iPod touch still has no serious competitors, and it’s as big a hit as it already is based on other attributes. It’ll take a lot more than, say, a hypothetical Zune HD 2 having a 5 megapixel camera to slow the touch’s momentum.

The new iPod lineup looks great. If you like tiny, focused devices you get your choice of iPod-shuffle-like devices: inexpensive with no screen but tactile controls, or no tactile controls, a touchscreen, and a few more features for a few (okay, three times as many) more bucks. Otherwise, the convergence devices are where it’s at — the iPod touch is now the most popular iPod, and that’s even if you don’t count the iPhone as one.

The touch surpassing the old nano in popularity paves the way for the nano to become something else than what it had been (and in some ways something less). The new nano is more “iPod shuffle plus” than “iPod nano (what we knew it as) smaller and with touch” — it’s lacking features that have been integral to the nano for years. Maybe they’d have done better to change the branding: make it a new iPod model and retire the nano name. They missed a great opportunity to call it “iPod pico”!

The touch has always been called “iPhone without the phone”, but really it was missing more of what the iPhone had than just telephony… now it’s really “iPhone 4 without the phone”. (Actually, the iPhone camera has more pixels, but that’s not a huge deal… the iPod touch having a camera at all is a big step.) I wouldn’t have been surprised to see them drop the “touch” sub-brand this year and just call the flagship iPod just “iPod” (though it does makes sense that they didn’t; the touch has its own brand equity by now).

While Apple didn’t do a lot to promote it (summary: “just another feature from iPhone 4 we’re bringing over”), I suspect FaceTime on iPod touch will be a big deal — as Steve pointed out, the touch isn’t just “iPhone without the phone”, it’s “iPhone without the [wireless carrier] contract”. With FaceTime already becoming a hit on the iPhone (video calling easy enough for Grandma!), we could see it eventually become a replacement for basic telephony, cutting wireless carriers and their nasty contracts out of the loop. (Or at least relegating them to be data-only providers — I’m sure Clear and Sprint will be happy to sell 4G-WiFi bridges to iPod users who want just FaceTime and no phone. Maybe Verizon too.)

Netflix on Apple TV is a big move, and a sneaky one, too; Apple’s acknowledging that the iTunes (for TV and movies, at least) business model isn’t for everybody, without undertaking the risk of having to support an alternative themselves. Some people want to “just watch” a movie or some TV episodes without the costs — both financial and those of time/clutter management — of ownership. Rentals is one way to deal with that (but with some issues of its own), and Netflix-style subscriptions are another. (Alternate theory: Apple would like to offer more ways to buy/rent/subscribe to content via iTunes, but they’re tired of negotiating with greedy studios over it.) What’s great for Apple about doing the subscription model via Netflix is that it lets someone else handle both the datacenter/bandwidth issues and the studio negotiations.