mip's scan

Here Come the "iPhone Killers"

For years we've heard about the next great iPod Killer.  A music player so revolutionary, it would surely break Apple's dominance.  Yeah right.  What did we get? Wanna-be-device after wanna-be-device.  Why do companies insist on labeling their products as "such-&-such-killers".  It is just dumb.  It introduces unnecessary pressure on the device, which rarely amounts to anything more than a later comer to the party.  It gave us poor devices like the Microsoft Zune which were destined to be iPod-killers but really became bottom-drawer-fillers.

Hence, I had to roll my eyes, now that LG has announced their iPhone killer.  Ummm...didn't they already try that with the Prada phone...which tanked miserably as an alternative to the iPhone.  Well they are at it again now with the Voyager, which looks to be a rip-off of the iPhone.  It looks pretty, sure, but will it perform well?  Will it be anything more than a "me-too" device?  LG has already made a misstep.  They have said this device will be the iphone-killer.  What happens if it isn't?  Wouldn't they have been better off just releasing this phone and letting it stand on its own?

No date or price has been set yet.  I would be willing to bet that by the time this phone hits the market, Apple will already be preparing the next generation iPhone.  What is encouraging about this story, however, is that you can see that Apple really has redefined the market - everybody is trying to imitate them.  What else is new?

A Quick Look at the iPod Touch

So for the past while I've been enjoying the use of the iPod Touch.  There have been numerous reviews of this device and so I'm not going to do an exhaustive review of every little feature here.  Suffice it to say that the iPod Touch lives up to the hype.  Often with new technology, the hype around a new product grows so large that when the device is finally released it has no chance of living up to the hype surrounding it.  The iPod Touch (and first the iPhone) had a lot of hype.  I'm happy to say though that it all works as advertised.  Dive into the video review I've got below; there I'll step through some of some of the smaller, not often mentioned aspects of this device.  It is the little things, the small attention to detail that Apple gives it products, that really enhance the ongoing use of a product.