Sound familiar? That wasn't a reaction to yesterday's Apple iPad launch, that was a MacRumors commenter in 2001 reacting to the launch of the iPod. The iPod, the device that symbolized personal electronics more than any other product in the last decade, was widely criticized when it was unveiled. It was "just another MP3 player."

Thus while these old comments about the iPod are humorous in retrospect, the history of the iPod is a reminder of just how much has to go right for even a revolutionary Apple product to really explode. There may be a lot of us who wait for the iPad 2.0.

"I'd call it the Cube 2.0 as it wont sell, and be killed off in a short time... and it's not really functional. Uuhh Steve, can I have a PDA now?" That's what they said then. Will we look back in 10 years at today's complaints about the iPad missing a camera and chuckle in the same way? Maybe not about the camera, but the missing Flash support? Now that might seem silly in retrospect.

According to Newsweek, both the iPod Touch and to a lesser degree the iPhone are increasingly being used by the U.S. military because of their versatility, ease of use and comparative low cost.

Software developers and the U.S. Department of Defense are busy developing military software for iPods in an attempt to gives soldiers even more functionality. A new program called Vcommunicator produces spoken and written translations of Arabic, Kurdish and two Afghan languages.

"Snipers in Iraq and Afghanistan now use a "ballistics calculator" called BulletFlight, made by the Florida firm Knight's Armament for the iPod Touch and iPhone. Army researchers are developing applications to turn an iPod into a remote control for a bomb-disposal robot (tilting the iPod steers the robot). In Sudan, American military observers are using iPods to learn the appropriate etiquette for interacting with tribal leaders," the report says.

According to an Army official in Baghdad, the devices have yet to be successfully hacked and at $230 a pop, the iPod may fit right into President Obama's 663.7 billion dollar defense budget.

Just looking at the smartphone market, Apple also continues to solidify its dominance. In America, the iPhone now accounts for 48% of all traffic to Admob's network, which is more than RIM (19%), Palm (9%), and Windows Mobile (15%) combined.

It's All About Usability

As we pointed out last month, Apple has created a user-experience that makes its users want to use the mobile web on its devices. It is probably safe to assume that most iPod touch users could easily have used their desktops or laptops to access the web instead, but for quickly looking up the news or reading email, the instant-on experience of a phone is often preferable over the more fully featured desktop experience.

According to Google product manager Marcus Foster, the newest version of Google Voice has hit the shelves and it "lets you use all the features of the app on these devices, such as sending and receiving free text messages - except, of course, make cellular calls."

Moving past this point, however, Foster writes that you can basically play operator with your devices, initiating phone calls with any of your other devices with a "Click2Call" feature. "Simply click any 'Call' button in the Google Voice app on your iPod or iPad and then select which of your phones you want to ring. Google Voice will call your phone and then connect your call."

Beyond bringing Google Voice to the iPad and iPod Touch, the new version also comes with a few other bells and whistles:

• When you enable Push Notifications, we will automatically disable Text forwarding for you, so you won't receive multiple notifications.
• Want some quiet time? You can send all callers straight to voicemail by turning on Do not disturb in the Settings tab.
• We made it easier for you to place calls from the address book by adding a dedicated Contacts button to the Dialer tab.
• Sending text messages is now more streamlined since you don't need to press the OK button anymore.

Now, it's not that we really want to hold the iPad up to our face to make a phone call, but we have to wonder why the "of course" and where the restriction lies in keeping us from using your iPod Touch as a phone using Google Voice. After all, you can use Skype on both of these devices to make phone calls, so why not Google Voice?

We got in touch with Google to ask why this was an "of course" but we haven't yet heard back. We'll update the story as soon as we do.

Update: We got in touch with a Google spokesperson and they told us that it came down to the simple fact that Google Voice doesn't do voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) and that neither the iPod Touch or iPad come equipped with cellular chips for voice call functionality.

In the meantime, you can download the new version and use your iPad to tell your regular phone to make a phone call.

To be in to win, leave a comment on last100 listing your top five digital lifestyle products and/or services.

• iPod touch
• BBC iPlayer (for iPhone/iPod touch)
• PlayStation 3
• Zattoo (Live TV on a PC)
• Pandora (Internet radio)

My current top 5 is:

• iPhone
• last.fm
• iPod / iTunes
• Playstation 3
• Skype

BuzzLogic has unveiled a solution today which helps marketers keep track of social influence. Based on your topic of interest, BuzzLogic software turns the chaotic world of blogs and web sites into a network of flows of influence. The software finds top influencers, measures the weight or importance of each source, and shows you incoming and outgoing influence flows.

The company used an interesting example on stage - Microsoft Zune's marketers need to compete against the beloved iPod. To do that, they need to tap into the blogosphere to identify iPod's top influencers. The BuzzLogic team tracked iPod, Zune and iPod+Zune influencers and literally got a picture of the situation (like the one shown below). They were able to identify a few key blogs that Zune should approach to help them turn the tide. Personally, I am skeptical that Zune can catch up at this point, but with the BuzzLogic service at least they can see what the need to.

Pics: dchurbuck

"Opera Mini has been approved for iPhone and iPod touch on the App Store," the company announced. "Opera Mini will be available as a free download within 24 hours, depending on market."

Prior to this, as ReadWriteWeb has noted, the iPhone has remained off-limits for any browser besides Apple's own Safari. Their early February notice that they would be developing for the iPhone was thought possibly be primarily a public relations act. Not so.

Features include the following.

• Easy to sync phone with computer
• Speed Dial gets user to a website with a single tap
• Address field with auto-completion
• Tabs allow for multitasking with several Web pages
• Bookmarks \easily managed and accessed

If Opera sells, and works well, for iPhone and iPod Touch users, perhaps other browsers will make their way into the orchard.

Today it seems like a lot of developers may have made the right move. At a press even this morning in San Francisco, Apple announced the iPod Touch, which is essentially an iPhone without the phone.

Image from engadget.

The iPod is the most successful portable music player line in history, having sold 110 million devices so far, according to Apple. Even if the current version don't fly off the shelves due to their smallish hard drive size (the regular video iPods also hit 160GB today for $50 less than than iPod Touch at 1/10th the storage size), they're an indication of where the platform is heading. Flash memory will eventually drop in price, and the iPod Touch and iPhone will undoubtedly grow in capacity and become more attractive to iPod devotees.

What that means for web developers is a much larger user base for those iPhone-versions of their web applications. Instead of 1% of the cell phone market, they might end up eventually with access to 70-80% of the MP3 player market -- or a whole bunch more people surfing those iWhatever-optimized web sites.

Conclusion

Last month a report from Forrester Research compared the iPhone and the traditional mobile web. Forrester concluded that the iPhone signaled the end of the mobile web as we know it, while Dave Winer disagreed, saying that the "iPhone view of the web is not optimal for the user."

Richard MacManus took a more even approach, coming to the conclusion that "the iPhone isn't quite a Mobile Web killer just yet." The iPod Touch, however, might be another nail in the coffin of the mobile web, especially given that iPhone-optimized sites take away the ease-of-use advantage of mobile web optimized sites -- and will not be more widely available because of Apple's latest device.

What do you think? Will you be getting an iPod Touch? Does it make sense for developers to be optimizing their sites for Apple's devices? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Update: Our network blog, Last100, has full and comprehensive coverage of today's entire Apple announcement, from the new iPod Touch, to the old iPod Classic, the new Nanos, to the iPhone ringtones and the Starbucks partnership. So be sure to check it out.

1) Zune will have a social network (iPod/iTunes doesn't)

This is clearly going to wake Apple up, because a social networking aspect is the one glaring feature missing from its otherwise excellent iPod/iTunes online music combo. Zune's social networking will be based in Zune Marketplace, the equivalent of iTunes. Songs can also be shared via wireless technology on the Zune device.

It also seems that Zune will have as good a selection of music as iTunes, although details are sketchy at this stage.

2) Zune is centered on connectivity

This is what Microsoft truly believes is its advantage over Apple - ability to connect Zune across a network of devices. Zune will no doubt over time hook into the PC, Xbox, TV, etc. While Apple announced its own inter-connection plans with iTV this week, in this case Apple is the follower and not the leader.

Of course the big advantage Apple has is its brand and design, which a lot of people think is enough to continue its success. And given the early screenshots of Zune, with its brown(!?), black and white colors and its monolith-like shape - well, let's just say that Apple designers won't be feeling the heat any time soon!

Summary: Zune Experience

Microsoft's vision for this is summed up here: "Zune is Microsoft’s music and entertainment platform that provides an end-to-end solution for Connected Entertainment."

It's a social platform, as well as a music one. This currently differentiates it from Apple, so it's a good move by Microsoft. It also promises a very connected experience across devices, which plays to Microsoft's strengths. Whether all this is enough to challenge Apple, which has already won over the hearts of the mass market with the iPod and iTunes, will be interesting to see.

Some things we didn't see:

• new iPod Shuffle
• push notification for iPhone
• one more thing...

TV Shows

With regards to TV shows on iTunes, Apple announced the availability of a select number of shows in HD, including Monk, The Office, and Heroes. Apple also announced the return of NBC to the iTunes store.

iTunes 8

The user interface of iTunes 8 only received minor cosmetic updates such as a flat album cover view and one-click automated playlist creation. The major addition to iTunes is the 'Genius' feature, that will make buying recommendation and suggest playlists based on your buying behavior and the music already in your library.

Apple also announced that iTunes will start sending data about the songs you listen to and your music preferences back to Apple. This is an opt-in service and, according to Jobs, completely anonymous, but privacy advocates are surely going to take a very close look at this.

iPods

Classic: The iPod Classic has been cut down to one model with 120GB. According to Jobs, most users only considered the 80GB model anyway.

Nano: The Nano received a major design overhaul, with a curved glass front and a larger screen and a built-in accelerometer. The UI for the Nano is now similar to that of the iPhone/iPod touch.

One nifty new feature: Thanks to the accelerometer, you can now just shake your nano and it will automatically go into shuffle mode.

The nano can now play 24h of music and 4h of video.

The new nano will cost $149 for 8GB and $199 for 16GB and should ship in the next few days. It's available in a whole rainbow of colors:blue, purple, orange, green, and pink.

It also looks as if the new headphones for the iPod's have microphones, though it is not immediately clear why. We assume that all the iPods now have voice recording built-in by default.

Ipod Touch: Apple also introduced a new iPod touch, which keeps the same design as the old one, but is a bit thinner and has a stainless steel rim with integrated volume controls on the side (hey - I want that for the iPhone as well!) and built-in speakers.

Nike+ now comes standard with the iPod touch, though you would still need a transmitter for your shoes.

According to Apple, the iPod touch can play 36hrs of music and 6hrs of video and the price points are: 8GB, $229, 16GB for $299, and a 32GB for $399.

App Store

According to Jobs, 100 million apps have been downloaded from the store in only 60 days.

Games: Apple is clearly trying to push the iPod/iPhone as a mobile gaming platform. Jobs stressed that there are now over 700 games available for the iPhone/iPod touch platform. To drive this point home, Phil Schiller demoed Spore Origins for the iPod (our review of Spore for the PC was mostly negative, but the iPhone game has gotten rave reviews so far). Phil also demoed 'Real Soccer 2009' and 'Need for Speed,' which both look like they are very good games as well.

2.1 Firmware

The updated firmware is available for the iPod touch for $9.99.

For the iPhone, Apple promises that this updated fixes the problems with dropped calls and crashes in Safari and other applications that have plagued the phone from the beginning. iPhone users can also expect better battery life, though Jobs did not go into any specifics. Apple also promises that backups will now be considerably faster (right now, some users are experiencing backups that can take hours).

The update will be available on Friday.

Summary

Overall, this was a bit of a lackluster event. While the updates to iTunes and the 'Genius' feature are interesting, the updates to the iPod line were, at best, incremental. The new look of the iPod nano is nice (though surely some will complain about it as well), but also nothing too revolutionary. Apple, of course, is in a hard spot, where it is constantly expected to surprise us. This event didn't hold many surprises, especially because 90% of the news had already leaked before the even even started.

One thing that did surprise us was that Apple did not make any announcements about the availability of push notifications for the iPhone in the next release of the firmware. It could still be part of the update, but so far, there is no indication that this will indeed be the case.

That means that Keynote, Pages and Numbers are now available to a huge number of users outside of Mac and iPad owners. At $9.99 each and available through the App Store, Apple should be able to make a tidy sum off of its productivity apps. The apps will be available to third and fourth generation iPod Touch owners and iPhone 3GS/4 users.

If you do not feel like dropping $9.99 per iWorks app, there are alternatives, though none quite of the quality of the Apple's native apps. Google Docs is available through the mobile browser. There are cheaper options such as GoDocs for iPhone/iPad available in the App Store for $4.99 and NotesMaster for $3.99 (with a free lite version available). A good word processor application for iPad is iA Writer, which goes for the nice low price of $.99.

Those who own iWorks applications on the iPad can extend the functionality to their other iOS devices for free. New users will have to pay.

Expect a number of press releases and announcements from Apple this week as it gears up for its World Wide Developer Conference in San Francisco next week.

"Now you can use Keynote, Pages and Numbers on iPhone and iPod touch to create amazing presentations, documents and spreadsheets right in the palm of your hand," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior VP of Worldwide Product Marketing in the press release. "The incredible Retina display, revolutionary Multi-Touch interface and our powerful software make it easy to create, edit, organize and share all of your documents from iPhone 4 or iPod touch."

As Wilson points out in a recent interiew, his design for the watchbands really "gave the Nano a home." It also gave consumers a reason to wear a stylishly techy watch and a reason to buy an iPod Nano - an Apple device that seemed to be lost in the shuffle (no pun intended) of iPhones, iPads, and iPod Touches. In fact, according to a survey of the Kickstarter project's backers, over three-quarters of those who pledged actually had to purchase a Nano in order to use the watchband.

The wristbands will still be available via the company's website, and Apple will be carrying the LunaTik in silver and red ($79.95) and the TikTok in black and white ($39.95).

In the June 2009 Mobile Metrics Report, the focus was on the geographic distribution of the iPhone OS - the operating system that powers Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch. North America is still the largest region with a 58% share. Western Europe is in second at 26%. From there, the percentages drop dramatically, as the chart below illustrates.

As of June 2009, AdMob reports that 54% of iPhone OS users were in the U.S. However, this number has dropped from 61% in January of this year, implying that international growth is now outpacing U.S. user growth. Following the U.S., the other top iPhone/iPod Touch-owning countries include the U.K., Germany, and France, each having over 5% of users.

Not surprisingly, there are far more iPhones in use than iPod Touches. The worldwide ration of iPhone to iPod Touch is nearly 2 to 1, says AdMod. This ratio has remained consistent over the last several months.

iPhone OS Percentage of Smartphone Traffic

Another interesting metric from the recent report is the amount of traffic generated by Apple mobile devices. The iPhone OS literally dominates the charts when compared to the other smartphones worldwide - in fact, it's responsible for nearly half (47%) of smartphone requests. Nokia's Symbian OS is still in a respectable second place with 34% of requests, but then the numbers dip down quite a bit. Blackberry's RIM OS only accounts for 7% of requests, for example, and Android only has 5%. However, AdMob notes that requests from the Android operating system have increased 25% month over month and have, for the first time, pulled ahead of Windows Mobile, which dropped to 4%.

What we can learn from this recent round of data is that the iPhone OS could easily be on its way to becoming a worldwide phenomenon. Although the U.S. still retains the number one spot when it comes to the country having the most iPhones and iPod Touches, the rate of adoption here has slowed. As worldwide growth speeds up, the chart may end up being less lopsided than it is now as other regions gain more users.

Still, you can't count out Apple's competitors just yet. Android's rapid growth is something to keep an eye on, especially as more models of Android phones are introduced. The Palm Pre - only responsible for 2% of smartphone requests - is also too new to the market for anyone to form any definitive conclusions about just yet (although the fact that it registered at all on a chart that features only the major smartphone players is worth noting). All that being said, it's clear that the iPhone OS has a commanding lead when it comes to surfing the mobile web, and that's something that won't change overnight...if it ever changes at all.

Pic: Michael Arrington

Several pundits noted that Apple's strategy for their Internet-connected products, including iTV, is disarmingly similar to the one Microsoft employs: closed ecosystems built on proprietary, locked-down technologies. As Tristan Louis put it:

"...there is no DVR or traditional TV tuner built into the device. I believe that this was not due to a technical limitation but rather as part of a wider play to create an eco-system around the new device. Much like Apple initially allowed other companies to develop components that played well with the iPod, I believe they are trying to get a new ecosystem built around the new device. This will allow them to gage innovation in the space and identify which opportunities may be best for future integration or as components to add to the system."

Apple is betting that their design and marketing prowess will give iTV an edge in what is shaping up as a highly competitive market for online television and movies. Microsoft is taking a multi-pronged approach - with Media Center, XBox, the upcoming Zune (an iPod-like product) and other multimedia functionality built into Vista. Let's not forget other players either: Yahoo has been testing online TV and video services, Google hasn't done much yet but could easily enter the market, smaller players like Brightcove and Gotuit, the cable tv companies, Sony, plus there are the existing DVR products like TiVo.

Where Apple's Internet strategy is different from the others is that, as Om Malik put it, "content is what sells the hardware". And that has worked a treat for music - the iPod has 75.6% of the market and iTunes 88% in the US and number 1 most other places (it still hasn't released in New Zealand though!!). They've achieved that through a combination of a 'best of breed' design (for the iPod) and a large selection of music on iTunes, that is about as comprehensive as it gets for legal downloads (still nowhere near online music nirvana though).

Design: Yes; Content: No

I'd bet dollars to donuts that Apple can nail the design for iTV, just as they did for iPod. That's almost a no-brainer. The real question though is: can they get as wide a selection of video/tv/movies as they've managed to do with music? So far they only have Disney video, courtesy of Steve Jobs being on the board of Disney. Will the other Hollywood and major media tv networks be as willing to give Apple rights to their content? I doubt it. In fact, it'll be extremely difficult for Apple to get mainstream media content for iTV - which they need, given that it doesn't have DVR functionality.

Betting against Apple on this one

The online video and tv market is wide open right now. Will Apple's iPod/iTunes strategy work as well for movies/tv shows as it did for music? If I was a betting man, I'd give that a resounding NO. There are too many other players - and none of them are as ill-informed and ignorant of the Internet as mainstream music companies were/are. Plus of course Microsoft missed the boat with online music (Zune is a very belated attempt at catch-up), but they won't make the same mistake with video/tv.

He goes on to talk about "lots of added value" on the network, citing telecommunications carriers / network operators who give away mobile phones in order to sell services. He used the phrase "cost compression" several times near the end to emphasize that businesses (like Sun and Microsoft) need to find new business models on the network.

A lot of what Schwartz said (especially that last point) complements the ideas that came out of my interview with Tim O'Reilly. Web services business models is a fascinating subject, but rather than focusing on the bigco's I prefer to look at how the little companies are creating new opportunities in this Web 2.0 world. Companies like Bloglines, Flickr, Feedburner, The Robot Co-op.

And by the way (as Jonathan might say), an eBook Reader is one device begging to be attached to the network. One problem is that there's no iPod-equivalent for eBook Readers. There are many reasons for that, which I won't go into right now. My point for this post is that there are many potential business opportunities for new companies to create network services around eBooks, should the right platform ever be put in place (in the same sense that the iPod is a platform for music services).