Apple Drops iPod Prices: Old Models to Stay in Store, Shuffle to Be Axed?

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With nary a “back soon” sticky note to signal a reshuffle of its product lines, Apple has already started to drop the prices of various iPods.

The main landing pages still carry the old prices, but the new, lower prices are already live on the actual checkout. Here’s the rundown:

iPod Classic (120GB) was $250, now $230

iPod Nano (8 GB) was $150, now $130

iPod Nano (16 GB) was $200, now $150

iPod Touch (8 GB) was $230, now $190

iPod Touch (16 GB) was $300, now $250

iPod Touch (32 GB) was $400, now $280

That’s right: The top-end, 32-GB iPod Touch drops its price by a rather large $120. We were expecting a range-wide price cut with the new models, but discounting the current range is a surprise — and that it does so mere hours before the announcement of new models. What is going on?

Our guess is that these are either the new prices for the new, camera-equipped iPods coming today, or that Apple is planning on selling these older models at a discount for a while to come. This was unheard of in the past — old products disappeared into the Ministry of Love as soon as new ones were announced, but the old (and better) clip-on Shuffle and the white plastic MacBook are still hanging on.

It makes sense. The rumored price points for the new Touches are $200, $300 and $400 for 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB respectively, putting them a little above these discounts.

And speaking of the horrible new Shuffle, is is time to say good-bye? If an iPod Touch can be had for under $200, who would buy a Nano? Joggers. But if the Nano price gets cut too, who would buy the Shuffle? Nobody. Right now, for less than double the price of the buttonless, screenless, charmless Shuffle, you can have a video-playing, clickwheel-toting Nano, with the bonus that, should it slip down the back of the sofa, you’ll actually be able to find it again.

The Shuffle really has turned from a neat, novelty stocking stuffer into a useless, too-small parody of itself. Remember the iPod Pequeño? I’d say that it is about time that it shuffled off this Earth. And don’t get too lonely, Shuffle — the Classic will no doubt be joining you soon enough.

A Tale of Two iPods: Why the Touch Has No Camera

Apple’s decision to not include a camera in the new iPod Touch is somewhat surprising. After all, there is already a perfect camera for the job, and it sits inside the iPhone. That Apple included a video camera inside the iPod Nano makes this more inexplicable still — the Apple of today is clearly happy to put cameras into its media players (unlike the first iPhone, whose camera was so poor we thought it was just a petulant capitulation to cellphone norms).

Leaving the camera out is also a clear signal not to upgrade the Touch, as — apart from a larger 64-GB model — the only hardware change is a juiced-up processor, making the iPod Touch run faster like its older brother the iPhone 3GS. Perhaps Apple is putting the Touch on a two-year update plan like the iPhone, letting people keep their pocket computers for a little longer than usual. Had the Touch included a camera, I would be knocking on the store doors right now to buy one, along with 64 GB ready to be filled with photos and video.

So the excitement falls to the Nano, which, sports a new shiny coating, a 640 x 480 video camera (no stills) and a larger screen on the outside, and an FM radio on the inside with a Tivo-esque live-pause feature. The radio itself is odd enough, and the first to be included in any iPod. More on that in a moment.

The Nano’s video camera was introduced with reference to Flip’s own tiny, no-zoom camcorder. There are two Flip camcorders at the 8-GB Nano’s $150 price: the 2-GB Mino and the 4-GB Ultra. To get 4 GB and 8 GB you jump to $200. The 16-GB Nano costs $180. Why would somebody buy a Flip? The easy, one-button recording, perhaps (with the Nano, you need to go to a menu item to open the video camera application), but that’s it. Take a look at the sample videos at the Apple store and you’ll see that the Nano’s quality is easily “good enough.”

There is another surprise in there, too. The tiny Nano frame has a chip big enough to add real-time effects to video. Gimmicky, but as we guess this is aimed at the teenage market, a nice feature.

The Nano is the fitness iPod, too, and in this guise it makes another piece of hardware obsolete: the shoe-mounted Nike+ dongle. The Nano comes with the Nike+ software, with workout history, power songs and the like, but the accelerometer now works as a pedometer, counting your steps to flab-loss. You can also connect it to a Nike+ iPod-compatible cardio machine via the dock connector.

One mystery remains, though. Why would Apple put an FM tuner into an iPod, something it has refused for almost 10 years? The answer comes with iTunes-Tagging. In addition to live pausing of the radio stream (and rewinding up to 15 minutes through the buffer) you can tag tracks by hitting the center button. If a radio station supports it, the song info is saved and later you can see a list in iTunes alongside, you guessed it, the option to buy the song. Of course, the fact that the new Zune HD has an HD radio inside may also have influenced Apple’s decision.

So now I’m torn. Do I buy a new Touch to replace my current model which has a loose headphone connection, or should I get the Nano, with its video camera and sport-friendly features? If Apple had piled the features onto the Touch, the decision would be made, and Apple would have $400 of my money. As it is, I think I’ll wait.