Now for some thoughts on the Nano...
Even though I sold my Mini to get one, I still feel just a little disappointed. The Nano fell short in several ways:
1.) No bundled ac adapter and belt clip
2.) No firewire support (a huge problem if you have an older Mac)
3.) No A/V out like on the iPod-Photo
4.) No more remote jack so other iPod-mini accessories don't work.
OK, these aren't huge issues for me, but they are a little irritating. However, these flaws bother me more...
5.) Headphone jack at the bottom
Now I have to tip is upside down all the time when I'm in the car (hopefully a 3rd party dock will fix this) and when using with my Groove Cube speakers.
6.) Polished plastic and metal construction.
Ya, looks great out of the box, but wait til it scratches... and those greasy finger prints... YUCK!!!
7.) Only available in 2 and 4GB capacities.
If it's going to replace the mini, it should match the mini's specs.
Still, it's a nice little gadget. I was just hoping more for a Mini with color screen, manly colors instead of pastels, iPod-Photo capabilities, and 8-10GB flavors. And where's the bluetooth!?!? Wireless headphones would be great for the gym and it'd be nice to sync the PIMs via bluetooth.
Hopefully the Minis will make a return when Apple gets their hands on Toshiba's 40GB 1.8" HDDs.
The worst part about the Rokr is that Cingular is the exclusive US carrier of the phone. Cingular has by far the worst customer service and bends over backwards to screw customers left and right. I was unwillingly made a Cingular customer by the AT&T merger. A mere 2 months after the merger, I ended up with a $1500 bill for a phantom data transfer that supposedly occurred at 3am on a Saturday morning! Ya, I'm going to download 440MB at that time of the morning... esp when I already had DSL!!!
Furthermore, Cingular refused to show me the records they had on the call that supposedly showed indisputable proof I made the transfer.
Do yourself a favor, just buy a iPod and steer clear of Cingular. No matter how good their coverage is, it's not worth the headaches.
You could also argue that in the process of making an existing idea better, Apple does a great deal of innovation. Continuing the example of the iPod, wouldn't one consider the UI and click wheel to be fairly innovative in their own right? After all, the ability to easily traverse the menu with one hand is what's made the iPod the most popular MP3 player by far.
Same thing with the Mac UI. Sure Xerox came up with the idea, but the Mac developers put an aweful lot of their own innovative ideas into it to turn it into something useful and powerful.
Originally I wanted a Mini so I could use it as a media center hub. However, it wasn't quite ready for that since there's nothing on the Mac similar to MythTV, that's mature, and no real easy way to control a digital/HD cable box like Tivo (ya there's hacks, but...).
So, I ended up giving my Mini to my parents. Well, since they only use it for email, Office, and web surfing, I decided to give it a try as a home media center similar to the Bose Lifestyle. I tossed a couple of DVDs on the harddrive, loaded it up with music, bought a 5.1 Dolby surround sound system, and hooked it all into the DVI port of the 20" LCD TV I bought them. It worked so well, that now I'd like to try the same... unfortunately, spent so much $$$ on my parent's that I ran out of $$$ for myself! I free Mini with the external storage would be awesome! It'd also get me more motivated to work on the CenterStage project.
iTunes Phone Falls Flat, nano Goes Huge
iTunes Phone Falls Flat, nano Goes Huge
Apple: Bringing You the Innovations of Others Time and Time Again
Win A Mac mini and a miniStack