Sorry for the childish title, but I am genuinely upset today. The other day I thought I would get a nice gift for my fiancé, just because. So I go on down to the closest Apple store at our local mall. I walk in and was nicely greeted by a younger attractive female Apple employee , she asks me if she could help with anything, and I told her that I would like to purchase an iPod Touch. So she grabs one from the back and then I proceed to check out. Before I pull out of the mall’s parking lot I get it out of the box to make sure it powers up. But I really just wanted to play with it before I handed it over to my fiancé. So it powers up fine, and the UI is glorious.

I get home and I am so excited to give it to her, but before I give it to her I was going to load a bunch of her favorite tunes. So I take it out of the box once again, plug it in via USB, power it on, and then hear this weird sound. I instantly knew it was dead.

So I called Apple support, and once again was helped by a very nice technician. The technician and I came to the conclusion that the device would not power up properly. The tech told me I could either send it in, or I could take it back to my local Apple store. I pack everything back up and drive back to the mall and tell them it is dead and they go through the process of trying to get it to boot up. I was so upset at that point I told them I just wanted my money back and I did not want to exchange the device. 

I had plans for a great review of the iPod Touch, but after I saw some of the recent articles of the iPod touch being either DOA or people getting a dead touch screens it made me think a little more about the iPod Touch and Apple.

They usually have great products, the concepts, the user friendly UI’s, but the actual hardware sometime just “Sucks”! With all the reports of bad touch screens, bad monitors in the new iMac’s, bad batteries in everything, overheating in the notebooks; it just makes me go mad. But I have found out why consumers keep on going back to Apple, it’s because of the employees, the support, and just how friendly and attractive their employees at the point of purchase are. But today I’m not going to be that sucker, we are sticking it out with our Zunes! Sorry Apple.

We all know Steve Jobs and Apple hate the handicapped, but now they seem to hate money and profit. I was not really excited today at all about the new release of the iPod line up thinking all we would see is a fat ugly nano. I was pleasantly surprised by what Apple brought to the table, and miffed on why Apple dropped the price of the 8GB iPhone from $599.00 to $399.00. They are fazing the 4gb iPhone out, and now you could scoop it up for a very lightweight price of $299. I am simply amazed. Do I dare go so far to make the statement of saying that the iPhone is actually “affordable”…?

But really now it is one of the cheapest smartphones on the block….. I feel strange and very funny inside now. But now I ask a question only the likes of BMW drivers and G5 owners can answer, has the iPhone lost some of its luster because of the price drop? I mean Apple is the brand that caters to only the chosen ones, what is a Soho lad to do?

But overall this is an awesome leap for Apple, it puts them way, way ahead of everyone. I think $399 is the price they should have originally had for the 8GB version, it would have been insane. Apple also launched their new WIFI iTunes store as well.

This time around Steve-O and the boys at Apple really pulled off one hell of a hat trick today.

Congrats to Apple, and I wish the best of luck to any company that tries to compete with Apple in any of these industry sectors, you face a long and hard road ahead of you!

Take a gander at the new lineup of the iPods!

On another note, I think I am going to go buy an iPhone now, please no hate mail.