How Rumors Hurt Sales
My partner and I were discussing my 1st generation iPod touch last night. It's getting long in the tooth. Sound only works out of one channel through the earphone jack. It really is useless for gaming, since it has no external speaker (like newer ones do) and I refuse to use earphones with it if I'm only getting one channel. It works fine as a internet browsing device, and as a music player when it's attached to its dock. It is an awesome remote control for Boxee.
Ed subtly suggested that it might be possible for us to get me a new one. Normally, I would have responded to that by dragging him into the other room so that we could immediately order it online so I could have it by the next day. I NEVER refuse a gadget. I did this time, though. I mean, really, do I need an iPod touch to play games with? Not if rumors are true.
The big rumor being, of course, that Apple is going to release a tablet device sometime next year, maybe in January (maybe around CES?). Oh, joy of joy, a giant iPod touch. Or maybe a touch-screen macbook? Or a color Kindle like device? Or, or, or... We have to wait to find, you see. That's if it ever materializes at all. But the fact of the matter is, I would have bought an iPod touch last night were it not for this rumor. Apple has lost a sale because of it.
They're not the only one. I have a 1st generation Kindle. It's an ugly beast, but it is functional. I really like the Barnes and Noble Nook, mostly because it supports the open ePub book format. I'm not too worried about getting my Kindle books from the Kindle to the nook. There are ways to do that if you are persistent and have the ability to run a few python scripts. DRM wouldn't prevent me from using the content I purchased. What stopped me from buying a nook, then? The Apple tablet again. I mean, if the iSlate really comes, won't it be a far better book reader than the nook. Andy Ihnatko from the Chicago Sun Times has said that there are rumors of trucks filled with books arriving in Curpentino every day. And Marvel is now releasing digital comic books on the iPhone (through a distribution partner). Wouldn't those also be available on the mythical tablet? And then there's all the noise coming out of the New York Times about them partnerning with Apple to bring their paper to a new device. Are newspapers and magazines going to be available for the iSlate/iTablet/iWhatever? Will books, magazines, newspapers and comic books suddenly become available in the iTunes store? Will I finally have the device I have always longed for - one device to read all of my content, to watch all of my videos, to listen to all of my music? So, Barnes and Noble lost a sale, all on a rumor.
There are already tablet devices coming to market. The Archos 9 looks slick (even if it is running Windows.) Nokia has an immensely overpriced tablet. There's one coming out from Asus. There's the rumored CrunchTablet, which seems like it might be real again. So, Apple won't be the only game in this market. So why am I holding out?
Because I know Apple will do it right. Oh, they'll lock everything behind walls and walls of DRM. They'll make it next to impossible to get anything off the device one's it is on there. They'll create barrier after barrier to application developers who want to develop apps for the tablet. But in the end, it will be beautiful, and more importantly, it will work. Everything will be tied to the iTunes ecosystem, a system I am already locked into anyhow. I mean, I already have an iPod Touch, an iPod shuffle, a MacBook and an AppleTV. Why in the hell wouldn't I want an Apple tablet over everybody else's. Sure, I love open source, and this thing will be about as far away from open source as you can get. It will be corporate lockdown taken to the Nth degree. It'll be missing features I want, just because Apple will decide I don't need those features. It'll be frustratingly limiting in just as many ways as it is awesomely powerful. I will love it and hate it all in the same breath, and I don't care. I want it, I want it, I want it. It will be elegant, it will be beautiful, and damn it, I will find a use for it even though I don't really need it.
And I can't buy any other gadget until Apple decides to put out this monstrosity, or until I get bored of waiting. So, there you have it: Rumors are preventing me from buying gadgets. It's all the fault of Apple rumor sites and twitter. Damn it all, Apple, just release this damn tablet already, so I can go back to my normal, unwise, gadget-buying, early-adopting ways.
(Oh, and I know you never buy a 1st release of an Apple device, because you will always pay for it and you will always suffer. You always wait until the 2nd interation. But even though I know this, I won't wait. So there.)
