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With the latest launch of sexy new iPods and iTunes software announced from Apple, many headlines trumpeting the innovation and features will ring across websites, newscasts and newspapers around the world.  But in the midst of this screaming chorus it's important to take a step back and realize that Apple really doesn't invent things.  They innovate things.  They take existing products and make them better.

When the iPod was held up by Steve Jobs in 2001, the world already had the ability to digitize music and take it on the go. Players from Intel, Creative, Sony, Rio already existed. In the announcement Steve even admits they're not the first to the table, but what they will be is the best at the table.

Even iTunes wasn't the first way to get music online.  Before the legal way to buy tunes at 99c a pop, the web was wild with file sharing on Napster.  Sure the quality wasn't always guaranteed and spyware may be attached to the links, but that was how we got our music.  When iTunes came along it was a way to guarantee quality.  It wasn't the first way to share digital music, but it quickly became the best and the iTunes Music Store is now the top music retailer in the US (including bricks and mortar stores).

If your jaw is dropping at all the video capabilitieis surrounding the new iPod line, be thankful you've even got it.  In 2004 Steve Jobs was focussing on music in the player and dismissed video by saying; "You know, our next big step is we want it to make toast, I want to brown my bagels when I'm listening to my music. And we're toying with refrigeration, too." That's Steve speak for saying "I know everyone else is doing it, I'm just trying to find a way to do it better."  Eventually that way to do it better came with iPod with video.  Now every iPod with a screen has video.  But again, they weren't the first to market with portable video players.  Creative and Archos make excellent (and I would argue better) devices for video, but it's the iPod that dominates.

So while an iPod can't make toast (yet), they do all have video. "Video has exploded in the last few years," he said at the most recent event. "We want to get in on this," he says.

So what is the target of Apple's last innovation?  The Flip Video, the Kodak Zi7 and mobile phones with video capabilities.  The iPod Nano comes with a camera on the back capable of shooting video that will sync back to your computer via iPhoto or be publishable by one click through YouTube - just like the other devices.  The innovation here, is that while the other video players are great at what they do, that's all they do.  Apple is now taking that lust for video and putting a decent standard of quality in the back of everyone's pocket.

The next big thing on the horizon is a touch screen tablet.  The MacBook Touch, as some have called it, will be greeted by the trumpets of angels when it is released.  But know this: there are already touch tablets on the market.  The HP Touchsmart has been out for a while, and Michael Arrington is working on the CrunchPad.

The tablet will be hailed as a brilliant invention, but really it will just be another great Apple innovation.

Message Edited by buzzbishop on 09-16-2009 01:32 PM

Message Edited by buzzbishop on 09-16-2009 10:53 PM