Sizing up the new ipod competition:
These updates bring the following significant improvements to our main competitor-
Slightly taller and thinner case
Close to 1 oz reduction in weight (now 2.5 oz lighter than the odyssey, perhaps because they could offload somethings onto the dock)
USB2 support
Alarm clock feature to allow wake up to music
Two additional handheld games
Notes reader
Integrated mac/windows (no separate ipod version for each platform
Extra capacity
AAC support
...and of course compatibility with the music service
All in all an impressive update, with the ipod feature set starting to creep into the realm of a simple PDA/organizer. I think people might be surprised how the ipod might morph in the next few years with the contribution of the freeware community.
The value advantage of the O1000 has gone down somewhat with apple providing an additional 5gb capacity for the same price for the 10 and 15gb players, and an extra 10gb at the high end for the 30gb capacity.
The O1000 still maintains the advantage of the voice recording, FM tuner, and voicenav.
Also, still no sign of video support with these ipods.
