Today's Apple Announcement

Super tired tonight so here's the post I wrote for Techdork.com. Would have written the same for this site if the new one hadn't existed.
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Attendees from today's Apple event are probably still in their seats, but I wanted to quickly offer up my thoughts while still processing all the "news".

The easy response would be "disappointed" and "let down" -- that seems to be the typical kneejerk Apple fanboy response these days.

But I'm not disappointed at all. In fact, I'm pretty stoked. Why? Because short of the Tablet being announced, which we all realized was a long shot, there wasn't anything I was really going to buy today. I already have iPhones (that's right, plural) and iPods out the wazoo (at last count eight in our household). So really, even the 8 gig Nano with video recorder - more on that in a second -- which was a bit of a surprise, wasn't going to compel me to run to the Apple Store.

So why am I stoked? Because I get two totally cool new features in iTunes 9.0 and iPhone 3.1. And I get them for free. And I get them today. I suspected 9.0 was going to be announced and available today but 3.1 was a bonus -- and for that alone I am very happy. It's too early for me to comment on both of these in detail, but stay tuned. I am sure I'll have detailed thoughts in the coming days.

In regards to the product announcements, a few thoughts:

-- the souped up Nano with video recording was a surprise. But it's pretty weird -- I can't quite get my head around it. And why would they only announce this in the 8 gig version, not the 16? You need more room to store video. And what's the real practicality for this product? As my friend Dave texted me during the announcement (because that is what tech dorks do), it's a move to keep Nano relevant and in the game. And so, I think it's an experiment of sorts on Apple's part. We will see how that goes. I do know this; today marks the beginning of the end for the Flip; theres no question about it.

-- why no camera in the Touch? This is really surprising. I suspect it came down to either a sourcing issue (not enought cameras to be found) or they didn't want to risk cannibalizing iPhones. Either way, it's a bit of a head scratcher.

So, that's it. It goes without saying that the most exciting aspect of today was seeing Steve Jobs back on stage. As a fellow cancer survivor myself I have particular empathy for what he has gone through and beyond being among the greatest marketers ever, he's also one tough hombre.