New Apples fall, and TiVo launches an HD rocket

I am completely underwhelmed by Apple's newest iPods, with the exception of the darling little postage stamp Shuffle v2. I know I am not the only one waiting to upgrade their own iPod with the one long-rumored to be "coming soon," and the wait will go on a little longer.

The new Nanos are the biggest letdown, as far as I'm concerned. I never liked the design of the old iPod Minis with their ugly brushed metal sheaths in candy-coated colors. The original Nano was leagues better looking than those and I think that accounts in major part for the Nano being the biggest selling iPod in the family. They were slick, sleek, and sexy. The new Nano, mimicking the look and feel of the old Mini as if somehow it snuck into the henhouse and mated with a white Nano v1, looks like an Asian knock-off. The flattened tube is no match for the smooth, rounded corners of the old design.

The new Shuffle, however, does everything right in improving on its older design. The Shuffle was also incredibly popular, most likely because it was the cheapest way to buy into the iPod family, as well as being the perfect, weightless accompaniment to a workout on the treadmill or out on the street. Plus, if someone wanted to steal your Shuffle, you could grab another for less than $100 and you didn't lose a library's worth of digital tunage.

The new incarnation is not only smaller and better constructed, it's just damn cute! Although I already own a v3 40Gb iPod and a v1 black Nano, there's something intriguing and downright blingworthy about the new Shuffle. It's the Hello Kitty of the iPod family. You can't explain it, you just want one.

Turning now to the iTV, shown as an uncharacteristic teaser for a product you can't even buy yet, I wonder if it's Jobs answer to the small but powerful coterie of PVR fanatics salivating over TiVo's new Series3 HDTV jobber, available starting today for a ridiculously pricey $799 plus service fees.

The new TiVo is everything one would want in a cutting edge, future-proofed digital video recorder. Dual CableCARD slots, HDMI and optical audio support, home networkable and eSATA-drive ready, those who can afford this monster (and can understand what all that aforementioned digispeak means) will be in constant hard-on mode for a few months until either the price drops on this box post-Christmas, or TiVo's deals with Comcast and other cable providers finally yields something concrete to replace the excreble excuses for HD DVRs currently offered.

(As a renter of Comcast's lame-ass dual-tuner DVR and its assinine, broken and in all ways awkward software, I am seriously considering re-upping my early adopter license and flush over $1,000 down TiVo's drain to get my hands on this thing if only to save my scalp from more hair pulling because I didn't get the final episode of "Hell's Kitchen" recorded, or because the thing can't help but record every episode of The Daily Show every day because I can't tell it a specific time to record it -- I could blame Comedy Central for not indicating which broadcast is first-run and which is a repeat, but I hate Comcast more.)

So, is Apple's 2007 iTV going to be a little $300 video-ready wireless plug-in that your Intel Duo Core Mac Mini can sit atop, happily gobbling down HD signals and providing some simple, smart front-end software to manage all your music, movies and TV in one little silver-edged box, or is it just another single-purpose interface that Apple thinks we need to watch our iPod Quicktime movies and that's it?

Please, let it be the latter. Meanwhile, I'll wait out the TiVo upgrade until I've pulled the final hair out of my head.