NEW IPOD in STORES

[klutch3]

I was in Best Buy today and noticed all the ipods pulled off the shelf, and a makeshift apple station in the store that mimicked the apple store setting. I asked an employee about purchasing an 80gb ipod and he told me they were taken off the shelf to replace them with the new touch screen 80gb and 160gb full screen ipods they were getting in 2 days. He also indicated that the new ipods would have a wireless connect card to pick up a wireless signal for internet browsing. He said the ipods would be full screen touch ipods that cost as much as the current 5G 30gb and 80gb respectively. Can anyone verify this info? Why would the store take these off the shelves if they weren't preparing for this exact situation? Product accuracy aside, I think a new ipod is hitting shelves in the next 2 days.

[Jesse Hollington]

Hi and welcome to iLounge.

It's almost a certainty that new iPods are being announced at today's Apple event.

That having been said, however, it's unlikely that a Best Buy employee knows anything specific about what's coming. Yes, there will be new models, but Apple is very secretive about what form those new models are going to take. Until Steve Jobs actually climbs on stage later today, nobody outside of Apple's inner circle knows anything for certain.

[klutch3]

I considered all those things, but I am still perplexed at the level of Best Buy's preparedness for this. I could understand Apple keeping advertising attention low as not to take it off the iPhone, while slipping out the new iPod unexpectedly to make up sales revenue. You should have seen the store, they were prepping for something, and the consensus was delivery in the next few days. They were certain of it. Why else would a place like that take an existing high-cost, high-volume product off the shelf? Maybe they are gonna hit up the student crowd going back to school with the newest iPod?

[kornchild2002]

As jhollingtone stated, stores do know something about iPods being released. The only stores to really know the specs are probably Apple retail stores. The rest of the stores probably don't know a damned thing as Apple is very tight lipped about their products only letting information go to their store employees.

Knowing Best Buy's past, I am sure that guy was pulling information out of his ###. Seriously, I have gone into Best Buy where guys quote rumors as facts or they simply make up stuff because they don't know the answer. I was in the market for a HDTV a couple of months back and I completed a lot of research. Just to see how things operated, I asked the store employee a question about the HDTV I wanted to purchase. The HDTV I purchased was a HP 720p LCD HDTV which is 32" in size. It can accept 1080p signals via HDMI but it will display them at 720p as the monitor's native resolution is 720p (you can't truly display anything above the monitor's native resolution). The sales person told me that it was a full 1080p HDTV and that it would display everything at 1080p via component or HDMI (even though it only accepts 1080p through HDMI).

[DarkWrench]

He said the ipods would be full screen touch ipods that cost as much as the current 5G 30gb and 80gb respectively.


While very nice if true, I find it implausible that a full touchscreen 80gb would cost only $250.

[MadBob]

8GB and 16GB unfortunately.

[DarkWrench]

Lol, yes I can believe that.

[VipFREAK]

Yay, finally the damn touch is out... I cant wait to hear about all the idiots that complain about finger prints now.

[kornchild2002]

That is true though. The iPod touch comes in 8GB and 16GB capacities running for $299 and $399. They are on the expensive side as they use flash memory and are basically an iPhone without the phone (they can browse the internet and have wi-fi). I will probably purchase the 16GB model just because I want to carry around some audio and video files.

If you are looking for a great value in terms of capacity, then pick up the 160GB iPod classic for $350.