Apple, the Musical; Apple (Hearts) Starbucks

Today’s Apple event was all about the iPod, with a little iPhone thrown in for good measure. (Nothing on Apple TV) Engadget and Ars Technica live-blogged the show. Here are the basics:

• New ringtone maker – pay another $.99 to make ringtones out of your iTunes songs
• New iPod Shuffle colors – pretty
• (P)hat new iPod Nano – wide screen for pretty video
• Cheaper 8GB iPhone – It’s gotta make the first movers feel good to see the 8GB model come down in price from $599 to $399. Be an early adopter, pay an extra $200.
• The revolutionary iPhone, er, iPod touch – Yup, it’s an iPod that works like the iPhone without the phone, but it’s got Wi-Fi built in and you can access the iTunes store wirelessly
• Wi-Fi and a dash of caffeine with your iPod – partnership with Starbucks so iPod Touch users can instantly tap in to whatever is playing over Starbucks’ speakers when they walk into a store and purchase the music if so desired.

Engadget is already calling the Starbucks feature weak, but I think I disagree. (How’s that for a strong statement?) Impulse music buying is still largely untapped. Sure you can bookmark songs with some services in order to buy them later, but we haven’t really seen an effective on-the-go version of this feature before. And this is music you can buy that you might never have discovered any other way. With the joy of personalized channels, I know my discovery of new music outside of my own set parameters is limited. Clearly the partnership with Starbucks is a first. Wonder how long before other partners jump on board.