New 30 Gig iPod

We promised ourselves when we started this blog that we would focus on venture investing issues. And many of the private comments we've received include "thanks for focusing on venture investing issues and not digressing into other things." And there's so much to say about venture investing these days.

Yeah, but not now. I got my new 30 gig iPod today and I could pretend like I've figured out some big venture investing angle on it, but really I can't. In fact, I honestly can't figure out how Steve Jobs is going to turn the iPod (which is now fully cross platform) and iTunes (which soon will be) into something that will sell more Mac hardware. Maybe the idea is just to turn Apple into a cool consumer electronics company, although that certainly hasn't been working for Sony lately. And so after complimenting Steve Jobs in an earlier posting, I'm not sure I understand the strategy as much anymore.

But still, my new iPod is a damn good device. The UI is better (I also have an older 20 gig version), the dock is great, it's slimmer yet holds 50% more songs and just in general, it's a great gadget. I'm glad Apple is making devices like this because very few start-ups would (or should) go after this kind of market anymore. There are some products which are really only meant for big companies to build and at this stage, MP3 players fall in that category. I'm glad at least one of those big companies still understands style and a gadget geek's love of a well designed product.