So, it seems Slate (formerly owned by Microsoft) has it in for the new iPod.

Gawker, however, puts the whole thing in … um … perspective.

Now, OK, Apple is pretty good at hype. And Jack Shafer has a (limited) point regarding press buy-in to Apple hype. But that fact that some of its products aren’t big hits — including some versions of the iPod — really says very little. You can ankle-bite and ankle-bite and ankle-bite, but they still gave the world the freakin’ iPod.

Sure, the iPod Shuffle seems kinda dumb (the lack of display renders it utterly useless in my mind, even though it seems a nice size to use while, say, running). The iPod Photo was a flop. And the iPod Nano, despite the current hype (and it’s being really, really hot), seems pretty pointless to me as well.

But the iPod video idea is a big one. And, as I said a few posts down, the real breakthrough here has little-to-nothing to do with the device itself. I suspect the first ones will have some serious battery-life issues and maybe other problems. The breakthrough is selling music videos and popular TV shows and movies for a few bucks a pop.

The key to the copyright-protection arms race, it seems obvious, is simply keeping the prices low enough so that the average consumer won’t seek out pirated content. This is a great step in the right direction, in that regard. New content is now available for download, and it’s priced to sell. I’m not going to screw around with Lime Wire to get a new episode of Lost (even if someone puts it up there, which, theoretically, they could already do anyway by capturing it off TV) if it’s at the iTunes store for $2.

So, yeah, some products will flop, and some of those flops will be heralded in the press as breakthroughs. The iPod video, however, probably doesn’t fit that bill.