In an article entitled "Apple Flubs iPod Event, Marketing Changing?" Bnet's Erik Sherman wonders why everyone seems to have glossed over Apple's most recent announcement of a camera enabled iPod Nano and a new focus on iPod Touch gaming. 

The new products were “a snooze fest for any Apple fans expecting new, must-buy products”. People knew about the new products coming out and were disappointed when the expected video camera addition to the iPod touch didn’t appear. Instead, the video capability is going into the new iPod Nano. Roughly 40 minutes into Jobs’s presentation, Chris Nuttall from the Financial Times live blogged, “I’m sorry, but can we get to some news” and later added, “so yes, the nano looks great, nice iTunes improvements, but underwhelming otherwise”.

Have you ever been disappointed by someone?  I mean really let down.  And they try to talk to you or explain what happened but you just tune them out because you really don't want to hear it at that point.

To a lesser extent I think that's what happened to Apple.

Now I'm going out on a limb here and assuming Apple meant to have a camera integrated into the iPod Touch to introduce.  Manufacturers were already making cases with holes for a camera, a teardown of the device shows an empty place where the camera should be, etc...

Plus the fact that Steve Jobs, a master of spin, couldn't even come up with a good explanation as to why there's not a camera seals the case for me. 

At least on the high end the 3rd Generation iPod Touch was meant to have a camera.  But when the announcement came, it didn't.  Anyone who reads rumor sites probably knows why that is.  There was a problem with the camera module that made it impossible to get out the door in time.  That's perfectly reasonable.  These things happen.  But here's where Apple went wrong: They let their pride get the best of them.

Apple could have come on stage and said "Look, we wanted to have a camera in the high end iPhone but there were technical issues.  So we're going to hold the high end model back a few months and instead only release these new, lower cost models." 

At that point everything's forgiven.  People understand technical issues occur and are unavoidable.  No one's going to hold it against them.  But instead Apple, by staying silent, took responsibility for it themselves.  They said "We didn't include a camera in the touch and that's by design" which is where everything went wrong.

By having too much pride to admit a technical glitch Apple disappointed their audience and caused that audience to tune out everything else they said.

Because of that Apple basically threw away a valuable marketing opportunity and created a bunch of negative coverage to boot.  It's a rare misstep from a company that's built its business around image but a good lesson for all of us.  There's a reason Pride is considered the most deadly of sins. 

On the Games...Mr. Sherman's other point is somewhat valid but I think the "iPod is a game device" meme is more of a marketing push than it is a company direction. There's a lot more to being a game machine than just showing off cool games on your platform.  There's purchasing exclusive games, paying the developers of quality games to port to your platform, etc...  Apple will have some success in games because it's much cheaper to develop for the iPod Touch than it is to develop for Sony or Nintendo but  I wouldn't put them in the same league as far as the game market is concerned.