iPod Mini Sells Out

burgburgburg writes "According to USATODAY.com, the iPod mini is virtually sold out after two weeks. As we know, it had 100,000 on pre-order. It's the top seller at the Apple Store, where they advise people that there will be a one to three week wait. And it isn't a component shortage that's causing the delays. It's the huge demand amongst teens (for the colors) and athletes who like exercising with the ultralight device. While many here on /. felt that the mini was overpriced and pointed out that for $50 extra, you could buy a regular iPod with 15GB of storage instead of the 4 GB of the mini, Apple seems to have correctly identified the price point and the market they were going after. The space has become so hot that Creative's MuVo2 has also been selling well, but also for a slightly different reason. The MuVo2, which also has 4 GB of capacity, uses a CompactFlash card (which can be used in a digital camera). People have been buying the MP3 player and taking it apart for the card, which would cost more than the $200 dollars for the MuVo2."

Slashdotters==Curmudgeons?

Say it ain't so!

While many here on /. felt that the mini was overpriced and pointed out that for $50 extra, you could buy a regular iPod with 15GB of storage instead of the 4 GB of the mini, Apple seems to have correctly identified the price point and the market they were going after.

Which should tell /. readers a couple things:

/.'ers don't fit the target demographics (Ow! That hurts!)

/.'ers are apparently sedentary, they sit at their screens so much that weight isn't a consideration, for that matter, they can listen to stuff while sitting at the screen, so why bother?

/.'ers are more interested in pushing consumer technology to its more than whether there's a need. (It's all about the game!)

/.'ers must be colorblind (I'm R/G) so the colors aren't interesting, let along exciting.

/.'ers were wrong, and can't stand being wrong and are currently working on a strategy to change that rather than get a date for a Friday night. (Hey! This is important!)

So what's the average age of a slashdotter? Undoubtably there must be a few in the target demographic, now how many have kids in the group?

I identify more with Homer Simpson than Britney Spears and I'm cool with that, inspite of the tone of that post. Now if you'll excuse me I need to go buy some cargo pants, Justin Timberlake CD's, and iPod mini and a stone of oatmeal (because it's the right thing to do.)

Re:Slashdotters==Curmudgeons?

Yeah, the main selling point to me is that it is smaller. If I wanted to maximize hard drive space for the dollar I could drag around a IDE tower.

Size and weight is _everything_.

Re:Slashdotters==Curmudgeons?

Well, size and weight isn't everything, but the iPod mini does seem to have a fairly nice balance. I'd rather settle for half the storage if it allow a 20% decrease in size, but it's still a lot better than the traditional HD players while retaining mostly all their pro's.

Re:Slashdotters==Curmudgeons?

if you really don't want those features then don't buy from apple. apple does not strip its laptops down just for size. apple seems proud that they only sell full featured notebooks.

apple laptops are used for interacting with stuff. DV camera, movies, ipod, screen projector, etc. if all you do with your laptop is surf the web and email then sure, you don't need those other things. apple laptops are made for doing more than just web and email.

Re:Slashdotters==Curmudgeons?

Sun? Whats that?!

It's a tech company. You've never heard of them?

Re:Slashdotters==Curmudgeons?

and the fact that they are sending for free to random VW beetle owners to further the hype.

I know of 2 people that recieved them unsolicited in the mail, and no none of them own a aplle anything.. the only thing that is common is they both own a VW beetle.

I have also heard of at least 5 other reports of this happening.

Re:Slashdotters==Curmudgeons?

If you bought a convertible beetle between around May and November of last year, you got a free iPod, if I remember the promotion correctly. My wife was annoyed as she bought a Beetle but being Canadian was screwed out of the free iPod :|.

Re:Slashdotters==Curmudgeons?

My wife was annoyed as she bought a Beetle but being Canadian was screwed out of the free iPod :|.

Boy, talk about 'three strikes and you're out':

1) Canadian
2) Beetle owner, and now
3) No free iPod.

Re:Slashdotters==Curmudgeons?

You forgot: 4) Married and wife is annoyed That can't be good.

Re:Slashdotters==Curmudgeons?

1) Canadian
2) Beetle owner, and now
3) No free iPod.

4) ???
5) Profit! ...oh wait.

Re:Slashdotters==Curmudgeons?

Hi!

But hey, at least a pickup truck helps to compensate for your tiny penis.

Cheers,
GNU/Wolfgang

Re:Slashdotters==Curmudgeons?

You have to remember, the couple hundred posts you see on any given Slashdot thread are only a couple hundred opinions of the most active posters. It in no way respresents what the majority of people reading Slashdot think.

I mean, you're talking tens of thousands of people versus only a couple hundred posts. Think about it.

There are many regular lemmings lurking about.

Re:Slashdotters==Curmudgeons?

There are many regular lemmings lurking about.

Really? I kind of thought they all committed suicide =).

Re:Slashdotters==Curmudgeons?

Yeah, but it is the rest of the readers that moderate them up. The active posters are actually less like to get moderation points than casual readers - says so in the moderation rules. For example I have excellent karma, meta moderate daily, and it has been over two years since I have gotten moderation points.

That is what surprises me most when I see completely wrong posts moderated up to +5. I can understand someone saying a stupid thing, and I can even understand some people being fooled by it, but when all the moderators are fooled all the time it makes me worry about humanity :)

Re:Slashdotters==Curmudgeons?

That is what surprises me most when I see completely wrong posts moderated up to +5 .... when all the moderators are fooled all the time it makes me worry about humanity :)

I think moderators are persuaded by previous moderations. When you see a post and you're not quite sure if it's a good one or not, but someone else has already modded it up, then you start to think that it is good and you're probably just missing something, so you mod it up as well.

Re:Slashdotters==Curmudgeons?

While many here on /. felt that the mini was overpriced and pointed out that for $50 extra, you could buy a regular iPod with 15GB of storage instead of the 4 GB of the mini,

From a geek "my pod's bigger than your pod", point of view, this might make some sense.. From a consumer "I want something to listen to while I'm jogging" point of view, 4GB is how many hours of ogg audio?? Chances are that you're gonna have to change your batteries long before you have to change your playlist.

15GB is so that I can backup my home partition with a decade's worth of email... Not many people are going to care to do that.

The fact that I've got enough storage for a day's worth of music and a knoppix image for $50.00 less than a full sized ipod sounds just peachy to me.

The smaller package is just a bonus.

Re:Slashdotters==Curmudgeons?

You'll be happy to hear that things are really still a they always have been... deleting the folder is still how you delete an app in OS X, and it's a great way of working.

The parent is talking about setting up a hardware device... but even then, there's so little that you need to do when using the iPod in a standard way I don't know what he's on about.

Rest assured

Re:Slashdotters==Curmudgeons?

"4GB is how many hours of ogg audio??"

Zero. The iPod dosn't support ogg.

Re:Slashdotters==Curmudgeons?

From a consumer "I want something to listen to while I'm jogging" point of view, 4GB is how many hours of ogg audio??

There's a target demographic for you. Someone who listens to ogg formatted audio and jogs. Gotta be at least three or four people in that group.

Re:Slashdotters==Curmudgeons?

There's a target demographic for you. Someone who listens to ogg formatted audio and jogs. Gotta be at least three or four people in that group.

Jogggers?

Re:Slashdotters==Curmudgeons?

do you have one documented iPod death due to jogging?. Yeah, I haven't heard of one either.

Re:Slashdotters==Curmudgeons?

That's from almost two years ago, and none of the few failures mention the word "run" or "jog". Sorry, please play again. :P

Re:Slashdotters==Curmudgeons?

It's interesting to note, however, that the cat looks much more surprised by this experiment than the elephant. Who would have guessed?

I've held it...

Saw one of these at an Apple Store. By then I had already determined that it WAS in fact quite competitive with the 256mb players price wise, was about the same size, and of course had much more space to boot. And therefore, the price was appropriate and I thought it would sell well.

Anyway, after seeing it in person I realized something important - it's better designed than the regular iPod too! Firstly it's lighter and smaller - in fact I'd say the mini's size is probably optimal and they won't go smaller in the future. The rounded aluminum case feels and looks a lot nicer and more durable. The colors are a nice touch. And most importantly, the new scroll wheel and button layout is much better than the current white pods. You no longer have to move your thumb out of the wheel area to hit any of the buttons, as the scroll wheel itself now operates kind of like a d-pad for button operation in addition to the touch-sensitive scrolling, producing some nice tactile feedback. Try it for yourself to see what I mean. The (patented) iPod scroll wheel is the critical feature that makes the iPod's design worlds better than the alternatives, and they've improved it.

So to sum up, the mini is wonderful from the design area, especially in the tactile sense. They really hit the sweet spot this time.

I must admit, after handling it I was tempted to buy, but I've been waiting for an iPod to go under $200 and I'll wait longer if I have to. I don't listen to music enough to justify more than that.

Yep, got to hold it to understand

I've used an iPod mini a fair bit, and from the first moment I picked it up, I knew it was a superior design.

Now, my purpose in owning an iPod is not to carry around a handy collection of music; it's to carry around all the music I might want to hear at any time, so I got a regular iPod (10GB, US$209 at Target) and I've loaded it (so far) to nearly twice the capacity of a mini.

I deeply wish my iPod had the mini's click wheel instead of the touch buttons, because the tactile feedback on the mini is worlds better -- try pausing or skipping just by feel when you're driving, and you'll really appreciate the click wheel. I don't like having to hover my finger over a button in order to touch it at the right moment -- I prefer to be able to lightly rest on the button and click it when needed. (Yes, I'm a touch typist.) I hope Apple incorporates a larger click wheel into the 4G standard-size iPods. I'll be first in line for one of those.

Wouldn't mind if they used the brushed-aluminum finish on all the iPods, since it has better grip and isn't hyper-fingerprinty like the plastic/polished-steel case. But hey, the click wheel's the most important improvement, and the 3G iPod does look undeniably cool if you keep it reasonably clean in some sort of case or bag (mine's in a dice bag, works great), so...whatever. Just give me a click wheel and a good-sized hard drive, and I'll be happy.

Re:Slashdotters==Curmudgeons?

I actually have one of these ridiculously overpriced pieces of pop-garbage. Here are my thoughts about it.

I consider myself a power user of gear. I'm an older geek with some disposable income, but I hate wasting money. I usually take weeks to shop for and decide on a new toy. I have an older flash player and before buying the mini, I purchased and returned many other players currently on the market. I found that they were all either poorly constructed, or suffered from poor interfaces.

For example, the battery cover on the Rio Chiba [digitalnetworksna.com] falls off at the slightest touch. You have to snap the player into the belt clip if you want to keep your battery cover.

The Nitrus [digitalnetworksna.com] seems nice until you start using it. The volume buttons are mushy and don't always work. The only button on this player that works and feels nice is the "Riostick." But even that doesn't hold a candle to the clickwheel on the mini.

I have also used some of the RCA players, but Music Match is a horrible, crashy piece of software and getting files onto the player is unnecessarily difficult. My old flash player uses Music Match, and I found that as a result, the player tended to collect dust. I only went through the hassle when I really needed to. Usually only for long flights.

I did like the Rio Cali [digitalnetworksna.com], even though the battery cover on this is a bit wonky too. But the player is $179. After adding an $80 256 meg SD card, I would be at $259. Why not buy better design and 4 gig for the same price? The marketing guys at Apple knew what they were doing. Though, if I were in the market for a solid state player, I would probably pick up the Cali or one of the iRiver players [iriveramerica.com].

So, after trying many players, I decided to look at the iPod. When I first picked one up, I instantly knew that I had just moved into a new world. These things (minis and full-size iPods alike) are industrial design masterpieces. They feel good in your hand, they are solidly built, the backlight and display are beautiful, the wheel control is BRILLIANT, the GUI is transparent and iTunes is a simple pleasure to use. With the aluminum case, I feel like I could stand on this thing and not hurt it. The On-The-Go playlist deserves mention too.

The whole iPod experience is unobtrusive and pleasant. The mini fits seamlessly into your life. I have several gadgets that I carry with me. I wish they were integrated into one well-designed device. Until that happens, I need my pocket gear to be SMALL so that I can actually take it with me and use it. I can't even feel the mini in my front pocket.

I thought about getting a full-sized iPod, but I'm glad I didn't. The trade-off for size is worth it. I think the "for only $50 more" argument is silly. How many damn songs can you listen to on one charge? The mini holds 3 days worth of music! Your battery will drain after about 9 hours. With your firewire or USB 2 cable, you can quickly swap out music while you charge. iTunes is so easy to use, that the swappage is no hassle at all. And I have not found an easier way to rip CDs and organize files than iTunes.

For the record, I don't fit the "Mac Trendoid" stereotype (although I don't know many Mac users who do.) I [realbeer.com] have a beer gut, poor social skills, and I'm balding. I pretty damn practical and far from stylish. My wardrobe consists of jeans, t-shirts and sneakers and I only replace them once a year, if my wife is lucky. I'm probably one of the Curmudgeons mentioned above. But I do enjoy the finer things in life, and well designed electronics is one of the finer things.

This is also the first Apple pro

Re:Windows iTunes a different story?

AIFFs can be tagged though. It's got a lot of rich metadata support, which all Apple tools make heavy use of; as a demonstration of this, take an AIFF file, then use iTunes to edit its information. YOu can remove the AIFF from the library and then load it back in, and it will still have the metadata.

WAV is a subset of RIFF, which (being another IFF derivative) shares a lot more in common with AIFF than people realize, and so it might be able to do metadata also, but I don't think any tools actually support it, and most stuff working with .wavs that I've seen just seem to assume that you only have a single WAVE chunk in the file so they'd probably break horribly if you gave it anything more complex anyway.

4GB Compact Flash for $200?

The MuVo2, which also has 4 GB of capacity, uses a CompactFlash card (which can be used in a digital camera). People have been buying the MP3 player and taking it apart for the card, which would cost more than the $200 dollars for the MuVo2.

More is right... a lot more! I was just pricing cards for my new digital camera (the $12 Ritz model got me hooked), and found out that the going price for 4GB is a whopping $1,130 [17photo.com]! Yikes!

After dividing out, that came to 28c/meg -- about a penny more per meg than the Lexar-brand 256 MB cards ($70). So I figured a kilobuck must not be bad, if you need that kind of storage.

But 4096 meg for $200 is less than 5c/meg!

How on earth did MuVo get such a low price on their components?

Re:4GB Compact Flash for $200?

The muvo uses a 4GB hard disk, which is far cheaper than 4GB CF. It retails for around $350-400. OEM prices are rumored to be *much* lower.

Re:4GB Compact Flash for $200?

Simple, its a CF type II compatible card but it doesn't use flash. Its actually a 4GB hard drive. You have been able to get the 1GB model (IBM Microdrive) for years. The 4GB model (now made by Hitachi) is fairly new and costs ~$400 retail. Apple and Creative are getting deep discounts due to volume.

Re:4GB Compact Flash for $200?

You might have priced a solid state CF card. Those are much much more desireable than the MUVO2's minidrive based CF card. Those minidrive CF cards still cost around $400, afaik.

Hitachi is scalping people for the $400 because they're only competing with the $1130 solid state cards. It apparently didn't occur to them that they were underselling themselves via the MUVO2.

Re:4GB Compact Flash for $200?

Thank goodness. Flash cards always bugged me, with all their "5 x 9 = 45" and "6 + 13 = 19" and "400 / 2^32 = 9.31322574615478515625 x 10^-8"...

For the inevitable ridiculous battery questions...

For the inevitable ridiculous battery questions:

iPod Battery FAQ [ipodbatteryfaq.com]

Fucking mainstream

You knew it the moment that it became popular. The iPod totally sold out. Those of us who supported it back in the old days when it was little more than a cassette player in a garage are left wincing at how they've totally gone mainstream.

White case. Headphones. LED screen. Fucking sellouts.

Go Apple!

I'm glad Apple remains a contender and a nagging thorn in the sleep of Billy Gates' mind. The fact that Apple is still around and won't go away has to bug him on some level.

In fact, my next purchase will be an Apple laptop.

No. Are you kidding ME?

I'm sick of this "Microsoft saved/bought Apple" crap that I keep hearing from uninformed retards.

*After* it was totally apparent that Steve Jobs had saved Apple, Microsoft took the opportunity to buy a real small amount of Apple's stock at at an artificially low price (they made a killing on it as the stock went up 10x in value from that over the next year).

Microsoft also got some good PR for their Mac Office product which had long been a cash cow for Microsoft. In the year leading up to the release of Office 98 and the announcement, Microsoft's sales of Office for Mac had been surpased by Nissus Writer. After they got their big PR boost thanks to Steve they were back raking in the dough from selling Office for Mac.

The amount of stock they bought was $150 million. At the time, Apple had a $7 Billion price cap and $2 Billion in cash on hand. The quarter that MS made their "investment", Apple's profits were more than $150 million.

Also Apple was forced to cross license patents with Microsoft and ship Microsoft's crappy IE browser as the default on Mac systems.

Did Microsoft "prop up" Apple. Hardly. They took advantage of a weak moment and robbed Apple blind.

Re:No. Are you kidding ME?

MS's lock on the Office market made it impossible for Apple to pursue its lawsuit (which was a stone cold cinch) re: the theft of the QuickTime code that made up MS's media player solutions.

The $150M and the continuing support of Office Mac (which, by the way, is absurdly profitable for MS) were part of the settlement deal.

Had Microsoft not had the power to utterly destroy Apple (by stopping development of Office, and making a big stink about it) Apple would have been able to wring far, far, far more money out of MS.

Re:No shit

Perhaps you should skip the battery and get your sense of humor replaced. It seems to be faulty.

Andy Mack deserves credit

Andy Mack [andymack.com] deserves credit for that compact flash card hack. I saw it published on his website many weeks ago.

The quality of the photos on his website always amazes me.

Re:Andy Mack deserves credit

And as thanks we slashdot him, again :-D

Re:Andy Mack deserves credit

He also deserves credit for the most annoying flash intro ever. It took forevfer to get to the navigation, even after spressing 'skip intro'

Sell out!

iPod Mini Sells Out

Was I the only one that was thinking "The iPod sold out? What a poser! Down with conformity! Sold out luser!"

This just goes to show you....

SIZE DOES MATTER!

Re:This just goes to show you....

...and it was the mini. Things are looking up for me! :)

Supply and Demand?

And it isn't a component shortage that's causing the delays. It's the huge demand amongst teens...

Huh? If there wasn't a component shortage, why aren't they able to fulfill the "huge demand?"

Answer should be obvious...

With whatever manufacturing capability they have, they can only be built so fast. Demand currently outstrips supply.

Re:Supply and Demand?

Maybe they could sell the parts in a box and let consumers put them together? It takes time to assemble them, hence the shortage.

Re:Supply and Demand?

I think the point is that the components aren't hard to come by, they've just not slapped enough of them together to meet the demand. Assembly time is the bottle neck not component availablity.

CharlesP

Disassembling for fun and profit

People have been buying the MP3 player and taking it apart for the card, which would cost more than the $200 dollars for the MuVo2.

Wow. Seeing as how 4 GB flash cards seem to be going for a great deal more than that on eBay, I think I just found myself a new work-at-home job.

Re:Disassembling for fun and profit

Just be careful about the negative feedback you'll get from calling them flash cards instead of minidrives with CF interfaces...

Most MuVo sales are likely regular users

The space has become so hot that Creative's MuVo2 has also been selling well, but also for a slightly different reason. The MuVo2, which also has 4 GB of capacity, uses a CompactFlash card (which can be used in a digital camera). People have been buying the MP3 player and taking it apart for the card, which would cost more than the $200 dollars for the MuVo2

Some of their sales can be attributed to this, however I doubt that it is statistically significant. The majority of consumers are not doing this.

Not just MuVo2

People have been buying the MP3 player and taking it apart for the card, which would cost more than the $200 dollars for the MuVo2.

Apparently, the same is true for the iPod Mini. Accedemics are buying them just for the micro-drives.

Apparently not..

The iPod mini drive is reportedly NOT [ipoding.com] working in digital cameras, something to do with formatting..

Wired News [wired.com] has more on this whole thing about the MuVo2..

Guess I'll have to use this damn iPod mini for listening to music, instead of.. um.. tolkien ring??

Kinda validate their price point

I know a lot of people complained about the price, but given the fact that they've now sold out, Apple would have been stupid to set a lower price.

Re:Kinda validate their price point

Umm, you're saying $250 is WAY too expensive when the only real competitor is the MuVo, which is *only* $50 cheaper. As for saying if they were smart they'd have gotten a 15gig...I have a 15gig iPod, and after playing with the minis, I'd trade down to a 4gig mini...I don't need 15gigs of music on me at any given time (in fact, I can't listen to more than 4 gigs in a day...). And if I don't need 15gigs of music, I KNOW my wife doesn't.

Plus, iTunes smart playlists makes it a breeze to make sure I always have my favorite music, some variety I haven't heard in a while, and any songs I've listened to a lot lately (figuring if I've listened a lot lately I'm in the mood for it) and keeps those synced to my iPod so I don't have to worry... I just plug it in to my computer, and let iTunes handle the rest.

What if space is a premium?

All it really validates is that most consumers are fools and will fall for any hype the Apple marketing department throws at them. If people were intelligent enough to do a little research, they could find that buying a full-blown iPod for only 50 dollars more would be a much wiser decision, space wise, or another portable mp3 player entirely, rather than shelling out an insane amount of money for an Apple iPod that is shiny, pretty, and has "cool" commercials...

People can see themselves, rather easily, that the larger iPod is only $50 more.

But here's a mind-boggling concept - perhaps they know, but are basing choice on something other than $/MB!!!

A smaller device can be carried more often. I got one of the original palm pilots, but really didn't use it. Then I got a Palm V which has been in my pocket every day for the last few years. Similarily, the smaller size of the iPod mini makes it much more practical to carry about. For my use of an iPod the larger version is fine, but there are a lot of people that want as small a device as possible to work out with. Heck, one of the standard accessories you can buy with the iPod mini is a armband! Although a normal iPod is small, I would not want it bound to my arm for any length of time.

Now in addition consider a further possibility - perhaps, there are a lot of people that don't even have 4MB of music. Perhaps they only like boy bands and the collected greatest works fit into a few hundred k. For whatever reason, there are a lot of people that are not that in to music and do not have a huge variety, or a need for a large library on the go. For these people, the new iPod is simply $50 less for an even smaller product. In fact I have a 5GB iPod, not much larger, and have never really felt that much of a pull to go for a larger one as long as this works - it holds enough somgs for a ten hour roadtrip, and I can re-load when I want to switch it up. Again, if I were buying now I might go for a $50 less device just because I lived with 5MB for so long as was perfectly happy.

I'm not even going to go into fashion because I am pretty sure that's a minorty of what is making this device popular.

Last question - do you always supersize every fast food meal you buy? Why, it's only $0.20 more for a pound of frys!! Who would be stupid enough to not buy that!!

Re:Kinda validate their price point

How does this make them any better than a "power hungry" monopoly like Microsoft? ....basically all I'm saying is that Apple is as money-hungry Microsoft and I don't think they have any more scruples than MS does in getting paid. To think otherwise is foolish...

All publicly-traded corporations are legally required to be money-hungry, and Apple is certainly no exception. However, one of the things that makes them better than Microsoft is that Apple is not a monopoly and does not abuse its position the way Microsoft always has. How many times has Microsoft been found guilty of breaking the law? How does that compare to Apple?

Besides that, Apple makes better quality products.

Re:Kinda validate their price point

Don't be ridiculous. If you want to buy a Sony product, you have to buy a Sony product.

But you can just as easily buy one from a dozen other manufacturers.

Microsoft, on the other hand, has a monopoly on the entire personal computer industry. If you don't think they use that monopoly power to destroy competition, you're a poor student of history.

Yes, Apple killed the clone manufacturers. However, the deal struck with the clone mfr's was absolutely murdering Apple. They were losing enormous sales to competitors (who didn't have to do their own R&D), and couldn't sustain their own in-house development.

Apple decided to stop doing this, and they've been doing great since. However, seeing as how they have, what? Five percent of the PC market, calling them a monopoly and comparing them to Microsoft makes you look pretty silly.

Of course Apple is money hungry. That's OK, in and of itself. They make some great products to get money, and I think thats just fine.

Re:Kinda validate their price point

Selling out on launch isn't impressive?

Okay, that's your opinion, fine. However, couple that with, "but given the fact that they've now sold out, Apple would have been stupid to set a lower price," and you're being somewhat silly.

A) Set a price at $250. Sell out
B) Set a price at $200. Sell out

Which one *logically* is more intelligent.

Apple chose A. *If* they need to lower the price, they have that choice. If they don't, they can keep the price high.

What you imply is Apple should have set B; and if they did that, they would have lost at least $5,000,000 in preorders as it were, not counting the sales channel!

If anything, the mini iPod price was too LOW

To an economist, "demand is far greater than supply" is just another way of saying "the price is too low".

Can you imagine the Slashdot collective opinion, though, if Apple had priced it at $300? "You can get three times as much storage for the same price? Apple is insane!"

Goes to show that geeks are not Apple's target market, at least for consumer gear.

Remember kids...

...always listen to the most vocal people after macworld. Remember the iPod mini sucks, it won't sell, it's too expensive, nobody will like it, it'll flop. As read on Spymac! Macnn! macworld! Slashdot!.

And look how right they were!. pfft.

Congrats Apple. One more insanely succesful product :)

Re:Remember kids...

I'll put it this way: I have a lot more faith in Apple than I do in the rumor sites. Apple does their homework before they release something; they haven't really had a flop since the G4 Cube (which was a cool idea regardless, it kind of predated the SFF PCs with the same concept.) I guess their strategy now is to stay one step ahead of everyone who tries to copy them. It seems to be working, at least for now.

Re:Remember kids...

Meanwhile, the Neistat brothers distributed a hilarious video protesting the 18 month life of the nonreplaceable battery in the original iPod, forcing Apple into emergency spin control mode which resulted in a $99 battery replacement policy to avoid bad press during the launch of the iPod Mini.

Nope, if you check the dates Apple had its battery replacement program and iPod warranty extension program in place BEFORE the Neistat video and website was opened. Apple had been planning the program for months before the Neistat brothers even called them. Not only that but for several months other companies had been offering battery replacement services for about $15 more than the battery.

The Neistat brothers were told of these things, they knew about them but they still went ahead and badmouthed Apple for not having these programs. One of their original web hosts even gave them free bandwidth in exchange for them posting both the video and information about Apple's battery alternatives. The Neistat brothers ignored the web host and they only posted their negative video without seeking to really help others who needed similar services.

Overall it is only a few people who have had battery problems in as short of a time as 18 months. Many people have had their iPods much longer and still have good battery life. Apple has been very up front in saying that the batteries have a life of about 500 complete discharge/recharge cycles, a standard for that type of battery.

4GB muvo2 memory

It seems the 4GB storage isn't flash memory... it's a hard drive that can interface with a compactflash port.

It seemed unreasonable to think they could possibly sell 4GB of flash memory at that price.

Since it's just a hard drive with a CF interface, it will be much slower than actual flash memory.

Re:4GB muvo2 memory

My girlfriend is a camera Freak, and spent alot of time researching CF/Microdrive cards for her new Nikon digital SLR. On slashdot, that makes me an expert, especially the GF part ;)

The Microdrive is slower at pulling the data off the drive, but much quicker than CF at writing the data to the disk. (i believe on her 1GB IBM/Hitachi, its 2 seconds for a 15Meg pic, vs 5 sec for a CF card. While the flash cards are more resilient to shock and abuse, the flash cards have a limited number of writes before they start having errors. (its a very, very high number, but no-where near the level of the microdive)

when doing quick photography (like nature or action pics) the limiting factor on most cameras is how fast the memory buffer can dump the huge pics to the disk..

Remember Slashdot's History

Slashdot doesn't have a very good track record with iPods.

Remember this about the original iPod?
No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame. [slashdot.org]

And now their criticisms of the iPod Mini before it even came out are biting them in the ass.Bottom line, the editors and most of the readers are out of touch with reality sometimes.

Re:Remember Slashdot's History

Now that's funny. Thanks for posting it!

Here's a great quote from a comment [slashdot.org] in that article:

Agree with the article poster - Lame. Not only is this a lackluster MP3 unit (which by virtue of being firewire will be limited to Apple Mac owners), but it has virtually no UI wizardry that might define it as an Apple product.

This about a product which has garnered more admiration from its interface than just about anything else.

Perhaps your requirements...

are not reasonable, or mainstream. Perhaps Apple has figured out what most people's requirements really are. Marketing alone can carry a product only for so long, products with legs have more going for them than marketing.

I AM WILLING TO PAY FOR TOP QUALITY! ARG!

Apart from starving students (lots of them on Slashdot, I was one only a few years) and idiots (most Windows users) I am HAPPY to pay MORE for QUALITY. I don't want some shitty little player for only $150. I want an awesome GUI that only lots of expensive R&D will bring, along with a high quality build. AND I WILL PAY MORE FOR IT GLADLY.

Because this is the real world, even a company like Apple that delivers quality can fuck up (think iPod battery fiasco) but they are quick to fix the sitation. Much quicker than most any other company for sure.

Anyway, people who complain about expensive apple products should shut their mouth for several reasons. 1) Because you are cheap, does not mean others are not willing to pay for quality. We are. 2) Lots of good G5 rack comps from Apple give more power for lest $ than even Dell (the defacto standard for good'n'cheat).

To all the iPod owners out there, "Enjoy!"

I wonder what bill gates thinks?

Does this mean there's 100K kids who MS won't be able to sell their ipod clone to? If demand is that much greater than supply, does that mean by the time MS comes out with their lame version, they may already be 500K-1million ipod mini out there.

Three things about the mini...

1) I was firmly in the "it costs too much for too little" (no pun intended) crowd. Then I saw one in person, and held it in my hand. The thing is light as a feather, and still feels more "solid", largely thanks to the all aluminum body. I have a 20GB 2nd-gen iPod, but as soon as the iPod mini has at least 12GB of capacity (size of my current music collection), I'm buying one. It's just incredible.

2) Don't forget that even though the iPod is only $50 more, this sets the entry level iPod price even lower. Before to get any iPod you had to spend $300. Now it's $250, and will probably get lower with future generations of the mini line.

3) Just to clarify, the iPod mini also uses a Compact Flash compatible drive - the Hitachi 4GB Microdrive. I'd bet all you have to do is format it as FAT32 and then stick it in your camera.

Re:Three things about the mini...

I haven't got a link handy - this comes from comments/links in one of the prior iPod mini stories, but a Hitachi engineer had claimed that the I/O mode used by digital cameras/etc had been disabled in the microdrives used by the iPods. (There are something like two or more ways of communicating with them - dma/io/?)

Re:Three things about the mini...

This thread [dpreview.com] over on DPReview talks about why the mini iPod drive doesn't work, as opposed to the muvo2 drive. Rumors are that newer Muvo's are using the same drive as the mini does now, so you can't stick them in a camera . . .

Directions on Taking Apart the Muvo2

I can't believe /. finally told about the awesome Muvo2 hack, but didn't give a link for directions to do it. Here are some taken from http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1 023&message=7308713.

Before you do anything else, visit this link:

http://www.nomadworld.com/downloads/firmware/wma-m uvo_2_4.asp

And upgrade the firmware of the unit. This is VITAL. If you do not upgrade ahead of time, you will have serious issues later on. Upgrade the firmware FIRST. It has some auto-recovery features that will prove necessary in later steps. Remove the battery when you are done. Now ground yourself.

2. At the top of the Muvo2 there are two small screws. With a very small philips screwdriver, remove these screws.

3. Open the battery compartment. At the bottom, there are two very small screws. Remove these as well.

4. Remove the back of the unit.

5. Lift the circuit board carefully. It was held in place by the previous 4 screws.

6. Underneath the top circuit board, there is a plate holding down the microdrive. At the top, there are two screws. Remove them. On the side, there is a very very small silver screw. It is smaller than the two black ones. Remove it.

7. There is a piece of black tape in the lower corner. Underneath that tape is the last screw holding down the MD plate. Remove the tape carefully, and unscrew the screw.

8. Lift the plate out. Now, CAREFULLY pry the pin-array from the microdrive. Very gently use a small flat screwdriver to work your way down the black plastic strip. DO NOT FORCE ANYTHING. It should come out easily.

9. Take the 4gb MD and format it in your camera. You should have a 4gb MD now.

10. Put the 1gb MD back into the array. Carefully press it down. Again, do not force anything, it should slide in very easily. 11. Replace the screws, place the tape over the black screw where you found it, and reassemble the Nomad. 12. Turn it on. It will report that there is a media error and go into recovery mode. 13. Select Reload firmware from the recovery menu. It will take a few seconds, reload the firmware, and then report a media error. 14. Select Connect to PC. Now, connect the USB connector to your PC. 15. Run the Firmware upgrade again, and allow it to upgrade the firmware. 16. Power it down. Then back up. 17. When it turns on, it will report a scansearch error, or a media error then throw you into recovery mode. Select Format. It should take a few seconds to format. 18. Power it off, power it back on, and you should have a working 1gb Muvo2, a working 4gb MD in your camera, and a big smile on your face.

I know it is easy to find on the web, but after reading some of the questions (many of the mod +5) on /. I wonder if some people even know google exists. ;)

Re:Directions on Taking Apart the Muvo2

You don't necessarily have to upgrade the firmware to be able to make the Muvo2 function again with CF media, only if your Muvo2 does not come up in auto-recover mode when the Microdrive is removed. Re-flashing takes place after the CF card replaces the Microdrive. Good luck finding the firmware, Creative seem to have removed it but Google is your friend.

The battery compartment comes completely off - makes it much easier to take it apart and put it back together again.

When I did this procedure, "Media Error" turned out to mean incompatible CF card. On the two working CF cards I tried there was no "Media Error".

The author of the instructions on dpreview seems to have done this to a Muvo2 with an older revision of firmware than what you get if buying today.

original ipod article

the original article on /. bout the first gen ipod is funny... after alll these years

But what about market share?

I don't think I was ever worried about it not selling. My thought was (and is) that it's not going to make that much difference long-term to market share.

The thing that I saw Jobs hammer over and over agan was market share. He wanted the iPod to not just be the biggest seller, but to be the majority of the market. So... the question is, are these new iPod Mini sales new iPod sales, or are they existing iPod users trading "up"?

According to Jobs, there's three market segments. I thnk he was a bit deceptive about the details of the segments with his "$50 more" line, but the basic outlines seem to be pretty solid. There's the low end flash based devices, there's the midrange flash and maybe small disk, and there's the high end. The iPod owns the high end.

In terms of market size, the low end and the high end are the biggest. It seems to me that someone interested in market share would go for the wide open low end with a flash based $180 "iPod micro". Not dive in to the most competitive part of the market with a price that seems designed to cannibalise their own sales.

F%ck!

I was hoping the mini was going to bomb and maybe the price would come down but if I was Steve I wouldn't bring the preice down till they stopped selling. I used to think M$ was the marketting king but I think His Royal Majesty Steve Jobs has surpassed them.

Saw it firsthand

I was at the local Apple Store Yesterday picking up an iTrip for the 10gb iPod I got on clearance from amazon. In my 10 minutes there, I saw three mini sales and the following conversation between two stereotypical female blonde mallrats:

bmr1: "Man, I really WANT one of these things"
bmr2: "So BUY it, what color would you get?"
bmr1: "Blue-no-pink, I like the pink, but my credit card bill already sucks."
bmr2: "Girlfriend, untill your visa's got three grand on it, I don't even wanna hear you bitch about your credit card bill."

I'm thinking 'Bravo for managing your debt' and 'Good god, I thought bmr's only existed in movies'. Shows what happens when you got to a mall less than twice a year, I guess.

Nostradamus would be proud

"Raise your hand if you have iTunes ...

Raise your hand if you have a FireWire port ...

Raise your hand if you have both ...

Raise your hand if you have $400 to spend on a cute Apple device ...

There is Apple's market. Pretty slim, eh? I don't see many sales in the future of iPod.

~LoudMusic"

This [slashdot.org] was modded up, 4 insightful.

Wait list? PAH!

I called the Apple Store at Tyson's Corner yesterday, asking if they had any iPod Minis in stock. They said no, but they had a waiting list. I asked if there was a waiting list online, and they said "Yes, about a 3 week wait." I got a call today from the store saying that they just received a shipment of iPod Minis, and that mine was in, should I still want it. 30 minutes later, it is in my posession. :D These things are even smaller in person! Damn it's nice to have a local Apple store :D

Ogg?

This is not a troll, I would happily buy one if my music was encoded in mp3, but it's not. All my tunes are ogg encoded, is there anyway to get this thing to play ogg short of putting Linux on it?

Timing is everything.

It sold out because it's tax refund time.

Good product? Good marketing.

Whenever an item sells out, you have to wonder, was it a good product? or just good marketing? By orchestrating insufficient supplies, many news sources, ./ and USA today at least, are reporting the fact. That's free advertising for Apple, the kind traditional ads cannot buy. So when huge stockpiles of the things mysteriously turn up next week, we will all be more likely to pick them up because:
1. They are percieved as rare.
2. They are percieved as desired.
Perception is reality and marketers really know how to pull our consumer strings.

I like pretty colours and blinky lights

I like those kinda things. When people see some plain MP3 player they think it sucks ... but show them somthing pretty and they will be all awwed. "You mean it can play music AND look good". I setup a 33.6 Modem just for the blinky lights. For sure blinky lights and a nice design sells for me.

If it works out for cars why not computers ?
Just cause you don't like it doesn't mean 50,000 people don't like it. Im sure apple will make a nice pretty colour "normal" IPOD and it will sell better then the plain white one.

Of course...

You can also take apart the iPod mini for its hard drive [macworld.com].

if only

If /.ers had more business sense, maybe more of them could get out of their parents' basement. ; )

199$ Neuros, 20gb HD, FM, FM transmitter Open src

Neuros [neurosaudio.com] Has more capacity than an Ipod mini, cheaper, plays OggVorbis, MP3, can record from the internal FM radio and even go out on the net and figure out which song it recorded. You can transmit your music over FM to a radio, the HD is removable and upgradable, the software is open source, it has a built in Mic that can record at full cd quality (helpful for sneaking into concerts) The iPod doesn't look that hot any more. You can also get a 99$ version that has a 128mb flash module which can be upgraded to the 20gb version for $129.

Re:199$ Neuros, 20gb HD, FM, FM transmitter Open s

Butt-ugly, web site is confusing to navigate, cites dimensions and weight that go far beyond the iPod, hard drive seems to be 2.5 inches which makes the whole thing clunky. Button arrangement is needlessly complicated; software said not to work on any Unix on the web site (the iPod works flawlessly even on various free Unixes out there). Doesn't play official successor to MP3, AAC.

The one interesting positive point is that it plays Ogg Vorbis, but I only see such files every few months...

Apple rips off UK customers

Apple does not yet sell the iPod Mini in the United Kingdom, but once it does I expect it to be just as much of a rip-off as the regular iPod is. To show you what I mean, here's an example: in the UK, Apple charges GBP248.99 including tax for the 15Gb iPod. Take the tax off and it comes to GBP211.91, which is equivalent to $390.55. The same device is sold for $299.00 in their US store.

Maybe if I was some trendy yuppie with a high paying job who has his car changed every 6 months just so he can get the new numberplate, I would consider buying an iPod, but for those of us in this country who are not earning 6 figures or winning the lottery, value for money is a far higher priority than how "cool" it is. You can get a Creative Labs player with 5Gb more storage for GBP69.00 less than the iPod.

(On a completely unrelated note, why doesn't Slashdot reproduce the "pound" symbol, even when I use an HTML entity for it?)

selling out is no prize

Apple's biggest problem is that their products sell out. While amateurs (including all of Apple's inventory managers since at latest the 1980s) might think selling out is the highest achievement, no stock means no sales. And unless you think Apple has projected exactly one unit for each customer with demand in their market, that means unsatisfied demand. If that weren't bad enough, in missed profits on a single release, that kind of poor planning leaves giant bubbles in the supply chain. What corporate IT buyer wants to face their boss when 300 new people are hired, but Apple runs out of Macs after 25? And 250 people have no computers on their desks? Unless they buy a commodity PC, of course running Windows (or perhaps Linux, etc). While Dell, Gateway, and Mom & Pop Chopshop don't perfectly project demand either, at least the option of choosing a different source from among mostly compatible PCs keeps the pipeline full. Until Apple gets Supply Chain Management for its products under control, it will be a hobbyist computer. And if it hasn't happened by now, even during the tenure of (ex- National Semiconductor chief) Gilbert Amelio, it never will. Of all the reasons for Apple eventually perish, SCM failure is the most pernicious, and the most inevitable.

iPods, are they audio devices? are they jewelry?

Apple seems to have correctly identified the price point and the market they were going after

Perhaps, but this is Apple we are talking about. The popuplarity of the mini ipod is probably better explained by hype and fad. Actually I think they could have priced these things a little higher and still sell them out.

iPods are part useful music playing device, and part jewelry. Why would someone give up 80% of the capacity to save only 15%? The hype, and most importantly the "cute" factor is driving sales on this unit.

Apple should have priced these at $275 and stuck at that price. Better yet, strike up a deal with the NCAA, NFL, MLB, and NBA to put team logos and colors on the mini iPods for an extra $25 and they'd have to back a dumptruck up carry the money away.

4GB Compact Flash

Just wanted to say that the iPod Mini's hard drive is the same compact flash situation as Creative's MuVo2.

As was documented by Christopher Breen [macworld.com] of Macworld, the iPod Mini's hard drive is "encased in compact flash form". Some cameras support using this 4GB compact flash card, but not Mr. Breen's. He does note that it works in his USB Media Reader attached to a PowerBook G4, shows up on the desktop as a 3.6GB volume.

Too high!

selling well or not, the price is too high.

for 50.00 more, i got a 15gb. i can hold three times the music. not too mention the peripherals like the iTrip antenna which i am not sure works on the mini(could be wrong about that).

it needs to be around 200.00 to make it significantly less than the 15gb model. and the regular iPod is really small anyway, so the size thing is definitely not enough to make it worth giving up 11gb of storage just to have a tinier one.

my $.02

Re:Demo Nitrus2 at CES, pics and article

Little mixed up at your "I will never understand how people can be talked into spending enormous sums on an inferior product". I see from your web link that "Rio is also pricing the new Nitrus very aggressively. It will retail for $249.00 and will ship this month." Isn't that the same price as the mini?

Rip, Mix, Burn (now == Sync)

Well, if you have the White Album on CD, you can still use iTunes to rip it into MP3 and sync it with your iPod.

That's legal and with a fast CPU/drive probably takes less time than typing in a credit card number.

After all, iTunes started out with "Rip, Mix, Burn." The Store is just a new thing that builds on the old.

Re:Apple

It's called "sales." I think it must be new, because nobody on slashdot seems to understand it. Maybe there's a FAQ somewhere.

Re:The real problem is simple...

Dude, yer sooooo coool. I wish I could rail against Apple/Jobs with all your self-righteousness.

I will never understand how people can be talked into spending enormous sums on an inferior product through a snazzy marketing campaign.

No kidding. For $170, I can get a 1.5 GB Nitrus. For only $80 more (less than 50% increase in price) I can get a product with about 240% more capacity (the iPod mini).

"Oh, but what about the Muvo2?" According to Amazon [amazon.com], it's not yet available.

So, for $50, I get a better looking unit (arguable, I agree) FireWire support, AAC support (you can tout WMA all you want, but when the vast, vast majority of online sales are AAC, I could care less about WMA) And I don't have to explain to the average person why I bought such a ghetto player.

Sorry, but there is nothing standout between the iPod and the Rio offerings from a purely objective standpoint. Judging by the sellout of the first run, $50 doesn't mean anything to people in this marketplace, so the choice of one over the other is purely subjective. Trying to pretend otherwise just makes you look like a whiner.

Re:To Do What?

Now if you could just legally obtain music for it, you'd be all set!

If you don't like the iTunes Music Store, you can always buy CDs or borrow them from friends, rip them, and put them on your iPod.

Hell, even iTunes can't offer The Beatles.

The Beatles' record label is once again being stubborn about adopting a new method of distribution. They also took a long time to allow Beatles albums to be released on CD. They haven't made a deal with any music download service, and it's anyone's guess when they will choose to make the Beatles' music available electronically.

As noted above, however, you can still buy the CDs.

Re:In other news....

iPod is the best selling portable mp3 player. They own 2/3 of the market. Maybe you don't care how stylish your mp3 player, car, clothes, or girlfriend is, but many people do.

Re:To Do What?

How to legally obtain music for your iPod.

Step One: Buy used CDs of the music you want on your iPod

Step Two: Rip to MP3 or AAC.

Step Four: Transfer files to iPod

Step Five: Sell all those CDs you just bought to another used CD shop

And as a plus, you've thumbed your nose at the RIAA by buying used CDs.

Of course, if you're a really cheap sod, you just borrow CDs from your local library and rip them.

Ummmm...

How to legally obtain music for your iPod.
Step Five: Sell all those CDs you just bought to another used CD shop.

See, the whole idea of making a backup is that only one copy will be in use at a time. As soon as you sell that CD, someone else could listen to at the same time as you, which now makes your copy illegal (since you no longer own the original).
Nice try though.

Surprize!!

The reason is, like a lot of slashdot readers, the media also does not think that something like the iPod mini will do well at all. So when they consistently do something surprising (like actually selling the devices at a tremendous rate) it's news because the news people are all astonished, and assume the rest of us are as well. They are basically saying "Can you believe this?".

And of course there's a bit of infiltration - not by the Apple diehards, but by the products themselves which convert confused people such as yourself to an Apple fan once they start using the product. The trick is that you assume it's all marketing fluff with no substance, and that's where the disconnect lies. I'm not even sure why people like you think the interest is from marketing as I do not see that much marketing from Apple compared to many other things.

Re:The hard drive is already wearing out

Are you sure it's only the pod that's three days old?

Re:Virtually?

They're big enough to do it.

Re:The real problem is simple...

That's funny because your comments appear to be nothing but marketing. Would you please post a link to a single website that has the Nitrus 2 for sale?

Re:The silver one has problems

It looks like the anodized finish on the silver minis is flaking off already.

It's the TI book all over again. Apple hasn't posted anything about it on their forums yet.

You're a pathetic liar! I mean that in both senses--that you're pathetic and that you're not a good liar!!

You see "anodized" means that the surface of the aluminum has been chemically altered to become an extremely hard and durable surface. "Anodization" is not something that is spread onto the surface, it is part of the metal itself, it does not "flake off"; about the only way to damage it is to scratch it, and that's not easy to do. The TiBook was painted, and paint, if not done well, can flake off under various circumstances.

OK, I suppose you could always have been making an attempt at humor... If so, you got me good ;-)

Re:Apple

...and the sad part is, if they had priced it wrong, everyone here would be complaining about how overpriced Apple products are. If they had misjudged the market and sold only to a small niche, people here would be complainig about how elitist Apple are...

Instead, we get to hear about how clueless Apple customers are for knowing what they like, and liking based on 'feel' instead of numbers... *sigh*

Explotation?

exploitation of a tech-illiterate market.

Right. Apple has totally hidden from customers the fact that they make a 15 gig iPod that sells for $300. I mean, it's not like it's in their stores or anything. And you have to be a genius to figure out that 4 gigs is less than 15 gigs , so nobody without a masters in CS can figure that out.

Some people value size and style over amount of memory, and they've chosen to buy one. Apple didn't make them buy it.