Slashdot Log In
Why the iPod is Losing its Cool
Posted by
Zonk
on Sun Sep 10, 2006 01:35 PM
from the totally-unhip dept.
from the totally-unhip dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Guardian Unlimited has a provocative article on the recent decline in iPod sales: 'Analysts warn that the iPod has passed its peak. From its launch five years ago its sales graph showed a consistent upward curve, culminating in a period around last Christmas that saw a record 14 million sold. But sales fell to 8.5 million in the following quarter, and down to 8.1 million in the most recent three-month period. Wall Street is reportedly starting to worry that the bubble will burst.'"
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
60M sold? that's a lot. (Score:5, Insightful)
From the article:
There doesn't seem so much of a crack in any edifice as much as there's ultimately a saturation of the marketplace. At some point, pretty much everyone who wants an iPod gets one, and by now that's pretty much done (anyone hear any recent "I want an iPod" whines from anyone?).
Jobs (from Apple) isn't letting the grass grow ... with his
As seen in a previous slashdot discussion (the Amazon Unbox article [slashdot.org]) on video download, it isn't going to happen, or is at least unlikely. There is a slew of articles and surveys showing consumers, especially the target demographic of "younger folk" aren't that interested in long (full length features) videos. Video downloads, management, etc., is just a messier beast for consumers, enough so it's a long way from emergent (storage considerations, price, quality of small devices, battery power for video, DRM, download times, backups, etc.).
Also, consumers are getting hip to the snake oil that is iTunes: (from the article)
Yeah, initially all were in love with the iPod because for the return on effort, it seemed like magic. Consumers eventually get tired of jumping through even the tiniest of hoops to continue "enjoying" their gadgets. They want to turn it on, and not have to worry that the computer from which they're trying to transfer music is "iTunes anointed" or not. DRM-fatigue, finally, sets in (it's about time!).
This is the SONY walkman all over again, then the SONY CD walkman... it's done. It's hard to imagine quantum leaps of coolness and convenience beyond an iPod or video iPod. The curve had to level, there just isn't any there there. Apple should be happy with what they've done, but I don't think this is a growth niche any longer.
Re:60M sold? that's a lot. (Score:5, Insightful)
The majority of iPod users use MP3s, which aren't affected by DRM. And DRM isn't anything at all new to iPod, either. There's no reason to assume the correlation that you take as a given. Any random anti-DRM screed is sure to get modded +5 on Slashdot, but you should put in the extra work and have it at least make some kind of sense.
And it isn't a scientific survey, but every person I know who's technologically savvy enough to be downloading MP3s is also downloadings .avi's. Here in China MP4 compliance is a big selling point for cell phones, PDAs, and other random gadgets. I gotta believe it's the same in the US. Amazon may not be impressing people, but that has more to do with the price than the fundamental concept.
Parent
Re:60M sold? that's a lot. (Score:5, Insightful)
Music, unlike video, requires only one sense (hearing) and can be passive while one is doing other things.
You can listen to music while you browse the web, jog, write code.
You can't really watch a video using a portable device while doing those things. (other than porn...)
It can work though for people who travel a lot in public transportation.
That niche is partly filled by portable gaming which is also an activity that requires your attention.
Parent
Re:60M sold? that's a lot. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:60M sold? that's a lot. (Score:5, Informative)
You missed the point, again. iTunes, by default is set to import CDs to AAC (I forget which bit rate). Changing to mp3 requires the user to go into the scary "Advanced > Importing" tab in the preference pane. MANY people, if not most, don't even notice that their ripping to AAC instead of MP3, since they use the "import" button on their CDs instead of choosing the "Convert Selection to [whatever]" option. The point is, to switch to mp3s you have to:
Only a very small segment of the population are going to go "out of their way" (even if it's a fairly small trip) to switch, and most don't even know it. By the time many people do realize that they're encoding AACs, they've been already working out fine for them on the iPod, so they have no real desire to switch. On top of that, when they DO get interested in learning the difference, they have the entire internet, as well as Apple Computer saying, "AACs are better than MP3s" (which they are).
So no, I would be willing to guess that a good 75% of ALL CD imported tunes on digital music players are AACs. The MP3 is dead, most people don't even know it.
Parent
Re:60M sold? that's a lot. (Score:5, Interesting)
You know I'm glad people are finally starting to realise they're being screwed in the ass by DRM. Over the last few months I've been asked various questions by (non technical) family, friends and colleagues that all involve DRM'ed content making things awkward, and not allowing them to do what they want with their legally bought music. I'm happy to tell them why they can't play their iTunes/Napster sourced music wherever they like; hopefully they'll wake up and see where their apathy has got them.
I then mention there are plenty of places people can get all the music they like without DRM, for nothing
Parent
Running out of Customers?? (Score:5, Insightful)
No surprise (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:No surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
The mainstream public absolutely doesn't give a crap about iTunes DRM. It's so lax that you never notice it's there (and when people bring up iTunes DRM as a negative point, in almost every case you find that they've never tried it themselves). Most people's music collections are made up of ripped MP3s anyway.
As for the other two points, market saturation and growing competition have been around since the iPod came out in 2001, so that's nothing new. The market was saturated when Apple came to the game, yet they still won (pissing Creative off something awful). It seems the company performs its best when people are assuming they're down for the count. For the last 20 years, armchair pundits have been claiming Apple was dead, their products weren't selling, that "saturation and growing competition" were going to take them out, and so on.
I don't get this pervasive need to always hope for Apple's demise all the time. Without them, it'd be all Microsoft, all the time, with the awful WMA-based "PlaysForSure" dominating your music players and turning them into the typical Microsoft experience--unreliable, weird bugs and quirks, a hundred ugly little pieces of hardware running Microsoft software with no seamless vertical experience like you get from Apple.
Look, new automobiles have freakin' iPod dock ports built into them. The iPod isn't going away anytime soon.
I assume you mean you want it built-in, because the iPod has had built-in recording functionality for years now, accessible with add-ons like the Griffin iTalk.
Parent
Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
it's basic business. product lifecycles are virtually all the same. launch, rise, saturation and decline. right now ipod reaching saturation, and it will go into decline sooner or later. that said, it is still very profitable for Apple, and the brand is still stupidly strong. it will most likely stay like that for a few more years at least.
this is news?
Gasp! (Score:5, Insightful)
What to worry about? (Score:5, Insightful)
We had cassette walkmans popular. No more.
We had CD players popular. No more
We had mp3 players popular. No more
We have iPods popular. After some time, we will not.
That's how hardware, software and all the computing works. After some time we will be laughing at those iPods, because we will have something new.
Christmas (Score:5, Insightful)
News Flash! (Score:5, Funny)
Fireworks makers puzzle over mysterious early-summer surge in demand!
Sales of Bush/Cheney 04 bumper stickers down 100%!
Losing its cool? (Score:5, Insightful)
Look around, iPods are everywhere and everyone is happy.
If sales are declining it's just because we all already have one.
I personally have a 4th gen 20GB click-wheel iPod. The color screens, video, photos, nano sizes, &c. haven't been enough to make me set aside the iPod I have to get a new one for another few hundred dollars. My iPod works how I expect it to and I'm happy. I won't be upgrading probably until this iPod is either stolen or broken, which I hope won't even ever happen.
If Apple wants to make people buy a SECOND iPod even though their current iPod works fine, they're going to have to add some compelling new features. I'd buy an iPod phone probably. Not so much because I want my phone and MP3 player in one device (but it would be nice if done properly: one less thing to carry around), but my current Motorola phone is horrible and I have some confidence that Apple would actually make a great phone with a good user interface. Every user interface on every cell phone out there right now is pretty much horrible; Apple could do a lot in this area.
I might get some sort of cool iPod car stereo. (Currently, I connect my iPod using the headphone jack to the Aux. in on the back of my Sony car stereo using a cable I got from Radio Shack... I'm talking about a REAL iPod car stereo, like a car stereo with a hard drive and wireless so I can send songs to my car in the garage from my computer in the house.) Supposedly there may be a touch-screen iPod coming? A touch-screen alone won't get me to buy another.
But yeah, iPods are still cool. There is no backlash. All the other MP3 players still are lacking in one way or another. iTunes is still a great way to manage music on the computer. People are happy. Apple has done great.
According to MacDailyNews.com... (Score:5, Informative)
Q1 04: 733,000 (holiday quarter)
Q2 04: 807,000
Q3 04: 860,000
Q4 04: 2,016,000
Q1 05: 4,580,000 (holiday quarter)
Q2 05: 5,311,000
Q3 05: 6,155,000
Q4 05: 6,451,000
Q1 06: 14,043,000 (holiday quarter)
Q2 06: 8,526,000
Q3 06: 8,111,000
We have yet to see a year-over-year decline in sales. It is of course to be expected, that pundits seeking attention will continue to troll with "the sky is falling" articles, just like we'll keep hearing about how every also-ran is an "iPod killer".
-jcr
Re:According to MacDailyNews.com... (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, for Pete's sake. You're not seeing the forest for the trees. Look at the YEAR over YEAR growth. I have, and I'm keeping my AAPL shares.
Wake the fuck up dummy.
I'm wide awake, which you clearly aren't.
-jcr
Parent
Eventually, yes. Now, no. (Score:5, Insightful)
14 million were sold in the crazy-buy-gifts-like-there-is-no-tomorow quarter. If you want to check trends you should look at corrosponding quarters , year over year growth [wikipedia.org].
guess what? 25% gains year over year... expect apple to sell around 20 million Ipods in the the corrosponding quarter.
Could it be because... (Score:5, Insightful)
Bubble? (Score:5, Insightful)
The stock market was a bubble because everyone that bought stock inflated the price of stock for everyone else, making it look like a better growth opportunity for investment. The housing market was a bubble because everyone that bought houses inflated the prices of housing and the resultant appearance of investment opportunity similarly. And when both of which become too big, the bubble burst as there was nothing quite supporting the inflated prices and value plummetted.
The iPod does not exhibit bubble-like qualities. The iPod is a thing. Someone buying an iPod does not inflate the price for everyone else. As a thing with utility, the iPod cannot instantly decline in usefulness like a stock can.
The bubble is a useful analogy in certain investment situations. But let's not go pretexting it into conversation inappropriately.
Author has a clear agenda (Score:5, Insightful)
Before anyone takes this article too seriously, it's worth examining the credentials of the "expert" quoted in the article. Tomi Ahonen is a self-declared "technology strategy consultant", whose primary field of consultancy is wireless and mobile telecoms [tomiahonen.com]. Last year he predicted that mobile games consoles would also be crushed by mobile phone usage [msn.com]. The weak PSP represented an easy target, I'm not so sure that the iPod is as passé as he would have us believe.
If anyone has any doubt regarding Tomi's views, look no further than his blog [blogs.com]. Clearly he has a vested interest in seeing the iPod fail, so take his opinions with large doses of salt.
Re:Inevitable (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course. Because the iPod only sold 1/3 more in both the first and second quarters than last year. But wait - it's down on last year's Christmas rush sales!!!! It's in decline!! The death of the iPod is here!!!!!!! Oh wait. WTF??
Come on people, your supposed to be geeks and nerds and so inclined to actually care about real figures. Or is that not cool any longer?
Parent
Humor on a Sunday (Score:5, Funny)
It's one big advertisement given in the form of a staged interview with Microsoft's general manager of their Windows Digital Media Division. Revel in the humor as he gives choice quotes such as, "iTunes captured some early media interest with their store on the Mac, but I think the Windows platform will be a significant challenge for them." Or "With Windows Media 9 Series, you get faster starts, better quality music, and support for the most devices."
Tee-hee...
Parent
Making a prediction here (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's sit back and enjoy the negative comments from iPod haters wanting to look really cool and outside-the-norm for bashing a popular piece of technology that's left them behind. After all, it's par for course around here--let's not forget the original iPod announcement or the iPod mini discussions which were oh-so-accurate in their future predictions. Ahem.
Parent
"Fad" not a poorly chosen word, iPod = fashion (Score:5, Informative)
The team that did the survey and focus groups was very quick to point out that this was just a class project, small scale and localized. However it was similar to a pilot program that found interesting results and could be used to justify a larger national study.
(*) I own an iPod, I love it, I would buy another. I own PCs and Macs and use iTunes on both platforms. However I am not religious about music players or operating systems.
(**) Working professionals who have real jobs in industry, under the supervision of a marketing professor who does this sort of thing for rather large firms. This was a class project, not a consulting project.
(***) I was not involved in the project but did I sit in on the presentation of the results. My recollection is that the questions went something like:
Do you own a digital music player?
What models did you consider?
What model did you purchase?
Why did you purchase that model?
etc.
Parent