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Apple Prepares For the Coming iPod Slump
Posted by
timothy
on Thu Apr 24, 2008 11:54 AM
from the mighty-shall-fall dept.
from the mighty-shall-fall dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Companies like AOL have stagnated along with the products that made them successful as a mature market and downward pressure on prices led to a nasty death spiral, but Saul Hansell writes in the NY Times that Apple has used its amazing six-year run with the iPod to nurture other business lines. Even though the number of iPods sold this quarter grew only 1 percent from the same quarter a year ago, Apple should be able to sustain itself with three business lines that will help it withstand a collapse in the MP3-player market: a continuing revenue stream from the iPods that have already been sold because of the iTunes Store, product upgrades to the iPhone and iPod Touch that are so different that they may well appeal to a significant number of iPod users, and perhaps most significantly, sales of the Macintosh which showed an increase of 51 percent by units and 54 percent by dollars."
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A slump? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:A slump? (Score:4, Interesting)
The iTunes application does support Arabic, but when you sync the music to the iPod, you just see a blank space where the song name would go.
Someone did hack together Hebrew support on the iPod, which tackles the RTL problem, but Arabic needs to be written in cursive, with all the letters connected. It's a solvable rendering problem, but to date, Apple has obviously not felt it to be worth the candle.
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Re:A slump? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:A slump? (Score:5, Insightful)
Spoken as the non-iPod owner you are. Buy music from Amazon and put it in the iPod? How about free podcasts? Audible.com? Transcode your own movies? Download mp4s from bittorrent and play them in your Touch/iPod video? Free apps for jailbroken iPhones/iTouches? All of the above work for me, zero worries. Notice how I can fill my iPod to the brim without even mentioning the iTunes store?
And then, I still that option if I want to exercise it to get commercial music, latest movies an option that you certainly don't have. It might be "absurdly high" for you, it's absurdly convenient for me.
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Heh (Score:5, Interesting)
I notice you don't say what kind of player you got, but simply that "the interface is fine". I haven't seen any MP3 player with a half-decent interface that isn't an iPod, so if there was another one, I'd love to hear about it, but I doubt it exists. Good work, though: you're playing off the classic "Apple is expensive!" meme, while not giving slashdot readers an alternative to pick apart. That's the sort of vague memethink that gets you to +5!
Apple has a good schtick going on. I don't know why anybody would buy a new Mac or iPod when you can save a ton of money buying one a couple months old (but which looks brand new). But apparently most people want that new-Mac-smell because their refurb and clearance pages are almost always full.
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Re:A slump? (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you need to see a YouTube video showing Amazon.com media going onto an iPod?
Your statement is 100% false. It's wrong.
For the audience, the reason why non-iPod owners spread the 'compatibility' myth is because some cute girl asked them "Is that an iPod", and the guy says "No, it's a Creative" and the girl says "Oh" and looks away. Guy gets all mad inside, blames Apple. Instead of enjoying his media player as-it-is, he has to justify his purchase to others.
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Re:A slump? (Score:4, Interesting)
More like 200 million, at most 15%, are middle class and buying luxuries. Note that middle class there is less voracious than in USA. It's debatable, but not much larger for a few years. [/stultifying pedantry].
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batteries (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:batteries (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:batteries (Score:5, Informative)
No, because that one is user-replaceable...
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Re:batteries (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:batteries (Score:4, Informative)
Most of those are not spot welded in place. After working in a repair shop for many years, I noticed it was common for many of the coin cells to have spot welded terminals which are then simply soldered onto the PCB. A soldering iron replaces these with ease if you have any soldering skill. Often a standard coin cell socket will go in it's place. Leaving out the socket is a cost cutting move an is seen only on the lowest quality boards made. The battery is replaceable, but not by breaking off it's terminals. Congratulations on getting one of these cheap motherboards. Many of these expect a battery life of about 5 years which is past warranty.
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Re:batteries (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:batteries (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:batteries (Score:4, Insightful)
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History repeats itself (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:History repeats itself (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:History repeats itself (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless you have been under a rock for the last 5 years, Dell priced themselves into a hole and now has serious financial issues. They have basically moved all their operations to India, and now are limiting even built to order in the hopes of saving their asses as the economy bombs.
And their model was ALWAYS to sell multiple computers to the same people, through planned obsolescence in 2 years.
No Apple is doing things EXACTLY right, which is why they are the only computer and perpetual manufacturer to make serious profits in a failing economy. If Dell took Apple as their example, they would not be on the brink of firing off a good 1/8th of their workforce to save profits for their management.
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Re:History repeats itself (Score:4, Informative)
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I'm sure they predicted it (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing to see here..... move along.
Eureka! The iPod killer (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:I'm sure they predicted it (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple is pretty good at planning things but they are secretive so you don't know what they are planning. The iPhone was in development for 2 years before they announced it last January. And the only reason they announced it 6 months before they were able to sell it was that Apple had to apply for a FCC license on it.
Over 10 years ago, Apple bought NeXT to save themselves. Some analysts couldn't understand why Apple with it's faltering personal computer product line would buy a Unix computer company whose product line wasn't very successful. Was Apple going to start selling 2 product lines? What few understood was Apple bought NeXT for their OS expertise not their hardware business. That expertise became OS X.
Just yesterday, Apple bought PA Semi. This slump might be something that planned for a long time and PA Semi is just the start. We don't know what Apple has in store for PA Semi if NeXT is a good example.
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What about an 80-column card? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I'd pass on that, as it doesn't really benefit my favorite SubLogic program.
Re:What about an 80-column card? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:What about an 80-column card? (Score:5, Funny)
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Is this the iPod slump from three years ago? (Score:5, Interesting)
Or is this the one which was supposed to hit two years ago? Or the one from last year? You see, I get them confused, as it seems every year someone is predicting that Apple's iPod growth will suddenly crater as Teh Next Big Thing comes along and steals Apple's thunder.
I don't know if iPod growth will crater, or slowly slow down or whatever. But I am pretty well convinced that, whatever happens, no "expert" will predict it.
Re:Is this the iPod slump from three years ago? (Score:5, Funny)
No, no, you're getting that confused with the Year of the Linux Desktop(TM) again. Keep it straight, man!
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Re:Is this the iPod slump from three years ago? (Score:5, Funny)
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Mac Sales Affected by Vista? (Score:5, Insightful)
That would suggest that Dell and HP's consumer PC business will show unit and dollar sales declines.
Mac Sales (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds like Vista is paying dividends for somebody.
Re:Mac Sales (Score:4, Interesting)
According to the chart, Vista's share increased from 3.75% a year ago to 14% today. The chart also shows that XP's share decreased from 82% to 73.6%. Vista has been cannibalizing XP's share, but Vista+XP today has a 1.6 percentage points greater share today than a year ago (86% in March 2007 to 87.6% in March 2008).
The chart shows that Mac share went from 6.5% a year ago to 7.5% today, which is a significant increase. But note that the chart separates PPC Macs ("Mac OS") from Intel Macs ("MacIntel"), and here you can see that MacIntel's share has increased from 2.5% to 4.5% while PPC Mac OS decreased from 4% down to 3%. That is, most Mac sales are due to people upgrading from Mac PPC to Mac Intel in the same way that most Vista sales are at the expense of XP's share.
So XP+Vista increased by 1.6 percentage points from a year ago, while PPC Mac + Intel Mac increased by 2% from a year ago. Not much difference, and with Vista well ahead of the combined Mac total (14% vs 7%) it's difficult to argue that Vista caused mass defections to the Mac.
However it CAN be argued when you look at the Windows 2000 stats. Windows 2000 went from 4.3% to 2.3% during that same time period. It appears that of that loss of 2 percentage points, 1.7 went to Vista and the other 0.3 went to MacIntel. I think that Mac also gained from the decrease in "Other", which decreased from 2.5% to 1.9%.
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Something to look forward to in 2010 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Something to look forward to in 2010 (Score:5, Insightful)
If you take businesses out of the count and look at a consumer level, then your numbers seems more feasible to me. You just have to walk into a college lecture hall and count the Apple logos to see the inroads that they're making.
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Apple in driver's seat, rest can't keep up (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple is driving the market and has been doing so since introducing the iMac. Apple invests in technology years in advance while the Dells and HPs are running their businesses on a quarterly basis.
The punditry will be surprised when they finally notice Apple's growth in the enterprise, at 2-3 times the industry rate. Anyone who's paying attention will realize that the features and capabilities that will make Apple unstoppable in the enterprise in a few years are being designed into Apple products today.
Similar things can be said for Apple TV's prospects for becoming a more ubiquitous consumer appliance - but don't be surprised if even Apple TV shows up in the enterprise, as a device to stream corporate training podcasts hosted on a MacOS X Server.
Apple introduces useful new capabilities that provide compelling reasons to buy new Apple products. What compelling reason is there to upgrade Windows PCs, other than for the sake of upgrading?
Apple now has two highly successful platforms (Score:5, Informative)
Why I bought something else (Score:5, Interesting)
I went to a very nice mac store, 3 times. The first time I asked one of the sales people a question I knew the answer to. I could see in her face she didn't know the answer. Instead of telling me that she gave me wrong information that could have cost me money. The 3rd time I went back I spent a lot of time playing on one of their systems to get a feel for it. I liked it very much. I didn't like the idea of having to relearn everything to migrate and I thought Ubuntu is very nice. Then a young clerk with a snotty attitude asked me to get off the chair I was using to check out the computer. I guess I wasn't as important as the class they were holding in the store. I figure if I was going to deal with snotty 20 somethings I should do it with the linux community and save myself a grand.
Then I wanted an MP3 player.
I was seriously considering an iPod.
Then I found out I could not use iTunes on Ubuntu without an emulator. Then I read a few "fuck you" articles from the mac high priesthood addressed to linux people who used iPods. then I read articles about how the iPod would get changes making more work necessary to get it going with linux.
I went on the ubuntuforums got some recommendations for linux friendly mp3 players. Then I bought a used one for $50 that does everything the iPod would have done for me and more.
Re:Why I bought something else (Score:5, Funny)
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Too much focus on individual products. (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly, I think this is a problem with American companies and media. All they seem to care about is that one hit. They're desperate to come up with the one product that will ensure success, at least temporarily. Because then all too often they seem content to rest on their laurels or worse go to extreme lengths to prevent competition.
So what do we constantly hear from the media, nonsense about this-killer and that-killer, how a particular product is going to change everything and there apparently is little patience for methodical, evolving improvements.
The iPod didn't just fall out of Apple's collective ass. It really was the embodiment of Apple's design philosophy and corporate vision. It also helped that Apple actually had the resources to design the device, develop the software and actually have a direct hand in it's manufacture.
Contrast that with other companies who claim they want to develop something to compete with the iPod. In many cases, like Microsoft, they take an existing product, a Toshiba MP3 player, and customize it for their use. For that reason alone it will never be as well integrated as the iPod.
In many other cases companies will take existing products, particularly Chinese-made products, rebrand them, maybe modify the external design slightly, and resell them here. So the American consumer gets stuck with a subpar product. In the short-term the company earns some easy money but in the long-term they've hurt their brand.
There are many other issues here, but this is one of the bigger problems I see afflicting American companies. Many American companies don't actually make anything anymore. They've effectively dumping the engineering and manufacturing core of the business and have focused almost completely on marketing. Innovation seems to only exist within marketing departments. They're constantly hunting for new advertising gimmick to sucker people into buying more of the same.
Instead of taking the approach of focusing on quality at a premium they're still trying to compete on price. Then they wonder why they lose to the, usually foreign, competition. And when things go south they always blame everyone and everything but their own decision-making. Granted, I'm over-simplifying a bit, but I do think it's a big problem nonetheless.
Re:iPod choices are going downhill (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:iPod choices are going downhill (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:iPod choices are going downhill (Score:5, Funny)
I live in NYC, you insensitive clod.
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Re:cant wait for those 64gb iPod Touch's... (Score:5, Funny)
Yup, your Gf is unlikely to complain if I buy one also
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Re:cant wait for those 64gb iPod Touch's... (Score:4, Insightful)
Overall I think it works for them just fine, since they time things well and their products are always a good value. But part of me wonders if they wouldn't make more money if they would just wait a little longer before bringing out new generations/products.
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Re:cant wait for those 64gb iPod Touch's... (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft's second generation Zune, had it arrived a year earlier, would have been competitive hardware wise with the then current iPods. As it was, Apple's rapid upgrading left it looking like nothing special.
The old Apple of the late 80s basically stopped the frantic pace of upgrades, and that's exactly what allowed Microsoft to catch up over a ten year period from 1985-1995. The bumper sticker that said "Windows 95 = Mac 89" was funny, but the sad part was that Mac 89 wasn't so far behind Mac 95.
Now the tables are turned, and Microsoft is the one coasting along on past performance, allowing Apple to catch up and surpass it.
Windows Vista, 7, and Singularity: The New Copland, Gershwin, Taligent [roughlydrafted.com]
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Re:cant wait for those 64gb iPod Touch's... (Score:5, Informative)
(FD: I bought a 16 gig, but gave it to my wife so I had an excuse to buy a 32gig - it's enough for the essentials. I'll have to find someone else that needs a gift when the 64gig comes out)
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Re:Macintosh (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Here's one way they can prepare (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Here's one way they can prepare (Score:5, Insightful)
While I don't own a Mac Book Pro, and I haven't looked at its specs
when I first saw those commercials, I immediately though Wow!!! I remember ads for laptops and luggables in the late 80's/early 90's -- they didn't fit in no inter-office envelope.
I know someone a few years ago who bought himself an Apple laptop, because he was frustrated with his Windows laptop work provided. He seemed to think it was well worth the money, as it just worked.
I honestly can't say if it's a lot of hype and hot air or not
I guess it's all a matter of what you want and need.
Cheers
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Re:Apple will continue to sell Ipods... (Score:5, Funny)
entirely.
What's really funny about this is that you seem to have it totally backwards. Your attitude puts you smack dab in the middle of the Mac stereotype.
Check out stuffwhitepeoplelike sometime. The Mac user is supposed to be a yuppie elitist who likes to brag about not owning a TV, drives a Hybrid, shops at flea markets, participates in athletic activities for fun (jogging, cycling, etc), listens to electronic music, and generally disdains middle america. In other words, you.
I'm a Mac user, but I guess it all makes sense because I'm a Bay Area elitist who drives a BMW and commuted 60 miles to work by bicycle today.
My only failing is that I refuse to apologize for the fact that I watch TV when I have nothing better to do.
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