iPod Jr. Rumors Become More Substantial

sdimbert writes "Rumors of a new, smaller, "iPodJr" have been floating around the Rumor Sites for a few weeks (as well a here at Slashdot). But now, the rumors have gained credibility and become more substantial. London's Evening Standard reports today (30 Dec 03) that "Apple has announced a cut-price mini version" of the iPod, "costing 65 [~115 USD], which will be able to store 800 songs." Despite the assertion that Apple "announced" the product, there is no mention of it at their official News Page or their product page for the iPod."

VAT

[stang7423]

I wonder if that price includes VAT. If it is so then the US price would drop to about $100. just food for though.

As american as pie!

[actionvance]

Does this mark apples first true mass market attempt since the early 80's?! For some time now, price points have kept apple product away from "less-than-upper-middle-class". At just over 100 beans, my kid brother could buy one.

I'll be first in line

[Slowtreme]

Apple hasn't said anything official at all about Mini iPods, and usually they kick thier Legal team into action when "half true" Rumors hit the web. The idea that they have done nothing at all makes this seem like they have resigned to let the leak become publicity, or free advertising.

As much as I'd love to have a 20g iPod to hold all of my music on, I'd be very happy with a resonably priced (about $200) iPod that will hold 2-4gig of music. 256mb flash players just are not big enough for the price.

Re:No announcement

[ankit]

True. But the article says:

"Apple has announced a cut-price mini version"

This appears to be a goof-up like what Time-Canada did a while back. This news should have been released on the 6th.

No way

[gotpaint32]

It can't be a true Apple product if you don't have to sacrifice your first born for it... I just don't believe it. I may eat these words later, but for a 115USD a 1-2gb player that is smaller than the current ipod? Flash memory is certainly not that cheap, and as for hard disks, even a used microdrive goes for more than that. Start throwing in Li-ion cells, LCDs, apple's usual cosmetic frills and you've got $$$ just piling up. Buying in bulk will surely reduce costs but what kind of profit are we talking here catering to the low end, this seems too unlike apple?

Rumors?

[Ianoo]

I'm sure there's some truth in this rumor, but isn't it possible that some "hack journalist" at the Evening Standard read these rumors (maybe even at Slashdot, if so HI!) and is just giving them more credence than they should receive so he or she scores "a scoop". It wouldn't be the first time a journo has been duped in this manner!

Re:We all know how this will end.

[the Man in Black]

If that were the case, why not launch before christmas.

Because they were busy selling regular iPods at $300-500 a pop. Clear out all that inventory, take the profit, then announce a new product at MacWorld. Simple profit maximization; a pre-Christmas announcement would have hurt current iPod sales as people demanded the Jr. rather than the big boy (which may or may not have been available). If they couldn't get their hands on one, they'd just wait until after Christmas. Meanwhile, iPods sit dusty and alone on the shelves. Post- you have enough time to ramp up production and meet demand. People that were going to buy an iPod already have one, so you're not taking a loss.

The people that are going to buy this (in DROVES) are the people that looked longingly at an iPod but were much too broke to buy one (read: ME and several million other people).

Re:Hard Drive

[kevinvee]

The Rio Nitrus is 1.5gb and has sold for as low as $150. The price on these mini hard drives is dropping fast as IBM and others continue to refine the manufacturing process. I doubt Apple will earn as much margin as they are on the higher ends, but these Jr's will look attractive to buyers such as myself who don't need a 40 gig brick.

Re:iPod for exercise and iTunes rules?

[psxndc]

I got the armband holder [marware.com] from Marware [marware.com] and used to (before school started) run several miles a day with no problems. Watch it when it rains though because the one time I went when there was a lot of humidity in the air, at the end of the run the iPod sort of seized up for a few minutes. It reset itself and was fine, but that was a pretty scary few minutes.

psxndc

Re:Aiming at the low end

[Anonymous Coward]

> you are exactly the target market apple is gunning for.

Or me, with my recently purchased Philips eXpanium (yeah, stupid name) which is a 50 UKP CD diskman which plays MP3s too. I'd have looked at the new apple iPod - if it had existed just before christmas, as opposed to just after it - but probably would have stuck with this. I have a pack of 15 cdrs containing the majority of my cd collection in mp3 format, and if I lost the whole lot tonight I'd simply re-order a replacement and reburn my disks while I'm waiting for it to arrive.

If they can do a 1 or 2 gig version for 65 UKP, then why does it cost 400 UKP for a slightly bigger drive? It's a purely technical problem, right?

PICTURES

[williwilli]

There hasn't been any official announcement yet; MacWorld keynote [macrumors.com] is January 6. Rumors are circulating of new, smaller iPods with 2gb and 4gb capacities and a lower price. There are some mockups and pictures here. [sejus.com]

music, video, games, recipes, forums -- earth2willi.com! [earth2willi.com]

This just in...

[computerme]

Apple will own the MP3 market in few months:

http://www.macobserver.com/article/2003/12/30.1. sh tml

As soon as apple ships the ipod jr at the price points suggested then they will probably take all 5 top selling spots on the list. Not many people are going to be buying a "iriver" with 128mbs when they can get a iPod that holds 800 songs for the same price AND get the itunes music store AND the ID of ipods AND the ease of use that apple gives them... ...

The 10GB Apple iPod ($299) reportedly edged out the cheaper 128MB Digitalway ($140) in overall sales, with the remainder of the iPod models also being well represented:

1. 10GB iPod ($299)
2. 128MB Digitalway ($140)
3. 20GB iPod ($399)
4. 128MB iRiver ($119.99-$139.99))
5. 40GB iPod ($499)

What Strikes Me as Funny

[Spencerian]

...is that while everyone is salivating (justifiably) at the possibility of lower-cost iPods, that no one seems to be wondering much about the other new hardware Apple may announce at the Macworld keynote on 1/6, especially an updated, faster, cheaper G5, and God knows what else that the CEO may surprise us with.

Yep, a good year for Jobs, and good year for Apple and Pixar as well. Give the man a cookie.

think number of songs, not capacity

[Anonymous Coward]

from an insider: say, hypothetically, that apple had developed a significantly better (albeit lossy) compression scheme and coupled with a good sized compact flash type storage device were able to squeeze 800 songs onto much less than 2-4GB.. say 1GB ;) - remember, you heard it here first..

Re:This just in...

[computerme]

I think this is a case of the "its not the size of the boat...its the motion of the ocean" ;)

First there is brand name. Its almost like kleenex now. Second i guess people are looking at the overal consumer experience. The others just can't match the ease of use and the itunes music store.

When pepsi gives away 100 million itunes songs next month, the brand awareness is going to peak out somewhere around the stratosphere....

Unpossible

[alexjohns]

Me and the other main geek here at work have been going round-and-round with this for a couple of days. There's no way this is true, much as I might wish it were. It's very simple: What flash medium is out there in the 1GB-4Gb range that costs less than $100? If there is one, it's impossible to find on the web.

What are they doing, repurposing all those old 1-4GB hard disks that people are tossing out? Have they invented some new cheaper flash memory? If so, that's major. A lot more than IpodJrs are gonna come out of that if that's true. Somebody want to help me out here? Anyone? Bueller?

Re:No way

[akgunkel]

As many others have pointed out, enjoy the taste of your words. [com.com]

"The 1.5 GB drive, which has been in volume manufacturing since mid-April, sells for $65 in quantities of 10,000. The company is aiming for $50, Magenis said. By contrast, existing standard 1-inch Microdrives from IBM sell for $219 at retail or more, while 1GB flash cards go for around $200."

Re:iPod for exercise and iTunes rules?

[tetsuji]

What about bouldering? If I take say an 8 foot fall onto a pad, is it likely to mess it up? I'd be delighted to be able to drown out the crappy techno that they insist on playing at the gym. Would a flash-based player would be better for this particular case? I'd prefer to have the flexibility of the IPod

Re:What kind of storage?

[weave]

Someone on macslash.org was speculating it could be cheaper DRAM memory. Basically, when the battery goes out, you lose contents. But big deal. With USB 2 or firewire, you plug it in, it charges and redownloads the songs in no time. No need for expensive flash memory.

Price points and predictions

[amper]

So, I think that by this time next year (and hopefully that actually means about 10 months from now, so Apple can actually get the damn things out the door *BEFORE* the Holiday season...), we'll actually get the iPod that we should have had in the first place?

Don't get me wrong, I love the iPod, and I actually have an original 5GB unit (which I did *not* pay full price for).

As we all know, HDDs don't go down in price, they just get bigger, because it costs about the same amount of money to produce a unit regardless of capacity. That's why the newer iPods with bigger drives cost the same as the original while having double the capacity. The iPod would be cheaper if Apple could find a way to build it cheaper while still maintaining the design goals.

So I'm thinking that if we see a ~2GB ePod/iPod Jr. at MWSF next week, then by next year, we should be seeing a ~5GB unit for the same price. By that time, Toshiba should have ramped up the new 1" drives to double the capacity or more.

I do think the predictions of ~100USD are maybe a bit optimistic. For what you're getting, it sounds to me like ~150-200USD is more likely. As in $149 for a 1GB model, and $199 for a 2GB...then next year we might see 2GB and 5GB models at the same prices, while the iPods step up even further in features and capacity at *their* same price points.

Personally, I'd have no trouble justifying $199 for a 2GB iPod, as long as it retains the same feature set as the current iPods do. (Read: FireWire drive capability).

Of course, what I'd really like to see, as a musician, is a multi-track iPod Studio about the size of a VHS tape with the inputs of a Digidesign Mbox (mmm...Focusrite). Since Apple owns eLogic, this shouldn't be too hard. Think of a cross between a Digidesign Mbox and a Digi 002 (FireWire), only made by Apple.

Remember...

[SuperKendall]

When the first iPod came out, it actually cost less than buying just the HD directly from Toshiba!!! So looking at the new smaller Toshiba drive cost might very well lead to a good estimate as to the price point a small iPod might arrive at.

I think Apple can cut some amazing deals based on projected volume of orders.

Waa! I need a 100+GB iPod, not a teeny tiny one...

[crovira]

Oh woe is me. Apple is heading in the wrong direction.

I just, sort of, inherited about 4 cubic feet of CD and 8 cubic feet of vinyl.

I'm going to be rip-ping CDs for weeks and media shifting the vinyl for months.

This is on top of my own collections which have already been rip-ped.

My 160GB FireWire drive is about to start bulging at the sides. Okay, I exagerate... Backing this beast up will requires DVDs (good thing I got a burner :-)

Re:Ogg Vorbis support

[TokyoBoy]

Apology accepted.

BTW, IMHO, slashdot is neither the place for confessions or therapy however, I do wish you the best of luck with your issues.

Junior is not necessarily smaller

[nanimo]

Many readers seem to think that the new iPod will be smaller. My guess is, it will only be smaller in capacity and price, not size. It is hard to imagine a 2GB capacity without a hard drive. And a microdrive unit is not going to be this cheap. So I would guess it will be the same size and possibly more flimsy, lower quality. That's all.

Re:Aiming at the low end

[Octagon Most]

"What is so wonderful about iTunes? I don't want to use any program to transfer songs to my MP3 player. I want it to mount as an external drive so I can transfer any song, MP3 or otherwise, onto the player."

I'm not a heavy user of iTunes so I can't enumerate it's "wonderful" features, but I can address the issue of using it instead of manually dragging songs to a mounted drive. Maybe I am a freak for feeling this way, but I don't want anything to do with filesystems. I don't want to touch files, drag files, or otherwise manually manipulate files. I love opening iPhoto and having all my pictures there. I couldn't care less where or how they are physically stored. I just want to look at them, email them, or add them to my website. The program hides from me that which I do not want to deal with. I understand your, and others', desire for control, but many people (perhaps the majority of computer users) do not want to deal with dragging individual files onto a mounted drive. They (we) want playlists, synchronization, and integration with the iTunes Store. Your way works for you, but many people clearly like the way iTunes works.

Re:Aiming at the low end

[Triv]

If you don't care about the bookselling business stop reading now. :)

kinda like publishers who put out the hardcover for the the $30 crowd and then eight months later release a paperback for the $7 folks.

That analogy is absolutely correct and I applaud you for making it. However the specifics are a bit dated as to how the book market now functions.

It's true, that was the way the publishing industry worked a little over a decade ago, but things are slightly different now.

There used to be two different kinds of books - hardcovers (designed to take a beating) and mass markets (designed to be thrown away). Mass markets were approx. 1/3 the price of hardcovers.

But the publishers started to realize that there was another category of book buyer out there - people who wanted books to last but didn't want to pay hardcover prices. So the Trade Paperback was invented. Trades cost about half the price of a hardcover and are more sturdily constructed than mass markets.

Current books rarely hit the $7 price point you mentioned unless they're niche markets (sci fi, horror and romance in particular), they're INSANELY popular (Tom Clancy, Clive Cussler and the like) or they're classics (ie, in the public domain).

This isn't really a problem except that in the last few years book quality (the physical object, not the writing - that's a completely different rant) has decreased dramatically, so people are buying trade paper because of the illusion of permanence (and because they're less weight to tote around. Books are still primarily a portable medium). This feels kinda cheap to me.

Like I said, you weren't wrong by any means and the analogy still holds. Just being...well, a booknerd. :)

Triv