Rumors of iPod mini, 100 Million Songs, Xserve G5 All True 1318
The mini is anodized aluminum and comes in silver, gold, blue, green, and pink. Accessories include a dock and armband. It can be connected to the computer via FireWire 400 or USB 2.0.
Jobs also announced some changes to the existing iPod line, including a bump from 10GB to 15GB for the $300 version, and new in-ear headphones for $40.
The Xserve G5 is, like the previous Xserve, a 1U server. It can hold up to 8GB of ECC DDR 400 memory, and up to 750GB of storage. It includes an unlimited client license for Mac OS X Server 10.3, and comes in three configurations: 2GHz for $3,000, dual 2GHz for $4,000, and cluster node dual 2GHz for $3,000.
The Xserve RAID got a bump, too. The 3U RAID has a 500GB increase in capacity to 3.5TB for $11,000; 1.75TB for $7,500; and 1TB for $6,000. And, it is now certified for use with some versions of Windows and Linux.
Jobs, with the help of recording artist John Mayer, introduced the newest member of the iLife media application family: Garage Band. It is a music instrument and recording tool, that can mix up to 64 tracks, comes with 50 software instruments, over 1,000 professional loops, and 200 effects. It can record live instruments and take input from a USB or MIDI controller. It simulates various modern and vintage amps for guitar playback.
The optional $99 Jam Pack adds 100 more instruments, 2,000 more loops, 15 more amps, and more effects.
iPhoto, the most maligned of the iLife apps for its performance problems, received a much-needed update. It can now handle up to 25,000 photos (instead of mere hundreds), and adds automatic and smart albums (similar to iTunes), ratings of photos, and sharing via Rendezvous. Like iTunes, you apparently can't modify descriptions and titles through sharing, but unlike iTunes, there are no copyright restrictions.
iDVD and iMovie also got updates: better control, new and improved effects, and more. iMovie has exporting directly to your iDisk for use on your home page and importing directly from an iSight camera, and iDVD adds a navigation map and archiving projects for burning on another computer. iDVD also gets higher-quality Pro encoding, with 2 hours per DVD.
iLife, for $49, and the Jam Pack are available starting January 16. There was no indication that any new components of iLife will be available for free download, but iLife will be included with all new Macs.
Final Cut Express was bumped to version 2, and is basically updated to include the features from Final Cut Pro 4. Upgrades are $99.
Microsoft announced Office 2004, an upgrade to Office X. People who purchase Office X now until the spring, when 2004 is released, will be eligible for a free upgrade.
Pepsi's iTunes Music Store giveaway will begin on February 1. Yellow caps noting the 100 million song giveaway will have a 1 in 3 chance of winning.
Jobs also noted that iTunes Music Store has 70% of the market share for online music purchasing; that 50,000 audio books were sold for the quarter; that 500,000 songs are now online, making the store the largest online; and that one person has spent $29,500 on iTunes Music Store. Yes, $29,500.
250?!? (Score:3, Insightful)
At $249 I will not be buying one. This confirms the upsell goal- who would buy 1/4 the capacity of a regular ipod for only $50 less?
Not a very great day from Jobs.. (Score:-1, Insightful)
The garageband software looks like it would be fun to play around with... Kind of a shame there's no 20th aniversary mac like there was for the 10th aniversary(limited edition).
oh well.. theres always more SCO news till hold me over till Job's next special event
And pepsi giving away 100 million songs? Wow is that a penalty for having a MP3 server at the corporate offices that the RIAA found?
Too much (Score:2, Insightful)
Ipod Minis priced poorly (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:250?!? (Score:3, Insightful)
Ddepends on what you need.
Re:Mixed response (Score:5, Insightful)
Not exactly what we expected (Score:3, Insightful)
Take a look for yourself! (Score:5, Insightful)
I am amazed by the Apple keynotes that Steve Jobs give (and Apple streams from their site) twice a year.
There are two things that amaze me: First, that Apple can consistently release cool things that can keep its user base excited. Second, that Jobs can actually make an interesting two hour show out of it.
For those of you who have never seen the magic of a Steve Jobs Keynote, go to the Apple site under the Quicktime section and view the keynote [akadns.net]. It's two hours long, but I'm wiling that if you don't find it at least "really cool" to watch, you'll agree it's better than the average dreck we sit down and watch on the telley each night. This keynote is a good example because it takes a large number of moderate announcements (unlike the unveiling of the iMac, the G5, the major OS upgrades, etc.) but STILL makes you excited enough to want to go out and play with these things.
It also gives me an appreciation of how many market segments Apple is entrenching itself in. You can really see the "digital hub" strategy at work, as well as the fact that income revenue is coming from hardware (iPods) music downloads (iTunes) Internet subscription services (dot-Mac) and others. Go check out the keynote for yourself. I think it'll give you a much different perspective in what and where Apple is in this decade.
And thank goodness SOMEONE is working to keep the computer field new and exciting!
iLife "pay" transition complete (Score:5, Insightful)
Now it looks like you have to buy iLife to get the updates.
I actually don't think it's a bad thing. It's a good deal, at a price around what a typical game costs. And if a fair price pushes them to continue to make improvements, I'm all for it.
Steve's iPod mini presentation didn't mention HD (Score:4, Insightful)
I was anticipating a serious case of buyer's remorse given that I had just bought a 512MB flash player/USB pen drive for $150. The iPod mini is certainly more impressive than my little player, but given that it is hard drive based and $100 more I don't feel so bad.
Also, I can pop in a new AAA battery when mine runs out. All by myself.
GarageBand (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure what the difference is going to be here. If your computer has a bad A/D converter and electronics (and most do, really), then no piece of software is going to make this better. If Macs have sufficiently high quality A/D conversion for this purpose, then you should be able to use any recording software, and I believe there's plenty of it.
Re:Ipod Minis priced poorly (Score:3, Insightful)
But then I realized that they'll probably sell a lot of them at the $250 price point just because of size & color. Runners & fashion junkies will be all over them.
And they can move "down market" with the product. I don't see Apple increasing the size of the hard drives in this product too much -- if they do it starts to bump into the capacities of the existing iPod product line.
Rather, I see the price dropping with each successive update cycle. If they start out with a low price, there's no place to go in 9 months.
-ch
Re:Mixed response (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, the iPod is the only player that works with audiobooks.
Re:Mixed response (Score:1, Insightful)
For people who are concerned about using the iPod in a high impact environment, this doesn't bring anything new. Personally, I think if they'd introduced an even smaller form-factor mini iPod with a 1GB flash card for about $150, they would have flown, and still be aimed at the high end of the market.
Re:250?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
The person that was going to buy that 256 meg Rio doodad for $199, perhaps...
Re:Don't be suckered by the trendyness (Score:3, Insightful)
Of Course the Ipod is $250 (Score:2, Insightful)
But now I see that apple is continuing the trend of not really competing with what is there. They are creating premium products, charging premium prices, and hoping that the market will be there.
Re:Not a very great day from Jobs.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Your preferences aside, I'm told that people have been known to spend ungodly sums of money on fractionally smaller cellular phones, digital cameras, camcorders, pagers, PDAs...you get the gist of it.
The iPod mini is 65% as heavy as the standard iPod.
The iPod mini takes up 60% as much space as the standard iPod.
When you're talking about personal digital toys, that's a huge space savings, especially considering the fact that the iPod mini does everything the iPod will do and has the same battery life as the standard version.
Yeah, $250 seems rich. Then again, I can't even count how many "no way in hell I'm dropping that kind of cash on an iPod" statements I saw a couple years ago, and now it's got 35% of the market share for all portable MP3 players.
I'm giving Apple the benefit of the doubt on their price point...
Re:Only good stuff here. (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't you think 2504 for 4Go is MUCH better ?
Stop comparing mini iPod with iPod they are not in the same category.
iPod mini Price Worries Me (Score:5, Insightful)
Now the iPod mini its self is very cool. But the price is a problem for me. Watching the keynote over the 'net, Jobs described it as just $50 more than a flash player with decent memory, and that's true. But, for just $50 more you can get a REAL iPod that holds almost 4x as much (4 gigs versus 15 gigs). There is a lot to be said about that iPod mini, but that price is a little much for me.
It's just so close to the price of the low end real iPod. I could understand if the price was $200, I think that would be the magic number, but I think that $250 is just too close. I don't know if the price is the result of trying to get a certain profit margin (quite likely) or an attempt to keep them from canabalizing the iPod market too much (also likely), but I think the price is a little high. At $150 they would fly off the shelves faster than anything else out there. At $200 they'd be a great deal and would sell fantastically. At $250... they won't flop, but...
Which also brings me to one other problem. The 15 gig iPod. It costs $100 to get 5 more gigs of space (the 20 gig model). So let's look at things:
So as you can see, the value of upgrading to the 20 gig iPod isn't in line with the rest of levels. With the low end full iPod at 15 gigs, the 20 gig model doesn't seem like much of as good a choice, the premium is just too high. As value goes, the iPod mini and the 20 gig iPod just don't hold up compared to the 15 and 40 gig models.
Now again, don't take this as bashing the new iPods or anything. The iPod is a fantastic device and the mini looks great too, it just seems like it would be much more wise to people to spend $50 more for a 15 gig, which has less than 1/3 the cost per gig.
PS: I can't WAIT to see the guts of one of 'em posted to the web. I wanna se it!
PPS: Let's face it, a $100 dollar iPod was a pretty rediculous idea, especially if it were to have the 2 or 4 gigs we thought it would.
Re:GarageBand (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Mixed response (Score:5, Insightful)
But for me the reduction in size is awesome. (There's a nice comparison pic here [apple.com])
While I like the capacity the regular iPods offer, I'll sacrifice the extra bulk to drop down to a smaller form factor that I have to sync a bit more frequently. The small size is definitely better for those who would like to use it at the gym, and for those of us who just like tiny things. (and before any of you karma-whores go for the cheap joke, I'm not referring to penises with the previous sentence
The colors, while cute, aren't quite my thing (I'm not big on pastels).
Re:Mixed response (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you sure? I'm reasonably certain that the Otis MP3 player I got free from Audible.com with my subscription will play MP3s and Audible's proprietary audio book format... come to think of it, Pocket PCs that play MP3 files can also play Audible's audio books...
Linux iLife? (Score:4, Insightful)
In terms of ease of use, I don't think KDE is much harder to use than mac os x. But the applications aren't there. Why hasn't someone designed a suite like iLife that could bring people over from Windows? I'm sure a lot of people want apples, but don't want to get a brand new computer. I see a perfect opportunity for Linux to get onto the desktop by releasing a iLife like suite - even without DVD/music/movie. Just kTunes and kPhoto and maybe something else would do, but it would give people an incentive to easily switch over to Linux instead of thinking about how nice apples are.
People will buy the mini iPod (Score:5, Insightful)
I was disappointed in the mini iPod announcement but people will buy them.
Most people focus on "for $50 more you can get 15 more gigs" but there's more to it than that. People will buy the mini ipods for design.
It is smaller and lighter. iPods are already small. Many consumers value smallness hugely. To a consumer who cares more about unit size, than hard disk size, the mini iPod is better and cheaper.
There is also the cuteness factor. Mini iPods come in color. For students in particular, I think this is going to be a big thing. If you think the mini iPod looks better, and it's cheaper, it's a great deal.
Like many iPod consumers I don't care too much about the size of the hard disk, because 4 gigs is enough for me. I don't need to carry my whole music collection around. Sure, I might do that, but it's not a huge deal to me.
So we're left with a smaller, cuter, cheaper iPod that costs less and carries enough music. I'd buy that.
Go into an apple store and try handling one, see how you like it, you may find that 4 gigs vs 15 gigs becomes the least of your concerns.
But I will close with, still disappointed, really wanted to see a 2 gig in the $99-149 range.
The iPod Mini's target consumer (Score:3, Insightful)
Most teens are very fashion-conscious and are enticed by technology that is extremely portable. Companies like Mattel (with its Barbie Fashion Designer software) have shown that technology tailored to girls can be extremely profitable.
The real question is whether said females will shell out $250 for such fashionable hardware. Everyone knows teens as a group have tons of disposable income, but I think they missed the price point by $50.
iPod mini rumor not true... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Mac n' cheese, Apple sauce more flavorful (Score:3, Insightful)
Two responses come to mind immediately.
The first is that according to Apple's research, half of the households in the country have at least one person who is an active musician in them. That's a pretty huge potential market segment. I realize that you're not among them, but you should at least appreciate that the number of people who were thrilled by this demo is far from insiginifigant. Half my office (geeks and muscians both) sat watching with mouths open. Drooling. Unattractively. It wasn't pretty.
Two, and on a more philosophical note: how sad is it that the first thing you thought to say wasn't "I listen to music, I don't make it," but rather "I buy music." The commodification of music is sad enough as it is, but what's worse is to hear it described as if it's as transient and ordinary as a box of chicken McNuggets.
If you don't make music yourself... why not?
iPod Mini Will Get Cheaper (Score:5, Insightful)
If the mini iPod is cheap, everybody will want one. Now. And Apple will not be able to meet demand, not for the initial run of production anyway. There will be the problem of several weeks (or months) wait, same old again. As silly as it sound, I think higher price helps control demand not to outpace supply.
And I think, for Apple, people who will get the mini iPod now are those who want to keep up the 'cool' and do not have to think twice shelling out $250. That's the reason the colors are only available for the mini, and not the big iPods. This will help branding exclusivity to the iPod mini, only for those who want to stay fashionable and can effortlessly afford the price.
Wait until April, when the iPod mini is available worldwide and the production ramps up, Apple may drop the price or up the capacity.
Steve Jobs also said that mini iPod is going after the high-end flash-based player, not the HD based player. Considering those flash-based players are priced around $200 for a lot less capacity, iPod mini is very competitive. It's Apple engineering at its best. Who else can engineer a HD-based product to compete for a flash-based market?
Re:Garage Band impressions (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't think people realize what a good value Garageband is. For $49 (really it should be considered $25 cause the other $25 is for iDVD) you get:
1. Good quality sampled instruments.
2. 64-track (PT LE is 16-track) digital audio recording
3. Good quality amp simulators (and probably some other filters)
This is pretty amazing at $49 (or $25).
I'm not counting loops because I think that appeals more to the non-musician. Even serious electronic musicians aren't going to want to use premade loops. But still, the loops looked kinda fun and could be used sparingly.
Re:Mixed response (Score:2, Insightful)
What did Pepsi pay? (Score:4, Insightful)
--
Re:Mixed response (Score:3, Insightful)
i mean i really like our dual g4 here in our office, it does an amazing job with final cut pro. okay, so osx is mad stable and easy to use too, im not saying mac is all beauty and no function. it just seems that i can usually get a cheaper, uglier machine to do almost the same job.
if you really want the sexiest mp3 machine around, get the iPod mini thing, i dont think i can be beat in the market they are shooting for. its a tiny, pretty machine.
Re:Mixed response (Score:0, Insightful)
Isn't that crowd and the gays Apple's main customer base?
Re:Only good stuff here. (Score:2, Insightful)
And what category is it? The flash based players that have less memory but much longer battery life and no moving parts? Or the HD players that offer 3 times the capacity for the same price? The problem is that I think they picked a category that their is no market for.
Re:Only good stuff here. (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly what category is the mini iPod in? for the same price I can get an HD mp3 player from a different manufacturer with much more storage.
Re: Mixed response (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: pricing of iPod mini (Score:5, Insightful)
The iPod minis may not have great price/storage ratios compared to the regular iPods, but compared to these other things they're absolute bargains. If anyone is buying the other players for whatever reason (just not quite enough money to spend a few dozen extra dollars for a regular iPod, or don't need the capacity and would rather have smaller size, whatever), the iPod minis might actually be just what they need.
I'm told they they just announced an updated version of that Rio Nitrus; it'll hold 4 GB, and sell for $249 - the same as the iPod mini. It appears these two will go head-to-head; I'm curious to see how they do, both against each other and against other players (at both ends of the price and capacity scales)...
All that said, I personally want to hold out until I can afford the $499 for the 40 GB "regular" iPod, and even if I didn't want that much capacity, I'd still be more inclined to spend the extra $50 to get the 15 GB instead of a 4 GB mini. I can totally see the appeal of the minis, though.
Re:Mixed response (Score:3, Insightful)
When the price comes down, I might think about getting one. If it comes down to, say, $150. Otherwise, that's some absolutely terrible price-performance. That drop in size isn't even enough to move it from your pants pocket to your watch pocket.
Re:250?!? (Score:3, Insightful)
And don't forget, these smaller drives are very new, don't be surprised to see a 2Gb for $199 around christmas, why not?
iPod mini price and The Tangerine factor (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally, I'm betting that the gold iPod mini will by 2004's tangerine. It's pretty nasty. But y'know what? I don't care, because (a) it's going to be knocked down in price in six months, or come packaged with a dock or remote, and (b) it's small enough to fit in my pocket where I don't have to look at it and I can use that remote.
As for people saying that for an extra $50 they can just get the low-end 15GB, quit yer bitching and buy it.
Me, I'll keep the $50.
What's the point of having the iPod's FireWire if you're just going to keep the same stuff on your iPod all the time anyway? Between the FireWire connection and the smart playlists in iTunes, I can have my highest-rated tunes from each category with me, along with 1GB of randomly selected tunes swapped in each time I charge to keep the mix fresh.
I figure 800 songs (or whatever the mini ends up holding) is enough for my life: It's enough to walk around, go to the gym, or take a week-long trip without repeating. I don't need every song from my desktop computer with me every time I walk down the block.
Sure, it's only $50 more for much more space, but if it's not space that I'm going to use, it's a false economy to claim I've saved anything.
Re:It may be shiny, but it still has a dirty secre (Score:3, Insightful)
One major mistake seems to have been missed so far (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Mixed? No...disappointed (Score:3, Insightful)
Cool - but Rio Karma is a better deal (Score:4, Insightful)
Besides that Rio Karma comes with a Java application that can be run from Linux to manage the music on your player (of course it comes with Windows sofware too).
Oh, yeah and the cool thing is that the dock has an ethernet port so your Karma can be accessed from the network.
The mini ipod is not expensive (Score:3, Insightful)
MirageBand (Score:1, Insightful)
with all the bustling fervor over the new mini iJiblet and its transparent pricing ploy, it seems we've forgotten to scorn GarageBand properly.
i don't have the numbers, but i would have to imagine that apple's target audience is largely a mass of rich boys generally untrained in music (and no, being able to play "More Than Words" on your brother's guitar does not make you "trained). all of apple's pro audio people are already deeply entrenched in Logic, for which purpose Apple ate emagic already. it seems likely that a significant percentage of these target-people will _not_ be using a MIDI input device to make their music, let alone a guitar, a suspicion upheld by apple's inclusion of over 2,000 prerecorded loops. that's a SHITLOAD of someone else's work going into macboy's bragging.
bitterness aside, the point of this comment is that apple is marketing GarageBand as a "way to unleash your inner Mozart", and offering "instant fame" via iTunes, to which GarageBand is intimiately tied.
as a musician, and a resident of nyc, i see two things wrong with this. first, and most pernicious, is the furthering of the idea that someone who arranges someone else's loops is a "musician" or "composer" at all in the first place (they're not, they're an "arranger"). how many folks who would otherwise have legitimately learned to play a keyboard or guitar will say "fuck it, i'll never make music that sounds as good as john mayer's loops" and never attempt music again? this is a piece of software which promotes the mindset which is going to eventually destroy music.
second is the boost to these rich boys' egos that they could not possibly need LESS, given the fact that their lives are status-oriented enough to spend their trust fund money on a 2 grand apple to begin with. what does this have to do with my being from nyc? well, if you were here and could see the despicable iPod cult of hipsters, you would understand. just _picturing_ one of those williamsburg loft-living, $300 vintage clothing-wearing, $400 antique schwinn-riding jerkoffs saying to their friend "listen to the new track i made" is enough to cause my rectum to shoot out through my anus and strangle me.
Re:What did Pepsi pay? (Score:2, Insightful)
It really is mindboggling to consider the huge dollar figures spent to promote charged sugar water.
Re:GarageBand (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, wait.
Re:Mixed values (Score:5, Insightful)
This new ipod is a low capacity, item that has another apple product already poaching sales (the 15gb $299 ipod). And on top of that it is still $250!!
Someone at apple is getting fired for this and rightfully so. The average consumer (and there are millions of them) doesn't want a smaller ipod with colors, they wanted a cheaper ipod.
Consumers said everything was great about an ipod except its price, and the rumor sites reflected that. Consumers strongly said they wanted an Apple mp3 player with a small amount of storage (2 gb was what many people were hoping to buy) and a low price tag (somewhere between $100 and 150).
Perhaps Apple could not have realistically met the magic $99 pricepoint, but to set the low end price at $250 is just laughable for what is marketed as a ipod for the masses.
Hell, apple would have been better just to drop the 10gb price $50 and skip desiging a new product all together.
Re:Mixed? No...disappointed (Score:5, Insightful)
To an extent I agree with you, but we've reached the point of diminishing returns IMO. First, I think we can all acknowledge that there comes a point at which smaller is just smaller, not better (no jokes, please!). I mean at some point it actually becomes a detriment to usability - the buttons have to be too small, it's hard to keep track of in your pocket (or wherever you keep it), it's more prone to damage, not as comfortable to hold in the hand, or whatever. Where that point is I'm sure varies a bit from person to person, but it exists for everybody - for example, nobody would be able to use an iPod the size of a Tic Tac, and almost everybody who tried would probably lose it within a week of buying one.
The regular iPod is already small - probably as small as a lot of people would want something like this to be (certainly not everybody, but a lot of people - just to head off some of the "it's not small enough for me!" responses). The iPod fits in your pocket but you never can forget it's there. It's light but has a nice, quality heft. It looks nice. People can easily see that you're using one (honestly, I think this is important to a lot of iPod users). And it's approximately the same size as a lot of other electronic gadgets we're used to - PDA's, cell phones, etc.
Now, according to Jobs, Apple is targeting the iPod Mini at the "Flash player market". If this is true, it's not going to work. People buy flash-based players because they're cheap, not because they're small. I would guess the current market share of players $200 and up in this category is exceedingly tiny - frankly, if you have more than $200 to spend on an MP3 player, you're going to get an iPod anyway (or some equivalent). So, now people have the choice of two iPods at approximately that price, one of which has more than three times the storage space - at best you've just split the iPod market without adding any new customers. At worst you've got a money-losing new product that doesn't sell.
I have no doubt there will be a flurry of initial orders for this thing from the Apple faithful - there are a lot of wealthy gadget lovers out there who also happen to be Mac-heads, and they buy pretty much everything Apple releases. Beyond that, though, I'm not sure. I don't see how this product opens the iPod up to any new customers it didn't have before.
2GB for $100 would have really hit a sweet spot, though, and probably would have absolutely destroyed the flash player market in one fell swoop. It would have opened up the iPod line to a vast new customer base and no doubt would have made buckets of money for Apple in the long-term (maybe not the short term due to cost, but if Apple ends up basically monopolizing the entire mp3 market, that can only be good for the bottom line over time). I don't really see the reasoning for what we got instead.
Disappointed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Mixed response (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's see... (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple chose to compare itself to Dell's PowerEdge 1750, which Dell offers to small businesses as a dynamic content web server.
Apple's "XServe G5 Dual Processor" specs:
Dell's PowerEdge 1750 specs:
* - If you believe the benchmark from Apple, the XServe G5 is 9.0 Gigaflops, where Dell's PowerEdge is 8.2 Gigaflops.
However, as my boss pointed out, taking the Dell from Dual 3.2GHz to Dual 2.8GHz actually drops $1499. And you can still go down to 2.4GHz with the Dell.
Whether it's fare or not, a lot of people still compair GHz to GHz. So even the PC running at 2.4GHz looks faster on paper.
Re:Mixed response (Score:3, Insightful)
Why in Bob's name would anyone consider a Dell? You can get a 30 gig Creative Zen from Newegg for $270.
A 20 gig Neuros is $200, and plays Ogg.
Forgetting features, and just looking at gigs/dollar, the Dell is a horrible deal. It's not as bad as the 15 and 20 gig iPods, and not as good as the 40 gig iPod. The Dell is slightly better than the Rio Karma (but if we go back to considering features, the Karma blows the Dell away).
Considering the excellent value Dell provides for computers (I'll still take homebuilt over Dell any day--but I recognize their excellent value), their MP3 player was a massive disappointment.
ipod skips when used for running (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Classic ad updated, too! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Bulk? (Score:2, Insightful)
I'd bet this is a bigger/more noticable difference. And if the new powerbooks have taught me anything its that anodized aluminum is awesome
Re:Take a look for yourself! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Mixed response (Score:3, Insightful)
So, if you're an alpha, go get one today so my wife can save $50 on one for my birthday in June!
Re:Stupid people pay more. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Mixed values (Score:5, Insightful)
I have mixed feelings about this; I thought the original iPod was merely an "okay" idea. Not useful to me personally, and not deserving of the hype it was getting. I now have the 3rd gen 20 gig model, and have to acknowledge that it was and is an amazing product.
So I'm hesitant to strongly trash the mini iPod, just because I was wrong, before. I can sort of see where Apple is going with this -- most people either don't have huge CD collections, or don't see it as a big win to carry everything with them. Continuing to grow the HD sizes on the big iPods isn't going to make the things any more appealing these people. Shrinking it will, even though existing iPods are incredibly compact.
But there are two things I can't get away from:
First, it's a small step pricewise from the mini iPod to the 15 gig version, a far better deal, in my eyes. OTOH, it's not exactly a problem if one of your products' sales are being cannibalized by one of your more expensive products. If the mini iPod gets people who were previously considering a flash-based player to consider an iPod, and they end up with a 15 gig model, that's hardly a loss for Apple. Maybe Apple doesn't even plan to sell that many of these at $250. As the price of the guts comes down, they can price-drop these way down, and reuse much of the R&D they did for them when larger HD sizes are available in the appropriate form factor. And in the meantime, they're acting as a weird sort of advertisement for their big brothers.
But the thing that bugs me more is the simple thought that a $150 2 gigabyte model would have absolutely cleaned up in the marketplace. Overnight, sales of flash based players over $100 would have vanished.
Re:Mixed values (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple targets affluent, aesthetically oriented buyers. Neither of these traits are "average". And, by virtue of the fact that Apple seems to be doing just fine now financially, this seems to be a winning strategy.
They're not dead yet.
Re:Mixed values (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Mixed response (Score:3, Insightful)
Example [compuplus.com]
The cheapest I've heard of someone getting it was about $230, by combining the rebate with some Amazon offer. That's the thing about Apple stuff - you ALWAYS pay full price, no discounts, no rebates, few offers.
Re:Mixed? No...disappointed (Score:5, Insightful)
It is safe to assume that this is obvious to Apple, too. The logical conclusion is that there is something about the product that keeps Apple from selling it for cheap. Here are just some things that come to mind:
1) It's not technically possible. Those mini-HDs are brand new, and there was only enough time to test the 4G versions. Mind you this is a consumer product, and must work flawlessly (unlike computers).
2) Apple cannot possibly make enough to satisfy demand anyway - they have had production problems in the past. So make them expensive now and increase profits and cheap later - people love price cuts.
3) It's always possible to intro the 2G / $100 version later on. Unless there is serious competition (e.g. Sony or similar) the price will be closer to $149 though.
Finally, this is a ground breaking product in terms of size / capacity, so to expect it to come for really cheap is unrealistic. In addition, the production process for a completely new product is tricky to pull off at a high quality level. That's not to be underestimated. Apple / iPod has an extremely good reputation so they have basically no room for error - the press would tear them apart immediately.
Re:$29,500 (Score:2, Insightful)
I'll bet this was the person selling all those iTunes gift certificates on ebay.
Just a hunch.
Re:Mixed response (Score:0, Insightful)
Come the fuck ON, mods, just because you love Apple doesn't mean... ah, forget it. Talking to a brick wall.
Hope I see you in M2
Steve is leasing you software! (Score:3, Insightful)
Worse yet, many of my fellow Mac users, who abhor MS, thinks those prices are more than fair. In fact, thet would probably pay more if only Steve asked them to! :)
I love Apple (can't live without my iBook, iPod, iTunes, and iPhoto). I would pay, and did pay, a premium for Apple hardware and OS X, but this annual subscription thing - bah!
Re:Mixed? No...disappointed (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe. Just maybe. One of the key markets of flash based players is composed of people that work out (running,etc). I like the iPod, but I'm not absolutely convinced it's as rugged as a flash-based player. The "no moving parts" feature is an important one.
Re: Mixed response (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess it depends on your starting point. If you're thinking of dropping $250 on a player, then sure, it makes sense to spend just $50 more and get one with more than three times the capacity - but what if you're initially thinking of spending, say, just $200? That's what lots of flash-based players cost that hold just 256 MB; the iPod mini holds 16 times that and costs just $50 more. It's a lot easier to make the jump to justify spending an extra $50 than an extra $100, so while lots of people who might get an iPod mini will get a 15 GB iPod instead, there'll also be people who might get one of those $199 256 MB flash players who wind up getting an iPod mini instead - but probably few people who'd plan on getting one of those flash players but wind up spending $100 more for a 15 GB iPod.
If one iPod bites into sales of the other, it hardly matters anyway from Apple's POV, since at the end of the day it's still selling iPods. All they care about is biting into sales of the flash players, and the iPod minis will help them do that better than if they just had only the regular, non-mini iPods.
Re:Wow (Score:3, Insightful)
I said cheap comparatively. I was simply pointing out the heavy-lifting for this program had already been done by Emagic and Soundtrack. Even most of the design is borrowed.
Re:Mixed values (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure you could get a decent looking, slightly larger Jukebox Xtra [nomadworld.com] that has 7,5 times the capacity of the Mini iPod and replaceable batteries for exactly the same amount of money but it's "just no iPod". And, at that point - as every man knows - there's no reasoning with it.
That is the market segment Apple is going after.
And more importantly, it's also smart from a business point of view: she couldn't explain the difference between a Megabyte or a Gigabyte for the life of her. Now, at some point the thing will inevitably run out of space and instead of getting rid of older files she'll just buy a new one. Unless, of course, the battery dies first...
Re:Mixed? No...disappointed (Score:3, Insightful)
It's funny, when the roumers came out, I had no problem with any part of it being possible - except for the price. Anyone who seriously thought that Apple would produce a mini-iPod for $99 was seriously deluded and hadn't been around Apple products for long.
One of the Apple marketing strategies is that you "pay more for the quality". Much the same approach Sony takes. New products are never released at low prices because it would seriously undermine the "I paid the most, but it's the best" marketing aspect.
N.
Re:Just a Testament to Apple's Business Model (Score:3, Insightful)
The base model iPod is still $299. Same price it's been since the 10 and 20GB 2G iPods were introduced.
Except now it's a 15GB model.
What they've done is introduced a lower priced miniature model that doesn't have nearly the bang for the buck of the $299 one.
Bad Value, but NOT higher cost.
Re:Steve is leasing you software! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Mixed? No...disappointed (Score:2, Insightful)
Here's a hint from the Apple website, in the section discussing the belt clip: "You can even clip the iPod mini to a lanyard for the ultimate fashion statement. We hear it's big in Japan."
Apple is one of the very few foreign companies to succeed in Japan, and it's all because of their focus on style. If you thought American consumers were fickle and valued style, you haven't seen anything yet. The Japanese are going to eat these things up!
If I can't put my own AA NiMH in it - who cares? (Score:1, Insightful)
No, I didn't read the fine print. Ignore this if it does take AA-sized batteries.
You confuse usability and ease of learning. (Score:5, Insightful)
The iPod has *both*, so maybe that explains the confusion.
But it's always good to pay for usability. Usability *never* changes no matter how practiced you become. A iPod 1 foot tall will always remain 1 foot tall, and will remain as unusable a month after purchase as when new. An iPod the shape of a pointy five sized star, no matter how small, is just as unusable no matter how much effort you put into it.
The fact that the iPod is both usable *and* easy to learn is a testament to it's design:
It's smooth, rounded, corners, makes it easy to slip into and fish out of a pocket. That's usability.
It's light weight is usability.
It's simple charge via Firewire is usability.
It's simple scroll wheel with large embedded buttons is usability; it's the ability to use it without looking, and has nothing to do with ease of learning.
It's hard protective aluminum shell is usability, not ease of learning.
It's ability to boot is usability.
It's ability to play Solitaire, Breakout!, and Missile Command is usability.
It's ability to act as a normal Firewire drive is usability.
It's ability to scroll through your collection quickly is usability.
The layout of the five buttons to up, down, left, right, and center is usability; the ability to use all the buttons with only two fingers, your thumb and index finger, is usability, and not ease of learning.
Ease of learning? That's figuring out that the scroll wheel controls volume, contrast, seek, games, and menu selection in different contexts: That Apple overloads the scroll wheel in five situations, and you learning which five, is ease of learning. Or that Apple overloads the 'action' button to toggle selections, the games, and switch modes between seek and volume, that's ease of learning. Or, difficulty, I suppose.
Re:Stupid people pay more. (Score:2, Insightful)
Opterons are MUCH slower than G5s.
So there is no equivilent hardware on the x86 side.
Well, maybe a quad something or other would come close.
Everyone who buys x86 does so because they think clock speed is performance.
They see the G5 at 2GHz and think its slower than a 3GHz pentium.
This includes %99 of slashdot posters who will go on and on with rationalizations to try and "prove" that they don't think so-- they will even post benchmarks like spec (Which just measures clock rate) to try to prove it.
But at the end of the day, they are not educated in computer engineering, they don't know what they are talking about, and they will tell you BS.
Like the guys used to do in the 70s who tricked out their cars but never really knew the physics behind them, so they put in things that salespeople sold them that didn't really enhance performance-- but they told their friends they did because tehy wanted to seem cool. They told their friends about it in excruciating detail.
That is what its like having the performance argument with an x86 fan. By definition they are ignorant, and arguing with an idiot only makes an idiot of yourself.
So don't do it, unless its for sport.
Re:Mixed? No...disappointed (Score:4, Insightful)
I think you're right.
But Apple knows its market. It knows that the initial purchasing crunch is the most expensive-- because they have to gear up lots of players to meet demand, and it comes when their component prices are highest.
So, what Apple does with all their products is introduce them at a "high" price and then lower the price later, or up the capabilities at the same price.
You saw this with the original iPods.
The $250 ipod is so close to the $299 ipod because they want to clear out the people who are super concerned with size first.
Eventually the mini-iPod will be $199. (Cause I don't think they can increase the capacity like they did with the originals.)
Re:Mixed values (Score:2, Insightful)
No. Apple targets cheapskates who like to get three times as much product quality and performance for %30 more money.
They specifically do not target people who cannot make a value judgement and just buy on price.
Re:Mixed response (Score:5, Insightful)
How on earth do you figure that a Karma costs $150 to manufacture but the iPod is $270? They are both virtually equiv in terms of hardware.
But lets's look at retail prices:
20gb Rio Karma $250
20gb iPod $400
That's a $150 difference, or more importantly, 37.5%. Personally, having used both, I would still pick the Karma if it were the same price.
I prefer the form factor (although the cosmetics are not as nice as the Apple) and the interface - the OGG support is very valuable to me and I am blown away by their support and the openess of their devs. I also would be totally put off by the iPod battery stories I've read recently, though there's a good chance they're being overblown, I consider Apple's handling of the situation to be pretty useless.
Having said all that I did buy my (Apple loving) brother an iPod for christmas, because I realise the alternatives aren't for everyone. But for techies, as I said before I'm just amazed that iPod's are so popular.
That's why its pointles to argue with PC weenies-- they will tell you with a straight face that some AMD system is as fast as a G5-- cause they're too ignorant ot know the guy who told them that was lying.
Oh and really - the G5 is NOT the fastest computer you can buy at that price. I love the design, OSX is cool, but in terms of pure performance, it really isn't that amazing. And don't you dare call me a weenie.
Re:Mixed? No...disappointed (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't really see the reasoning for what we got instead.
It's simple. The MP3 player market is very competitive. Like always, Apple looks for the high end niche to avoid the dog fight.
MP3 players, desktops, workstations, servers, or laptops -- Apple does not try to compete at the low end. There's no money to be made using their typical high style and marketing. iTunes store and software seem to be the exception, but they are provided to encourage the sale of iPods and computers.
This is why the Apple we know today will never make a big splash in the bottom-line corporate world. Same reason why we don't see BMW fleet cars.
Bet you wish you could edit your post (Score:3, Insightful)
"
Bollocks. Everyone=100% of the sample, in the English language.
I didn't, I bought x86 because the software I want to use doesn't work on a Mac, natively.
I'm sure that applies to many engineers, draftsmen and game players.
Difference: (Score:3, Insightful)
Vs Microsoft's attempts to lease, which *would* stop the software from workgin!
Re:Mixed values (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, I know your comment was mostly in jest, but throwing around phrases like "it's pretty demeaning to assume gender has a hold on tech knowledge" pretty clearly indicates that you actually take some offense to his statement.
By saying what you said, you demonstrate your inability to read (or perhaps simply a lack of reading comprehension), wherein you are responding to something he didn't even say. You're doing a disservice to your cause, because you will now be written off as "another woman that doesn't listen", and you'll fight more posters in the future who look down on you.
If you want people to respect you, you need to earn it. One of the best ways to not do that is to imply someone is a bigot when there exists no evidence that agrees with your assertion.
There are plenty of people and posts that deserve your attention and work to set the record straight; his is not one of them.