Apple Releases Basic iPod Touch, Possibly Foreshadowing iPhone Strategy 228
redletterdave writes "While the new 16 GB iPod Touch released Thursday features the same 4-inch Retina display and dual-core A5 processor as its other variants, the newest, cheapest iPod Touch lacks a rear camera and comes in just two colors black and silver. Apple is reportedly pursuing a similar strategy with the iPhone, as reports from the past several months have pointed to development of a 'low-cost iPhone' with basic features to be sold at a lower price point."
Obnoxiously... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Obnoxiously... (Score:5, Informative)
So, compared to a 4th gen, a 5th gen has:
- twice the storage
- bigger, much higher quality screen in a physical package only 11% longer
- 87% the weight
- much faster cpu
- twice the ram
The only thing you lost was a shitty camera that was less than 1MP. All this for the same price. Go ahead and load up an old 4th gen with recordings of yourself playing the worlds tiniest violin.
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Electronic devices are supposed to improve over time. Twice the RAM, twice the storage, twice as fast CPU is about what we expect from Moore's law.
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But why not just have an iPhone, and get the phone functionality? Your business user will want a smartphone anyway, I don't see where an iPod fits in.
The cameras are both useful in business - I've used mine to take snaps of the content of whiteboards, flip charts etc to save copying them down, and the other camera is potentially useful for videoconferencing.
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It's a good point about the phone. Obviously iPhones are more attractive for business users than iPods.
But whilst there can be uses for cameras in business, there are a plenty of business and governmental scenarios where you're not allowed a camera. An employee with a camera-phone might be fired, and a visitor with one will have it retained by security.
A camera-less iPhone would certainly have a market.
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Someone modded it down because it said something positive about an Apple product.
Re:Obnoxiously... (Score:4, Insightful)
And you can buy just about any other MP3 player on the market with the same features for under $50... AND you're not forced to use apple iTunes, the worst piece of software I've ever had the misfortune to use. It boggles the mind how Apples customer continue to pay these kinds of prices for such inferior products.
Full disclosure: I hate Apple
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And you can buy just about any other MP3 player on the market with the same features for under $50...
Please give us actual product names. I'm curious. If you are looking for a pure music player, maybe. But the iPod Touch is an awful lot more than a music player.
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The iPod Touch itself is a great device, although you can usually get a better smartphone for the same price or a bit more (which ends up being cheaper if it saves you from buying a dumb phone).
It's the other iPods that suck and are overpriced, and they always did.
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And you can buy just about any other MP3 player on the market with the same features for under $50...
MP3 playing is simply one app on the mobile computer that is the iPod Touch. There are all the usual PDA apps and a web browser built in, plus 100s of thousands of apps available.
Full disclosure: I hate Apple
Yeah, that was kinda obvious from the FUD.
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and is it easy to get music (and podcasts, and as I said, apps) onto the device and smart playlists, etc?
Almost every non-Apple music player ever made supports "drag and drop" music copying from your PC, without any crappy software required.
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Almost every non-Apple music player ever made supports "drag and drop" music copying from your PC, without any crappy software required.
In other words, with other MP3 players you have to manually manage your music. iTunes does it automatically.
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You don't have to. You can use a software if you want to.
Even if you drag and drop 100 files without "managing them", the MP3 player can list them by album, artist, and so on.
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Does it actually try to play it as music?
I can't believe somebody is asking this on Slashdot. Non-music files are just ignored. But yes, you can use your MP3 player as a USB thumb drive.
Re:Obnoxiously... (Score:5, Funny)
What if you drag a thing that's not music to it? Does it actually try to play it as music?
You got a good point there; an invalid file will cause a typical MP3 player to explode. Apple is the only company that makes a music device that doesn't kill the user when there is an error.
Re:Obnoxiously... (Score:5, Insightful)
Rockbox (http://www.rockbox.org/) on a Sansa Fuze, day after Thanksgiving sale for $49. Expandable memory via microSD card slot; also picks up radio, has microphone, plays AAC, OGG, FLAC, etc., etc., etc. Comes with a number of games etc. Not ridiculously high resolution display, but I really don't see the point of that or random apps so hey. Oh, plus you can skin it. Can an iPod do that? No?
Unfortunately this was a few years ago when they still made them with physical wheels. Now they're making them with capacitance thingies like iPods :P
Screens (Score:3)
This leaves only the iPhone 4 and 4S as devices Apple sell without the taller screen. If there's any hint at an upcoming product strategy, it would be that they might drop those models to streamline production.
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Agreed, if anything this sounds to me more like streamlining the supply chain and manufacturing by removing component variance. Using the same part a million times is significantly cheaper than using one part for 800k and another for 200k even if the single part used a million times is more expensive.
I'd expect the same result across the board as they roll it out.
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This is the only comment that gets close to the truth.
The other aspect is that older devices can't run the latest iOS or apps built for them. So supply chain and software lifecycle management.
Remember that Apple devices are part of an ecosystem. Apple has no desire to allow either hardware or software to be fragmented for very long.
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Agreed, by using the same core board/cpu they are bringing the lower end devices up to the same software lifecycle as the high ends.. and just as you said it allow them to avoid fragmentation which is a serious issue to manage.
The Apocalypse is upon us. (Score:2)
... lacks a rear camera and comes in just two colors black and silver.
Oh, and way to edit, samzenpus.
Strange. (Score:5, Interesting)
First the strange design changes for the nano (went from being basically a better mini to a tiny squashed one, back to being tall, then adding a camera, then taking away the camera, and video playback adding a touchscreen and making it squashed, now making it look like a smaller iPod touch) and now the removal of one of the cameras on the touch for the same price-point as one -with- the cameras (smaller storage on the previous generation, but with flash becoming cheaper and cheaper every year that should be expected)
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I always thought of the nano as their test lab where they experiment with features and ideas.. Being one of their "cheaper" iPods guarantees that lots get sold and they can get a good idea of how people react to, utilize, and break these features before they go up the product line.
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Because Apples products are marketing and bullshit... and I don't think Apples upper managements quite realize that just yet while Steve Jobs knew it all along.
Check your facts (Score:2, Informative)
The new iPod does not come in two colors, it comes in one color: silver back + black face. Also, in addition to not having the camera it also omits the wrist strap attachment.
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black face.
Does it come pre-loaded with Al Jolson routines?
interesting (Score:2)
The iPhone Classic II
crap article (Score:2, Flamebait)
Crap content, crap summary, crap analysis. Jesus, is someone holding a gun to your head and FORCING you to post Apple stories? There's NO APPLE NEWS. Apple has gone quiet, as it does quite regularly, and the tech press is losing it's fucking mind.
Never Was Any Apple News (Score:2)
Crap content, crap summary, crap analysis. Jesus, is someone holding a gun to your head and FORCING you to post Apple stories? There's NO APPLE NEWS. Apple has gone quiet, as it does quite regularly, and the tech press is losing it's fucking mind.
There never was any Apple news; Apple only have 5 products, although some have been measurably very very successful. In reality this is speculation on Apples main (Only) product line, as its currently one phone profits over market share solution is running out of steam (and has been for some time). Right now we are simply gambling on whether we sill see a *larger* or *crippled* iPhone. I personally think the summary is on the money it will be a crippled iPhone.
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Crap content, crap summary, crap analysis. Jesus, is someone holding a gun to your head and FORCING you to post Apple stories? There's NO APPLE NEWS. Apple has gone quiet, as it does quite regularly, and the tech press is losing it's fucking mind.
First off, the tech press has no mind. They cant possibly lose it. Secondly, making up shit about Apple based on absolutely nothing is basically what the tech press does. I've simply stopped paying attention to it as it's all wildly wrong. They make every prediction under the sun about the next iTurd in an attempt to be right about anything. It's like using a shotgun to kill a fly, you might hit it but you'd waste a hell of a lot of shot just trying.
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Mod this insightful. "The media are jonesing for some Apple news": that's the only story about Apple at the moment. Samzenpus needs to go on a media studies course. And a critical thinking course wouldn't hurt either.
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Blame the economy. Any Apple news brings in lots of ad revenue. No Apple news brings in little.
Face it - there's no other company on earth that can bring in the crowds Apple can.
Google? Beyond Android fanboys and a tiny amount of Android haters, most people go "meh
Get rid of the front camera (Score:2)
If it's going back to one camera it would be better to keep the one that gets used the most.
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tbh, on an iPod the front camera is the one that gets used most. Up until the 5th gen, iPod rear cameras were far inferior to their iPhone siblings (0.92 megapixels) and basically worthless. Of all my friends and family that have iPods/iPads, none of them use the rear camera for anything (excluding rugrats taking pictures accidentally), but almost all use facetime chat heavily.
This is proof that.. (Score:4, Interesting)
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Are Apple the high end any more? The iPhone 5 was dated the day it launched thanks to competitors like the GS3 and even some of HTC's offerings. Now even fairly mid level phones like the Nexus 4 surpass it.
Even Nokia's Windows offerings are comparable. If anything it looks like Apple is retreating from the leading edge and concentrating more on the mid range.
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Is Rolex high end any more? Casio have some new features on their latest digital watch.
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That's exactly what happened with the iPod range. People were clamouring for a low-end iPhone as flash players began to become dominant, and Apple slowly released the Nano and the Shuffle.
Morans (Score:3)
There already is a low-cost iPhone, and it's been out for years. It's called Last Year's iPhone, and it's $100 with contract. And the iPhone from two years ago is free with contract.
It would be like the press jabbering at Samsung for a cheaper Galaxy phone, when you could get a newly built model two versions old for that cheaper price. Why reinvent the wheel...
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Nah, he might be in Canada where we can get a $50-per month (minimum, which probably has 100mb data) on a THREE year contract to get the phone "cheaply"
Ugh (Score:2)
If by cheapest you mean "cheapest now that they discontinued the model that was $30 cheaper" then, yeah.
Say NO to IBITimes (Score:2)
Re:Start giving back some of that money, Apple. (Score:5, Informative)
Start giving back some of that money, Apple.
I know it didn't get reported on Slashdot, but still, you're kidding, right? I mean, it was big news and only happened a few weeks ago.
Apple is currently engaging in the largest single share repurchase program in history [macrumors.com], which will put $60B USD into their investors' pockets by the end of 2015. And that's on top of the $11B/year they're paying out in dividends already [macrumors.com].
All told, they're giving back $100B by the end of 2015, which is over 2/3 of what they have in the bank right now. So, either you were unaware of that, or you think that their doing so is not a big enough step, in which case I have to ask: what would be sufficient?
As for the gravy train being over, by what metric? Their sales certainly aren't growing at the rate that Android's are, but by any measure, they are still massively successful. Their rate of sale has continued to grow incredibly fast, and their profits in PCs [cnn.com] and mobile devices [techpinions.com] represent either a plurality or majority in each of those markets.
Re:Start giving back some of that money, Apple. (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple is currently engaging in the largest single share repurchase program in history [macrumors.com], which will put $60B USD into their investors' pockets by the end of 2015.
Apple financed the repurchase program by selling 17 billion dollars worth of short, medium and long term bonds. It was widely thought that this method was chosen, rather than repatriating cash held overseas, to avoid depletion of onshore cash reserves while at the same time further delaying the payment of income taxes on profits held overseas. It's interesting question whether or not Apple would be able to pay the bond coupons using that cash held overseas without incurring a tax liability. I presume that they wouldn't be able to, but even if they had to pay the coupons out of current after tax income the fact that a huge amount of cash remains on the balance sheet, albeit overseas and subject to tax if ever repatriated, strengthens Apple's financial situation vis-a-vis financing the share repurchase program entirely with cash.
Mod parent up, Mod GP down. (Score:2)
GP's post is evasive at best, dishonest at worst. He talks about market growth where profits have dropped, ignores the fact that where market growth has occurred it's been at one of the lowest rates in the industry and an order of magnitude lower than it's key competitors then pretends Apple is handing money back out of it's cash pile when it fact it's financing the buyback with debt. To put it kindly, he's cherry picked positive stats whilst ignoring negative stats which only tells half the story. When the
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Neither do random Slashdot posters being retarded, and yet, you're still here.
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Ok, at what point in your little fantasy world did Apple have market dominance over anyone other than graphic artists with a chip on their shoulder?
Re:Start giving back some of that money, Apple. (Score:5, Insightful)
Aside from the iPod and the iPhone, Apple has never really been the most used. Certainly they have historically been in some niche applications (graphic design and publishing come to mind) but they've never been the "mainstream" computer brand. They've managed to always keep a solid enough marketshare to make sure that they get supported, but aside from the iPhone and iPod, they've historically never been number one, nor seemed to have any interest in total marketshare domination.
Re:Start giving back some of that money, Apple. (Score:5, Interesting)
Another way to look at this is that Apple has always historically pursued maximum profits and market share but adopted different strategies in light of the practicalities of specific markets. As an underdog in the PC market, quality was a differentiator to attract whatever market share was possible, realizing that being a dominant volume seller was not possible. As the dominant vendor in the smartphone space but with eroding market share, Apple is decreasing quality and cost to maintain market share and profit (although not margins). I think this is the more accurate portrayal of Apple, since I doubt they would be willing to blindly sacrifice profit in the name of quality or aesthetics.
Apple; Microsoft and Intel Killing the PC Market (Score:2)
I agree, except I would've used the word 'features' instead of 'quality'. . . . to me quality represents the grade of components used, the robustness of construction, etc. Hopefully they won't be sacrificing that (which really is part of the Apple brand) and just trimming down on features.
I disagree, I would use words like 'overpriced' and 'Stock components' going forward we see their (not your) PC's being increasingly turned into electronic devices using incompatible connectors. No wonder there PC sales dropped 22% and 2% over the past two quarters.
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One reason might be that investors feel that Apple can't grow at the same rate as in the past. The ones interested in just the stock price sell Apple and buy other companies, possibly in totally different markets, that have a chance of growing faster. The company they invest on is not important to them, only the growth rate of the stock price is.
Whatever it is, the stock price is an indicator of how people feel about the future of a company.
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You mean except for the Classic, LC (Low Cost), and Centris model lines, right?
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People and way of running apple has _NOTHING AT ALL_ to do with any history of Apple beyond last 8 years or so.
Going to the lower end of phones is a must if they plan to keep alive - or else they'll be eaten like they were eaten on the desktop - it's a miracle they survived that at all despite going into it with full coffers. Thing is, Apple might not have anyone making decisions who can look that far back though.
Re:Start giving back some of that money, Apple. (Score:5, Informative)
no matter what they do with their money they will keep losing market share if they keep making stupid decisions.
Even if they make good decisions, they'll still lose market share. Their problem isn't that they're getting stupid, it's that everyone else is getting smart.
Phones like the HTC One are beautifully made and elegantly designed. Jelly Bean is slick, comfortable and easy to use. Other manufacturers are leapfrogging a long way past Apple's current standards, and doing it at a lower cost. Look at Lenovo's latest:
The [Lenovo K900] sports a 5.5-inch display with a 1080 x 1920p resolution with a pixel density of 400ppi. Lenovo K900 is powered by the latest Intel Atom Clover Trail+ processor clocked at 2 GHz, alongside 2 GB of RAM. Furthermore, the device comes with a 13 megapixel Sony Exmor BSI rear camera and a 2 megapixel front-facing shooter.
http://www.gsmarena.com/lenovo_k900_now_available_in_china_priced_at_536-news-6062.php [gsmarena.com]
About "market share" (Score:5, Interesting)
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For the company itself or the shareholders, you are right, market share doesn't mean winning.
However, from a custommer point of view, market share means winning, because it means that the platform is the most widely adopted and will gain support.
Chances are that your company will buy Windows PCs because this platform is winning the PC war. Even if Apple made more money on OS X than Microsoft on Windows, that wouldn't change that.
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"Chances are that your company will buy Windows PCs because this platform is winning the PC war. "
Traditional PC sales have dropped in real terms for 9 consecutive quarters and the most recent quarter was the deepest yet. The iMac has grown market share and actual units shipped over that same time period. Apple introduced the iPad shipped 120 million units at an average selling price of just a touch over the ASP of Windows PCs. Apple's profits on just the Mac and iPad exceed the profits of all Windows PC makers combined (Though I'm not sure Microsoft themselves).
What exactly is your definition of "winni
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Walk into any office of any reasonably sized company. Count the number of Macs. Now count the number of PCs. In my company for example the only Macs I see are when people bring their own. That's my definition of winning the PC war. Windows PCs are going nowhere, but a shift in consumer preferences could completely trash Apple's bottom line.
Re:About "market share" (Score:4, Insightful)
Walk into any office of any reasonably sized company. Count the number of Macs. Now count the number of PCs. In my company for example the only Macs I see are when people bring their own.
No doubt. But there are more Macs as a percentage this year than there were last year, iPads have replaced increasing numbers of PCs this year. When you lose ground every year for 2-3 years you aren't winning. Computers installed in people's offices are little comfort to Dell and HP as they try and figure out how to explain to their shareholders exactly why their sales are into double digit declines and share value yet again.
.. a shift in consumer preferences could completely trash Apple's bottom line.
The oft repeated mantra which has been proved wrong for every year over the past 10+ years.
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And yet I still remember when Apple were in deep crap after being hugely successful for years.
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Yes it is. Which means that Apple could very easily be screwed again.
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Walk into any office of any reasonably sized company. Count the number of Macs. Now count the number of PCs. In my company for example the only Macs I see are when people bring their own. That's my definition of winning the PC war. Windows PCs are going nowhere, but a shift in consumer preferences could completely trash Apple's bottom line.
Winning the PC wars?? Do tablets and laptops count as PCs? And before you answer, keep in mind that tablets are expected to outstrip graybox sales this year or next. The bottom could just as easily fall out of the Windows PC market. My parents used to have one PC each, a desktop and a laptop. They now have an Android tablet each and replaced their two PCs with an iMac (mostly because that means free tech support from me). I see similar things happening all around me. Families who used to have up to 3-4 Wind
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But I'm not talking about the consumer sector, I'm talking about the business sector as per the text you've just quoted.
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What do the thin clients run? Are you using Windows Servers if you say MS Office is still critical? In any case my point still stands. Macs are not displacing PCs in the most lucrative market, the business market. The iPads sound like a new thing since I doubt you had a PC outside every meeting room. We've looked at thin clients where I work but they were not cost effective for what we need.
Market Share=Long Term Profits. (Score:2)
Can we please stop pretending that "market share" means "winning?"
No I'm a consumer :) I think better specification/OS at better value/choice with Android is winning...and the fact that that it has greater market share (with a stronger Application Market) reinforces these things.
As for any idea why people here talk about market share over (short) term profits. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22274324 [bbc.co.uk] Apples profits are falling
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You point to a page which starts talking about smartphones as if they were melons, but in this case you are not talking about melons. Overall the article shows a serious lack of knowlege about the industry. These are smartphones and they work differently. In the case of smartphones, market share really is winning and you should remenber that that is exactly what kept Nokia dominant in the market from around 2000 to 2012 even as their technology lead was quite dubious. So far in the industry, market shar
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Scale and network effects are clearly very important, and Android obviously poses a really serious challenge to Apple. However, I think you are wrong to assert that Android has become the standard software platform. It's clear that Android and iOS are the standard software platform*s*. Many app developers go with Android first, but plenty more go with iOS first, preferring to develop for a limited range of devices (3 to 4 variants vs testing on 50+ devices) and cognisant that app usage is much higher on iOS
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The number that I do believe is that paid app usage downloaded from Apple's store is much higher than the same thing from Google play. However that's a Google vs Apple financial comparison and isn't the one relevant to my arguments. For Apple devices the only software source is Apple's app store. For Android devices there are many sources; direct download; Amazon; 3rd party stores; Free software repositories like F-droid [f-droid.org] etc. This quite likely more than accounts for differences in the number of apps in
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I wasn't arguing the rights and wrongs of developers' decisions to go with either Android or iOS; I was asserting that many developers still do choose to go with iOS first. I think that's an observable and fairly inarguable fact. Perhaps it's changing, but for the moment it's certainly true. I can think of half a dozen "big" (ie significant, revenue-generating apps) that went iOS first -- Hailo, AddLee, many UK banking apps. I deliberately chose these as examples as they are free-to-download apps that still
Re:Start giving back some of that money, Apple. (Score:5, Interesting)
The IRC actually allows you to deduct foreign taxes from the taxes you owe. The thing is, corporate taxes are much lower in other parts of the world, so what you said is practically true even though it's not actually true at all.
Re:Start giving back some of that money, Apple. (Score:5, Informative)
"They paid taxes in the nations they made the money in. "
No.
Apple may have "deliberately or accidentally" misled Australians about how it sets prices here and should "correct the record or provide further detail", a Labor backbencher has demanded.
Backbencher Ed Husic, who has taken a leading role in an Australian parliamentary committee into IT pricing, said shock revelations from a US Senate committee raised concerns "the Australian inquiry has been misled, either deliberately or accidentally".
"I'd call on Apple Australia to either correct the record or provide further detail as to the way it actually prices its products for Australian consumers," Husic told the House of Representatives.
Husic said people may have "raised an eyebrow" at reports that Apple generated $6bn in revenue in Australia but "paid only $40m in tax – apparently because it racked up $5.5bn in costs", but "their eyes would've popped out" at the US revelations Apple had set up an offshore subsidiary that earned $30bn income but had apparently paid no tax to any government for five years.
And the two committee investigations were related, because Apple's complicated international structure has an impact on the prices paid for Apple products for Australians.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/28/australian-companies-forced-disclose-tax [guardian.co.uk]
Note that the "$5.5bn in costs" was mostly fees paid by the Australian branch to the offshore subsidiary. Basically a way to inflate prices and pump money out of the region.
30 Billion no tax in Ireland. (Score:4, Informative)
It is a false urban legend that Apple is paying no taxes.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/video/2013/may/29/apples-dirty-little-tax-secret-video [guardian.co.uk] Here is a great informative video from where they unusually, actually go to Cork Ireland.
They actually use a Tax loophole that allows them not to pay tax anywhere in the world. Its brilliant, what Apple do is not use a low tax island...they make the island disappear entirely. It woks because the US is concerned with where a company is Incorporated...where the Irish look where a Company is controlled...so Apple tell the US that they are Incorporated in Ireland...and tell the Irish they are controlled in the US, So Pay literally (proper use of word) NOTHING :)
So if by Urban Myth...you actually mean Fact you would have been right. The fact that you were modded informative shows a frightening trend.
Re:What I want in a portable music player (Score:4, Informative)
Meeting all your requirements seems to be impossible (I googled) and I don't think the situation will change in the future.
If you can make compromises, it seems that the iPod Classic 160GB plays ALAC files and comes in at £199. Not sure what the dollar price is or whether ALAC is a suitable replacement for FLAC (I'm happy enough with 320kbps Spotify tunes so hardly the right person to ask).
However, the main problem is that we are at the point where the majority want converged devices and this means that, for most people, their phone doubles as a music player, a camera, and everything else.
The market for standalone music players definitely still exists, but don't expect to see much innovation there. In general, the market for these devices is one that wants to load up their MP3/AAC collection and take it with them while out exercising. People with your needs are a minority and in a saturated market, there is little point in companies developing such a device for marginal profit gains.
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Meeting all your requirements seems to be impossible (I googled) and I don't think the situation will change in the future.
If you can make compromises, it seems that the iPod Classic 160GB plays ALAC files and comes in at £199. Not sure what the dollar price is or whether ALAC is a suitable replacement for FLAC (I'm happy enough with 320kbps Spotify tunes so hardly the right person to ask).
However, the main problem is that we are at the point where the majority want converged devices and this means that, for most people, their phone doubles as a music player, a camera, and everything else.
The market for standalone music players definitely still exists, but don't expect to see much innovation there. In general, the market for these devices is one that wants to load up their MP3/AAC collection and take it with them while out exercising. People with your needs are a minority and in a saturated market, there is little point in companies developing such a device for marginal profit gains.
I have an Ipod Classic, I convert my 16bit/44khz flac to apple's lossless format and listen to the music that way. Love it! I'd just like the higher bit & sample rate for my vinyl rips. Ya, i'm probably in the minority, but I do think they could add the 24bit/96khz easier then they can add a camera to the music players.
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How the fuck is my post a troll? I named the type of portable music player I'd like, something different then was is being offered? Offtopic maybe, but troll?
Seriously?
I think you do not know what a troll is.
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"I think you do not know what a troll is."
Yes, and I think you incurred the wrath of Apple fanboys by not instead just posting "OMG I WANT ONE OF THESE NEW iPODS".
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If you think there's a market kickstart it.
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Did you really just say they should release a non-touchscreen version of the iPod touch?
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Unfortunately, yes. It was an error. I meant to say that a "budget" iPod shouldn't have a touchscreen.
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It doesn't. [apple.com]
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You are joking right? $49 for a MP3 player without display, and only 2GB storage?
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and only 2GB storage?
Yeah, AND no wireless. Lame.
Re:"Just" $229 for the 16GB version? Are you kiddi (Score:4, Insightful)
But if you take away all those things - especially the touch screen - it is no longer an iPod touch and simply becomes a bigger iPod Nano. And I would make the argument that if you do remove all those features, you don't need such a big display so you could even make it the same size as the iPod Nano.
Realistically, in 2013, would you not consider a touch screen as a basic feature? It might have been advanced 6-7 years ago but these days you can pick up cheap Android devices for under £50 which all have touch screens.
WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity these days seem to come as part of the SoC which powers these devices. Same with GPS. I think it would actually turn out more expensive to maintain a separate line producing separate chips - particularly as the incremental cost of WiFi & Bluetooth isn't much.
You probably don't need Apple to convince you to buy one of their iProducts. They aren't going to give you drag & drop nor remove the iTunes requirement. I love my iPhone but I really hate iTunes so much that I subscribe to Spotify instead and only use that for music these days.
If you're happy enough with your Zen, why not look for its natural successor instead? You'll probably appreciate it much more than switching to Apple.
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With a title description of "Basic" iPod Touch, I was thinking it would be a [...] non-touchscreen [...] version of life [sic] iPod touch
The iPod Touch wouldn't make much sense without a touchscreen, now would it? The product is intended to basically be an iPhone without the phone component. If you don't want all of that, then clearly the device isn't aimed at you, and it sounds like you'd be better served by a different product.
And I don't understand this mentality where people think that $company_x needs to make $product_y in order to win them over. The truth is that no, they don't need to do that at all, since we're not their target demog
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I had one of those Zen X-FIs, too. They rocked. They *stored, transferred, and played back music files* quite nicely.
In other words, they acted the way a reasonable media player ought. My sole gripe was that they didn't play all media files and there was no way to add support for those that were lacking.
Smartphone takes care of that now, though. VLC works fine on all 3 of my Android devices, and I've yet to find a format it doesn't play, and thus I've no need for any other media player software on any of th
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People don't buy an iPod touch to play music. They buy them to play games. It's what you get for your 10 yr old niece/nephew/son/daughter. My 2 yr old has a 2nd gen iPhone w/o a cell card, basically an iPod touch. My 4 and 6 year olds have 3rd gen iPhones the same.
It's been a great investment so far.
Andoid The gaming Platform (Score:2)
People don't buy an iPod touch to play music. They buy them to play games.
The the iPod can enjoy its continuing decline into obscurity, Already Android devices are good value (especially for kids) and everywhere, and Google unlike Apple (and I would argue Microsoft) gets games, we are already seeing consoles with Android at half this cost...with bigger screens and real controls.
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+Drag-and-drop music loading
+No need for iTunes
+Buttons so I don't have to stare at the screen to skip a track
+SD card slot
+No need for OS updates and obsolescence
And you have the disease of one-sided feature lists. First of all "drag-and-drop" music loading means manually managing music. Rather than having the computer do it for you. Most people would call that a negative.
Secondly, you miss out all the features that the iPod Touch has that your ageing MP3 player doesn't. Too many to mention, but apps, a touchscreen and real web-browsing to name the top 3.
Hipsters!? (Score:2)
Hipsters won't like that ordinary folk use the "same" phone. What will they move to?
Hipster might be a market demographic for the iPhone, but in reality its very popular in a few global markets, the UK and US, and those because the phone is bought through higher purchase. In fact one of the problem Apple have is that people are buying the cheaper iPhone 4 through these *contracts*. Apple are happy to rip you off whoever you are.
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The iPhone has actually never been the most popular in the UK FWIW.
It's early iterations were overshadowed by sales of Nokia's phones, the N95 outsold it by a wide margin and the N96 just beat it. It was the top seller around the 3GS but by the 4 it had already been pushed into second place by Samsung - Samsung was outselling Apple here in the UK before it was outselling it globally so the UK was ahead of the trend in that respect.
It's still a big market for Apple but that's largely because it's a major sma
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There are millions of new customers born every year. Every year a generation turns 8 or 12 or 15 and their parents decide to buy or are cajoled into buying personal electronics for them.
It's an ever growing market for at least another 30 years.
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And televisions have been on sale for at least 80s years, so everyone must have one of those by now. Yet for some strange reason every electrical retailer has a big display of TVs.
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should read "already dead". Damn lack of editing...
You NEVER put a money man in charge (Score:2)
Bean counting people are fine for advice but you NEVER EVER put them in charge of anything. I knew things were going bad (or spoiling? puns intended) when the stock dividends were announced. Sounded like BS to me when they explained why they wanted to pay interest on their capital they had been getting for FREE.
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nobody has ever used the shitty iPod camera for anything meaningful
Hey Anonymous Coward, define 'anything meaningful.' I have tons of great pictures of my kids shot with my iPod Touch. I have beautiful shots taken out of airplane windows as the earth scrolled by below...
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If they use the iPod touch camera and are taken out of an airplane window then they can't be that beautiful.
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There is room for both. The iPhone without the phone bit is really important to me, because I can give it to my young son to play with, literally, and not have to thing about him having a cell phone. He plays games, takes pictures/videos, watches TV/movies, etc... This new "improved" thing does not fit my criteria, because of the lack of camera, and it doesn't fit your criteria as well.
It just seems like a big giant miss from Apple, IMHO.
BTW, you can buy the iPod Touch 4 w/32Gigs of RAM from the re