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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."
I wonder if that price includes VAT. If it is so then the US price would drop to about $100. just food for though.
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?
Nuclear war would really set back cable. - Ted Turner
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!
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).
El riesgo vive siempre!
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Apple will own the MP3 market in few months:
. sh tml
...
http://www.macobserver.com/article/2003/12/30.1
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)
...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.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
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..
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.
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