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Rumors of iPod mini, 100 Million Songs, Xserve G5 All True
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.
As a digital music creator (who up until now has used a Windows-based PC and Acid Pro) I cannot tell you how excited I was by the demo John Mayer and Steve Jobs gave of GarageBand. From the looks of it (and I know that looks can be deceiving) you can record instruments straight into the computer without a digital interface... and it sounds amazing...I've tried this in the past (recording through the audio-in port) on my PC and have never gotten good results.
I can't wait to get the new version of iLife.
However, I was a little dissapointed by the price of the new iPod mini. At $250 (just $50 less than the (now) 15Gb iPod) I can't really see how it's worth it. I'll just pay another $50 and get an iPod that can hold my entire music library. Not sure what they were thinking with that price.
Though I'm not effected that much by the Xserve G5 or the Xserve Raid for that matter, I was still impressed by their cross-OS compatability.
The guitars sound good, now give me about 10db more on the cow bell.
The XServe G5 will allow to build supercomputers using far more space and will be obviously one of the best solutions around for webservers.
The iPod is more expensive than what the rumors said but it also has bigger hard drive (4Go/249$ vs 2Go/100$). I think that makes it the best deal by far in its category.
Then this 'Pepsi' thing... Looks like I'm gonna drink Pepsi instead of Coke soon. And I mean a lot of Pepsi. Definitely a good idea for Pepsi.
2004 will definitely be Apple's year and I think that's good news because it will bring some change in the IT world.
Happy new year and no, I'm not a Mac zealot.
Iraq: war to save the U
Oh well, I guess I'll be content with the $299 15 gig model.
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?
I find the minipod price disappointing, after the rumors of $100-$200. I have several friends and relatives very unlikely to pay $250, who could have easily gone for a $125 minipod. Maybe we'll see less expensive 2 gig versions in a few months.
Thoughts:
New mini-iPod is exactly like I thought it would be .. except for the
price. I thought $100 was too low, so I was thinking $150-$200. $250 is just
borderline too expensive (I.e., I'm not going to get one right away, my budget
can't justify it.
Xserve G5 - WOW!!! ECC RAM! That crosses one more thing off the "reasons not to get an Xserve list".. a very short list now. I know what my next client recommendation is going to be: Dell. No just KIDDING! XSERVE !!! Hell I might get one for home use. People are going to think "G5" = "Supercomputer".
Garage Band - This is cool. I can just hear folks saying it now: "oh now, now we're going to be flooded with crap written in Garage Band and people will think it's 'music'".. well, 95% of everything is crap anyway. This is going to be lots of fun. The iTunes integration is cool.. I'll be getting a copy for sure (I have Reason and this looks like a consumer/guitars version). Also I can't wait to see what the "real" experimental electronic musicians do when they get their hands on it and start deconstructing the fuck out of it!
"Giving away" data that costs nearly nothing to distribute! Gotta love it!
All in all, a bunch of great announcements. Thanks Apple, for making interesting products.
Personally, I'm really dissapointed with the mini ipod. The only thing that's selling it right now is its size (and the colors, I guess). I was ready to buy a $150 ipod that had 2GB of storage. But $250 is too much for me. If I'm planning to spend $250, I'd rather spend $300 and buy a full 15 GB ipod. It's only $50 more, and you get almost 4 times the storage. I don't think apple will get many new customers with this, and i hope they introduce a $150 model very soon, because that would be a hit, while I doubt this one will be very successful.
it came in red instead of bathing me in the usual green.
They updated the classic 1984 commercial for it's 20th anniversary. The girl is now wearing iPod... :)
t ml
http://www.apple.com/hardware/ads/1984/1984_480.h
And that makes me wonder what new stuff Apple will introduce on January 24th...
Note that it's not "Garage Band" but "GarageBand". (Straight from Apple's InterCapitalizationNounFactory.)
Mike van Lammeren
It will challenge your head, your brain, and your mind.
I am dissapointed. Why? $249 for a MP3 player? No fucking way! I was really hoping for a cool and good gadget for $99. Alas, I got my hopes up to high and let me sweep away by all the rumors.
"all true".. yet again rumours of Apple product smoke other companies' announced vapourware.
this is their attempt at grabbing the lower priced crowd? i doubt it will work, but i could be wrong.
Don't Steal Photos.
Vonal Declosion
I disagree that the "Rumo[u]rs of iPod mini [are] ... All True." The rumours, if I understood correctly, stated that the iPod mini would cost UKP 65 or USD 115. Instead, we get a product that is USD 249, just USD 50 less than the 15GB iPod.
Let's see. You can get four gigabytes of storage for USD 249, or 15 gigabytes for USD 299. To fool Joe Sixpack into buying this moronic "mini" product, they made it in different colours. I'm not fooled. I'm staying away.
Sincerely,
Seth Finklestein
Gadget Know-it-all
I'm not Seth Finkelstein. I still speak the truth.
The mini (4GB) version is $249, that is $62 per GB. On the other hand the 15GB 'big brother' iPod is $299, a mere $20 per GB. That makes the final 11 GB on the 15GB model a bargain at only $50: less than the cost of ONE iPMini GB.
;)
Of course, Apple uses what is pretty much a 1/.8 rather than a 1/0.55 exchange rate for the UK market, so I'm scammed either way
Also, has anyone got a URL for a video of the full keynote like the one for where he announced the G5s?
I was really hoping for the ipods to reach the impulse buy catagory. Sub $100. That would open it up to all.
Steve himself announced it was going to happen when iTunes Music Store was originally rolled out.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
OK, the Mini is small, but :
15 GB iPod = 299 $ USD
4 GB iPod Mini = 249 $ USD
"You do the math..."
I thought the new offerings were a bit slim but still good. What I didn't care for (and not a big deal btw) was the length of that fricken keynote. It could've been chopped by at least thirty minutes....instead we had to savor a few of the iLife apps just to drive the point home.
[I]one person has spent $29,500 on iTunes Music Store. Yes, $29,500.[/I]
$10,500 more and he'll fill up his 40GB iPod.
Not because the app is crap - it's probably fine - but because of all the rock & roll clip-art that will begin to seep out onto the airwaves and P2P networks of the modern world.
Think "Mr. Tambourine Man" by Shatner is bad? Just wait for the version by pudge!
sulli
RTFJ.
$250 for the mini-ipod?!? Ugh... still too damn expensive!! You can get a really nice CDRW that plays MP3s and has a really low profile and long batterly life for $60. Not cheap enough yet Stevarino!
The truly great thing is that DVD Jon (who is a free man) has recently produced a way to run iTunes on a Linux platform. If I only had money for an iPod...
If my answers frighten you, stop asking scary questions.
It looks far more interesting than the Opteron servers I have been looking at. That with yellow dog linux and away we go..
In retrospect, all the people saying they thought the mini iPod would be priced at 99 dollars are pretty laughable. Given that the material cost alone is probably close to 80 dollars (assuming 60 dollars for the hard drive in bulk),
it would be possible to sell it for 150 dollars retail, and make no money. Apple is just not in that business and doesn't want to be there.
However, no need to fear. My guess is that somebody else with come out with a less sexy micro-harddrive based player at the 150 dollar price point within the next 6-8 months. It just won't be Apple.
It seems as if the new mini-ipod is playing catch up with the already-announced Rio Nitrus. It's equally priced, stores 4 GB as well, is the same size if not smaller, is actually lighter, has double the battery time, and is expected to ship this month, instead of february, like the mini pod. Although you could cop out with the "stylish design" argument before, the shots of the new minipods, even with all the new colors... well, they look like butt. The nitrus, from what I've seen of it's current 1.5 gig version, is pretty quick to pickup with it's ease of use, as well. The only real advantages i see the minipods having is the firewire and mac compatibility....
Half as good at 7/8ths the price!
Are we all supposed to pretend not to notice the blatant spin Apple is putting on here?
2 years ago when the 5 gig iPod was released, it was advertised to hold 1000 songs (and those of us who like our music encoded higher than 128kbs and/or listen to prog rock were skeptical).
Now, the 4 gig iPod Mini has a 4 gig hard drive and it holds 1000 songs? It only holds 800 of those 5 meg songs we had on our 5 gig iPod 2 years ago!
While the iPod mini rumours didn't come true as we expected, it was still a great keynote. Like many other people, iLife looks great (although I could have done without the corny advert that they showed). I don't see the iPod mini being a runaway success, however - for another $50, you can get the (new) 15 GB version; 20% more money spent for nearly 300% more space. I was expecting to really want one of the iPod minis, but now I'm really tempted by the entry level 'proper' iPod. It is smaller, which is nice, although the existing one was plenty small enough. Still, a nice keynote; slighly annoyed that the 'One more thing' was about the iPod mini colours, though.
"I think everyone is an agnostic but just doesn't know" - Frazz
"Why would I not spend 50 dollars more for 3 times the storage space?!?!"
:)
Well, I bet Apple would like you spend more on their products.
I would have never imagined that they would include an application as great as GarageBand and kept the price of iLife at $50. GarageBand is gonna compete with products like Guitar Port, so you get amplifier simulations for a tiny price. They sounded great too. I just can't believe this, it's gotta be a strategy to sell more Macs because the technology behind GarageBand (and its $99 add-on) is NOT cheap. If it were a demo for a high-end application I would have been just as floored. How much is a G5 again?
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
$250 is a far cry from the $100 rumors.
Damn it all, $249 is too close to the 15G iPod at $299. They need to come in at a lower price point to truly dominate the market. Don't get me wrong - I'm glad they're on this path (lighter/less expensive) but I don't think this will make the same impact that $199 or $149 would have.
Usually I can barely eat my annual lunch as I watch Job's Keynote, but this year's keynote was so bad, scraping the cheese off the side of the bowl was more captivating.
DISCLAIMER: I am a switcher and huge Apple proponent in business and in my personal life.
That said, this Keynote was terrible.
WAY too much time spent focusing on iLife - which has some nice improvements but give it 20 minutes and move on. My lunch was more flavorful than the hour and a half of garage band and Office 2004. We get it - make your own music - cool. I buy music, I don't make it. Move on. MOVE ON!!!
I am baffled why they bumped the 10 GB to 15 GB at the same price. They would have preserved more of the differentiation of the product line and made the now infamous $50 void less enticing (only 150% more capacity instead of 11 GB more) and preserved the $100 gap between the now low end 15 GB and the 20 GB (that comes with a dock and case too).
The best news was in the server market. The G5 in 1U and the omni-OS RAID for $3 per GB and the latest networking capabilities has me taking a second look.
I can't wait for PC World Expo on February 30th.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
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. 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!
Murray Todd Williams
Apple said it would be unveiling stuff all year long. Normally there is only 2-3 times per year. I wouldn't be surprised if they used the Boston Expo this summer to unviel the 20th aniversary edition of the Mac. This Keynote was good but I have to agree with other people about being disappointed over the Mini-Ipod. If they were $199 then that would be good but I don't think they are going to be the hit Apple expects.
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.
i dont really see why you would get the mini when for $50 more you get 11 more gigs of storage. ok the small form factor is cool and 4 gigs is plenty of music for a lot of people, but the price point doesnt seem quite right.
i guess itll drop $50 or $75 tho as the initial interest wears off, which would put it at a more interesting price point.
I don't want to rerip all my CD's to MP3's. I'm doing that to Ogg Vorbis right now!!!
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
At 249 I can't afford the iPod Mini, also because now iLife is not free and costs $50 bucks, which I have to have because it's more useful. So, forget the iPod, I would have bought one had it been 150 or maybe even 199 but sorry, it's too expensive!
I was very impressed at both the 3999 duel gherz xServe and better yet a 2999 xServe node running duel 2gherz !!!! but the iPod depressed me, I know they could have put it out for cheaper but didnt and I fear it might be the Cube debacle all over again... The cube wasa great machine, just over priced... same with the miniPod. now granted my girlfriend didnt even complain and im'd me "YAY 75 more dollars for a blue iPod!!!!" so maybe Im missing something that Apple didnt, but I owuld have been feeling better with it at 170 than 240.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
With this pricing, one wonders if iPod mini is going to drive iPod sales just like iTunes. I don't quite get it. If it were non-hard drive, maybe, but the slim factor just isn't enough to justify that small price differential.
:)
GarageBand was the real highlight, IMHO. Very, very slick, although I have little experience with other similar tools that were made after oh, say 1990 or so
I thought the Office 2004 presentation was a joke. How can they possibly think that those kinds of features are worthy of keynote announcement, much less a major upgrade. The interface looks nearly identical, which is really what needed an overhaul. I think MS, even the MBU needs to study Apple a bit more carefully for their future copying...
As much of a Mac zealot as I am, I can't help but feel that they're charging way too much for the iPod mini. $250??? Working retail, I know people don't really pay attention to anything but price. I can't count the number of times I've had to explain to people why they really don't want to pay $100 for 128Mb of MP3 player. And while I reccomend iPods, even if they buy some other hard drive based player, I feel I've accomplished something. The idea of breaking into the lower end spectrum of players is great, but "Look, it's only $50 more" is not competitive. Of course, even as I say this, the green one has enamored my wife (who already ones a 10 Gb iPod) and I've no doubt that the size will attract many. I just think that Apple could have blown the market away by at least going down to $200. That would have left a distinguishable, consumer-noticeable difference between their products.
about the Apple education specials for basically anyone that goes to any school. that makes the "slightly too expensive" iPod mini come down to $229, the new 15gig iPod down to $269, and the already-cheap new iLife down to $29.... the USB keyboard stays at $99 though, but I doubt anyone will complain about that. I think I will take one of each ;)
The proof here, not a lot smaller but smaller still.
Iraq: war to save the U
Disclaimer: I'm a Mac fan. I have a G5, iSight and new iPod. I love OSX.
However, I don't see the logic of standing up on stage and talking about MP3 players that are in the $100 - $200 range, and then introducing a new MP3 player that ISN'T IN THE RANGE AT ALL. You can't target the $100 - $200 range without at least coming close to $200. People with only $100 to spend won't be able to come up with another $150, and people that have $200 to spend would do well to come up with just another $100.
Granted, the iPod mini is even smaller than before. I think if the rumours had been true and the player was 2GB at a price even as high as $150, they would sell more. Way more.
Oh well. At least GarageBand looked really cool. I'll buy it for my musician sister. She'll be thrilled to have that sort of thing on her powerbook.
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.
Lasers Controlled Games!
the iPod mini is small, so your paying not to have to lug that huge iPod around. I mean that thing must have weighd a Ton*.
by "Ton", I mean a couple of ounces.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
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.
A 4 gig MP3 player for $250. So, for $50 bucks less than the low-end IPOD, I can 11 gigs less storage space.
But it's smaller! I never really thought the original IPOD was incredibly huge. Oh, and I can choose from five colors. Who cares?
Who is Apple targeting with this? I was really looking forward to an affordable iPod. Sigh.
I wonder how this is going to work - if there will be a limit per computer or something. You know people are just going to try random combinations to see if they work - I'm guessing you will have to register a valid account with credit card number, etc., so that they have something to track if someone reports 100 winning numbers in a day.
Not necessarily impossible to get 100, just suspicious.
R: That voice. Where have I heard that voice before? B: In about 365 other episodes. But I don't know who it is either.
I figured it was just a matter of time before they bumped up the capacity in these. Too bad they waited til MWSF, though. We have one on order from last month with the old 2.5 TB max. Unfortunately the money went away if it wasn't ordered before the end of the year, so waiting until today wasn't an option. While it would have been nice to get the extra TB, we needed the disk space yesterday, and it still isn't here yet. I'm sure ordering a new one would take even longer...
Don't forget xgrid. A beta has been announced at apple
Build you own supercluster at home...
At the moment, though I wish I had a supercluster of money presses.
what crock of crap... only a 4gb model for 249 and a new 15gb for 299... Why would I not spend 50 dollars more for 3 times the storage space?!?! So much for the rumors of a 2gb ipod in the 99-149 range.. Now that I would have probably bought as I don't listen to THAT much music. But come on apple.. 50 dollar difference between the 15gb and 4gb models? I know the mini's are smaller.. but NOT THAT MUCH!!
Remember that Apple = Design. The new iPod is smaller in every dimension, about 40% lighter, and "comes in a variety of fashion colors". According to the Apple mindset, it's a "better" design, and yet costs less, so of course something had to give (in this case, storage space).
Also worth noting is that they officially announced Xgrid, their clustering software. There had been a maililng list for it a couple of months ago that was later shutdown. From the press release it says:
"Xgrid makes it easy to turn your Mac cluster into a supercomputer," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "The new Xgrid software agents use Apple's breakthrough Rendezvous networking technology to automatically discover, connect and manage tasks across available systems in a Mac cluster."
The entire press release can be read here and in it they say they have posted a beta version of the software but I've yet to find it.
Apple is offering free laser engraving for those of you who may be interested in buying this particular iPod version.
Nothing says "don't steal me" like your name blazened across the back...
Most comments regarding the mini-iPods complain about the price, just $50 less than the $299 15GB iPod. It's a bit baffling to see them release a new product like this at such a high price, for obvious "bang-for-buck" reasons, though I think that it is probably another strategy from Apple to entice people enough to buy the more expensive models. Apple's music players are considered the best in the industry, and like their computers, quality comes with a price. (Whether or not you agree about the quality of their products is another matter). My bet is that in a few months they'll drop the price on these new mini units by $50. (Personally I think $199 is the correct price point for them).
I'll be curious to know what the battery like is like on these new iPods.
It's smaller. That's all. If you're docking it a lot anyway, you won't care as much about the disk space as about the smallness. Different strokes for different folks.
The iPod Mini is about $50 too expensive for what it is. The problem with expanding iPod sales is that there a lot of us (myself included) who don't particularly care to shell out more than $150 for a portable music player. Yeah, the iPod is insanely great and all, but I don't have $300 to shell out for what is basically a luxury item.
What is the target market for this device? If you're going to spend $249 for a device with less than a third of the capacity of a model only $50 more, you're not going to buy the mini iPod. In essence, Apple isn't opening a new market but cannibalizing sales of their existing market, if that. I don't see this as being a big seller unless the price point significantly drops.
Worse of all, Apple has opened the market for another company to produce an iPod knockoff that offers 2GB of storage for $130-$150 that would fill that niche market that iPod Mini could have filled. If they partner with another service (read Wal-Mart or Napster), they can take the market from Apple easily.
This has been Apple's problem from the beginning. They produce great tech that is wonderful for early adopters, but they don't know how to compete in the larger market. iTunes is nice, but if they lose the low-cost MP3 player market they're already ceding ground to competitors that can loss-lead them into the ground. (Again, read Wal-Mart).
The mini iPod is going to be a major disappointment for Apple and shows a real lack of vision. The high-end MP3 player market is going to reach saturation at some point, and the iPod won't be able to break out of its niche without substantial price drops. Meanhile, another company will use the lower-cost market to dominate the field and reduce the marketshare of the underlying technology Apple is based on. (Read AAC). It's how IBM and clones took over the PC market in the 80's and 90's, and it's how someone else has the same opportunity to do so for the digital music market now.
It's small, but not that small. My mid-sized t68i is only a couple of millimetres larger than that in two dimensions and a few millimeters smaller in one, and I know for a fact there's a whole bunch of phones smaller than mine...
Now we know how Apple *really* makes all its money. I sunk $80 into two docks for my current 3G iPod and now, if I want a mini, I need to buy the docks all over again. And $29 for an arm band? I'm sure it costs Apple about $5 to manufacture.
But, what can I say, the product looks pretty darn cool. I might just have to buy one. (Besides, if I'm shelling out $249 for a new unit, I really shouldn't complain...)
I guess this is a tiny thing compared to the magnitude of the iPod Mini release and GarageBand, but I do hope that Apple has improved the Enhance feature in iPhoto. Granted, I shouldn't really expect something on the caliber of Photoshop's Auto Color (which, while not perfect, has surprised me a few times), but it can't hurt to hope.
and that one person has spent $29,500 on iTunes Music Store. Yes, $29,500.
This one person also bought a SCO license and invested in Enron.
...as it's been prominently displayed on the itunes website for over a month. You can see it, the same image is still there. It's the one on the bottom left.
-j
It's worth noting that the cheapest 256MB players on Price Watch are about $100, so even at $250 for 4GB, the miniPod is still a dynamite deal.
I wonder how many ipods were sold for holiday purchases. probably a considerable amount.
how many of those people would have bought one if they knew this new version was comming out? probably about slim to none (mac people apparently love shiney plastic colors). However, how many old iPod users who bought it when it was first released will buy this new version? I bet atleast half. brilliant sales scheme for apple. instead of releasing and selling new products at christmas, dump your inventory (which isn't even old and outdated yet) and afterwards announce a new product.
I would however, feel a little alienated by this action.
The 18 month bettery life can be updated for only $89 as opposed to the $99 price tag on the regular iPod
Who can afford that? iCant. iWont, its not what iWant! Think I'll wait 3 months for Jobs to come to his senses and reduce the price.
The pricepoint for the iPod mini I found very reasonable. I mean, for a flash drive? You can buy 1gb USB thumbdrives now and they cost over $300.. so $249 for a product from Apple, with the space you get... seems reasonable. Keep in mind they'd be killing themselves if they offered a sub-$100 iPod. No one would purchase the higher priced models and then there goes the profits...
The new iPod will be a cooler conversation piece when you site next to a hot girl on the airplane and your new iPodmini has the same color as her favorite color.
They should have released a 2GB model for 149$ as well.
Maybe they will before the mini hits Europe in April.
Oh, and they REALLY should add a rounded "ice" model. Sort of like... an iPod, but smaller. Because I'm not particularly fond of the gold/pink/shit ones.
./configure --enable-shared --disable-static && make world clean
Yeah well I ain't buying either now so phooey on them!
Well, according to the product site, it's only 40% smaller by volume, and only about half an inch smaller on both height and width.
I was kind of hoping that they would find some ingenious way of cutting the size in addition to making things smaller (the click wheel is a good idea, though).
He did not "produce a way" to run iTunes on Linux. He provided a way to run FairPlay-protected files through VLC.
Although $250 is a bit much for the iPod mini, I am glad they decided to keep the same interface and jog wheel. To be honest, the interface and jog wheel are what sold me on the original iPod. Simply put, IMHO no other mp3 player comes close in these respects.
if I want a mini, I need to buy the docks all over again
I watched the keynote, and I distinctly remember Jobs saying the connector was identical. So no, if you buy a mini you can just pull the cable out of the iPod dock and connect it to your Mini that way-- the dock is not required.
The deal between Apple and Pepsi was previously known! This has already been said in an earlier keynote by Jobs himself!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I know the mini's are smaller.. but NOT THAT MUCH!!
.62 inches = 6.1 cu in (and 5.6 oz) .5 inchies = 3.6 cu in (and 3.6 oz)
Do the math:
15 GB: 2.4 x 4.1 x
Mini: 3.6 x 2.0 x
About half the size and weight, by my calcs...
If you are a chick who only owns 30 CD's, why would you pay another $50 for a bigger player with more space that you don't need?
Don't get me wrong, I've got a 10 Gig iPod, and plan on selling to to a friend and buying the 40 in the near future. I'm just saying I can see how some people would want that thing.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Also note that the iLife suite isn't free anymore. If you want the updates (and GarageBand) then you either have to buy a new mac or the $50 package from Apple.
This is insightful? It's barely readable.
Actually, the minis are a lot smaller in volume. Were people really expecting *Apple* to have the cheapest player with the most storage on the market?
I'm glad there's no 20th Anniversary Mac, as the last one epitomized everything that was wrong with the Old Apple--expensive, gimmicky and in a few years, cheesy looking.
I think we can expect the new 15GB $300 iPod to eat away at both the mini and 20GB models.
iPod Armband eh ? How would this affect the hd, if you've got it strapped to your arm and it's swinging back and forth while running ? Yeah, I know it probably spins up for a short amount of time, but it can't be good for it can it ?
Damn, I'm pissed off. Like the rest of you, I was looking for a small capacity, affordable iPod. Instead, we get the iPod mini -- similarly priced to the 15 GB and with the same shitty built-in battery. Yes, people will buy it, since it seems like people have got money burning holes in their pockets, and have a huge need to have 2 weeks worth of continuous music with them at all times (despite that the battery craps out after 5 to 8 hours).
Guess I'll keep using my $150 minidisc player that gets 40 hours of play time from one AA battery. Oh well.
I was thinking that it might be likely that they would release a 1.5-2 gig player in the $200 range. This would directly compete against the Rio Nitrus and iRiver's offering.
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.
I think they're all cool and stuff, then they go threatening us with something like this!
If there's ONE thing I DON'T want, it's that.
I'm not normally an irrational zealous dickhead, but I figure "When in Rome..."
I really wanted to get in on the mini iPod when I first hear the rumour. But now I find out its going to cost $250. Screw that. I was looking to pay maybe $100.
i deo playing/linux device that will fit in my pocket. Lots of people have come close, like the Hiptop/Sidekick. But nobody is quite there yet.
One day somebody will make a cell-phone/digcam/mp3/pda/802.11x/bluetooth/AIM/v
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
4gb @ $260
15gb @ $300
The form factor is the item here. Attractive, to me, because I've always considered the iPod a tad too large.
But still, a tad too expensive.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
It would have been great idea to put microphone inputs on the iBooks and powerbooks first! It would be a smart business decision to include this little item before writing software that needs it! Or do they think all musicians never leave their homes?
I'm just wondering how the pepsi-iTunes thing will work out?
I'm assuming something like bottlecaps with "free iTunes song", or a coupon in some boxes?
Does anyone know if it will be "100 million songs of choice" or simply "100 million songs." I'm already a pepsi drinker, so winning a few dozen songs of my choice would be wicked, but winning 100 copies of Brittney would be like winning $1 on a $3 lottery ticket.
I was expecting the announcement of a $10, 3-petabyte nuclear-fusion-powered player with collapsible 60-inch plasma screen and direct bluetooth link to the Mars Rover, but all I get is this mini piece of crap. I mean, come on. In protest I will buy the 128mb NinFuju HappyListen, which only costs $200 and supports Ogg Vorbis.
I will not be buying any Apple hardware or software you fucking cocksuckers. You can take that IPod and IRamItUpYourAss. OS X can OSuck my dick. I will take a G4 PowerDump on your PowerBook. QuickTime can QuickBlowMe. iTunes, more like shiteTunes. Expose? I'll Expose my fucking nuts to your chin.
I will be using Linux, XFree86, and Gnome. You Apple cockgobblers can keep taking it up the ass from Panther, or whatever new animal you like beastial anal sex with. Penguins never rape anyone, although they bite if they have to.
Apple is just another company that wishes they were Microsoft, so they can ass-ream you repeatedly with ease. If they had the market share that Microsoft had, they would be ass-fucking you harder and faster than Microsoft is. They already have a small group of willing homosexuals that let them do this to them already. But its not enough. What they want is the whole world to be forced to bend over and take a huge titanium iCock up their rectums.
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...
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
I Drink a lot of Mt.Dew I don't want any crippled sound files from iTunes. So I will be willing to trade my hundres of iTunes Pepsi caps for an iPod or some blank DVD-R's Call me at 555-iJoke
http://www.kubuntu.org/
Why would I get a mini ipod when I can get a rio karmafor 260 dollars. It's 20 gigs, does both USB and ethernet, and plays ogg and flac.
"think of it as evolution in action"
After reading about Garage Band, I am somewhat impressed... but keep in mind, I don't believe this to be a replacement for a decent Pro Tools rig.
:-D
Oh don't get me wrong, I'm not being a snob or anything, I think its great that Apple is introducing an entry-level system for those who want to just get into home recording, but for us folks who have been doing this recording thing for a while (nearly 10 years for myself) PT has no equal (as I have found)... and yes I'm referring to PT LE (that comes with Mbox, Digi 002 + 002r)... heh, don't know too many home recording folks who could afford or even want a full HD system
sad robot making broken music
OK, $49 for the whole suite.
But how about for those of use who still only need iTunes and iPhoto? Will they continue to be free downloads? I'm guessing iTunes will, but iPhoto?
fuck you.
dude.. I'll tell you why you get mixed results.. it's because you're using either your crapola motherboard audio inputs or some old school audio card designed for gamers.
Go to your local bloated guitar super store like thing.. talk to the guys in pro-audio and ask them about pro level PC audio cards. I used an M-Audio Delta 66 with great success for years.
Doesn't seem like good value, not *A* good value. A plague on all your misplaced 'a's. Thriftiness for example is a good value to cultivate, Dell DJs are not that kind of value.
Seriously though, I think you'll find this will sell as well as, if not better than, the more expensive iPods, despite geeks whining about it. Remember the first reactions to the iPod here?
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.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
I watched the keynote, and I distinctly remember Jobs saying the connector was identical. So no, if you buy a mini you can just pull the cable out of the iPod dock and connect it to your Mini that way-- the dock is not required.
Nope, that's not correct. Check out the apple store's web site:
iPod Dock
Just plug, unplug, and go. The iPod Dock makes charging and syncing easier than ever. A convenient and elegant home base for iPod on a desk or connected to a home stereo system, the dock provides syncing via FireWire or USB 2.0*, charging via FireWire and a stereo line out for simple connection to power speakers or a stereo system.
Supports all iPods with Dock Connector. Does not support iPod mini.
* USB 2.0 connection is for Windows PC only; dock connector to USB 2.0 cable sold separately.
How will this integrate into my metrosexual lifestyle?
I was shooting for Flamebait, in case you were wondering. Dumbass.
iMovie and iPhoto are no longer available, or at least would not appear to be available, as a free download, not even the old (current pre-jan 16th) versions. The iMovie and iPhoto pages do not offer a download and the listings under "downloads" on their software page go to those same iPhoto and iMovie pages with no download option. Only iTunes remains available. Is this just a snafu of wanting to avoid confusion of having pages describing the new versions while the downloads are the old, or is it a pay for play future for more of iLife (iDVD was never free)?
--- What?
you had to see this coming.
$100, or even $150, would be much too low of a profit-margin for apple. Half their mystique and customer loyalty comes from the niche 'clique' their users create.
don't get me wrong - they have great product with some of the best design -- but it's never been cheap. never close to even competitive. i don't think they even -want- to dominate the mass market anymore.
the fanatical devotion of their users seems to stem mostly from the fact that only the fanatically devoted can justify purchasing their product.
at 3.6x2" i guess it's pretty small, but i don't really think size was much of a showstopper. i never looked at an ipod and said 'gee, if it were only 25% smaller, and purple, i'd be happy with 60% less capacity'.
if they could extend the battery life, that'd be notable, but they're only claiming 8 hours - which is still under average for a portable.
though i'd imagine their target market isn't clamoring to store more than 5gb of data on it, and will definitely be salivating over its new size and color.
as always - apple captures the minds and imaginations of geeks everywhere -- and then prices it beyond the rational budget of the majority.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
http://www.tofslie.com/files/ilock.jpg
because you can't use Guitar Port with a Mac.
I mean the guitar port is cool, I almost bought one, but then I realized that I didn't like any of the software on the PC.
The 20GB iPod come with a wired remote, carrying case (with belt clip), and the iPod dock (as opposed to just the cable).
Buy a 15GB iPod, and you'll end up making up for most of the difference if, later on, you decide you want any of those accessories.
Of course, back when the 15GB was only 10GB, this was an even bigger reason to step up one level.
I was hoping for the ipod mini to be without a HD, but this one still has a HD (moving parts), so NOT good for running (eventhough apple says its ok for running). I guess I will have to stick to my oldskool Intel Pocket Concert.
As a primarily business user, I'm unimpressed with the Apple announcements. ECC memory on a server is hardly a breakthru technology, and a bunch of consumer apps isn't what my business needs.
A $50 cheaper portable music player (with only 3 to 4 times the storage of a $50 MP3-compatible CD player).
Sorry, I guess the most exciting thing in the whole annoucement was MS releasing a new version of Office. Wow! Wow! I have to agree with an earlier post that the talk didn't make me want to reach for my (personal or business) wallet.
k
The selling argument is that it's almost half the size and weight. That turns it into something I would seriously consider getting, while the old iPod really is too big for me to bother, almost regardless of price.
To a lot of people 4GB is more space than they can ever want to fill up with music they want to hear, so it doesn't really matter if they have 2GB or 13BG too much.
This was so insightful, I snorted my coffee, so I can pretty much guarantee that my sinuses are not going to be diabetic at any point in the near future.
I was excited about the price rumor (~$100) on the mini ipod, and would have immediately gone out and bought one. But really, who would pay $250 for a mini ipod that has 1/4 the capacity of the low end ipod at $300?! At such a small price difference, I only see people buying it for purely physical size reasons, not capacity.
Damn, and I thought I would finally get an ipod, I guess I'm stuck back at square one mulling over the price of the 15Gb version..
Given that they have managed to cram a G5 into a xServe, hopefully without heat issues, does this mean that we could be seeing a Powerbook G5 this time next year? Anyone with an engineering background care to comment?
Sigh...
Did you ever bother to research your comment or do you just barf up whatever crap rumor you heard on some mailing list??? Apple has had a $99 dollar replacement plan for iPods for quite sometime.
Also, iPod batteries do not just up and die after 18mos. I have a 2yo iPod and the battery works as well now as it did the day I bought it.
It also helps when people learn how to take care of their Li+ batteries so they don't die so early on them!
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.
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.
---
I support spreading santorum
People are saying "Ordinary People don't need more than 4GB of music and can save $50!" I don't think ordinary people think that short-term.
I mean, if you've got a modest amount of music, and fill up the 4GB miniPod, are you not going to buy any more music? Also, those AAC Audiobooks take up a lot of space. They're no 56-bitrate MP3 file.
It really depends on how and where you listen to your music on which iPod is right for you. If you're a runner or a bike ridder, etc the iPod mini is perfect, it comes with a belt clip and you can buy an optional arm band. Not saying you can't do this with a full size iPod, but the iPod mini is alot smaller and is perfect for someone on the go.
I don't know... The Rio, Creative, and iRiver mini-HDD products seem to be doing just fine in the $220-$250 price range, and they have crappy software and only 1.5GB of storage. Apple will clean up in this niche market.
This doesn't seem like a play to grow the overall market so much as it seems designed to maintain Apple's complete dominance in Hard Drive MP3 players overall. No manufacturer can compete with them on features and ease of use in either of the two major capacity ranges. And right now, in this new product segment, other companies can't even compete on price.
--Jasin Natael
True science means that when you re-evaluate the evidence, you re-evaluate your faith.
- Might I note that Steve Jobs officially announced the Pepsi deal at the Moscone Center in November? The 100 million songs was not rumor, it was very much fact
Man, That is still to much! In Canadian that is alot of money. fuck
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.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
...everyone is going to buy the 15GB model iPod, judging by the response of here. May be this is the real strategy.
Modded up one for 100% interesting. You idiots at slashdot need to do a little research. This is complete FUD.
Do some GODDAMN research you FUCKING idiots. Goddamn I'd love to kick your skull in right now!
So after buying a 10gb ipod for an Xmas gift for my dad, I see the 15GB announced today, to replace the 10gb. I promptly pulled out my gift receipt, to find that it says it can only be returned until Jan 3rd. Frankly, this would apprear extremely calculated, and incredibly disturbing. Bad business move I think.. I wonder how long it will take for some class action on this one. I'll never buy from apple again, that's for sure.
Now when the feds come knocking down your door, you can just swallow all of the tunes you got through file sharing!!! Is annodized aluminum digestible?
On one hand you have the "@ 199 I would have bought it" crowd and on the other hand you have the "for 50 more why wouldn't I get the 15GB"
I guess the good news (for Apple) is that there will be a lot of people who rest in the middle of those extremes.
Ok, so I know this has probably been stated, but for my own sake of mind, I can get 4 gigs for $250. Or I can spend another $50 and get 15 gigs. What the hell kind of sense does that make?
What?! You mean that Apple and digital camera manufacturers, under pressure from the MPAA, RIAA, DHS (I'm mean, we're ORANGE people, ORANGE!) and SCO, hasn't started DRMing my own photographs? I'm stunned.
No, really, I am.
Apple has historically offered products with 1.5x the ability as the commodity standard at 2x the price.
But people pay the price because of the perceived (and usually actual) quality, style and support. Along with that 'uniqueness' factor in having something not everyone else does. If apple were to start commoditizing their products, they'd lose the die-hard best customer support from people who purchase Apple for reasons besides money.
Apple is to computers what volkswagen is to cars. Hmm, that makes me wonder about how many VW drivers are also mac users compared to other car brands... I bet it's a higher than normal percentage.
-
That's because of the semen content. My suggestion: protect your poopchute.
Why ECC? I ask this because during the discussion on the G5 supercomputer I was moded into the ground because I said it needed ECC. The apple supporters response was that Apple had some magic software that did the samething as ECC RAM (with NO performance loss).
What has changed?
Yes, it's only $50 cheaper. The thing is this: the $300 iPod is the best seller of the lot. Cost/GB is an important factor, yes, but even if the iPod was only 1GB it would still have a lot going for it over the competing players.
- cool crowd. In marketing speak, the alphas have all bought an iPod and made it popular: the time has come to focus upon the rest of the crowd.
The people who are obsessed with space have already bought iPods. Or, in other words, amongst leading edge people the iPod has become a trailing trend. So the next question is how to break not into the marketplace of people who are tech-savvy, but rather the larger group of less-technically-inclined-but-still-wanting-to-be
Amongst this crowd, there is needed some method of comparision that is, at its very heart, impossible to calculate. Comparing $300/15GB with $500/40GB is a mathematical affair. What is needed is exactly the reverse. Apple does this with colors. Guy A buys a green one, guy B buys a blue one: they can both argue over which color is better without having to get into that inevitable Alpha-male dick contest over whose is bigger. That is why there is no 2GB version. The question when you decide to buy one of these is color, not model.
Or, in other words, Apple has once again found a clever way to shift the didatic from discussing the merits of their product to discussing the aesthetics of it. Ain't marketing cool?
-Brett
Nobody was particularly excited about the capacity, features, size, or even potential existence of the new mini iPod - what was hard to believe about the rumor was the supposed sub-$100 price point. This is most certainly not the case. The exciting thing was that it was going to be competing price-wise with 256mb flash players. Now its competition is the other iPods. Good luck with that one apple.
I am not getting one if the battery dies in 18 months and replacement costs more than the unit...
Yea, my fucking iPod has only lasted 22 months and the damn thing is still working fine. I guess I'm just not a moron, and I know how to treat a battery...
Answer: They are not different versions of the same product!!! They occupy two seperate categories:
This new player is obviously of the later type, and it should be viewed and evaluated as such. I've been shopping around for a small mp3 player to use while exercising, and this fits the bill perfectly!
I can think of several reasons why the iPod mini is priced so high. If it is priced at $100-$200, how many of you will get the mini instead of the big iPod? Now the smallest big iPod at $300 suddenly sounds like a better deal. The mini is priced not to cannibalize the sale of its bigger brothers.
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?
--
Power to the Peaceful
Overpriced as usual.
I was a bit surprised by the Xserve G5's pricing. The IBM BladeCenter JS20 costs less, and while it is a bit slower (1.6GHz CPUs instead of 2GHz ones) is *half* the size of the new Xserves.
What gives? Never thought I'd see the day that buying an IBM server over an Apple would be the *cheaper* option...
I don't feel they closed the gap enough. Sure its only $50 more for a lot more space than the average solid state, but its only $50 more than that to go from 4 gigs to 15. I would have rather seen a 1-2 gig player for $150 - $200 rather than one for $250.
And if you're a dumb bitch with only 2 cds?
Anybody at VT kicking themselves on account of the Xserve G5? Could they have saved money?
sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
1. Should come in white.
2. Should have been a 2 GB model for $149 and a 4 GB model for $199. As it sits, you pay $50 more than the $249 and you go from 4 GB to 15 GB. Obviously if I want an iPod I'm going to get the 15 GB iPod now, which means more waiting because I'm not ready to drop $300 on something. $150 and Jobs would have my money in his pockets already.
Hell, even if it was a 256 MB flash-based player, if it was an iPod and for $149 I would probably have already given him my credit card information. $250? I'll wait until I save up for the 15 GB.
MORTAR COMBAT!
After looking at the $250 pricetag I immediately feel the original iPods aren't that expensive anymore. (the 15GB model even looks attractive!)
Is it what Apple wants us to think with the $250 iPod mini?
I was hoping for G5 desktop price drops. Now all we got was lame ass iLife and pink and pastel colored mini iPods. Has Steve Jobs lost his mind? Quit turning Apple into a fag-hag store and sell some fucking serious hardware.
Doesn't this iPod still have the dirty secret? It looks to me as if there is no way to replace the battery. "Power and battery * Built-in rechargeable lithium ion battery" Why would they release another product with the same fatal flaw that marred the first one?
- Nick Busey
www.pedalbmx.com
www.nickbusey.com
They have an iPod feedback form here:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/ipod.html
Get in there and ask for OGG support like I just have. Suggest it as an enhancement.
Don't go "l33t-hax0r-0GG-support-rox0rz", be polite and professional - they'll listen eventually.
Ha ha ha. Look at those pictures again. Its a fraction of an inch narrower, and the same fraction shorter.
Smaller is better, but in this case the difference isn't big enough.
Why is this a problem though?
Just because Apple doesn't want to be the only maker of mp3 playing devices this is seen as a problem. (And of personal computers)
Apple's goal is not to win and have everyone and their mother carry around an iPod. That would be crazy. Their product is good, but not everyone can use an iPod. Not everyone has a large investment in music. The iPod is only really good for those people who have lots (thousands) of songs and like to organize them. It's not good for anyone who is an 'audiophile' because you have to use lossy compression to listen to your music (though I guess you could just store all your music as aiffs).
People who only like one type of music or who like the limited playlists of radio can and will continue to do so.
Apple's strategy is not to become the Walmart of the mp3 world. They have never made anything for 'the common man' since they started to make the Mac. The Original Apple I and Apple II were marketed for the common man but since the Macintosh appeared 20 years ago they have increasingly become the cool hip computer company. Not the only computer company (which is how MS would have it).
I think that people are dissapointed by the mini iPod because they really wanted a cheap iPod and the mini iPod is another high end mp3 player. People wanted a $99 iPod and instead we have a tiny iPod.
Is there another product on the market that is physically smaller then the mini iPod yet offers more storage space? (Keeping all the other features that the iPod has like battery life, backlighting, etc... )
Bleh. Need I say more?
1. When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend.
2. Do not eat iPod shuffle.
DVD Jon really has that much cash?
All they need is an orange one and they're all set...
Hmmm.
But I wonder whether the iPod Mini's battery still craps out after 18 months like the old one.
Jonahweb.com has stuff.
Am I the only one who expects a portable audio device to include at the very least a rudimentary FM receiver? Not asking for AM/FM/SW/SSB/TV/Weather, just intregrated FM. A third party did it with the remote but this has just been cancelled. This seems trivial from an engineering standpoint and could not add too much to manufacturing cost (maybe $5-$10). This seems to be a manifestation of an attitude at Apple that air wave transmitted media (radio, tv) is unimportant. Whether this is a corporate strategy or they believe Apple customers should not/do not consume radio and television in the course of their iLife is unclear but either way this is an arrogant viewpoint. The iMac is positioned as the "digital hub" but doesn't include a TV tuner? American consumers spend more time watching TV than making home movies. I can get a $400 PC bundle on the corner that includes DVR functionality. Just put a radio in there Steve, I promise I'll only listen to NPR.
Highest resolution here. (480x360, 13 MB)
Its not half the size and weight. Its fractionally smaller in width and height. Not half. Not even clsoe by area or volume.
The iPod is already the leading MP3 player. If they outpositioned the rest of the line with a lower margin product, they'd be shooting themselves in the foot. They don't want to detract sales from the other iPods.
Second, Apple products are always overpriced. You're paying (in their logic) for the "privelege" of owning the coolest of digital gadetry. The target market for the mini iPods are not people who thought "man, if only the iPod was $50 cheaper..." The target market is people who want the "privelege" of owning an iPod, but wanted them smaller. It's true, if capacity is the issue, and you're in the iPod price range as is, it makes no sense to go with a mini. But if you want something smaller and "hipper", the $50 savings is just icing.
And, unlike, most computer manufacturers, Apple doesn't forget that half the consumers out there are women. I think the more purse-friendly size and "fashionable" colors are part of that strategy.
At least, that's the only rationale I could come up with for that god-awful effete pallete these things come in.
(That's a nice way of saying that they're gay)
battery life.
Most people already seem to claim that the iPod works really well in their pockets. This new player seems to try to fill an even smaller niche than the original.
Better battery life would be most welcome. I was amazed that the newer CD/Mp3 players can get 35+ hours of battery life on 2 AA batteries (probably about 2000 mA hours). It is hard for me to belive that a cd drive uses less power than a mini hard drive.
- ...and that one person has spent $29,500 on iTunes Music Store. Yes, $29,500.
Was his email sjobs@apple.com?What is this iPod battery nonsense? The new version of the BSD troll?
I ordered iLife (to get iDVD) Sunday night - probably not so smart just before new announcements.
Anyway, I got an email early this morning saying that they had just shipped the old iLife 1.1 (which, I admit is the one I ordered) - still, one would think that they could have held my order for 1 day.
Unless a free upgrade is easily obtained, I will be an unhapy customer.
-Mark
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.
Anyone have any idea how Garageband compares to Soundtrack? From what I can see, they're the same product except for track limitations... and 64 tracks is likely close to the practical limit of processor ability anyhow.
Tweet, tweet.
Take everyday hardware wrap it around a shiny container. People will call it visionary and cutting edge.
Basically Apple RAISED the price on the ipod.
Lets place the value on the design difference as ZERO. Which it is. The fact that it's smaller and in colors means nothing really. The original is quite small enough.
SO...
299 / 15 = 19.93 per gig.
249 / 4 = 62.25 per gig.
Now I understand the difference between 4 gig HG and a 15 gig HD to manufacture is quite small. That doesn't matter. The end value is what matters.
Sigh.. However the media will call this inventive & revolutionary.
Karma means nothing to me, so suck it...
why only chicks who have just 30 cd's?
Although I agree with those complaining about the price, one nice feature of the iPod mimi is it will charge via USB. And, it actually ships with a USB cable.
If you are skinny chick who only eats 1500 calories a day, why would you pay another $0.39 to supersize for a bigger meal with more calories that you don't need?
It depends on the customer. Someone who's saving their pennies, of course, would not splurge on the extra $50. Someone who's very concerned about the size of the device would not upsize. However, for Joe Average Consumer, $50 for 11 more gigs sounds like a good deal.
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
I was disappointed in the mini iPod announcement but I'm sure 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.
karma karma karma karma karma chameleon, you come and go, you come and go.
Why does Apple keep ignoring the fact that there is a demand for iTunes in Canada. I bought my iPod in Canada but I can not buy online music legally to put on my iPod in Canada. I have spoken with representatives at Apple Canada and each time I get the same load of crap..."iTunes Canada is rumoured to launch Q4 2003...blah, blah, blah". It is 2004 and still no iTunes Canada. Who cares about a mini iPod intended for competition killing and market domination...existing customers are just as important as new customers.
START -> PROGRAMS -> KAZAA = Urge to kill subsiding
You fucking moron. Think about what you just said, dipshit. "If Fords can drive more miles per gallon than Chevys with the same gas mileage, ..." Retard.
$250 is too much - being a person with much
debts.
nuff said
Yup, the 15Gb model is GBP250 in the UK. That's the equivalent of $455, only $45 less than the 40Gb model in the US.... It doesn't look like we get the iPod mini over here, either.
*sigh*
The 40Gb version works out at a splendid $727...
P.S. Can someone please tell me how to get a pound sign on Slashdot?
WTF? Do i give a fuck about the new color design and the smaller size ? My iPod already fits in my pocket, no one sees it and i'm not an egocentric geek who shows off its toys wherever he can. Does anyone gives a fuck about it, NO! Even the least educated consumer will see this as a scam and nothing more. It's like 11 Gigs for 50$, that's the price of a normal 10 gigs HD if some stores still sell them. ( And i'm being optimistic. )
.. cough cough... )
I was planning on buying a Mini for a birthday present, but now.. WTH is the difference with the 15 gigs one ? None, it's still pricy, it's still paying for flashy bullshit, it's Apple! I'll think about something else or i'll win the loto and buy a 40 gig one.
Here's a new iPod toy, it's colorful and it's so small you can shove it up your ass. I hope this new line will fail miserably and hope that some Apple users will finally have the balls to bitchslap their overlords' silly marketing decisions. ( Cube
This post is almost identical to this post only with a little modificaion done.
...Macworld Expo in San Francisco, a $250 MP3 player with a 4GB hard drive that comes in several colors ...
This statement in the main article is wrong. The iPod mini is not hard drive based, it is flash based.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
Lisa: It's the same Malibu Stacy as before. She just has a new hat!
Smithers: But she has a new hat! Out of my way.
the scroll wheel is solid state. That's probably where the confusion came from
I'm sure those two words represent you rather well.
I suspect the rumors of a revitalized Cube as a the 20th Anniversary Mac may be on target... for the 24th. Though, I suspect, it will be less like the TAM in that it will be a thought-out, nice-looking, well-priced bundle that they'll sell for a year or so.
Hopefully they stay away from the geek in a tuxedo this time. :)
NOT. It's always amusing to see how everyone wants Apple to somehow suddenly be like COBY or White Castle or Family Dollar when it comes to price and also be, well.... Apple in innovation at the same time. Point is, you can't have both.
A business card size MP3 player with 1000 song capacity and kickass industrial design does have a market, trust me. Maybe at $250 they've lost many sales, but when you're selling more iPods than Macs in their first year at $300-500 a pop, why go low? Until Apple can make it's customary ~30% profit on a $100 player that won't denigrate the brand by being sucky in some way, then we won't be seeing one.
With the 2GB Cornice HD mentioned here yesterday at $70 per 100,000, we can begin to see how much profit Apple can really make on these miniPods, and iPods in general. Say the 4GB version is $100 or so, you can imagine that each of these miniPods may have nearly $100 in profit for Apple. I'm not putting them down in any way, I think they deserve to have a mega sucessful product after having contributed so much innovation all these years. Besides, I got a 40GB for Christmas and consider it someone else's money well spent;-)
P.s. COBY, the SONY knockoff, have you seen this crap?
Apple engineers squeezed all the best features of iPod into a case weighing just 3.6 ounces and smaller than any cell phone(1)
...
(1) Compared volumetrically to cell phones sold in the U.S.
I can corroborate this. My small Nokia is 98mm x 43mm x 18mm = 75852mm^3.
Mini iPod is 58993mm^3.
I'm impressed they got it that small. They managed to make it 13mm thick. Very nice.
Will cost at least 200 UK pounds inc. tax on release here though. ($360, ouch)
Just a guess.
at the gym
I'll be the first to admit I was hoping for a $100-$150 mini ipod. However, consider the following:
I own a laptop. I paid about 3-5 times the price of an equivelent desktop for it. But at the time, it was a good price and the price difference continues to this day with laptops. Size counts for something to certain people. Period.
I've been looking for a replacement to my Usb Flash device for holding files and data. Something small. Guess what? iPod minis are what some are looing for. Execs who want their presentations in hand, literally. Artists and other folk who need to move files from place to place who don't want to carry several chips with them can carry this one.
The fact that it has some game/program functionality, music playback, and is FW/USB2.0 accessible are definitely cool. If it uses a microdrive inside, then when an 8GB or greater micro drive appears, what's to stop me from swapping drives? :)
For sure, 4GB seems small. But then again, compared to the competition, it is a good deal.
I for one would buy it since it will be light, easy to cary, and provide me with music, portable storage, and will work with my PC, MAC, and Linux systems at home.
Btw, I don't own an iPod. But with the mini, I might just get one.
Winged Power Photography
I'm estimating my cost here to be:
$20 for CD player
$5 for cd case (also at Worst Buy)
$.36 per CD-R x 24 = 8.64
= About $35 (with tax, etc) for just under 17 GB of portable music
$99 be damned. If you're a true cheapskate, this will work just fine.
Seriously. I predict the mini will be popular in Japan, where people seem to have an affinity for electronics that are small and cute, and are willing to pay a premium price for it. Maybe in addition to the five colours, they should have included a Hello Kitty version, or some such thing.
Remember when the iMacs first came out in all the colors? Pretty cool, but you liked some colors more than others? Well it turned out that preference to certain colors didn't quite follow a normal distribution. As a result, you started seeing lots if tangerine iMacs on sale. A lot of tangerine iMacs.
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.
A bit ike this?
I knew they'd never move from their one-button-mouse position. If it's enough to make a spaceship land then it should certainly be good enough for everything else.
Quote from the Rio Cali website:
:-p
"As featured in the Steve Jobs keynote at Macworld 2004"
And btw, *I* think that the Nitrus looks like ass, nyah!
Because to a lot of people its not a flaw. Its just like a cell phone. I've never had to replace the battery in my cell phone, by the time the battery does die completely I'm looking to buy a new phone anyways.
I just got a 40G iPod, and love the convenience of having all my music at any given place. That doesn't mean I'm out of the market for a new one.
My husband and I have two cars, so we might as well have two iPods. The mini would give us more flexibility than having two big iPods. The iPod does not fit comfortably in my pocket, and for any given day, I might just listen to a handful of albums, which would easily fit on the mini.
Docking it and uploading different songs to it in the morning is an easy thing to do. The mini is highly appealing to me largely because of it's size and the fact that it would incorporate seamlessly with my existing setup.
Drool.
Joan
Everyone who is doing the dollar per GB calculation and complaining about how the mini is SO much less cost effective than the low end iPod is missing the point. You've already decided what's important to you, and it's the biggest capacity you can get for whatever your price point is. The 15MB looks so much more your style at the price you want to pay, and guess what, that's exactly what Apple wants to sell you.
I, however, am not in the market for the regular iPods. While my music collection would mostly fit on a 20GB iPod, I can't see myself carrying around something that big. It's not the size of the iPod itself, it's everything else I have to lug around in my pockets.
The new iPod mini, though, is almost perfect for me. I can carry it around without significantly adding to the pocket bulk. Of course, in a perfect world it would come in a 20GB capacity, but 4GB is enough for my out-of-home listening patterns.
Is $250 too much? If I were comparing it to the regular iPod, sure, but the comparison doesn't make sense for me. And that means that I get the iPod's terrific user interface, the tiny size, and almost three days of continuous music for ONLY $250. That's a tough combination to beat.
Lemme get this straight...
$249 for 4G.
$299 for 15G.
Yes, the 4G is smaller, but it's not like the 15G is large by anyone standards.
This is, say it with me folks, A TERRIBLE PRODUCT. If anyone buys one, I consider them a flat-out moron.
Has this been the $100 a 2G that was rumored I would be singing a completely different tune. That would have been fantastic. This is a joke though. The price is far too high for what you get and is made far worse when you consider what you can get for just $50 more.
Sorry Steve, this was a bad call and I'd be willing to bet your sales will prove me right. You'll get the silicon valley nuts who just think it's "cool" how small it is, but that's about. Real people like me who don't have a ton of disposable income won't even look twice at one.
I am completely unimpressed.
If a pion (n-) collides with a proton in the woods & noone is there to hear it, does lamdba decay into the source pa
If you are a chick who only owns 30 CD's, why would you pay another $50 for a bigger player with more space that you don't need?
What, do women like music less than men or something? Or is it something particular to chicks and dudes?
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
Since they cross-sell the iPod with the VW Bug, maybe now they'll sell the iPod Mini with the BMW Mini
Actually that's a 35% difference, that is, the new iPod is almost 3/4's the the size of the old one.
I'm just doing the same "rounding" the other way you were, to show that if we're going to be imprecise, then I get to be just as imprecise.
Just a question, what player are you referring to? I'm looking to get myself one of those, and that seems like a good price.
Another Apple first, the first company to build a computer with a 90 nanometer processor. The Xserve G5 uses a G5 on a 90 nanometer process
Link
I found this out from arstechnica's forums
Soo that averages out to ~63% greater chance of me losing the damn thing!
-- taking over the world, we are.
That's just a tick over 1/3 smaller.
Lets be real here. The 3rd gen iPods fit into a shirt pocket. These....fit into a shirt pocket, and you can put a "fitness bar" in there besides.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
How does 1.5 gigs equal the 4 GB you claim?
Now, more than ever, my sig applies.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
With all these electronics, how many false positives like this are we going to have to go through? Really, it's something to think about with all of these flights being cancelled.
CB
free ipod and free gmail!
That's recording performer John Mayer, not recording artist/ I found that out a few months back when I finally had the misfortune of hearing him perform. After the sort of hype encountered, I'd gotten the impression he may actually have talent; imagine my disappointment.
" the fact that the iPod mini does everything the iPod will do"
The primary "value" customers perceive in an MP3 player is the internal size.
Otherwise, why would apple sell 3 different sizes?
On that scale, anybody other than trendy people who live off their credit cards are going to look at these and say "Nice, but these are a cut-down iPod with a lot less space".
People buy more space than they need; otherwise, they wouldn't buy Huge SUVs, huge suburban houses, and iPods that have 40G.
I bet the Mini-iPod will be at $150 within 6 months.
Standard Apple Tactic -- Rape the Fanboys for a huge margin, then lower prices.
If it makes you feel better, GarageBand is hugely UNDERpriced...buy both and you'll come out even.
The smaller size, pastel colors and cute name the iPod Jr. offers seems to be targeting women with a good amount of disposable income. It's too bad to because most of my friends were planning on buying the $100 iPod Jr. I guess they aren't looking to satisfy my demographic though.
"I can not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presents danger, the solution is ignorance" - Isaac Asimov
Yes, the 4G is smaller, but it's not like the 15G is large by anyone standards.
This is, say it with me folks, A TERRIBLE PRODUCT. If anyone buys one, I consider them a flat-out moron.
Either the market disagrees with you, or there are a heck of a lot of morons out there. Either way, Apple's got a winner. Just visit:
http://store.apple.com/
Oh, what's that, the site's so busy you can't get to it? Hmmm, why would that be?
---------------------------------------------
SERENITY NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
from tech specs: Cache Backup Battery Modules (sold separately) for over 72 hours of memory protection.
I think you're out of luck for the headphones unless you've got one of those fance fibrechannel headphones
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
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.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
If you want a hip, urban jogging accessory that simply screams "Mug me, please!" then the iPod mini is for you!
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
Okay, I apparently forgot to "carry the one."
Indeed- doing the math is harder than it looks.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Steve Jobs is preventing you from listening to the radio? Hmm. Just buy a player from another manufacturer that includes one. Obviously, Apple doesn't believe adding that feature will boost sales enough to include it in the design. That isn't arrogance, it's just a product feature decision.
e rt ers_studiodvtv
v r/ index.html
If you want to add DVR functionality to your iMac, you can buy a Formac Studio TVR for $299.
http://www.formac.com/p_bin/?cid=solutions_conv
If you have a tower Mac you can get a PCI card DVR for $165.
http://www.miglia.com/products/video/alchemytvd
The truth is that the Media Center PCs are just not selling that well. Sure, Apple could offer a bundle through their store, but I guess they figure people can simply buy directly from the third-part vendor.
I was a bit disappointed overall - the keynote didn't have the bang & sizzle of years past.
The iPod mini is cute & very appealing, but the price tag is too steep to make a big impact. It should be $199--it would sweep the competition completely away overnight. I almost expect the price to drop shortly.
GarageBand *is* kind of innovative--the first time any company has tried to make music production accessible to the masses. I've had a nice MIDI keyboard here for months now that I like to dabble with--but the software I've tried has all been pretty intimidating for someone who just wants to experiment & lay down a few tracks.
new iPhoto w/ speed enhancements... new iMovie features... new iDVD features... new Office 2004... nice, but nothing spectacular.
I suspect they've got other big projects that'll be announced throughout the year. It just seemed to fall flat overall this time around.
...Treos and Archos Jukeboxes for substance.
And actually, for all of the Apple community's masturbatory self-petting, I just don't get it. To me, style is more than chrome and colors.
1. I find it decidedly UN-sexy to be chained to a gagillion nerd boxes. Give me my feature-packed calendar, awesome phone-homer, excellent portable gamer, 512 MB SD card-toting, OGG/MP3 playing, keyboard wielding, 70 kbps always-on Internetting, pocket-fitting Treo 600 for most of the hours in most of my days.
2. When I make the ergonomic investment to tote around a decent quantity of tunes, I want a decent device. I might even pay, =GASP=, $300 for it! But the thing should kick ass. Like my speedy Archos Jukebox running the sweet Open Source Rockbox OS.
Expensive, proprietary, no-feature iPod?! Hahahahahaha....
Archos and Rockbox, slashdotted before, by the way.
Does this mean we will see a glut of 10GB ipods on the market soon from various mac vendors?
And while I didn't watch the keynote address, all the mini ipods on the web site look like computer generated images. Any actual photos?
IT DOESNT HVAE A CF CARD YOU FAGOT. IT HAS HARD DRIVE. ROFL
.
sadkjsadkfdsf adks ad dksa dksa dks dksdsfsf j dkasf l adksf
haven't turntables outsold guitars for the last several years?
And let's also not forget that the software on the ipod, as well as on the computer, as well as the hardware buttons, are not to be found anywhere else. You can spend $250 on a much larger capacity unit from iRiver or Creative or Philips. And then you can spend most of your time managing the music on it ;).
I will agree that there are many, many, much better music players if you only look at a single variable. I, however, learned the calculus so I didn't HAVE to look at just a single variable. And iPod still wins out overall.
iPod Mini...well, i'm impressed but i'm not buying one (I have a 30, still rocks your sorry ass). To make something so small, simple and PERVASIVE. The key to Apple software, something very few people GET, is that it is as consistant and inviting as a morning bowl of oatmeal with BROWN SUGAR. It's not what it does -- it's how it does it. And if you're content to do things the hard way, you'll NEVER get Apple, or its "expensive devices."
Hey freaks: now you're ju
But it is not particular cheap either. It's comparable to the other mini-HD based players.
hee hee yeah and this always works.
Steve Jobs twiddles his magic hippy harpischord and everyone else just follows along.
Markets can just be created at the whim of big business (the RIAA just isn't doing it right).
I'm going out to buy a ipod mini just as soon as I can.
In fact, I'm writing this very post from my Newton.
bwahahaha
Adam T
The 40 GB iPod is almost targeting a different market: yes, it really is good for the hard core music lover, but it has so much storage that it really becomes useful as a second hard drive. I have found the 40 GB to be an excellent back up device for most of the files in my home directory. Anything smaller, and I would have had to choose whether the iPod should be music-only or backup-only. With this much room, I don't have to choose. If I were a professional musician or photographer, I can see how the sheer size would be handy as portable storage.
The price is far too high for what you get
You get 4GB for $249. Let's see, a 256MB iRiver sells for $199, so you get 16 times the storage for a 25% higher price.
Yeah, far too high, right.
---------------------------------------------
SERENITY NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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.
If I could make this sig kill you, I would.
Lasers Controlled Games!
_Still_ no FM Tuner? Whisky-Tango-Foxtrot?!
What I want: an mp3/aac/ogg player that has a nice (as in many characters) backlit display, easy controls, has a good FM tuner, and for storage - nothing but a CF (type II if possible) slot. I'll supply the storage, thanks.
Oh, also, FW400 & USB2.0 ('hi-speed') interfaces. Oh, and the ability to use it as portable storage, like the iPod. Voice recording & the ability to record from the FM tuner would be nice, too, whilst I'm dreaming.
If you do the math it's 59% of the volume and 64% of the weight (giving it a 9% higher density).
If this qualifies as "almost half" or not is up to individual taste.
mod parent up, he has a good point
aren't they a few weeks late to be announcing a new series of products? I suppose it is better than announcing it during xmas if it wont be ready to ship...
Is the mini ipod (minipod?) not going to ship for a while, or did it just not make it out in time for Christmas, or is Jobs insane?
The new mini iPod comes with a USB2.0 cable (an optional extra for the full size iPod).
I read this as the first full acknowledgement of Apple to the windows market. I bet they had a lot of support calls with people buying full iPods and then finding they couldn't plug it into their USB only PC's.
Well done Apple for getting that one right.
There are several things that drove adoption of the original ipod. It was a large capacity (for the time) player that looked nice, had a good interface, and was squarely aimed at the high-end buyer.
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.
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.
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.
I wholeheartedly agree, I was getting ready to spend $100-$150 on a mini-iPod this week. I'm rather disappointed that there's only a 4gb version. Perhaps the 2gb mini-iPod is in the works?
The return of NeXT Zilla! muhahahaha
Now with rendezvous technology! yum
You mean trendy people who value style over substance? Is that your defintion of "people with lives"?
Interesting.
Reading here we can see the typical Mac Zealot claiming that its all OK really, and 'look, its small!'
Point is they have left a great route for others to come in and undercut them for the mass market - and a story 3 down from this one shows Microsoft is waking up to the opportunity. Given the route of added functionality and stealing a march on the ipod, this it the day Apple will rue, similar to when they lost the PC wars.
No this is not flamebait, its simple real world facts of business life - the portable lifestype device market was somewhat open to Apple, even with mobile phones everywhere. Overpricing this device has cost them that. No price cut to $150 within 3 months, no hope.
My cell phone battery can be replaced by the user in 30 seconds. Not at all like any version of the iPod.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
That was simply aweful. Way to ruin a classic. I wonder if George Lucas was involved...
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
GarageBand looks okay and all, but they totally dropped the ball on the name. For one thing, they broke then "clever" iName scheme that the rest of the iLife suite uses. For another thing, they missed a chance to get an oblique 80s punk rock reference, which clearly all software should aim for. How could they have fixed this?
Or if they wanted to go for that trendy leetspeek "we meant to mis-spell that, thankyouverymuch", they could have used...
Is it too late to go put new label stickers on the packaging, and to change out the strings in the software? I hope it's not too late...
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Because radio sucks and doesn't play anything worthwhile?
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.
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
And you can serve it with Windows and Linux now too!!
You were smart enough to return it to apple and claim it just failed.
For the kind of money they get, they have to take returns for the littlest thing.
Cool, you get to save money!
the ipod's buffer memory cannot keep it skip proof since it has a physical drive with moving parts, unlike the muvo nx, i am returning my ipod and buying the muvo nx, the ipod just wasnt made to run with, too bad too, i liked the way it looked near my ripped abs.. see http://www.ipodlounge.com/forums/archive/topic/205 64-1.html for more information
and support 32-bit colors + video on screen?
:)
Now that, I'd be first in line for
i'm a happy g5 user, but the apple laptops just suck right now.
btw, what happened to the protests of frustrated owners of broken ibooks? did they show up somewhere at the expo?It's most likely not about cost, but size. It'd be hard to put a good FM receiver in the pod while retaining its current size.
"basically updated to include the features from Final Cut Pro 4"...anybody know if this includes the XML output?
Reason I ask: I want to develop software against it.
The iPodjr comes in colors. WOOT! In a couple of years we will all be able to pickup discontinued pink iPodjr accessories at Microcenter for pennies on the dollar. Of course the battery will die a week later.
I went to radio shack and got an RS-branded armband with a pouch that was just on the almost-too-snug side for my gen1 ipod, so I'd expect it's perfect for the gen2. It was like $15, I think. I jog with it all the time. It's like it was made for it!
Combine that with home broadband, and wouldn't it make sense to build the music player into the cell phone, and stream your MP3s from your home computer?
This gets rid of the hassle of having to sync the portable to your home collection. It gets rid of having to carry two devices. It gets rid of running out of space.
"Hurray for you, but that doesn't change the MSRP."
You're missing a key point.
You're comparing Apple's MSRP with everybody else's MSRP.
They're not the same. Apple's actually sell at MSRP. Everybody else routinely takes 30-50% off MSRP.
So when you see that $250 iPod, you need to compare it to the $375 MSP *anything else* because the $375 MSRP will be $250 street.
I wonder if these new iPod mini's will have replaceable batteries.
:)
Maybe that's why they're priced so closely
Check out Mon and Mon.cgi
Are they going to be in the Apple stores before 2/16?
Dude, I think I can see my house from here.
When the 3G iPod came out, I purchased a second gen iPod for $199! I got a remote control and a leather case as well. Now that the 3G 10GB has been discontinued, it'll either sell for $199 or $249. Why buy mini?
That's all I've been waiting for. I know that iRiver has a recordable hard drive device, but the interface is just not even close to the ipod. Now that sony has shitcanned A/D recording in their minidisc players it's really difficult to find a good field recorder.
I suppose it's not worth them adding it right now for the only 1% of people who care, but an iPod with high-quality recording would get me to buy...
Commercial music stations - I agree, they suck, but radio also provides news(I'm interested in more than just technology) sports,(I enjoy listening to baseball ganes on the radio) weather reports etc and I actually do listen to NPR. I know what's on my iPod, its a finite set. I obviously like to listem to recorded music but radio provides practical information as well as immediacy and unprediability not possible from a playlist. I can't be the only one who feels this way and it would be nice to have both capibilities in one device.
Aren't you a clueless moron....
busy != buying.
Please get off dial-up, the apple site is very responsive on broadband, i do not see any differences currently. ( Page loads up in less than a second. )
Exactly. I'm glad Apple has realized that. Now if they'll just apply this knowledge elsewhere and build a subnotebook, I'd be happy.
;)
I've had plenty of people tell me that the 12" Powerbook is small enough, but once you get used to carrying around something that is only 60% the size and half the weight (Sony Picturebook), you don't want to go back. Sony no longer sells the Picturebook on our shores, but you can now buy a Fujitsu P-series that is about the same size and weight for about the same price as the considerably larger and heavier 12" iBook.
I'd love to carry an OSX machine around, but it doesn't look like it's going to happen anytime soon. Maybe if the mini-iPod is a success, they will continue the shrinking trend... I can hope anyway.
-- OpenVerse Visual Chat: http://openverse.com
But the point was that you never need to replace a cell phone battery, and by the time that you might need to you are looking to buy a new phone anyways.
Reading reviews on Slashdot of Apple marketing events is a lot like asking a PR flak about Linux.
ie: Stupid for the most part.
Ladies and gentlemen of the supposed jury, I have one final thing I want you to consider: this is an iPod mini. The iPod mini is a Jobs creation from the Apple Company, but the iPod mini lives on the planet with the iPod. Now, think about that. That does not make sense!
Why would an iPod mini -- a 4GB $250 costly device -- want to live on Earth with an mp3 player that costs just $50 more with 11GB's more capacity? That does not make sense!
But more importantly, you have to ask yourself: what does that have to do with this case?
Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case! It does not make sense!
Look at me, I'm a lawyer defending a major Computer company, and I'm talkin' about an iPod mini. Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense. None of this makes sense.
And so you have to remember, when you're in that jury room deliberating and conjugating the Emancipation Proclamation... does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it does not make sense.
If the iPod mini is worth it, you must acquit! The defense rests.
Jonathanjk.com
I disagree. The major physical component of an FM radio is the circuitry which amplifies the recieved wave. This amplification circuitry is already present in the iPod . Most ultra compact radios use the headphone wire as an FM antenna. 15 years ago I had an FM radio which had the same form factor as a credit card.
I'm curious... What's your philosophy about using shift keys?
Anyone know if the keynote is available online anywhere? I'd like to check out the part about GarageBand.
Trail running or anyone performance running (light sprint) will produce skips from the iPod. I have actually considered going back to a flash-based player for harder runs.
Not sure if someone's answered this already:
Now that the Xserve G5 is here, will they use those for a clustered super-computer?
I've used easy-to-use stuff and I've used difficult-to-use stuff. I can learn how to use difficult-to-use stuff, but at hour 438 of use it's still difficult to use and I'm starting to feel like shooting myself. It's much like this; most people don't want something that annoys them every time they pick it up.
...it was actually when iTunes for Windows was rolled out - not when the iTMS originally started. But I never saw that keynote which announced the original launch, so it could have been already there, too.
“Wait for Hurd if you want something real” –Linus
Apple has sold iPods at a premium for the last two years. Now they're attacking the middle of the market. Once they've got good penetration they'll go after the low end.
I wanted a $99 model too but it would be silly (and stupid) economics when you really think it through.
You need to change the file extention to .AAC first, though.
Was that someone wasn't going to be using Mommy's credit card again anytime soon, nor are they going to be sitting for a few months.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
As to the miniPod's price don't forget that the full size iPod has regularly gone down in price and/or up in capacity. So do smartphones. So will the miniPod.
You're confusing usability with learnability. Regardless, it's a moot point because both have nothing to do with how stupid people are.
I have an older 5GB iPod, and liek you say it's a matter of how you use it. The larger ones are cool because they can hold a whole collection. But iTunes is also really good at creating lists to keep a cahnging subset of music on this device practical...
In practice, 5GB has been plenty, even for long road trips.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You have a good point... I've been looking at HDD-based players, and for the life of me, I can't figure out why they don't use standard AA batteries. My (30 minute) rechargable AA batteries are 2100mAH, and a single one is more powerful than the built-in LiION batteries in any player I've yet looked-at.
Plus, they usually only get about 10 hours per-charge, and take about 6 hours to charge-up (compared with my 4 AAs in 30min), so it's not as if it's so powerful that nobody would ever need to exchange it during a long trip.
It's not like notebooks, you can't buy an extra battery and swap it. Anyone know what the point it there?
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I use Audio Hijack to record NPR Shows and then upload them to my iPod. Great for things like This American Life.
(Oh, you can also buy a lot of NPR shows using iTunes if you prefer.)
It depends on how much your time is worth. At (for example) $100/hour, the cost of troubleshooting Linux looks less appealing that spending $129 for OS X. Different people have different cost/time trade-offs. For most people, paying a little up front for ease-of-use is a rational choice.
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.
I have Panther and it has iTunes, iPhoto, and iMovie on it for free (well, it comes with it).
But I don't see iDVD on here and I'm assuming GarageBand isn't free either.
What determines if someone is free or not? Is it how likely it is to be desired? I could see GarageBand being very popular, so it could be that they are just sitting on it.
Or do they make them free if there are paths to profit from the use of the app? iTunes lets you buy music, and iPhoto lets you order pics to be printed... not sure if there is any way to make it off of iMovie since I've never even opened the app.
The GarageBand looks really cool - but I am not sure I want to spend the money if it will be free soon enough.
I am new to Macs, so I'm still trying to get used to how they do things.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
They are going to have a new iPod, and new slogan: Hey, our batteries may only last a year, but you'll look good for that whole year!
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
Recent reports show that the Rio Nitrus 1.5GB is the best-selling 1.5GB MP3 player on the market and has become a favorite with consumers and retailers, proving that this new MP3 segment is redefining the MP3 market...
Wow, the best selling 1.5GB player on the market out of all the 1.5GB players starting with the letter N! Fantastic!
I'm sure the pricing for the 4GB model being the same as the mini iPod will not be an issue. Although I hear the case color for the Rio will be brown, as they were stacked near the executives when they got word of the mini iPod...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Rumors of Mac Tablet completely false. Take that, Cringely.
(sniff... I would have bought one!)
Justin
"Why would God give us a waist if we wasn't supposed to rest our pants on it?" - Rev. Roy McDaniels
...according to the tech specs.
Absolutly horrible. $250? You can buy a nice iPod from ebay for that much for another 15 to 30 gig player for that much. What the hell is apple thinking. I was all set to buy the $99 rumor but apple's gone and overpriced their crap again.
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/mwsf04/
I am pretty sure I heard the same thing while watching the keynote announcing the release of Windows iTunes.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
How will this news affect the new 20 and 40 GB iPods? With the low end being bumped up from 10 to 15, there is now a much smaller gap between the low end and middle-of-the-road iPod. Does this mean a bump to the other iPods are expected soon? Should we expect 30 and 50 GB iPods?
I ask because I'm going to be purchasing a 40 GB soon, but I will wait if I think they will be updating the high-end iPods soon. My biggest gripe with Apple is that I feel like I never know if I'm going to regret my purchase in a few short weeks. Also, I have checked the MacRumors.com buyer's guide, but it simply says "Buy Now" since there were updates today. This tells me nothing about the 20 & 40 GB models.
As many of you know, the "Classic" iPod models used a PCMCIA hard drive which accounted for their size and shape. As time progressed, the other "guts" of the pod got smaller, and the 2nd and 3rd generation iPods were skinnier than their predecessors. However, for all practical purposes, the iPod will not shrink until Apple chooses another type of storage. It's somewhat ironic that apple chose the PCMCIA hard drive because they were standardized, commodity items which could be used off the shelf without any R&D. But due the iPod's success, most PCMCIA drives in existance today are in iPods - this also allowed Toshiba to develop larger and cheaper drives permitting the 30gb model. Ironic, huh?
Now, the iPod mini is another story. It's MUCH smaller than a PCMCIA card. Since there is almost zero chance that Apple developed their own drive (they have never developed any form of storage mechanism. ever.), chances are that the iPod mini uses a Hitachi (formerly IBM) Microdrive - it's the only thing small enough to fit inside the chasis. FYI, the Microdrive is a hard-drive in a CompactFlash form factor (but can be rewritten many more times than CompactFlash and is much faster. Power comsumption is very low (which is good). From what I hear too, they're pretty darn durable).
Now, I hear everyone complaining about the high cost of the new iPod, but when you look at the cost of the parts, you see where the cost comes from. Right now, Hitachi is the only maker of Microdrives (from what I'm reading, they won't even be availible to the public 'til the 16th). One of these will set you back $600.
That's right, the player costs LESS than half of the cost of the only hard drive small enough to fit inside it. Now, I don't dobut that apple has tremendous purchasing power, but I don't see how on earth they are managing to make a profit on these things. There are other components inside the iPod other than the Hard Drive.
On the bright side, this will increase demand for microdrives, bringing down prices, and bringing in larger drives (good news for photographers!)
Could this just be a "loss-leader" to promote sales at iTunes?
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Maybe Jobs is trying to hack people off with the pricing, then will announce a "new, lower price" in a few weeks.
the fever-pitch created by really wanting one but hating the price will create even bigger sales: now people can get it at a bargain!
Well, Apple's website says this:
Of course, any MIDI device works with GarageBand, too.
Have a blast!
the #1 best thing about the mini iPod is for portability while exercising. honestly i have debated what to replace my battered minidisc with, and it might be this. i want the good things of the iPod (works with a Mac, bla bla bla) but feared the size/cost considering while running it's going to get sweaty at best, dropped and smashed at worst.
the price is still a lot to potentially have lost or destroyed, but it's small enough to use one of those goofy arm things or something.
i knew a few people that go to the gym and ride exercise bikes for a little while.. at least to warm up for their workouts. plenty of people still buy those flash MP3 players for jogging, or at the gym. they don't need a month of straight music on their hip, they need something like an hour. with firewire you could transfer playlists for that day in no time. yes, a full iPod can carry more songs, but my tower can carry even more than that.
You have a good point... I've been looking at HDD-based players, and for the life of me, I can't figure out why they don't use standard AA batteries.
Size for one thing- the AA's are quite a bit bulkier than the extremely thin ipod battery. The other thing is (and I could be completely wrong about this) can standard Joe Shmo AA's source enough current? It would be sort of lame if you bought an MP3 player that required a certain kind of AA battery.
right after the holiday season?
-n-
I guess I'm unsure on the concept of running down to the server room, opening the back door of a rack full of Xservers, and plugging my digital camcorder into the right one, whichever one that is. What am I missing here?
Granted, Firewire is good for more than digital video, like digital music and networking. But then with dual gigabit ethernets, who wants to daisy chain 1394 ports?
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
from: http://www.apple.com/ilife/
"Just as Microsoft Office has the tools you need to create an outline, a budget or a presentation, iLife offers all of the tools you need for your work outside the office."
Excuse me while I puke.
I was all prepared to use my hoarded gift certs. to Best Buy and get my value packed iPod but now...nope. Though I must admit for Apple it is a great deal because they get people to buy the 15 gig model and spend $50.00 more. It is too tempting to get another 11 gigs. It is kind of like BUY 4 GIGS FOR $249 AND GET 11 GIGS FOR JUST $50!!!1 I wish that was their marketing slogan. Oh well, time for that DVD Burner. Better get certain files off my PC's HD before the RIAA come around.
There are a bazillion people on here and on dozens of other sites on the internet saying they are disappointed in the price of the mini and would have bought one if it was 150.
Meanwhile, the mini is based on brand new just introduced technology from a third point. And apple was unable to produce enough of the current models, based on hard drives that are in 2nd & 3rd generation, for the holiday season demand.
Is it not obvious to all you supposedly-above-average-intelligence junior businessmen that they HAD to introduce it at a high enough price to have any hope at all at an orderly ramp-up of production?
this is a copy of an earlier post by truffle - post #7895073
Hmm... The thread off the news article on iPod Lounge's front page has a comment that is word for word exactly the same as this one, except that it is formatted properly.
Is this the best that a Rio employee and/or fanboy can come up with? The iPod mini "look like butt." Amazing! I'd like to see that in a press release. I have to say that I'm not too impressed with the incredibly obvious bogus "grass roots" movement behind the Nitrus.
...that would be "third party" not "third point"
Go hide under a bridge troll.
Today's word is: IP over Firewire.
1. $129 for OSX is fine, but its the gap between that $50 PII/200MHz box to run finux on and the $13,000 for a g5 (ok, so I had to max out all the options on the custom build to get that price, but you get the idea.)
2. I would poke your eyes out with a spork for $100 an hour.
Now, according to Jobs, Apple is targeting the iPod Mini at the "Flash player market".
Incorrect.
Apple is targetting the iPod Mini at the "Upper Flash Player Market". Everything else you say is bullcrap because of this misquote.
The Rio Nitrus costs $154. The ipod mini costs ~2/3 more.
Cool! What colors does it come in?
However, I was a little dissapointed by the price of the new iPod mini. At $250 (just $50 less than the (now) 15Gb iPod) I can't really see how it's worth it. I'll just pay another $50 and get an iPod that can hold my entire music library. Not sure what they were thinking with that price.
They were thinking exactly what you describe. The mini gets folks into the store but then they buy the low end iPod. "Loss leader", except that the mini seems to be profitably priced.
The 15G only comes with a firewire cable so the price difference is really about US$70 if you need a USB cable for your PC.
The mini can charge off of USB, the 15G can not, again really only relevant for PC folks.
Personally I think Apple probably correctly priced the mini. Freshman calculus taught me that lower price/larger volume doesn't necessarily maximize profit. Also we have no idea what part availability is. Maybe the hard drive has limited availability so there is no downside to only offering a pricier model.
Amen.
Apple really missed the boat this time. I try to cut them slack with new stuff, but this one has me baffled.
$50 more for the next model up...colors that go with wash off tattoos and price drops right after a big Christmas season. Apple may not take all those returns, but many retailers will comply just to keep thier customers happy. This means next time Apple walks in the door and asks for floor space, they will be ignored.
Why does Apple insist on a adding so many models to a product line, time after time? Why can't they just keep a good thing going?
The new mini iPod won't find a market. Just watch.
If they could have gotten a 2G model down to the $99 price point it would have destroyed the market for ALL flash based players over night.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
First Jagwire, now "Graaaage Band"?
erm.
I'm gonna sell a knockoff That is a simple anodised brick the same size and shape as these new things, so that when girls come up to me and ask, "whats on your Ipod?" like Jobs says the will, i can show them the words "you are shallow" inscibed on a lifeless aluminium brick...
-and occasionaly a giant moose.
I wasn't aware the 100 million songs was just a rumour. I remember both Steve Jobs and the PepsiCo NA CEO mentioning this at that 'Apple Music Event' - and that it would start on 1 February.
Does the windows server include all the same services
as OS X server? I would suspect that the cost of getting
a similar lic. for the windows server software is
significant.
Or, of course, you can put linux on the dell. But would
dell still support it? Or are they only supporting redhat
server or some such? If so then it is a significant cost
that should be added in.
It seems that if you really NEED a G5/Operton class system
then apple is pretty competitive even in a (unfair) mhz to mhz comparison.
What I found interesting was that they're not using the Chicago 12 font on the iPod mini, like they do on the original iPod, but rather Espy Sans 10 Bold, one that most of us haven't seen since OS 9 and the Newton. I personally think it looks more stylish, but they probably chose it because it's a slightly denser and shorter font that would fit better on the smaller screen (compare the screenshots on the iPod and iPod mini).
The battery can be replaced, and people do.
Putting in a battery access door to make it trivial to replace takes room and makes the device more prone to failure. (The seals around doors are never great, unfortunately.) As it is, based on the number of people in the class action suit, battery failure affected a fairly small number of units; it would not surprise me if one whose battery can be replaced easily had a higher failure rate.
The battery is probably as replacable as a standard iPod - about a hundred from Apple, about two thirds that from other vendors, and about half that if you can do it yourself. If it worries you, get Applecare.
For what it is worth, my wife's 5G iPod bought when they had only been out a month is still going strong, and my 20G bought a week after they showed up at the Apple store is doing well too.
--- scott_ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu Java, Databases, and Software Magic
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.
OH SHIT! I ate my mp3 player.
I find that difficult to believe. Apple has big advantages in the consumer space where interface and ease of use are a big deal. In the server space you have professionals setting things up and interface is irrelevant. There is *no way* this will beat Apache on commodity hardware in performance or stability for the money.
A thought -
The iPod mini is not intended for most of us here. (US audiance, current iPod or Mac owners) It's for the Asian market and a direct chalange to Sony.
It's small, damn small. In fact, I took a look at my business card and have decided that my thick stubby fingers prob wouldn't be able to use the mini in any pleasant way. Think of this as the PowerBook 2400 of the iPod line. It's just that rather than deal with a flood of emails demanding to know why they didn't let us have a chance to buy it if they released it only to Asian markets; they gave it a worldwide release and saved some energy sorting through the angry emails.
The "Hello Kitty" Pink mini is the dead giveaway here.
I predict that it'll be a home run in asia, and have some success here in the US with potential Sony and Rio customers. I asked my neighbor who has been looking at MP3 players for a year now, but in the past has said that the iPod was too expensive and that she didn't need 10GB of space, to look at the mini information at apple.com. She's now going to buy a mini rather than a flash memory based player.
Move along, nothing more to see.
This belongs on a T-shirt, just like all those shirts that say "my parents went to xyz but all I got...".
Apple has started this trend where they offer a decent product for free and then once it becomes a great App they charge for it. Why do I have to buy all the iLife apps anyway? I'm not the guy in the movie who can use every one of them. Yes $50 dollars is a good deal if you use every single app but I only use two. I hope the iLife works out for the few that will buy it.
I should say, that Lazy people, who in their laziness are acting stupid. Not that they aren't capable of being smart individuals. That would have been more apporpriate. Wanted to post after initial comment, but slashdot wouldn't let me.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
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.
I think the mini is a better match for cell phone sized than the iPod. As far as pocket sized goes the iPod seems a little too bulky, not uncomfortable but as you say noticable. Not calling attention to itself would seem a better size to me. Quality heft, it seems too hefty to me on an armband. It doesn't seem insecure but its too noticable again. I'm happier with it on a belt clip where I don't think about it at all. I am a happy iPod owner, not a Mac/Apple zealot, and I think the mini fits in very nicely into the product line even at $250.
When has Apple targeted the average consumer? Never? Ah, right then. Moving along.
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.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
I fail to see anything in Garage Band that hasn't been around in all manner of sound recording apps for ages. Ho Hum.
It will allow dozens or hundreds of people to inflict home made tunes, packed with beats right out of a shopping mall organist, on unsuspecting friends and neighbours.
Oh well - it's a better than Karaoke.... since they're doing it at home and listening to it on their iPods, it won't interrupt my drinking!
Three Squirrels
The hard drive is only a portion of the cost of the player. Shaving off 1/2 the hard drive capacity would not have reduced the cost 60%. It might have saved $50 though, allowing them to sell at $199, which people would have been happy with I think.
Where's the quadruple G5 (or G6) PowerBooks? I wanted one!
Now what i have to wonder is, did they modify every version of the ad, expunging the existence of the old from the collective consciousness?
C
--
Democracy would work just fine if people weren't so goddamned stupid.
It will sell like hotcakes.
Multicolors will be just what women want. Imagine seeing those colors in jogging outfits and an armstrap mini iPod.
You get the picture I hope.
Where did you see that the iPod mini is "marketed as a ipod for the masses"? They're marketing it as an iPod, but smaller. It should be good for people who want a high capacity player for wearing while exercising, or who just like to have a smaller, lighter device.
http://a192.g.akamai.net/7/192/51/0c5b0d0ef0f03b/w ww.apple.com/server/pdfs/L301323A_XserveG5_TO.pdf
It also uses the hyper-transport protocol which alot X86 users use to say gave Intel and AMD the advantage they had.
I have feeling the new 90nm dual 2.0GHz G5 will give out better #'s then the current 130nm dual 2.0GHz G5.
I'll be buying my iPod mini in about 3 months or so...I want that silver one. I already own the 40GB but I need a iPod I can strap to my arm and go workout with.
You'll get it back in a day or so...although you might not want to touch it anymore.
Obvious exits are NORTH, SOUTH, and DENNIS.
"pack of cigarettes" is not the smallest convenient carrying-size form-factor even for most people. One of the smallest carrying-size form-factors whose continued near-ubiquitousness proves it is not too-small for most folks is the cigarette lighter ... as Sony tried (http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:Y0CiA3_p-KcJ :www.musiclub.sonystyle.com/supportdevice.jsp%3Fde viceId%3D42++%22NW+E3%22+site:sonystyle.com&hl=en& ie=UTF-8) but hobbled by their non-MP3 support.
... as small as a lot of people would want.
So no way, no how is the regular iPod "already
PS: no, I am not a smoker but you see those darn things everywhere still.
All the previous Mac OS X servers had nothing.
And since when is a "song" a proper unit of storage size? The press release speaks only in terms of "songs," not gigs. People who rip their own MP3s to their own standards want to know gigs, and are fully aware of how unreliable an estimate of "songs" can be. This suggests to me that the intended audience for this product is not the tech savvy user.
Looks like those of us that want foreign character sets engraved on our colorful iPods will have to wait until the global launch this spring. The US Apple store will not take Kanji or accented characters. A call to the Apple store was of no help either as the rep really had no clue.
Well yes, and if I could buy a G5 for 600 I'd switch tomorrow. In fact, fuck it, there's 45 minutes left of today.
Sorry, don't mean to be sarcy, but you see what I'm getting at...
Remember, the iPod mini is to compete with flash players of comparable size and price. it's not a good deal, but niether are its competetors. If you decide to buy a big iPod instead, that's perfectly fine with Apple. Tey still make money. in fact they might want you to think "Hmm, i was gonna buy this rio POS for $200, but i can get a mini iPod for only $50 more, but the real ipod is more than 3x as big and only costs $50 more than the mini. i'll get one of those then" and you end up giving apple $300. Steve is happy.
The Xserve tech specs pdf, pointed out by MacRumors indicates that the 90nm G5 has arrived (okay, will arrive in 6-8 weeks).
I am dismayed that Steve did not take the needs of obsessive geeks like myself into account when he chose to skip of the 90nm tidbit and the XGrid beta in today's keynote.
Hopefully there are even more omissions that will be uncovered in the next few days of MacWorld.
I hear this a lot and i though the same thing: Why on earth did they not introduce something for $149? We all want a cheap iPod. Obviously.
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.
When you look at this from the view of apple( i'm flattering myself by pretending to know apple's view on things), its a very smart move to keep the price at 250.
First everyone and their dog was looking for a cheaper ipod, and they delivered, obviously not to the extent everyone wanted but they still did bring down the entry level. To that extent they listened to the market.
Secondly the size limit is important as far as marketing goes, 1000 songs is 899 songs better then 999 in the mind of the consumer. I don't think we'll ever see an ipod that you can't store at least 1000 songs on it, aka one weekends worth of continous listening ( 1000[songs] * 4[minutes per song] / 1440 [minutes in a day]). Apple has avoided sacrificing function for price.
Thirdly the 250 price perserves the higher ipod market. If the price was too low consumers would flock to the cheap ipods when high revenue margins are made on the more expensive, tried, true and established models, and if some small problem did crop up on this new breed of ipod it would severely damage apple's reputation and could risk it's dominance in the player market itself. However by lowering the price just a little it keeps the demand manageable for those that may think the price is two high for just 4 gigs, apple has decreased the form factor. The smaller size alone is not enough to justify the price but freebies like choice in color and armband help win most consumers over. By doing this Apple has avoided cannabalizing its higher end ipod business.
At the same time having the mini out and on the market gives apple the flexibility to release say an 8 gig mini for 250 and lower the 4 gig to 175 6 month down the road should the market begin to turn towards the competition. I think more consumers are reaching that $50 deeper then are buying none ipod devices, as soon as that trend begins to really shift you'll see a cheaper ipod but apples going to bilk the market for as much as it will bear as long as it will bear.
If you can't fix it ask the 3 year old down the street.
...a Beowulf cluster of iPod Minis?!
Sorry. Couldn't resist it.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Are people really such slaves to fashion that they're going to fork out the same amount for a 2GB player that they could for a 30GB one (namely, the Nomad Zen NX)? Uh, wait, I guess the answer to that one is "yes".
I'm not an Apple newbie - I used them heavily for many years in the early-mid 90s when working as an editor and layout designer for magazines - but can't for the life of me understand their fetishisation. The Nomad Zen is slightly bigger, but looks better and has a better sound quality - at least, I think brushed metal looks better than then rather hospital ward shade of cream that Apple picked for the iPod.
As in a lot in life, go figure.
P.
Can't wait to see the looks on the faces of the people at Virginia Tech when they see the xServe G5
That apple doesn't give a shit about functionality.
Less than 2 hours of battery life, and white spots on the screen.
Oh, its the *user's* fault.
Last powerbook I'll buy. I bought the first Mac. Now I've bought my last.
I think we're seeing something happening here. I can't put my finger on it yet - what it is ain't exactly clear - but there's this change of direction in the marketplace. I'm not talking just doodads and gizmos, but the lower-priced item, slimmer and slimmer and smaller and smaller, trendy status items, almost as if the era of the computer has been eclipsed. And I still don't understand how it's going to work: there are no direct revenues to speak of on selling songs online, and yet everyone is going for it, and iPods, for all the markup, only cost so much, so 75% of very little is still very little.
But there's a new market here, which they are exploiting and opening up. They wouldn't do this - or sell songs online - if there weren't a pretty penny in it, at least way down the line, and to me it sounds like strategic planning far into the future.
OK, I haven't explained all that very well, but it is a feeling, and I think there's something there, and I am pretty sure if you talked to any of those marketing droids, they'd already have an expression to describe it - they probably invented it.
I sure as hell want a smaller iPod, and TBH the iPod mini still seems too large to me - the difference doesn't appear to be all that big, although I'd like to see it in a store to be able to judge better. Anyway, as some people above have noted, we certainly haven't reached the point where smaller is not better - IMO. Of course you're right in noting that obviously the optimal size is different for everyone. Most flash players are just about right, both in terms of size and usability. I don't need a huge display and games on my MP3 player, I also don't need a clock.
On the other hand, again I agree with you the law of diminishing returns applies: not only in physical size, but also in capacity. I use my current (mini-CD based) player about 2 to 3 hours a day, and it's per-disk capacity of about 240 mb annoys the heck out of me. But still, I have no use for the 15 to 40 gb current HD players offer me - I'd rather have one gigabyte and the ability to move stuff to and from the player easily, especially if that means smaller player size - so I can stuff it into my pants pocket instead of into the jacket's - and of course, a lower price. At 250 bucks, which should be less than 250 Euros to me, but knowing Apple will be more like 300, the iPod mini really doesn't seem to be what I need, as much as I had hoped it to be.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
I knew they came in colors now, but flavors?!
The CB App. What's your 20?
..a 1U armband to take my Xserve jogging?
About two weeks ago, my husband has been going on and on about the new mini ipods that was rumored to be about $100 for 1 or 4GB. I was very excited and thought that this would be a great Valentines Day gift for him until I heard the news this afternoon that they will be $249.00. WHAT?!? $249.00 FOR JUST 2 TO 4GB. FORGET THAT! To me, it makes no sense to pay that high price for quality that low and you can buy the next model for $50 more. I heard of a MP3 player made by Dell that holds about 20GB for about the same price. If you are going to spend $300 GET YOUR MONEY'S WORTH AND GET THE 15GB OR GO TO DELL.COM AND GET THE 40GB. Yes, the dell is not an I-Pod but you get a great warranty that is not possible with the I-Pod and with dell you get longer battery life and better batteries. Through the grape vine, I heard that the batteries for the i-pod last no more than a year and a half and then YOUR OUT AN I-POD. If Apple will bring down the price and improve the rechargeable battery life I would be sold. Until then, Apple is going to loose a lot of business and this is a waste of time and effort.
By putting it just above the price of the next level of competing devices, Apple is making a clear statement. Something like, "Smaller it may be, but it's still a higher class product than those guys."
But by putting it just below the cost of the 10^H5 GB iPod, you're giving people an excuse to buy that instead. The scenario they envision, I would guess, is where not a single iPod mini is sold, but instead something like this happens:
1- Someone goes to the store thinking of getting a flash player. They see one for $199 and they're just about to buy when they see the iPod mini.
2- They're totally stoked that, for just $50.00 more, they can get an iPod with SO MUCH more storage!
3- Then they look over and see that, for just $50.00 more, they can get a 15GB iPod, which suddenly doesn't seem so expensive anymore. In fact, the capacity difference between the 4 and the 15 is so great that, well, what the heck!
And they buy it.
I'm sure they won't be upset if these things sell like hotcakes, but I wouldn't be surprized if what really happens is that there is a huge surge in the 15GB iPods from people who were waiting and waiting... What a brilliant idea--if it works--introduce a lower end product that canibalizes sales of competing products and increases sales of your own higher end products. Pretty slick, I tell's ya!
The CB App. What's your 20?
I'm somewhat surprised that the xServe's fronstide bus wasn't architected to be 64bit in each direction instead of 32bit like the PowerMac. That way the G5s would have 8GB/s throughput in each direction (total of 16GB/s).
Do the current G5s just not support a 64bit data bus at the moment? I haven't looked at IBM's specs for the thing.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
Just when I was begining to think white was cool, Apple goes out and gives me an easter basket of colorful mini-ipods and NO WHITE!!!
I poked around the Apple site, but the only link for the new iPhoto is to buy "iLife" from the Apple store. ehhhh?
Software update yields nothing new and going to the Apple Software Download page (http://www.apple.com/software/) lists only "iPhoto 2" as a "Free Download"
What gives? Is buying iLife the only way to get the new iPhoto? It used to be free...
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!
Is this what's next? Pastel coloured PowerBooks, or at least iBooks? Eeeee...
The XServe G5 will allow to build supercomputers using far more space
The XServe costs about as much as a comparably configured dual Opteron rack-mount but it gives you far less choice in terms of software.
and will be obviously one of the best solutions around for webservers.
Why waste money on a dual G5 running at 2GHz? For a web server, 1U rack mount mid-range Pentium running Linux and Apache is cheaper, is the de-facto industry standard, and is trivial to set up and administer.
2004 will definitely be Apple's year and I think that's good news because it will bring some change in the IT world.
Apple will probably do pretty well in 2004, but in the IT world, they will remain no more than a blip.
Here's Slashdot. News for Nerds. Stuff that matters.
Which is it? Well, from the look of it, its Stuff that matters because it ain't about Nerds!
98% of the replies to this article deals about the iPod. Boy. isn't THAT nerdy. Just a bunch of iPod boys pissing about piece of overpriced cool(Sorry about the spelling, but that is how it is really spelled you know)
Any real discussion about the XServe? No. Any real discussion about the XRaid. No.
This and the fact that people on this board STILL can't spell "the".
All a bunch of 12 year old wannabes
I have a four year old Nokia that I just replaced that battery in and am still very happy with (and I know many others in the same position).
Usability on many of the newer cellphones sucks ass, particularly since they started throwing every useless function under the sun onto them.
>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.
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.
Through the grape vine, I heard that the batteries for the i-pod last no more than a year and a half and then YOUR OUT AN I-POD.
The grapevine is frequently wrong, which is the case here.
The people having battery trouble with their iPods are a small but vocal (and whiny) minority. If you're so worried about the quality of your iPod, buy the extended warranty Apple offers. And they'll replace a dead battery for $100 if the unit is out of warranty-- if you're feeling saucy you can buy a kit to do it yourself for $50.
When it comes down to Apple quality or Dell quality, Apple will win every time. Apple products have their occasional warts, but most Dell stuff is amazingly cheap shit.
What a dumb fuck. I don't even know why I'm responding but whatever. If you're going to compare prices of hardware for running your OS, you have to compare EQUIVALENT hardware. DIPSHIT! Come back when you have a price for a dual Opteron with equivalent options for ALL of the maxxed out options on the G5. ASSHAT.
Here are just some things that come to mind:
4. Brand identity. Apple doesn't want to sell dirt cheap commodity hardware. They could put together something cheap, but they'd rather have you think "good but pricey" than "adequate and cheap". In much the same way Mercedes could very easily produce the finest $12,000 car on the market, but they'd rather produce the finest $50,000 car on the market, Apple would prefer that you think of the $250 iPodmini as the low end of acceptable, not a hypothetical $100 iPodcheapy.
Nope. It would have cost maybe $20 less to make a hard drive of the same form factor with half the capacity. The hard part about making those little drives (or any drives, really) isn't sitting there and putting all the bits on one by one. It's in manufacturing the whole device to certain specifications. The density of the platter isn't going to magically drop the price by the same ratio. Why can't people get this through their heads?
What you said otherwise is true. So a 2 GB mini would have probably cost $230 or so. Wee. What a value.
Don't forget Japan. The mini-iPod is likely to be a big hit there. They've got a very different value system in terms of how much they value small compared to the US.
Simple answer dude: Creating a quick image of your drive/RAID. We will be replacing our RAID on our Mac G4 server soon. The EASIEST way is to use carbon copy cloner to create an image of the existing RAID to a 200GB firewire drive. Then use netrestore to throw the image onto the new RAID.
Don't underestimate what you can do with firewire ports. Boot inop machines from an external firewire drive, create disk images easily, etc.
In a few months I'm sure the Windows world will be graced with an abortion called "Microsoft Music Maker."
Just like when iMovie came out, it will be another case of 'monkey see, monkey do.'
From my point of view, the new ipods aren't that bad of a deal (for me):
I save ~$75 (Canadian) by getting a minipod instead of the 15Gb. I also save ~$30 by not having to get a usb2 cable (or firewire card) to use it with my (gasp) PC. Also, since the buttons themselves are not touch sensitive, I probably wouldn't get the remote or case (a buddy of mine has a 20Gb, and he finds that if he doesn't lock it before he puts it in his pocket, the touch sensitive skip/play/pause buttons sometimes activate, YMMV). So, all things considered, I would save ~$140-150, not an inconsiderable amount of money for me (plus I only have ~2Gb of music).
Just my $0.02CDN
OK. So my GF, who liked the iPod and nothing more, did not represent a large part of urban females when she yelled out "ooooooh! it's in PINK, it's in PINK" and "it's even smaller" and "look at that arm strap, now I can jog with it" (1) and " 'only' a thousand songs, I don't have more than a hundre to job to what would I need more than a thousand songs for" (2)?
When they launch here (thank you very much Apple, I have to wait to April to buy me, my GF and mom one), I'm first on the list to get some.
(1) I know that you can jog with the iPode, but she thought it was a little bit big for the arm. Now, there's an alternative.
(2) I also know that 15 GB is a lot more storage, but she don't care, since it's cheaper, smaller, lighter, and PINK.
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.
I think they mean the "Apple" masses. I mean, if they are selling computers for $2000-3000 each, and no one is complaining, then $250 sounds right for a MP3 player eh?
How come the XServe RAID thingy only has four lights? We Slashdotters demand more lights for our epileptic pleasures!
Actually, that's .m4a.
I am sure one will soon be able to find the 4 GB Rio Nitrus below MSRP as well, though (unlike the iPod mini, of course; one thing about Apple's stuff is that it's harder to get discounts on). Will that alone make it a more compelling buy than the iPod mini? That's part of what I was asking; I'm keen to find out...
Sweet! They hired a hooters girl to throw the hammer.
Man I so wish my girlfriend did...
Announced today. Same drive as the new iPod mini, similar size (a little bigger).
Price: $250.
Apple isn't dropping the ball here.
Do you really need 4gb of songs just for the gym? There are solid state players that are a lot smaller then the ipod, which is important when you're working out. If you're only going to be there an hour or two, you only need that many songs.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Size. Does. Matter.
Take that as a jab at it only being 4 gig, or a plus since it's frickin' tiny.
Rio PMP300: 3.5x2.5x.625, 2.4oz (w/o battery?)
MiniPod: 3.6x2.0x.5, 3.6oz
(another thing I just noticed - the new scroll wheel acts pretty much the same as the rio, just with a better (G)UI and a nice screen)
Some people will buy them because of the size. It's tempting. $50 bucks less, it's not like the 40 will hold all my music anyway, and I can keep it in a shirt pocket if I want. And 8 hours of battery life... about the same as my Rio.
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
I can't understand why Apple is not making this unit skinnable with changeable face plates.
Skins are what made Winamp popular, not its sound quality.
Furthermore the face plates would play into the strengths of the Apple user demographics. They would absolutely love to be able to design their own faceplates. As popular as iPod is now, with face plates it'd blow up.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
Reminds me of the Futurama episode "Kif gets knocked up a notch".
Hi-yah!
Whats up? Ate your cell phone again?
You have killed my dreams, again.
~ Aero
Sure you could get a decent looking, slightly larger Jukebox Xtra 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...
I don't see the big deal. So the G5 is good at counting. But how does it serve? I'd imagine that even with a modern desktop's typical SATA hard disk bus, that it serve's pretty poorly.
At least the Dell comes with SCSI 320 drives and has an option for a CPU with a decent L2 cache.
I'd imagine that the G5 counts: "1 Client that is waiting for files. 2 clients waiting for files. 3 clients waiting for files. 4 clients waiting for files. 5 clients waiting for files..."
Lol, I knew it - there's no way Apple could release something at a low price point.
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.
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
"Many consumers value smallness hugely."
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!
I'm using a dual AthlonMP 2800 server as a workstation. With 2G RAM and 160G hard-drive, was under $2000, and it runs Linux.
At least that's what Apple is calling it.
If your demographic is people who base their purchase decisions on rumor sites, it looks like you're correct.
- learn to swim.
A fake iPod to go along with a fake penis?
No, I didn't read the fine print. Ignore this if it does take AA-sized batteries.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
I think you are confused, and mixing up usability with ease of use.
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.
GPL Deconstructed
Of course students and educators can get the iPod mini for $229.
And I'm not fashionable.
Where does that leave me?
Ha!
Because your time is not worth much.
And actually, you're right-- stupid people do pay more because they don't account for the time they waste trying to get something working that should just work out of the box.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
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.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
I was thinking the same thing -- it would have been very similar to when Apple announced the color classic in 89-90(?) for $999 -- they got a shitload of marketshare out of the deal.
What they also got was a lot of problems in the supply channel -- I think if they *had* put the minis out at $99 a pop they would have had a fufillment nightmare, which ends up being more damaging to people's perception of Apple in the long-run.
This becomes a relevant issue courtesy of the legions of hairless apes who look for any opportunity to slag Apple.
The interesting thing (to me at least) was the near silence while Jobs was demo-ing the thing: you could hear a pin drop. Thanks to the rumor sites (and coverage of the rumor sites on CNN) the expectation was $99 iPod minis, not $249 dollar iPod minis.
I can't imagine that Jobs was thinking and feeling about the keynote as he walked off the stage, but it can't have been good.
It's the big danger associated with the MacWorld conventions and all of the speculation on the various rumor sites (and speculation on the speculation places like here....): there is an underlying expectation that when Steve says "... oh, and one more thing...."
We'll just have to wait and see how the minis sell. The audience response was not encouraging.
- learn to swim.
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.)
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
Perhaps we should expect further pushes towards small-to-mid sized HDs in future mp3 players from Apple, as part of their effort to promote the AAC format. That is, since a good sounding AAC need only be 2/3 the size of a comparable mp3, by limiting HD sizes to, say, 4 GB rather than 10 for the "small" devices, and for 15-20 rather than the 30 GB ones I am sure are in the works from other companies, Apple is reinforcing to their customers thatnot all that space is necessary.
.ogg or anything, so that might be even smaller; I don't know)
Obviously, if they can get people to recognize and adopt their smaller file format (.aac), so much the better for their iTMS business! (Note, I have no knowledge about
iTunes drives iPod Windows sales.
iPods drive Mac Sales.
Mac sales drive revenue and software sales.
That's the deal. Though they do make good money on iPods and they get a lot of advertising for a break even business out of iTunes.
Once people who have been living in an unthinking monolithic windows world experience Apple technology, its only a matter of time before they get themselves a Mac.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
They should offer a hard-anodised aluminium chassis version of the iPod, for those of us out there that like our gadgets scratch-resistant and tough. In fact, go the whole way and make an iPod body out of a solid billet of aluminium, just like some of the more military-grade torchlights out there.
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.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
Well, if you valued your time at more than $1 a day, you'd see you are buying a G5 for less than $600 when you account for time value.
All you people are unable to make value judgements and go based on price, thinking everythings the same.
Well, everything is the same monolithic crap when you're in PC land.
Come out and see reality sometime.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
Your question is answered here:
http://www.apple.com/xserve/architecture.html
Where it says the firewire ports are there to
". . . connect to high-bandwidth FireWire (IEEE 1394) devices. In addition, you can use TCP/IP over FireWire to network small clusters, and clone configurations easily using FireWire Target Disk Mode."
Pretty good reason for them, if you ask me.
na, I noticed several other good things about iPod mini. First, it looks like they were careful to not break too many accessories this time..good. It also looks like they were careful to include the ability to run all the third-party iPod "apps" that have been hacked together by the community...many iPods are actually stealing market from Palm...as supertanker PDAs...good. Also, a miniPod lets them jack the price of the big brother iPods back up and prevents them from having to compete in a price war in the next year! They can price compete on minis if they don't sacerfice features, and throw them away if there's too much competition. That keeps them Profitable so they can keep cranking out new stuff! I wonder if these USB enabled ones can work as PC boot devices on mobos that allow it....That would be the ultimate Linux tool!! here comes my iKnoppix!!
Yes, the Mini's included USB 2.0 cable may be significant for PC users without Firewire (such as myself).
A full-sized (15+ GB) iPod would require a $19 optional cable for USB 2.0 connectivity. So for me, the 'effective' price difference becomes $50 + $19 = $69.
I confirmed this with the Apple Store by phone. I also asked them to correct one erroneous statement on their site, which said that the full-sized iPods include the USB 2.0 cable. Not so. Only the Mini includes one at no extra charge.
Also, by the way, some people believe that the Mini ships with the Dock and/or Remote at no extra charge. Again, not so.
Apple's iPod specs page has correct information, I'm told.
Does this mean we will see a glut of cheap 10GB ipods on the market soon from various mac vendors?
And while I didn't watch the keynote address, all the mini ipods on the web site look like computer generated images. Any actual photos?
Why do these copy writers always have to come off with this wannabe famous crap? Can't I just play some music every once in a while?
There are no trolls. There are no trees out here.
That's like saying your mom is a decent looking, slightly larger" version of Kylie Minogue.
With 7.5 times the capacity. For pizza.
Enjoy your big ugly Jukebox - it looks like a cool backpack.
- learn to swim.
Not that it matters, but the iPod mini's apparently high price may be a market-based way to limit initial demand. After all, the Cornice storage elements used in these devices are brand new and probably are in limited supply. Apple had the alternative of pricing low and telling everyone "It's $150, but you have to wait 6 months to get one" or making a higher profit on lower volume until the bugs are ironed out (and there will be bugs) and then lowering the price.
Just my $0.02.
It is quite a big thicker. It actually is a lot larger and heavier. But it is well shaped, so you hardly notice.
Note that the ethernet port is so slow as to be nearly useless. It took me about 80 minutes to sync about 2GB onto the thing over ethernet. And trust me, it isn't my network cabling screwing it up.
Syncing over USB 2.0 was fine.
...because it's a brick.
- learn to swim.
I won't argue that the color choices and being the cheapest ipod won't help sales, but apple really has boxed itself in.
Just about every person that is willing to spend $250 dollars on a mp3 player is not going to lose a lot of sleep over spending $300. Apple has this market covered with the regular ipod. It certainly is apple's choice if they only wish to sell to this market (the profit margins are pretty decent), but don't be surprised when the numbers are small.
Making the player a miniature model appeals to primarily active users (joggers, bikers, etc.).
The smaller hard-drive space would be perfectly at home in this market since most do not need millions of songs for a device they will likely use for an hour or two a day.
Also hinted at by most rumors was an expected lower price. A lower price would open the ipod up to a very large market (think millions of units). Apple would be competing a little on price, but the Apple name and iTunes support would have easily helped boost sales to cover for slightly lower profit margins.
Now a smart thinker at apple would have said, "Hey, we can do this miniature thing and pick up the jogging crowd, and we can ship the unit at a low price and get a bunch of the casual/impulse buy crowd interested in it."
Rather than do that, Apple probably did the least intelligent thing. They released a mini player that is high in price. This kills the impulse buy market entirely, and results in the only new market for the ipod is active users that are looking to buy a higher end mp3 player.
That's a TINY market compared to the potential sales they would have had had the minipod been 100-200 dollars.
Apple seems to have an aversion to market share when it comes to product design. When they break from the "Ours is better, must cost more" thinking they have great success (iMac, iTunes for Windows, the iBook).
First it is the outlook. Ugly? It's very personal. When the 3nd generation iPod released, people where talking about the same thing. Indeed on the first sight I saw it on web, I don't like it. (I own the first generation iPod 10GB) But when I saw the real object and putting in my hands, oh, it is good. So you see it's very personal.
Price / Peformance. For me $249 seems to be expensive just for 4GB, $199USD will be excellent. But once again it's not only talking about the capacity, about also the interface design (not talking about outlook), how it seamleely work with iTunes. And indeed right now iPod is more than just a mp3 player. It become a fashion item. The decision of buying is more than the capacity.
Apple Computer selling a $499USD "music player" crazy. On the other hands I see lots of people doesn't need so much space. even 10GB seems too much. The Creative Mp3 player which feataure 1.5GB is already big for many user. (not for me, of course) So 4GB seems to be alright. It didn't attract all the user from high end ipod to the low end one. It's "cheaper" so more people can afford. And when you need more space you can always buy the "high end" ipod. It's up to you.
In fact as Apple is the current leader in these mp3 player and earn so much revenue out of this market, I don't see they are necessary to drop the price so fast, even if they could; $199 would be fine but still lots of people would buy the $249 one. Remember when iPod first release nobody realize it will sell like crazy in today. In reality, it is EXPENSIVE no matter how good the design is. Now it's the first step targeting the low end (price) market. If it isn't don't really well, they can always drop the price, release a 2GB model, they got the move.
Perhaps what so disappointed to all of us is because we heard too much rumor, and we regard rumor as truth.
Folks who wonder about the $250 price for the mini iPod just don't get it. Likely the same folks who wondered about the original iPod's price. Given its market share I think the naysayers are just going to have to scratch their heads and move on.
For $250 I get a week's worth of tunes at work in a player that integrates well with my Mac, works like an Apple, looks really sweet, and is tiny. I've been waiting for a smaller iPod. Apple delivered. What's not to love?
I ordered one in pink. Engraving was free. An unexpected bonus.
Amy
on hard trails i get ipod failures constantly. ignore the other posts - they are not runners
They also said the same for web browsers and office suites, and we have those for linux now.
I have been using my iPod on linux exclusively for months. The gnupod utilities are the command-line tools, and GtkPod is the Gnome2 front end.
There are two types of Porsche owners:
(1) "image" owners who drive it for the name.
(2) owners who buy them because they are (were) finely crafted machines that are an absolute pleasure to drive and could give a shit about the price.
- Porsches have shared a lot of parts with their cousins the Volkswagens. Does that make them overpriced VWs?
- Ford makes some acceptable cars from a performance standpoint: The Focus and Mustang come to mind.
- A good Focus driver will beat the crap out of an "image" Porsche owner who can't properly operate his vehicle.
- Horsepower by itself is an inadequate measure of a car's value.
While all of these points could be related back to one's choice of computer brand, it's a fundamentally weak association. And it's old.
There should be a corralary to Godwin's Law for this. Something like:
"As a discussion thread involving Apple computers grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving cars grows to 1."
- learn to swim.
As a fully qualified geekgirl I can assure you that for one, I DO know the difference between a MB, GB, and the 200TB of data I back up daily..it's pretty demeaning to assume gender has a hold on tech knowledge.
and dammit... I want one.. cause it's cute and pink....
so there
Apple is very smart. this thing was designed for women. it's small, it's cute and it comes in colors. women like small colorful things and this makes the casual woman want one. women are going to buy this thing in buckets. mark my words.
(sorry, couldn't resist the awful joke.)
I'll greatly appreciate both the iPhoto upgrade (I can finally add all my pictures back in! I had taken 80% of them out becuase it was too damn slow,) and the fact that I can run iDVD on my non-SuperDrive Mac (I like to edit movies on my Combo-drive sporting 12" PowerBook on the road, so I'd like to go all the way and get the whole DVD ready to go.)
Garage Band I'll never use, other than to goof around. (I'm not a musician, nor do I have any illusions of being one.)
The iPod mini has me torn, though. I was waiting to buy a new iPod until today specifically to see what they came out with. I love the form factor of the new mini, but at 4GB, even my 'lite' music library is 50% too big. (My whole library, including crap I never listen to, is 11.5GB, so I had been planning on getting a 20GB model.)
At $250, it's too much. Just too much. At $199, I would have seriously considered it, at $149, I would have been a first-day buyer. But I have also today found out that I can't afford the 20GB model right now. (Ah, gotta love ice storms!) By the time the mini comes out, I should have enough. But by then, I'll actually be able to see a mini, and it will taunt me. I bought the 12" PowerBook because it was so small, giving up usability. Will I make the same compromise with my iPod? I just don't know. (And the aluminum/silver one is so purty...)
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
... is it hideously expensive, it's also butt ugly compared to the original iPod and just about everything else out there.
Or at least so it seems, of course it might be that those pics just don't "catch" it and it's better IRL.
Oh well.
... I think that was covered in the sibling tic-tac thread.
There are cheaper alternatives, that's for sure.
All I know is that Creative drivers are The Suck and can usually be counted on to be the buggiest of the lot.
Apple charges you $99 to replace a $49 battery.
There is no end to their generosity.
I remember back when the customer was king, a company would *apologize* for doing shit like this to customers and would fix it for free.
Now apple view this as just another revenue stream. You are the sheep and apple has the shears.
If my spam is any indicator, lots of consumers care about unit size.
ba dump bum
Thank you very much, I'll be here all week. Try the veal and don't forget to tip your waitresses.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
i couldn't agree more. My 4 daughters couldn't care less about storage capacities and price points. size and color has made this an instant winner in my house- count 4 sales!
I've decided this is a middle ground and all about style. One thing this still doesn't have over the flash players is that it still has moving parts. Yes, iPods will eventually get under $200 (remember, they were introduced at 5GB/$500, all praise St. Moore) and if they drop a $149 or $99 bomb they will 0wn(z0r) the mp3 market, but for now, they're going halfway (as they always do) and going for style. I expect to see at least one of the sluts on Sex & the City with one of these any day now.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
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.
I imagine that if sales aren't spectacular apple will just lower the price a bit. (Probably by first introducing a version with a 2 GB disk for $150, then upgrading the size of the disk on all the iPod minis). I suspect that some fraction of the $250 price tag is just novelty value. I'll bet that every mo-bio student @ UCSF is saving their beer money.
Which will sadly make the bars down in the mission that much less interesting for the next few months.
Rio Cali Look at what it says above the product picture. Funny how it neglected to mention the feature was on its poor user interface and value.
Since we're discussing what's included with the various iPod models, note that the Mini includes a USB 2.0 cable at no extra charge; whereas USB 2.0 connectivity costs $19 extra for all non-Mini (15+ GB) iPods.
I've confirmed this with the Apple Store by phone. (I also asked them to correct one erroneous statement on their site, which said that the 15+ GB iPods include a USB 2.0 cable. Not so.) Apple's iPod specs page has correct information, and confirms again in a footnote: "USB 2.0 cable is included with iPod mini and sold separately for [15+ GB] iPod."
So for a Windows user whose PC happens to have USB 2.0 but not Firewire, the 'effective price difference' (if you will) between the Mini and the 15GB iPod is $50 + $19 = $69.
(Note to PC users unfamiliar with the iPod: These USB cables have a proprietary connector at the iPod end. You can't substitute any generic USB cable that you happen to have.)
I'm particularly surprised that they held this till just after x-mas. The iPod mini seems like a good, albeit expensive) stocking stuffer.
"Everyone who buys x86 does so because they think clock speed is performance.
"
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.
Apple sold 3/4 of a million $300+ iPod's LAST QUARTER. I think they will sell a significant number of these smaller units as well, Apple has a pretty damn good market research team, they just aren't willing to wade into the huge volume/crap quality part of the market.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
For students at least, or even anyone who works at a University, or if you happen to have a going to school that you could order in their name. Slashdotters don't ever take into consideration the Apple education discount which isn't to difficult to take advantage of and which makes getting an iPod even more enticing.
I'm a consumer. A mac fan but somone who seriously looked at Rios before my wife got me an iPod. I found them to be woefully overpriced for far too little space.
Now, as a consumer I would buy a mini ipod over a regular one. Here's why...
I use the iPod in the Gym primarily. I don't need it in the car, in the house, or at home. In the gym, I wear comefortable elastic band shorts. The iPod is hefty enough that it tugs precariously at my shorts if I'm too active. I don't need my shorts around my ankles. It's also a bit too massive to confidently attach to my waist band.
Since I don't use the external drive feature of the ipod too much.. I would find the significantly smaller ipod with only 4 Gigs (probably 700 songs realistically) much preferable as a strictly music player over a much bigger iPod that was twice as massive.
If I used the ipod as a hard drive more, I'd definately say the larger ipod is the better product, but 4GB is MORE than enough music for any trip I'd take it on and there is still enough room for important files.
I'm not feeling witty so bite me
You need to replace your cell phone battery when it runs out of juice... With your second cell phone battery.
I used to do this back when I had an analog cell phone. Always had two or three batteries when I traveled.
One thing, unless I'm mistaken, that seems Garageband is lacking is support for vocals. Now, as a fan of classical and new age music, that shan't be too much of a problem for me. But there are times when I prefer music with lyrics, as well. So, does GarageBand currently support vocals?
American Ipod so big!!!
Japanese Ipod so small!!!.
--- Justin Dearing http://www.justaprogrammer.net/ We're just programmers.
To address the issues of disk size v. physical size v. price consider:
I have about 6000 songs on my iPod. That is 21 GB.
About 500 of those I've downloaded myself.
About 2000 of those I've ripped from CD's.
The rest I've copied from friends.
There are about 250 songs that i've listened to more that 10 times. That is about 1GB.
I spend about 90% of the time listenting to random selections of songs. I find that I skip about 25% of the songs.
I spend about 30% of the time listening to random songs that fit some criteria. For example, hip-hop/rap/funk or release date between 1995-1999.
I listen to my iPod about 8-10 hours a day. That includes at work, in the car, at home and walking around. Most of the time I either carry the iPod in my pocket or have it charging up. (The battery life really could be better).
My conclusions from all of this is that I am using my iPod like a person radio station.
So, the most important feature are:
1) disk size, it is really nice to be able to hear "new" music all the time.
2) the "skip to next song" and "go back to last song" buttons.
3) being able to "change the station" (ie. select music by genre or select on of the adaptive playlists).
I think that if i were limited to 4GB (about a thousand songs) I'd actually have to make some decisions about what to store. Can't have that.
Maybe if I had a cell phone or smoked I'd be more worried about the size and pocket space issues.
Opterons are MUCH slower than G5s.
So there is no equivilent hardware on the x86 side.
Usually that kind of blanket statements are supported by some kind of evidence.
You don't have any, and you don't find any, because it's simply just not true - the two are very comparable in performance, and usually it's the opteron that has slight edge instead of other way.
The register has a great article on Mac World S.F. The author referred to it as snoozathon! Interesting read.
she don't care, since it's cheaper, smaller, lighter, and PINK.
She should date a Ken doll instead of you.. he's cheaper, smaller, lighter and PINK as well.
If you don't renew the subscription to iLife or OS X, the software doesn't stop working! .Mac does, but it's known to be a subscription from the beginning.
Vs Microsoft's attempts to lease, which *would* stop the software from workgin!
GPL Deconstructed
The new iPods will be huge in japan! Never forget the foreign market.
Why on earth did they not introduce something for $149? We all want a cheap iPod. Obviously.
Did you watch the keynote? It included something that you don't often see in a rollout presentation: a business case.
It went something like this.
The iPod has about 30% of the digital music player market by units sold. Of the remaining 70%, about 30% are flash-based music players in the hundred-megabyte range: 256 MB or 512 MB or so. These players are either sold for about $200-$250 and come with 256-512 MB of storage, or they're sold for less and end up costing about $200-$250 once you add storage to get the number up to 256-512 MB.
Let's go over that again, 'cause it's important: for every iPod sold, there's a flash-based music player with more than 128 MB and less than a gig of storage that's sold for about $200-$250. These are not imaginary numbers. These are not projections. These are real sales figures.
So Apple produced a product that compares favorably (!!) to those devices at a comparable, but slightly higher, price point.
Apple's not sitting around going, "Hey, there are lots of Slashdot comments about how an iPod for $150 would be really cool. Let's build one of those! I'll bet it would sell!" No, no. They're looking CLOSELY at what people are ACTUALLY buying. They're seeing that people are ACTUALLY buying music players with bad human interfaces and bad software and less than a gig of storage, and they're paying about $200-$250 for them. People are ACTUALLY doing this, to the tune of about 700,000 units a quarter.
Apple assumes, therefore, that of those people, at least some of them will choose to buy an iPod mini. Why? Because it has better industrial design, a better human interface, MUCH better software, and MUCH more storage, and only costs a little more. Twenty, thirty, fifty bucks or so.
That's called a business case. It's how products get designed and built. And Apple's, it seems to me, is rock-solid.
I dunno if it's realistically possible to introduce a 2G/$100 version later.
The determining factor will be is there a $150 difference in price between the 4G and 2G drive mechanisms? In my gut I'm saying no way in hell, but that's baseless.
Personally, I could see them introducing a $200 model, 2 or 4GB when the next bump ships, but $100 is just a massive jump and I just can't imagine the drive mechanism dropping that much in that short a time.
Moof!
Because I'm lazy, I'll use what CompUSA sells as a reference point.
Compared to HD based players, the iPod mini doesn't compare too well, competing only on smallness and color:
Neuros HD -- 20 GB -- $200
Rio Nitrus -- 1.5 GB -- $220
* iPod Mini -- 4 GB -- $250
Gmini 120 -- 20 GB -- $250
Nomad Jukebox Zen NX -- 30GB -- $280
iPod -- 15 GB -- $300
But compared to flash based players the iPod Mini isn't such a bad deal:
iRock 860 --256 MB -- $150
BA500 -- 256 MB -- $150
DFP-200 -- 256 MB -- $150
Rio Chiba -- 128 MB -- $150
256 MB -- $150
S2 Sports NetMD -- $150
BA-500 -- 128 MB -- $150
128 MB -- $150
iAudio -- 256 MB -- $170
Mojo Headphone -- $180
RipFlash DX -- 256 MB -- $180
Mojo256F -- 256 MB -- $180
IFP-190T -- 256 MB -- $180
Mojo256F -- 256 MB --$200
Rhomba -- 256 MB -- $200
Rio Chiba -- 256 MB -- $200
Nomad Muvo NX -- 256 MB -- $200
Neuros -- 128 MB -- $230
* iPod Mini -- 4 GB -- $250
IFP-195T iRiver -- 512 MB -- $300
This product seems to be a hybrid -- offering the GBs of storage that HDs are capable of but with the compactness that the flash players have. Technically (ignoring the price) it's well positioned between high end HD drives and low end flash drives. There really isn't a middle market out on the market yet -- the average consumer has to choose between having a few hundred MBs or a dozen or more GBs of storage.
For people shopping for a $250+ HD based player, the mini isn't worth looking at.
But, for anyone shopping for a $150-250 player, but doesn't need GBs of space, these people would be tempted to spend the extra dollars on an iPod. If I worked in sales, I'd definately say, "For an extra $50-100, you could get something with multiple times the storage and almost the same compactness." It's what I say to myself shopping for a player with a small form factor.
Which is what Jobs said in the keynote about going after the higher end of the flash market. He didn't say anything about positioning the mini against other HD players. He's not going after what geeks are buying, that's what the original iPods are for. He's going after everyday non-geeks who buy their MP3 players at Target.
Personally, I wish the price were lower but with competition against HD players, I wouldn't be surprised if the price went down (to say $200) or if a smaller capacity and cheaper mini appeared by Q3 or Q4 of this year.
The average consumer (and there are millions of them) doesn't want a smaller ipod with colors, they wanted a cheaper ipod.
You don't know the first fucking thing about the "average customer."
Apple does know the first fucking thing about the "average customer," because they invest in market research. But they don't care about fuzzy predictions about what the "average customer" wants.
Apple's investment in the iPod mini was very, very carefully thought out.
Check this line of reasoning:
The iPod accounts for about 30% of digital music player sales, by units sold. Another 30% of sales consists of flash-based music players in the 128 MB-512 MB range that cost about $200.
These are SALES FIGURES, not projections or guesses. People are BUYING these music players, to the tune of more than 700,000 of them a quarter.
So Apple produced a device that's got much more storage, much better industrial design, a much better human interface, and much better software for only a few bucks more than the cheapest players in the 30% of the market.
The iPod mini isn't going to suck away iPod sales as much as it is going to eat into that next 30% of the music player market.
Apple, contrary to what passes for the popular opinion around here, is not staffed entirely by idiots. Mmm-kay?
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).
Consumers strongly said? Huh? Says who? Consumers only "strongly say" things when they spend their money. What were they spending their money on? Cheap-ass little pieces of crap like the Rio Cali: 256 MB for $200.
Apple's not in the business of throwing shit out there at great cost in R&D and hoping that people buy. (Well, sometimes they do, but not usually.) They're, collectively, much smarter than you are. Okay?
Er. You're getting the 94xx series processors and 97x-series processors confused. Yes, the Opteron runs neck and neck with G4 servers. The G5 has a massively different system architecture, and you cannot say "because it beats G4s it'll beat G5s".
Real-world tests of Opteron servers has shown them to be very strange beasts. Freakishly fast as some tasks, very slow at others. I'd accuse AMD of pulling the old graphic card scam - benchmarks run very fast even though real world differences are minimal - but dear lord, that would be a hellishly expensive scam to pull off. I run an AthlonXP and steer people towards AMD systems left and right, but the Opteron is proving to be a very odd design. It's possible the chipset and related components are hobbling the chip, that would explain the results I've seen. As always, beware of version 1.0, unless you don't need to get any work done.
BTW, when calling someone to the mat for making blanket untrue statements, just contradicting their statement for not providing references isn't enough, unless you provide them yourself. It's a case of he-said she-said, and frankly, your word amounts to a hill of beans to me (as does the other guy).
Everyone who buys x86 does so because they think clock speed is performance.
I have a 40GB hard drive split into 5 partitions, with a Games drive size of 20GB. I have two friends who have PowerBooks and are quite difficult to accomodate for in a LAN party. Please explain why I would purchase an Apple product to play games.
You are also assuming that everyone who buys x86 is doing so because they are concerned with speed, and you are quite wrong. Celerons and Durons make cheap word processors (for Windows XP! Open source fans, I apologize) that are quite capable of doing much more than that. Plus the ability to buy whatever hardware you want is a good thing.
As far as the rest of your comments, as others have said: show us proof. I don't care one way or the other because I am not buying either, but a little reading would be nice.
Because the flaw isn't fatal. The battery is replaceable. Open it up, unplug the battery, plug in new battery, close case.
http://www.ipodbattery.com/
Just because a particularly stupid individual couldn't replace his battery without frying his electronics doesn't mean any reasonable person can't do it.
I know a number of people who have replaced theirs, and dear lord they are VERY technically incompetant, so the nimrod who started the fuss must have had parents who were brother and sister.
Now - is there a way to do it on the new iPods? Hellifiknow, but I see the same seam running around the outer edge where the two shells meet, so it's likely to be the same kind of operation. Trained monkeys may be required, and monkeys on the managerial track must pay someone to do it.
Have you got some specs (eg. dimentions/mAH) on that battery? I have a hard time believing it could be significantly smaller than a AA.
Yes, it certainly can... A simple Alkaline has plenty of power in it.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Huh? When is that supposed to be released?
"When has Apple targeted the average consumer? Never? Ah, right then. Moving along."
How short our memories are... How about the very expensive and long lived "Switch" campaign?
They targeted Windoze users and, last I checked, a Windoze user is pretty close to average.
Apple also targets schools, which are neither affluent or aesthetically oriented.
What's your point, again?
what a bunch of suckers to be debating the merits of the new ipod and a bunch of consumer products. This keynote was boring and felt like a bad infomercial for cheap knockoffs. - i life. please. there are already good products out there. how about some software the G5 for example?
the ipod battery is about 2" x 3" and around 5mm thick. So yes, it's very small.
it's a 3.7v battery at 850mAh. So no, it obviously does not source as much current as your 2100mAh AA battery. OTOH, you would need 3 AA or AAA batteries to supply the 3.7 V that the ipod seems to use.
They WEREN'T targeting the average Windoze user (which, you might note, is a very large group of humans). They were targeting the Windoze user who was frustrated enough with their system to abandon a not-inconsiderable investment in software to go a different, but arguably better, route. That is not an average user.
By virtue of the fact that Windoze marketshare is easily 10x the size of Apple's, I'd say that a whole heck of a lot of "average" users were not (successfully) targeted by the Switch campaing.
Re: educational users, you have a good point. But Apple's marketing programs don't really do much targeting at education. Apple does well in edu because they've always done well in edu, and consistently return excellent value for the dollar.
I think you might have me confused with somebody who isn't a big Apple fan. Me, I'm counting the hours until I can get a hold of a custom-painted 15" Powerbook. Unless the 12" comes with the backlit keyboard, which will signal to me that all is right in the universe, and I'll buy one of those. I can survive OK on one kidney, right?
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
I've heard of tech people supporting true innovation, but marketing innovation? Give me a break!
Instead, why not heap your praise upon REAL innovators, like the designers and implementor of Strained Silicon, which hits the market this year and will boost processor performance (and other transistor technology switching times, such as DRAM) by 25-30%. This is the type of invention which takes genius to discover and implement.
The mini-iPod is nothing more than a small multi-colored mp3 player. Gee whiz. It was conceived at a conference table, designed on a whiteboard, and handed to marketing for polishing. Talk about anti-septic. It's nothing more than an mp3 player. There is very little innovative there, aside from some good Apple UI which is honestly not very revolutionary. If Apple had innovated an improvement to the Modified Discrete Cosine Transform that magically made Mp3s better, I would consider that innovation. But Apple's gift is one of marketing, not invention.
The idea behind the Apple iPod seems to be: "Let's take a small mp3 player which is not technically any better than our competitors product (battery is actually inferior) and market it so well that people absolutely MUST have it and will pay a significant price premium to get it. These outstanding portable device profit margins will help to make up for our dismal 5% market share in the computer industry."
Well, it's thin, but bigger overall.
I'd be willing to bet it doesn't need 3.7 (probably 3.6 in fact) just that's what the batter puts out. For instance, my minidisc player can run on the 6V AC adapter, the 3.6V LiION battery, OR it can run on 2AA batteries.
But even if they needed 3.7 V, 3xAAA batteries are very small... In-fact, only twice as thick as the current iPod battery, and still smaller in every other dimention.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I DO know the difference between a MB, GB, and the 200TB of data I back up daily.
I bet your SO doesn't.
I don't think you guys really understand how big of a deal GarageBand is (and I mean to paid musicians whom already own pro audio software). I produce downtempo electro-acoustic psychedelic (bassy breaks stuff) tracks for a local label with Reason, Ableton Live and Logic, but none are as sweet (or should I say organic) looking as GarageBand for recording and editing tracks (Reason actually looks quite good for a synth/sampler/effects rack : yet visually lacks when one is editing within the track mode). Why should I even mention to you how good looking GarageBand is? Why you say? Simple. If it excites me to work with a good looking peice of software - which I admit - it does very much (appealing to my eye - with incredible ease of use and superior workflow), it will inevitably inspire my work. And if it inspires my work, in any sort of creative way, I would gladly pay far more than the small price of $49 for it! Now granted, it does not do all the things that Live, Reason or Logic does, but by the looks of it.... I think it will do what it does better than anything else I've seen. GarageBand should be able to listen to (and record in stereo, I believe) a firewire enabled piece of hardware (like Yamaha's brand new o1x) with the knobs controlling any enabled AudioUnit plugins (in real-time of course). Will the AudioUnit capability within GarageBand allow me to use mastering plugins (not to mention 5.1 mixing)? How many AudioUnit plugins can run in real time while simply monitoring (or recording) my 12 String & vocals? Can you pre-record midi to the AudioUnit plugin effects while monitoring guitar or vocals while jamming to a pre-recorded piece (to provide dub-like capabilities)? Will GarageBand listen to more than one midi device at any given time (keyboards, mixer & envelope pedals)? Obviously I'm not sure on some of these paticular details, but I'll find out soon enough. I must remind myself this is Apple's first release of this product, and updates will inevitably follow! The fact it will seemlessly integrate with Soundtrack (when scoring within FCP 4), plays and records at 24bit 96khz (I think - haven't found the pdf on it yet - Soundtrack does - so GarageBand should), uses AudioUnits, comes with a large amount of high quality (better than CD quality) samples (some of the best I've ever heard by the way) and comes with 100 software instruments... well... it's a steal (to say the least) at $49. Comparable software goes for hundreds of dollars more (not to mention the fact you get to upgrade your iDVD/ iMovie/ iPhoto as well). Not to mention the interface of those other apps are half as clean (re: slick) as GarageBand. Just check out the detailed "wood" side panels on the main mixer window. Don't you think it adds a warm touch? I like details like that. Thank you Apple! I'll be buying it... I'll also be upgrading to the "Jampack" available for it as well. GarageBand is the start of something incredible, for professional and amateur musicians alike... End of story.
Er. You're getting the 94xx series processors and 97x-series processors confused. Yes, the Opteron runs neck and neck with G4 servers.
Err. No, I'm not. And Opteron (or any other current generation x86'ish chip) does not run anywhere near neck and neck with G4 servers, they run way faster.
The G5 has a massively different system architecture, and you cannot say "because it beats G4s it'll beat G5s".
I'm well aware of the fact that G5 is a new system and haven't drawn that kind of conclusions.
Real-world tests of Opteron servers has shown them to be very strange beasts. Freakishly fast as some tasks, very slow at others.
From anything I've seen this far, more like: freakishly fast on most tasks, pretty average on others, and by no means slow on anything.
I'd accuse AMD of pulling the old graphic card scam - benchmarks run very fast even though real world differences are minimal - but dear lord, that would be a hellishly expensive scam to pull off.
Graphics card scams are done on drivers or by "optimizing" the benchmark software in question. And usually they get faster results by leaving out some computations that are not visible, that's impossible on general purpose CPU. And you don't have any "drivers" to do it either, nor can you make benchmarkers use your own optimized software.
No, there's no scam here.
I run an AthlonXP and steer people towards AMD systems left and right, but the Opteron is proving to be a very odd design.
How, and why exactly? Opteron is a rather conservative incremental design on Athlon core, nothing radically new except for the 64-bitness.
And as thus, it's not really even "version 1.0"
BTW, when calling someone to the mat for making blanket untrue statements, just contradicting their statement for not providing references isn't enough, unless you provide them yourself. It's a case of he-said she-said, and frankly, your word amounts to a hill of beans to me (as does the other guy).
I've got better things to do than try to prove someone like grandparent who has already made up his mind and won't listen to anyone, no matter the truth. Especially as it really is damn hard to find trustworthy results, any credible sources haven't touched this debate with a 10-foot pole.
But if you wish. Let's start with some SPECmark tests, you know the same Apple used to claim G5 was faster than anything else at the launch (Opteron scores were mysteriously missing, and they've later been accused of tampering with P4 scores as well).
SPECint_base 2000:
Dual G5 2.0GHz - 800
Opteron 148 (2.2GHz) - 1304
Opteron 146 (2.0GHz) - 1115
SPECint_rate_base 2000:
Dual G5 2.0GHz - 17.2
Opteron 148 (2.2GHz) - 15.1
Opteron 146 (2.0GHz) - 12.9
SPECfp_base 2000:
Dual G5 2.0GHz - 840
Opteron 148 (2.2GHz) - 1505
Opteron 146 (2.0GHz) - 1217
SPECfp_rate_base 2000:
Dual G5 2.0GHz - 15.7
Opteron 148 (2.2GHz) - 17.5
Opteron 146 (2.0GHz) - 13.6
So lookee what we have here. Dual G5 can barely hold it's own against single Opteron at rate tests and is completely decimated in base tests. I won't bother with dual opteron numbers, but they scale well and leave G5 behind every time. They're at spec.org for everyone to see.
So... ok, now you're probably yeah, sure, nice set of numbers but what about real world applications? Well. The fact still stands there aren't many, or any benchmarks out there that I trust but let's dig some of the trash anyway.
(mostly) favoring opteron:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1274637,00.as p
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,112749,p g,8,00.asp
vastly favoring G5:
http://www.barefeats
accessories for http://www.ipodmini.me.uk cases also
thats nm not mm and it would make NO differance to you the only thing it will change is the yeilds of 2GHz chips and the ability to clock some chips higher (which Yous cant do and they Wont do)
Where did the grandparent post imply that gender had anything to do with tech knowledge?
There are some guys I know who "couldn't explain the difference between a Megabyte or a Gigabyte for the life of" him.
Am I implying that all guys know nothing about technology? No! So where did you get insulted from?
Yes.
Nonono, it's how precisely you know the former that determines how sure you can be of the latter.
I'll be perfectly honest - the new iPod-mini is not as small as I expected it would be - it's not huge, I know, but I thought maybe 3" by 1.5" or 1.75". I know there are 1" drives out there - size was surely at the mercy of the battery. I'd have been happy with four hours worth of power and one or two gigs storage.
As has been mentioned a thousand times the price is a bit too high too. Mark me as another who went from "gonna buy one" to "no, maybe the next generation, or the one after that".
RTFM; please, I beg you.
Sorry, but you misconstrued Steve's comparison of flash-based players to the iPod mini - it was in terms of price-point, not specifications.
The iPod Specs Page contradicts your assertion. The iPod mini has a 4GB hard drive.-- thinkyhead software and media
I can't seem to find any comments about the person who has spent $29,500 on the itunes store. If I am not mistaken, this is about one out of every 1,000 songs bought on the service so far. I wonder how many people have bought more than 1,000 songs? I wonder how many different people have bought songs... I was also disappointed by the price, but then I looked at the competition (http://common.ziffdavisinternet.com/download/0/22 69/summaryoffeatures.pdf), and I realized that my disappointment was rooted only in the fact that I had heard rumors about $100, and then $200.
Uhm, all he did was mention that the person he was talking about happened to be female, I hardly see how that implies any generalisation based on gender... Quit crusading.
Why not go to www.apple.com and see for yourself.
The site, store, most everything else is being served up by Xserves.
an audio player with 4 GB storage for $249 . alright, not so big of a deal . i can get 15 GB for $299 . . . .
wait, it has a backlit screen, an intuitive user menu, contact list/calendar, and a 1 year warranty ? now you're speaking my language
it only weighs 3.6 oz ?! where is the nearest apple store ?!
sure, most of you think a hardware fairy takes the hard drive that resides in a larger ipod, waves a wand and poof ! it's magically smaller . the fact remains that there is cost involved in making things smaller, even if it reduces the amount of standard hd space
yeah, i know, so what . every wannabe entrepreneur living in mom's basement is screaming that the price point is all wrong simply because they'll have to rub two more pennies together so that they can afford one . here's the bottom line
steve jobs in 1999 on the success of the imac computer line
i'll cut and paste the important bit for those too lazy to click...
Jobs: The rest of us. And -- if you go out and ask people what's wrong with computers today, they'll tell you they're really complicated, they have a zillion cables coming out of the back, they're really big and noisy, they're really ugly, and they take forever to get on the Internet. And so we tried to set out to fix those problems with products like the iMac. I mean, the iMac is the only desktop computer that comes in only one box. You can set it up and be surfing the Internet in 15 minutes or less.
CNA: And many colors.
Jobs: Well, now, that was another one. In this technological age, the number one question we got last year about the iMac was, "Can you make it in my favorite color?" It wasn't about megabytes or megahertz or anything. It was about "Can you make it in my favorite color (blank)?"
CNA: You mean it's aesthetics?
Jobs: Yeah. I mean you know, you get clothes in whatever color you want, drive a car in whatever color you want, but except for the iMac, you had to settle for beige, you know?...
jobs' mantra is no longer "save the masses", it is "give the people what they want" . and a marketing report told him that people want smaller ipods in different colours, and they would be willing to pay ~$249 . how can you argue with that ?
I don't mind saying I do tend to stand on the soapbox a bit,
the reason I was standing on the box was that the parent referred to it as a sample MARKETING view, please note I was directing at the parent's remark not the grandparent, Apple actually does very well regarding gender in ther ads
No.
The original iPod specs assumed 160kb/s MP3 audio.
Now they advertise with 128kb/s AAC.
So what is Apple's Audio strategy now? They buy Emagic, then bundle a non-Logic audio program with their video editing software that doesn't support surround sound, and doesn't share files with Logic. Now there's Garage Band, which looks to be iSoundTrack.
I originally thought that the reason for buying Emagic was to go for Avid's jugular, but this doesn't seem to be what's going on at all; so what are they up to? Working on an FCP like interface?
I was playing on the criticism that men would not want to be seen with it, due to the pretty colors.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I dunno if the $249 is market research. Most comments I've read seem to place "reasonable" at $200 and "ideal" at $150 or $100. The small form factor and the different colors are what people want, but in terms of technology, flash drives aren't that cheap and hard drives have only recently begun to get smaller. I think Apple jumped the gun on this one.
It makes sense from a developer point of view: something needs to go between the $150-250 flash players that store at most 256 MB and the $300+ HD players that store dozens of GBs.
But from a consumer point of view or a marketing point of view, it doesn't really. And it won't until these minis fall below $200. At below $200, the mini would keep the high end at the high end while eliminating the lower end and creating a new low end that starts at 1-4 GB instead of 128 MB.
But I'll wait and see. Steve Jobs said at the keynote that the mini is meant to compete with the high end flash players -- those that cost $250 but store only 256 MB. And I can see how the mini could all kill the players in the $150-250 range. If I were Apple, I'd be developing a trickle down strategy. Take the high end of a market and then develop cheaper versions, working towards the lower end of a market.
Anyways, when the iPod first came out, everyone said, "I want! I can't afford!" And then Apple created different price points for its iPod line. I'd expect a similar strategy with the iPod Mini.
Most comments I've read seem to place "reasonable" at $200 and "ideal" at $150 or $100.
Most comments here (and similar sites) indicate more price sensitivity than Apple markets to. The demographic here includes a large component of un- or under-employed, and a lot of megahertz/gigabyte-for-the-dollar optimizers. That's not the Apple demographic.
For the gainfully employed $250 for a desirable tech gadget isn't unreasonable. $50 isn't a huge sum to Apple's demographic.
I ordered one in pink. $250 doesn't even qualify as a major purchase for me, so buying the smaller iPod I've been waiting for was a no-brainer. 4G is plenty to bring a week's worth of listening to work, and 40G wouldn't hold my entire collection, anyway.
Amy
What moron would pay$250 for a mp3 player that holds 10 times less songs and is only about 3/4 the size of the regular Ipod, which costs only $50 more and holds 10,000 songs compared to the mini Ipod which only holds 1,000 songs.
MonkeysKickAss
it's pretty demeaning to assume gender has a hold on tech knowledge.
It's also demeaning to assume that if you are a guy you cheat on your gf every chance you get. So, welcome to society.
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
My demographic is people who would like to have a nice mp3 player but can't justify blowing $300 on one. We live in the $100 - $150 price range of mp3 players and the landscape is mighty baren right now. I thought it was too good to be true but i hoped it wasn't.
"I can not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presents danger, the solution is ignorance" - Isaac Asimov
The logic of being upset with Apple for failing to match a rumor site's price point is questionable at best.
Seems like plenty of people are jumping up and down about how great the Rio players are for the money: go buy one of those.
Or accept the fact that you are in Apple's target demographic for the mini: they don't want you to spend $300 on a player: just $249.
- learn to swim.
I get paid in pounds sterling, with the dollar so weak this is so cheap it's hilarious.
My 4 daughters couldn't care less about storage capacities and price points.
It's no wonder kids today are so stupid with parents like you around.
Why don't you try instilling some understanding of the value of money in your children? While you're at it, it wouldn't hurt for them to understand storage capacities too. Kids these days need to understand tech.
Do your job man.
I just read what he wrote again, and he didn't say "No woman can explain the difference between a Megabyte or a Gigabyte for the life of her." He was very specifically referring to his girlfriend.
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.
Every once in a while I like to masturbate a new word into my vocabulary, even if I don't know what it means.
I'm not upset with apple, I'm disappointed that there still isn't an mp3 player on the market that satisfies my criteria. Like I said I wasn't surprised. I didn't expect apple to announce a $100 iPod. I hoped for it. And I'm not letting the rumor determine my demographic, I just let it satisfy it.
And there is now way I would buy a 4 gig mp3 player when i can get a 15 gig for an extra $50. My point was that they are not marketing the mini to the people who want a cheaper ipod. The are targeting the people who want a cuter one. I'm sure that within a year the mini will be down to $150 at which point I'll prolly pick one up. Until then it's just not worth it to me.
"I can not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presents danger, the solution is ignorance" - Isaac Asimov
Of course. But this is slashdot, and posters just want a cheap iPod, Mac OS X on i386, and so on.
Apple _want_ to be slighly more expensive than the competition. They are high-end. They want to protect their margin.
> Kids these days need to understand tech.
Why ? Unless they are born in Bangalore, kids these days don't need to understand tech.
Do you understand crop planting ? Sewing ? Plastic injection molds ?
Actually they probably use a 3.3, 2.5, and 1.8 v rail in the ipod, but it's better to supply overvoltage and regulate it down, rather than depending on the battery to output a clean 3.3v source.
And what kind of minidisc player do you have? Mine runs on 1 AA. Geez.
If you're curious, anandtech has dissection pictures of the 3g ipod, you can see why they had to make the battery so thin.
And looking at the pics again, against the ipod on my desk & a ruler (I didnt have a ruler yesterday), it's more like 1.5" x 2.25"
Anyways, I really dont care to be in an argument about this. I dont have a problem charging my battery, and I also dont have a problem w/ replacing the battery later. I'm just telling you one of the (multiple) reasons why they probably didnt go with replaceable batteries, since you asked.
Prices are a bit higher, but they have other brands as well.
Lasers Controlled Games!
I agree, but the poster never said such a thing. He said that his girlfriend doesn't know the difference between a Meg and a Gig. He didn't say all women don't know the difference. Believe it or not there are people (some of whom are women) who don't know a thing about tech issues.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
Well, if you valued your time at more than $1 a day, you'd see you are buying a G5 for less than $600 when you account for time value.
;)
Maybe, but I don't because I'm a student, so my money is much more valuable to me than my time.
Anyway, does it take me longer to do stuff on my PC? I'm really not sure it does. And I've used Macs quite a lot (a couple of my friends have them).
MZR-50... It's only a few years old now. If you want old, I've got my old MZR-30 around here somewhere, and I started off with the ORIGINAL portable MD recorder... Not sure if you've been into MD long enough to remember that dinosaur.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
You're obviously not in the "market segment" he was speaking of, while his girlfriend is.
All you have done is assume that females were being attacked and then demonstrate one reason why people make rash generalizations. I tire of seeing people assume that women think everything is about gender, but then people like you come along and justify such a generalization. Ugh.
ah and you think you represent avrage slashdot geek? Remember to most of us girls may well be another species, we hence do not understand the "ooh its pink" factor!
Damn the man!
are you his girl friend? I think that his remark was because he might know her. I don't know but I thought people still talked before fornicating (its been a while though mabe thing change)
Damn the man!
I totally agree with you on this. My girlfriend laughs at me and my love for my 40gig iPod (I've gone on record as saying "I would marry this thing if it had the proper inputs and it were legal to do") My first thoght after seeing these new ones is "I need to get my woman one" since it would suit her perfectly, with it's small size and pretty shiny(sp?) colors. Perhaps once she has one that she can relate to as a non nerd music lover, she'll understand the love. :)
Go look at SPEC numbers. Opteron roasts the G5, for less $$ too.
BMW fleet cars. Sure you do if you work for the correct company. I had one and before that I had an Audi. Sorry to gloat but you do see them.
Reason? I'm not a woman, but it's not that hard to understand. When I spend money, I want the widget I buy to delight me, and Apple stuff frequently delight me. I don't want to buy a cheaper alternative, or one with additional features I may or may not need, that doesn't delight me. Too many geeks see specs as the end-all and be-all of a product, but I bought my Corolla not because it had a 1.8L engine (compared to the Civic's 1.6L), despite the Civic having better horsepower, partly because the shape of the Civic's headlights irritated me. I don't want to be irritated, even a little bit, when I spend money.
Just because it's not quantifiable doesn't mean it's not reasonable. Geeks, by definition, like the former, but frequently confuse it with the latter.
she couldn't explain the difference between a Megabyte or a Gigabyte for the life of her.
Apple advertises its players as "1,000 songs" and such. I think it can be assumed that most people understand what that means.
No they aren't.
So there is no equivilent hardware on the x86 side.
Yes there is.
Well, maybe a quad something or other would come close.
Of course it would. A dual or single might do it too!
Everyone who buys x86 does so because they think clock speed is performance.
No they don't.
They see the G5 at 2GHz and think its slower than a 3GHz pentium.
Whoever said that?
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.
I guess I'm in that 1% that thinks you're flat out wrong about everything and see no need to explain why.
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.
The day hasn't ended and my friends who work at Apple think I'm educated in "Computer Engineering" because it seems like I know what I'm talking about and I never tell them "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 [sic] wanted to seem cool. They told their friends about it in excruciating detail.
Oh yeah, those guys. Ya know, I used to hang with them all the time, but then I bought my first Mac and everything changed. It's like we can't even relate anymore!
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.
Oh, Dude. Totally! It, like totally make a guy look totally ignorant -- like this guy.
So don't do it, unless its for sport.
I won't. Never.
Right on! You hit this shit on the head! I hate how they scheme too much into this. Just give companies a little more time to come up with a decent alternative for a cheaper price and they'll wish they hadn't fucked this all up. Apple has definitely outlamed everyone this CES.
___ Shout Central - Crushes your nuts!
Gotta get my hands on one of those if I get the chance.
"Remember, you were a n00b once." - Me!
Fine, just get on your horse and buggy and ride home.
Steve Jobs introduced the miniipod so that people purchasing a $200 mp3 player would say ohh for $50 more I can get an ipod, which will most likely happen people will go for an ipod for only $50 more. Then once they have there eyes set on buying an ipod they will say for only $50 dollars more I can get an ipod with better storage. Now the consumer is spending $300 and did not even realize it. Jobs may be a genius he may have just came up with a way to sell his expensive ipod to a consumer looking to spend only $200 dollars. Perhaps the have made a limited number of the minis knowing they wont sell well. There is not to much loss in producing them they barely changed the design just made it smaller.
This may be an elaborate way to bolster regular ipod sales. Bringing the ipod to the consumer looking to spend $200.
GS
iPods don't necessarily drive Mac sales, now that iTunes exists for Windows. iPods are an end product in their own right. The profit margin on iPods is huge, I've heard figures that are above $100, although I find that a bit doubtful I'm sure it's fairly significant. The point is that iPods are just as profitable to make as computers, at least now when there's very little competition.
If Apple can maintain a steady stream of trendy consumer electronic goods, which are highly profitable, it could end up that the "peripheral" arm of Apple is subsidizing the "computer" arm. Things would have to continue in their current direction for a long time for this to be true, which is never a safe bet in the ever-changing marketplace, but it's an interesting idea to contemplate anyway.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Yes, but then some other smart thinker would have said, "Hey, we can sell it for $249 and pick up the jogging crowd, and once they're saturated then we can ship the unit at a low price and get a bunch of the casual/impulse buy crowd....and make a killing on the early adopters."
Apple can only produce so many of these things per month, and it seems pretty obvious that even if they could turn them out for $99, they would be stupid to sell them for significantly less than they are already, given the backorder list that exists at the current price. If people will buy it for $249, you can bet they're going to sell it for $249, that much is obvious.
The Mini is selling for $249 because that's the highest price it can sell for, before it runs into the bottom of the "big" iPod line in price. If the 15GB iPod wasn't already $299, then that's the price the Mini probably would sell at initially, regardless of how little it costs to manufacture. Once sales begin to slow at that price point, and production increases, they'll ratchet it down and target a wider market.
Your logic would make sense, if Apple was sitting on millions of units in a warehouse somewhere, and running up debt all the time. Then you'd want to unload them as quickly as possible. But in this case, Apple doesn't even have the devices yet, and people are already buying.
Apple isn't interested in marketshare. It's interested in profit.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Example: Bought a digital camera, took some pictures with it. Plugged digital camera into Mac. iPhoto opens, imports photos (no drivers, no software install). Select half dozen photos, click "Web Page," photos are scaled down for thumbnails, nice index page with slideshow created, whole thing uploaded to web server. Email sent to inbox with URL of site, for you to forward to friends. This has a hell of a 'wow' factor involved.
I can personally attest to the fact that it is possible to have photos from a digital camera on a custom-generated website within 30 seconds of connecting the camera. Even to someone who's used to this stuff, it's fairly impressive. Of course, for this to work you need to have a recent Macintosh computer, a recent version of the OS, and a subscription to
Is it worth the extra expense to have that work out of the box and without configuration? If you're reading this site, then probably not. In fact, probably a fair number of people on Slashdot would enjoy the challenge of writing a script to do everything that iTunes does, without paying a thing. If that's you, then it's fairly safe to assume you're not part of Apple's target market.
But there are a lot of people who have a "short fuse" for technology, and if something doesn't work the very first time they plug it in, they're done with it. These are a core market of Apple's, I believe: people with money to spend but little patience.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Do we know if the case on the mini is openable so that batteries can be replaced without sending in to Apple?
Sure you can get cheap little receivers and it wouldn't cost much to incorporate the electronics, but the iPod isn't just about electronics, it is about design. Where would they put the tuning controls? And they'd need a mode switch. They could put it all on the screen I suppose, but how would that affect ease of use? I'm not asking you these questions - these are the questions that Apple would need to ask itself. Maybe it did and didn't like the answers.
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
Naw, I think the profit margin on Ipods is $20-$40.
You always hear people on slashdot talking about how apple overcharges and makes huge margins, but its generally not true.
Notice the mini iPod is $249-- the same as the Rio product with a 4G drive.
Those 4G drives are selling on amazon.com right now for $500. They got the price to less than half the retail price of one of the components--- that's REALLY price competitive there.
I bet they are costing Apple $240 to make right now, with the expectation that they can get the cost down to $200 as volume ramps up. Which means they are losing money at first.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
"While several have argued concerns about the price, one Wall Street Journal Column (Paid) offers an alternative perspective:
We don't want to sound like some annoying old relative, but these critics missed the rather elementary fact that different people care about different things. For every buyer of an MP3 player who cares about capacity, there's another one who cares about size. Or style. Or both. .....
And for plenty of music fans there's no real difference between 1,000 songs and 3,750 -- they're both "enough."
As one Slashdotter who saw the light wrote, some people "can't justify $299 just for space, but might justify $249 for style.""