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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.
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 agree, $250 for the new iPod is too much, considering a new 15GB Dell DJ is the same price, and has a much longer battery life. Of course size and sexiness of the iPod mini come into play, but it doesn't seem like a good value.
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
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
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 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!
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.
But the Dell DJ sucks from usability. Blender reviewed all of the current iPod killers (before the mini iPod) and said while some where cheaper (the dell), none of them could compete with the style, user interface, and ease of use of the iPod.
Also, the iPod is the only player that works with audiobooks.
"This amp is special, see all the knobs go up to 11, that means it is one louder than other amps"
Everyone who's complaining about the iPod mini's pricing is missing the point a bit, I think. Apple wants you to buy the more expensive model. Apple wants you to look at the high-end Flash players and realize that you can get an iPod mini with 16 times as much space, a much nicer interface and iTunes compatibility for just $50 more... and then look at the 15 GB iPod and realize that it's an even better deal. Before you know it, you've spent $100 more than you originally intended to.
This space unintentionally left unblank.
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
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.
You're absolutely right, the iPod mini isn't much cheaper.
;)
But for me the reduction in size is awesome. (There's a nice comparison pic here)
While I like the capacity the regular iPods offer, I'll sacrifice the extra bulk to drop down to a smaller form factor that I have to sync a bit more frequently. The small size is definitely better for those who would like to use it at the gym, and for those of us who just like tiny things. (and before any of you karma-whores go for the cheap joke, I'm not referring to penises with the previous sentence
The colors, while cute, aren't quite my thing (I'm not big on pastels).
Also, the iPod is the only player that works with audiobooks
Are you sure? I'm reasonably certain that the Otis MP3 player I got free from Audible.com with my subscription will play MP3s and Audible's proprietary audio book format... come to think of it, Pocket PCs that play MP3 files can also play Audible's audio books...
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
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.
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I support spreading santorum
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?
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Power to the Peaceful
i mean i really like our dual g4 here in our office, it does an amazing job with final cut pro. okay, so osx is mad stable and easy to use too, im not saying mac is all beauty and no function. it just seems that i can usually get a cheaper, uglier machine to do almost the same job.
if you really want the sexiest mp3 machine around, get the iPod mini thing, i dont think i can be beat in the market they are shooting for. its a tiny, pretty machine.
use your turn signal! you people act like it's divulging information to the enemy
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.
When the price comes down, I might think about getting one. If it comes down to, say, $150. Otherwise, that's some absolutely terrible price-performance. That drop in size isn't even enough to move it from your pants pocket to your watch pocket.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.
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.
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.
Just wait six months: after Apple recoups their R&D and startup costs, they'll drop the price. They maximized sales of the iPod for Christmas 2003, and now can capitalize on the alpha-geeks to get their ROI and still keep their profit margins high. After that, they'll drop the prices to get the marketshare they're after. We'll see $199 minis by summer, and By Christmas 2004 they'll be $150 or less.
So, if you're an alpha, go get one today so my wife can save $50 on one for my birthday in June!
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.
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 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.
I guess it depends on your starting point. If you're thinking of dropping $250 on a player, then sure, it makes sense to spend just $50 more and get one with more than three times the capacity - but what if you're initially thinking of spending, say, just $200? That's what lots of flash-based players cost that hold just 256 MB; the iPod mini holds 16 times that and costs just $50 more. It's a lot easier to make the jump to justify spending an extra $50 than an extra $100, so while lots of people who might get an iPod mini will get a 15 GB iPod instead, there'll also be people who might get one of those $199 256 MB flash players who wind up getting an iPod mini instead - but probably few people who'd plan on getting one of those flash players but wind up spending $100 more for a 15 GB iPod.
If one iPod bites into sales of the other, it hardly matters anyway from Apple's POV, since at the end of the day it's still selling iPods. All they care about is biting into sales of the flash players, and the iPod minis will help them do that better than if they just had only the regular, non-mini iPods.
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 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
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
Apple makes their %10 at $299 and you think you're getting ripped off, when other companies sell you a $150 item for $250 and you think you're getting a killer deal. Oh, and you think you've done better than the apple product because you saved $50! Even though the margin was higher and the product you got was worth a lot less... your values are screwed up.
How on earth do you figure that a Karma costs $150 to manufacture but the iPod is $270? They are both virtually equiv in terms of hardware.
But lets's look at retail prices:
20gb Rio Karma $250
20gb iPod $400
That's a $150 difference, or more importantly, 37.5%. Personally, having used both, I would still pick the Karma if it were the same price.
I prefer the form factor (although the cosmetics are not as nice as the Apple) and the interface - the OGG support is very valuable to me and I am blown away by their support and the openess of their devs. I also would be totally put off by the iPod battery stories I've read recently, though there's a good chance they're being overblown, I consider Apple's handling of the situation to be pretty useless.
Having said all that I did buy my (Apple loving) brother an iPod for christmas, because I realise the alternatives aren't for everyone. But for techies, as I said before I'm just amazed that iPod's are so popular.
That's why its pointles to argue with PC weenies-- they will tell you with a straight face that some AMD system is as fast as a G5-- cause they're too ignorant ot know the guy who told them that was lying.
Oh and really - the G5 is NOT the fastest computer you can buy at that price. I love the design, OSX is cool, but in terms of pure performance, it really isn't that amazing. And don't you dare call me a weenie.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"