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iPod Mini Sells Out
burgburgburg writes "According to USATODAY.com, the iPod mini is virtually sold out after two weeks. As we know, it had 100,000 on pre-order. It's the top seller at the Apple Store, where they advise people that there will be a one to three week wait. And it isn't a component shortage that's causing the delays. It's the huge demand amongst teens (for the colors) and athletes who like exercising with the ultralight device. While many here on /. felt that the mini was overpriced and pointed out that for $50 extra, you could buy a regular iPod with 15GB of storage instead of the 4 GB of the mini, Apple seems to have correctly identified the price point and the market they were going after. The space has become so hot that Creative's MuVo2 has also been selling well, but also for a slightly different reason. The MuVo2, which also has 4 GB of capacity, uses a CompactFlash card (which can be used in a digital camera). People have been buying the MP3 player and taking it apart for the card, which would cost more than the $200 dollars for the MuVo2."
I think the point is that the components aren't hard to come by, they've just not slapped enough of them together to meet the demand. Assembly time is the bottle neck not component availablity.
CharlesP
wordtrip.com
Just be careful about the negative feedback you'll get from calling them flash cards instead of minidrives with CF interfaces...
I'll put it this way: I have a lot more faith in Apple than I do in the rumor sites. Apple does their homework before they release something; they haven't really had a flop since the G4 Cube (which was a cool idea regardless, it kind of predated the SFF PCs with the same concept.) I guess their strategy now is to stay one step ahead of everyone who tries to copy them. It seems to be working, at least for now.
Dude, yer sooooo coool. I wish I could rail against Apple/Jobs with all your self-righteousness.
I will never understand how people can be talked into spending enormous sums on an inferior product through a snazzy marketing campaign.
No kidding. For $170, I can get a 1.5 GB Nitrus. For only $80 more (less than 50% increase in price) I can get a product with about 240% more capacity (the iPod mini).
"Oh, but what about the Muvo2?" According to Amazon, it's not yet available.
So, for $50, I get a better looking unit (arguable, I agree) FireWire support, AAC support (you can tout WMA all you want, but when the vast, vast majority of online sales are AAC, I could care less about WMA) And I don't have to explain to the average person why I bought such a ghetto player.
Sorry, but there is nothing standout between the iPod and the Rio offerings from a purely objective standpoint. Judging by the sellout of the first run, $50 doesn't mean anything to people in this marketplace, so the choice of one over the other is purely subjective. Trying to pretend otherwise just makes you look like a whiner.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
All it really validates is that most consumers are fools and will fall for any hype the Apple marketing department throws at them. If people were intelligent enough to do a little research, they could find that buying a full-blown iPod for only 50 dollars more would be a much wiser decision, space wise, or another portable mp3 player entirely, rather than shelling out an insane amount of money for an Apple iPod that is shiny, pretty, and has "cool" commercials...
People can see themselves, rather easily, that the larger iPod is only $50 more.
But here's a mind-boggling concept - perhaps they know, but are basing choice on something other than $/MB!!!
A smaller device can be carried more often. I got one of the original palm pilots, but really didn't use it. Then I got a Palm V which has been in my pocket every day for the last few years. Similarily, the smaller size of the iPod mini makes it much more practical to carry about. For my use of an iPod the larger version is fine, but there are a lot of people that want as small a device as possible to work out with. Heck, one of the standard accessories you can buy with the iPod mini is a armband! Although a normal iPod is small, I would not want it bound to my arm for any length of time.
Now in addition consider a further possibility - perhaps, there are a lot of people that don't even have 4MB of music. Perhaps they only like boy bands and the collected greatest works fit into a few hundred k. For whatever reason, there are a lot of people that are not that in to music and do not have a huge variety, or a need for a large library on the go. For these people, the new iPod is simply $50 less for an even smaller product. In fact I have a 5GB iPod, not much larger, and have never really felt that much of a pull to go for a larger one as long as this works - it holds enough somgs for a ten hour roadtrip, and I can re-load when I want to switch it up. Again, if I were buying now I might go for a $50 less device just because I lived with 5MB for so long as was perfectly happy.
I'm not even going to go into fashion because I am pretty sure that's a minorty of what is making this device popular.
Last question - do you always supersize every fast food meal you buy? Why, it's only $0.20 more for a pound of frys!! Who would be stupid enough to not buy that!!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
MS's lock on the Office market made it impossible for Apple to pursue its lawsuit (which was a stone cold cinch) re: the theft of the QuickTime code that made up MS's media player solutions.
The $150M and the continuing support of Office Mac (which, by the way, is absurdly profitable for MS) were part of the settlement deal.
Had Microsoft not had the power to utterly destroy Apple (by stopping development of Office, and making a big stink about it) Apple would have been able to wring far, far, far more money out of MS.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Don't be ridiculous. If you want to buy a Sony product, you have to buy a Sony product.
But you can just as easily buy one from a dozen other manufacturers.
Microsoft, on the other hand, has a monopoly on the entire personal computer industry. If you don't think they use that monopoly power to destroy competition, you're a poor student of history.
Yes, Apple killed the clone manufacturers. However, the deal struck with the clone mfr's was absolutely murdering Apple. They were losing enormous sales to competitors (who didn't have to do their own R&D), and couldn't sustain their own in-house development.
Apple decided to stop doing this, and they've been doing great since. However, seeing as how they have, what? Five percent of the PC market, calling them a monopoly and comparing them to Microsoft makes you look pretty silly.
Of course Apple is money hungry. That's OK, in and of itself. They make some great products to get money, and I think thats just fine.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Butt-ugly, web site is confusing to navigate, cites dimensions and weight that go far beyond the iPod, hard drive seems to be 2.5 inches which makes the whole thing clunky. Button arrangement is needlessly complicated; software said not to work on any Unix on the web site (the iPod works flawlessly even on various free Unixes out there). Doesn't play official successor to MP3, AAC.
The one interesting positive point is that it plays Ogg Vorbis, but I only see such files every few months...