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."

Comments

Re:selling out is no prize

[Doc Ruby]

Hobbyist computers are for computer hobbyists: people whose buying criteria are that computer itself, rather than primarily the job it does. Like a Marinoni hobbyist bicycle, it might even be the best platform, but its cost/benefit is for specialists, enthusiasts. If you understood the SCM issues in my post, you'd be mad at Apple, not me. I first learned why Apple isn't a corporate supplier while working for Apple, waiting on hardware for a project they commissioned for Apple Developer University. Their internal SCM messed with their own software production schedules.

Later, Apple hooked me up with possibly the first PowerPC sold outside of California, a "beta" 6100 purchased by Northern Telecom (then their biggest customer in the world), as a patch to yet another SCM problem that was holding back NorTel from a "next generation payphone" multimedia Internet kiosk project. It didn't help the NorTel debate in favor of jettisoning Apple in favor of WinTel when I, a vocal supporter of keeping the technologically superior Macs, had to miss a meeting because I couldn't get third-party RAM to work in my (probably the first sold) 9500, bringing it forever to its knees (certainly the first publicly fried 9500). NorTel dropped Apple, and they were right to do so. I gave my 6100 beta to a graphic artist, and she was right to keep it - it still runs. But notice that Adobe has switched (antistrategically, for other reasons) away from Apple, and Linux is starting to eat Apple's lunch. SCM is the way companies do business. Hobbyists don't care, the waiting for releases and resupplies is part of the fetish, keeping the objects exotic. I wish Apple would get with the program. But that would probably mean licensing the platform, or compiling OSX for x86, and even though Jobs has entered new territory with his HP iPod license, I don't expect to see that until it no longer matters for Macs, or its fans, like me.