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iPod Mini Hits The 'Sweet Spot'?
Tooky writes "The BBC is reporting on a survey carried out by Jupiter Research which found that most consumers were only storing about 1000 songs on their portable MP3 players, claiming that ' The finding seems to be borne out by the demand for Apple's Mini iPod'." According to the piece: "Jupiter said digital music players with capacities of 5,000 songs will provide too much space for most people. It added that consumers rate other features as highly as the ability to store all the songs held on their PC."
Thought I'd share a data point for what it's worth...
I ordered my iPod mini about two weeks after the iPods were available (about 6 weeks ago-ish), was told 3-5 weeks delivery, and it arrived at the 5 week point. A friend ordered his last week, and they told him 4-6 weeks.
Perhaps we should put together some more data points and extrapolate if this has been the trend since the iPod mini release.
For all the reasons described in the article, the iPod mini exactly fits my preferences--it's sufficiently small, long-loved, well-designed, and spacious. More specifically, for me, the breakthrough was to have a audio player that a capacity beyond ~500 megs that was also suitable for running/jogging--the mini is the first to break that barrier.
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I have one of the original 5GB iPods, and I'm constantly deleting less-listened-to songs to make room for newer songs and albums. If people are complaining about too much space on their bigger iPods, then let's trade. :P
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Style is nice, but I think that thinking in terms of higher bandwidth formats, one needs to think about the larger capacity of the other iPods.
You're the 10,000,000,000th person to point out that the 15 gig iPod is only $50 more.
You obviously don't understand who the mini is being marketed to (hint: not geeks).
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the strongest word is still the word "free"
It is much easier to organize the songs on the computer, if for no other reason, the sheer size of the screen.
I would much rather sacrifice some storage capacity for a smaller model
If you have too many choices (songs ) on your portable device, you may just end up not using (listening to) all of the choices (songs ) anyway. After a point, as the number of choices increases, the ability to make a decision suffers, and the time it takes to make a choice increases.
Here is why my wife likes her ipod mini better than the 15GB iPod:
1. She wants a music player, not a hard disk.
2. the mini controls are laid out better for one hand use
3. the mini is lightweight for running (the regular pod does not feel that heavy until it is bouncing on your belt).
4. She never transfers large files.
5. She has small hands and likes the feel of the mini better.
6. She looked at the other players that are similar in size and weight to the ipod mini and said: 'the controls stink and the interfaces are a joke. I wish I had something like the ipod, but smaller.'
7. She is not a cheapskate.
Here is why I like my 15GB ipod better than the mini:
1. more space
2. I got it for $1 as part of a promotion from my ISP.
3. I sometimes transfer large files.
Thing is, I only listen to my portable when I run. That means that there's a lot of ambient noise, which means that good sound quality isn't worth it. So I record things at a really low bit rate (32 kbps for spoken-word files). You can fit a lot of stuff in a little space that way; I can put an 8-hour book on a teeny 128M device.
Yhe Rio Nitrus was the first player to use a 1" drive.
Fair enough, but what about the other factors critical witht he iPod? Namely, what's the price, size, and weight of the Nitus? Further, USB is pretty ugly next to firwire when you decide to drop 500 megs of new music onto it 5 minutes before you want to leave for your run. Separately, I owned two rios in my life (Rio 400? and a Rio 500). Both models had shoddy Mac OS support and froze up constantly w/ various mp3s.
G-Force music visualization
Depends on how expensive it is. At the current price point, even extrapolating up to account for the increased storage space, I'd be happy to pay for it. Until it can actually play the music I have though, it's pretty worthless to me.
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I honestly can't fathom this. Ok, I can understand that maybe they might not see the value of having tons of extra space, but actually frightened by it? Are they afraid that the extra space is going to be used by Apple to rip, encode, and store their soul?
As for the 1,000 song figure it seems rather odd to me. I'm a college student who doesn't pirate music, I have what I'd consider an average if maybe smallish cd collection along with about a gig or so of stuff on my computer (I don't keep my rips, they just go onto the iPod) and I still have around 2,000 songs. I realize as well that while I may not be cramming my iPod at the moment I'll be glad I have that extra space when I get more cds and don't quickly run out. I have space to grow on this and hopefully it will be able to last much longer as a result.
People are lazy. As soon as they realize how inconvenient it is to swap songs around they'll be complaining about size and wanting more just like everyone else. At some point those 1,000 songs won't be enough and they'll have a rather strong backlash regardless of how they feel now.
The iRiver iGP-100.
Major Disadvantages: 1.5 gb drive. No firewire.
Major Advantages: It's slighty larger than a stopwatch. Costs $200, not $250 (before accessories). No Software Interface on either Mac, Windows, or Linux*. FM tuner. Flywheel navigation (just like a Blackberry), excellent GUI. Backlight. Firmware upgradable. Passes the Girlfriend Aesthetics Exam with flying colors.
For the size and craftsmanship of the device, I firmly believe that this player is the better deal, especially if you already have a full-sized iPod (or equivalent). It is easy to operate within a pocket -- just orient the flywheel, and you can navigate the filesystem with ease. The other buttons fit naturally beneath your fingers when you hold it in your hand. The player does not require any accessories to use fully; my girlfriend can exercise with it clipped on. It also comes with a case. I find the 1.5 gb drive is perfect for a trip's worth of music, or a few weeks of commuting. This is useful if you have a lot of music that is overlooked in your normal music listening, or if you aquire music quickly.
4 gb for $250 is clearly the better deal. But the....philosophy of design is an invisible modifier to that price, at least in my eyes.
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You are entirely correct. There are some other advantages that the iPod has over what I have as well, such as naviagtion and different play modes and I don't feel like I need them.
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