Apple Creates new iPod and Macintosh Divisions

KH2002 writes "According to a New York Times/Reuters report, Apple is creating a separate division for the iPod. Apple Senior VP Hardware Engineering, Jon Rubenstein, will head the iPod division, and Executive VP of Worldwide Sales and Operations Tim Cook will lead the Mac division. The report quotes a spokesman as saying, 'This organizational refinement will focus our talent and resources even more precisely on our industry-leading Macintosh computers and the wildly successful iPod.'"

Comments

Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[MacGod]

It seems of late that Apple has been focusing more and more on the music side of their business (ITMS, iPod etc).

Therefore, I can see this decision going one of two ways:

1. Each division focuses more on their individual strengths. Each half becomes better suited to its product, and the company as a whole grows and becomes stronger.
2. Apple decreases the emphasis on its Computer division to focus more and more effort on the Music side. The Mac as we know it disappears.

I certainly hope that it's #1, and I have a hunch that it is, but it will be very interesting to see what developers over the next few years.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[Pope]

Sales of PowerMacs have tapered off in anticipation of newer/faster models coming "real soon now." IBM has had troubles getting the faster chips out the door, so the G5 line remains stagnant, certainly not a good thing for Apple's image OR bottom-line.

I know I've been holding off for a Rev B G5 mainly because I want a dual chip machine, and though the Dual 1.8 is the best price/perfomance ratio at the moment, it's still going on 6 or 7 months old. I have no urgent, pressing need for a G5, so holding off for the next speedbump makes sense to me.

Creating a separate iPod/music division away from the Mac line is a fantastic idea, and will allow more concentration on their respecetive products.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[Llywelyn]

Better than a hunch.

Apple has filed for trademarks over three more cat names (Lynx, Cougar, and Leopard), which good through 2007 at their current OS release rate, *and* they have said that they are going to slow down their operating system release rate. I believe that their Mac hardware division is also profitable on most lines independent of their iPods.

Taking these two things into account I find it *highly* unlikely that there is *any* plan to kill off the Mac.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[dhovis]

There was one business mag that suggested that Apple should spin off the iPod and iTMS into a separate company and issue an IPO for it. It would net Apple lots of cash, and it could isolate Apple from the eventual decline of the iPod.

This does make some sense, as it is hard to envision Apple keeping the iPod as a high profit margin device for more than 5 years or so. I don't know about you, but I kind of expect the functionality of my iPod, my Palm, and my cell phone to converge by then. I suspect that Apple hopes that by the time that happens, they will have a large share of the legal downloads market, and that sales for iTMS will be large enough to produce a good profit, even with the razor thin margins they have now.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[reaper20]

As nice as it is, the iPod is pretty much a one-trick pony.

This is why I love my iPod so much and probably why it's so successful.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[Trillan]

I don't know about you, but I kind of expect the functionality of my iPod, my Palm, and my cell phone to converge by then.

Convergence is over-rated. Each of these devices serves a different purpose and requires a different form factor. Look at your current gadgets, they're probably more or less ideal in terms of form factor. How comfortable would it be to write on your cell phone's screen? How would you like to hold your Palm up to your ear for an extended period of time? And once you have a single device, how do you turn up your music player a bit while talking on the phone, and then quickly jot down a number?

But integration between the devices would certainly be nice. A cell phone sending a signal to turn down an iPod might be nice. A Palm that can shunt little-used programs off to an iPod would be handy.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[Elwood P Dowd]

Dunno why you'd presume that iTunes and iTMS is in their hardware division and not in some software or web content division.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[IntlHarvester]

Do you really think Apple could sustain itself on the (relatively small) profit margins of the iPod alone?

iPods currently have a much larger profit margin than Macintoshes (which are barely above break-even).

Do you think Apple could sustain itself making only unprofitible Macs forever? (As they aren't really doing anything to increase market share.)

The long-term digital music/movies business is not a "one trick pony" -- in the future it's bound to be integrated into every cell phone, PDA, car stereo, home stereo, cable box, and television set. I guess the development of an 'iPod' division indicates that Apple is looking at the big picture and not just the trick pony.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[pauljlucas]

The long-term digital music/movies business is not a "one trick pony" -- in the future it's bound to be integrated into every cell phone, PDA, car stereo, home stereo, cable box, and television set.

The thing that companies haven't figured out yet is that nobody wants to watch movies on portable devices with tiny screens. It's an application looking for a market.

I guess the development of an 'iPod' division indicates that Apple is looking at the big picture and not just the trick pony.

If they really wanted to do that, they would have created a "consumer electronics" division.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[sean23007]

There are also people who use iTunes and iTMS and own iPods, but don't use a Mac. Like me. iTunes and iTMS are software products that work on Windows. The iPod works on Windows. I makes sense, logically, that the iPod division would be the one that would interface with Windows machines, and they are separating that from the Mac division so that there is no conflict of interest of any kind.

Thanks, but no thanks

[Bastian]

I love my iPod and all, but what I really want you to do, Apple, is to bring back the UI research team. Don't forget what made your users so devoted in the first place, Steve-o.

moof.

Re:Maybe now we'll get ogg support?

[Llywelyn]

Politics such as the irrelevancy of Ogg to 99% of the people who are in the iPod's target market?

Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

this will separate Macintosh fans from Apple Computers Inc. fans.

Re:Site is slow: article text

[daeley]

P.S. I have never owned a mac.

Boy, that's a surprise.

If they spin of iPod and ITMS

[dcocos]

I wonder if they can avoid the Apple vs Apple law suit about Apple not being able to enter the music industry.

Re:Maybe now we'll get ogg support?

[Llywelyn]

There are several very good reasons not to.

First, the iPod only supports a limited number of formats, and iTunes should only natively support the same formats as the iPod. This is for a combination of ease of use, user perception, and technical reasons.

Second, there is no reason for them to put any effort into supporting it. They have AAC, which for the bitrates most people use is equivalent to or superior to Ogg. The consumer doesn't care how "free" Ogg is when Apple is willing to cover things with AAC and mp3.

They have the Apple Lossless instead of FLAC, and they support the most common format--mp3. Why on earth would they want to confuse things for newbies and people like my mother by adding another format and thus another choice?

difficult to seperate iTunes and Apple

[Johnny Mozzarella]

don't forget that the iPod and the iTM$ are tied to iTunes which is tied to iLife.

I think it would be very bad for iTunes to become separated from Apple.

I'm hoping instead that the iPod division will focus on more devices like a car stereo and a home theater system that builds on the iPod design and GUI.

How will this affect us?

[amichalo]

How will this affect the consumer? Will this new iPod (read 'consumer electroincs') division not be concerned with the focus on the Mac and therefore we could see new products being released for Windows FIRST, followed by Linux, to include OS X? This is how many hardware/software dev companies work becuase the market is so slim it makes economic 'cents' to go after the larger market.

And what affect, if any, will this change have on the concept of the iPod causing people to switch to Apple?

mobiles and music

[grrrl]

My old nokia 8310 had an FM radio that, when you got a call, would ring through the headphones and mute the radio when you answered the call, and then turn the radio back on when you hung up (answering via the wired remote on the headphones so no digging through my bag)

I think integrating a phone into something like an ipod would be a great idea in some respects and just annoying in others.

I'd love to stop getting weird looks in the street while im listening to my pod and my phone rings and i dont hear it...

id love to have less stuff to carry around and less stuff to forget to charge up

however, the main use of my mobile is for sms, and id hate to sacrifice the ipod interface to enable text messaging... though maybe ~10 little buttons (or less) could be popped under the scroll wheel, with good predictive text this could work

also, i abuse my phone terribly - it gets dropped in clubs, used in the rain, attacked with greasy fingers and the like... and then i just change the cover and its all nice - id hate for my pod to get so dirty and abused!! sure, my old phone cost more than my pod! but the changable everything helped when it got scratched etc

size is also an issue - weenie phones fit great into little handbags, even the ipod mini wouldnt do that too well