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100 Million iPods
prelelat writes "I find it somewhat hard to believe but this story over at PC world, indicates that the iPod has sold over 100 million units. It also asks how many are broken and replaced which makes me believe the number may be more accurate."
Here's a comparison I put together from Wikipedia/Google.
Nintendo DS: 39.8 million (total sales)
Gameboy: 69 Million (total sales)
Gameboy Advance: 77 million (total sales)
iPod: 100 million (total sales)
Cellphones: 2,000 million (currently in use)
I think I have a better understanding of why they built the iPhone...
People love to naysay the dominant market player, which is ironically the one getting trounced in the OS realm. I really do hope their new agreement for higher quality music takes off. I'm going to soon buy a permanent dock to dock my iPod with my high-end home audio system. So the new format will be greatly appreciated and I don't mind paying a few extra $$ for a high-def quality rip of Dark Side of the Moon.
I've been gifted a Shuffle, and I've gifted iPod nanos to two people. And I'd bought a regular iPod which I later sold.
So, technically, I purchased 4 iPods according to Apple. There you go, skewing of stats, right there.
Huh? No, according to Apple, based on what you've said, you've purchased 3 (someone else purchased one and gifted it to you, but there's no way they'd know that it ended up in your hands, so by their count, you've only purchased three, because in fact, you've only purchased three). And how does the fact that you purchased three iPods skew the stats about the number of iPods sold? You purchased three, they count that has having sold three. 3 != 3?
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
>and I don't mind paying a few extra $$ for a high-def quality rip of Dark Side of the Moon
Why dont you pay $10 for the CD and make a lossless rip of it using, say, Apple Lossless for use on your stereo? And then have a 192kbps VBR AAC rip for your iPod when its on the go and you care about quantity rather than too much quality? All without DRM.
Many companies run their service centres as a seperate business unit because that's simpler. I don't know if Apple do this, but they might. If they do, then replacement units get sold to the service centres who then charge a service fee back to the ipod business unit. This is a far neater way to handle stock levels etc.
Regardless, I do agree that they have no need to pump up sales numbers. They're doing fine with no embellishment.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
You're so right on the money.
This is the reason that Microsoft can be dethroned--when you have good design, you can beat the giants. When you have shitty design and you are a giant, your product doesn't sell (Zune, case in point).
This is why Apple is sending shivers through the phone industry with the iPhone.
I predict that 2008 will be the year of actually easy to use phones, because of the well-designed competition by the iPhone.
Thank you Apple for raising the bar.