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Apple Prepares For the Coming iPod Slump
Hugh Pickens writes "Companies like AOL have stagnated along with the products that made them successful as a mature market and downward pressure on prices led to a nasty death spiral, but Saul Hansell writes in the NY Times that Apple has used its amazing six-year run with the iPod to nurture other business lines. Even though the number of iPods sold this quarter grew only 1 percent from the same quarter a year ago, Apple should be able to sustain itself with three business lines that will help it withstand a collapse in the MP3-player market: a continuing revenue stream from the iPods that have already been sold because of the iTunes Store, product upgrades to the iPhone and iPod Touch that are so different that they may well appeal to a significant number of iPod users, and perhaps most significantly, sales of the Macintosh which showed an increase of 51 percent by units and 54 percent by dollars."
As economic prosperity spreads to certain parts of Eastern Europe and the Middle East, I'd think there should be a steady stream of new buyers. Of course, in non-Japan and Korea Asia people seem happy with the fake iPods (complete with "iPod" written large on the front to soothe your designer-look lust) and I can imagine competing there is difficult.
Battery replacement to existing units is a great new line of revenue for any customers who aren't willing to just replace the original when it stops holding a charge.
Is it me or almost everyone that has an ipod 60G 5th Gen, is waiting for the touches to go up to 64Gb before dumping a wad of cash on one of them. My Gf is so sure I will do that, that she is already expecting it and promised me not to complain If I go ahead and do it. How else is in this same boat?
Nom de dieu de putain de bordel de merde de saloperie de connard d encule de ta mere.
Make a 12" or 13" MacBook Pro. If that happens, then I will buy a new Mac. Otherwise, they can see how many suckers they can sell a $2500 manila of hot air to...
Cretin - a powerful and flexible CD reencoder
All Apple has to do is to look at Dell. Dell made gads of money and had huge growth by selling PCs. The PC itself wasn't new, but it was being bought by more and more demographics. That, however, only lasts so long. To keep up with the same growth, Dell would have to sell more computers in a year than there are people on this planet. So they have to sell people a second computer if people aren't ready to replace their existing computer or computers to businesses. But their entire business still revolves only around computers and every thing is just an accessory. They tried getting into other lines like media players, printers, etc with varying degrees of success.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Eventually the market would saturate and I am sure Apple economists must have known it. I don't think they are really surprised at the slump.
Nothing to see here..... move along.
What about an 80-column card? (If you get that, I know how old you are...)
I have an old 3g 40GB iPod that I received as a gift, it still works very well.
Yeah the iPod touch is cool, but 32GB is woefully inadequate.
The 160GB iPod Classic might be nice, but then I read comments that they have Cirrus Logic (*shudder*) sound chips instead of Yamahas. No thanks.
I've never used iTunes. Amazon.com sells MP3s with no DRM for the same or lower price than iTunes.
iPod still has the name recognition and is much sought after, but there are better alternatives, I'm looking at an Archos WiFi 160GB player, I just don't like how they want you to pay for the web browser.
Or is this the one which was supposed to hit two years ago? Or the one from last year? You see, I get them confused, as it seems every year someone is predicting that Apple's iPod growth will suddenly crater as Teh Next Big Thing comes along and steals Apple's thunder.
I don't know if iPod growth will crater, or slowly slow down or whatever. But I am pretty well convinced that, whatever happens, no "expert" will predict it.
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
If the number of Mac units sold is accurate, then Vista is absolutely killing HP and Dell unit sales.
That would suggest that Dell and HP's consumer PC business will show unit and dollar sales declines.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
I think Apple is doing a decent job upgrading their product line in order to keep winning back existing customers. I still have a 4G iPod (the last version with the monochrome screen) that is 4 years old now and it still works like a charm. The battery is probably shot, but I use it exclusively in my car now so it's plugged in all the time. When the hard drive finally dies I'll probably get an iPod touch so I can get maps and stuff on the go. However, it shows what happens when nearly everyone in America who wants an iPod has one - sales will drop. Apple really needs to start marketing in up-and-coming markets such as the Middle East, China, and other areas. Sure, there are plenty of knockoff products in those markets already, but that doesn't mean Apple shouldn't try.
How is 1% growth over last years numbers a slump?
" sales of the Macintosh which showed an increase of 51 percent by units and 54 percent by dollars."
Sounds like Vista is paying dividends for somebody.
I wonder what Apple will release around the same time that Microsoft releases their next OS? A version of OSX that runs on any "Vista Ready" machine before then would be kinda cool. The press seems to be split on how Vista is helping/hindering Apple, but I am sure things are already percolating based on the 2010 release of the next Microsoft OS.
Are you kidding me! We have finally found the perfect iPod killer! This is something Microsoft has been after for a long time (not to mention Sony, Creative, Samsung, and many others). The iPod it self will create it's own demise. Some one should call Microsoft and tell them to start selling iPods so that they can kill it faster.
We are the Borg...
Holy cow, it's been a long time since I've seen someone actually refer to the computer line as "Macintosh" as opposed to just a Mac. My first impression when I read the stub was "Apple has increased its sales of Monochrome IIGS systems? How?!"
Back on topic, Apple has been smart to diversify a little, but even the article mentions that the new features of iPods (eg, Touch) are meant to appeal to existing iPod owners, meaning they want existing customers to buy even more iPods. It also worked with the iPhone and the Shuffle, where fashion-conscious current iPod owners went out and bought "the next thing," but is this strategy really sustainable? How much longer can Apple really keep selling to the same hardcore user group before enough of them say "I have enough trendy mp3 players."
I don't really consider marginal improvements and marginal innovations that appeal to the same core group to be really sustainable over the long term. What they need to do is find the next "trendy gadget" line. That isn't mp3 players. Until they find out what the next "big thing" is and trend-itize that, their investment in other revenue streams (at least the ones that are still dependent upon popularity growth in mp3, like iTunes) is still susceptible to market growth deceleration. Bravo for making your computers popular again with all that iPod money though.
because the business model includes making the product fail often enough that the consumers will constantly have to buy new ones.
It used to work for cars until this company called Toyota came along and ruined everything. Maybe I'm just cynical.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Apple, for me, has proven capable of continuing to generate revenue, even though I bought a product which was still more than functional and adequate to my purposes. My 20 gig iPod was plenty for what I wanted and I was very happy with it. Then they released the iPod Touch (iPhone not available (officially) north of the border, or this would be a comment about the iPhone...). It's basically the same thing with some fancy bells and whistles added on. Really fancy bells and whistles. Really, really fancy. No. I mean REALLY fancy. Fancy enough that I dropped the cash, bought the iPod Touch, and haven't regretted it once since I bought it. It's the same thing as what I had but enough of an advancement that it was worth "wasting" money on an upgrade.
So long as Apple continues to upgrade the product line like this, they'll do fine. Offer more, better, and fancier, and people will upgrade. In my opinion.
Apple is driving the market and has been doing so since introducing the iMac. Apple invests in technology years in advance while the Dells and HPs are running their businesses on a quarterly basis.
The punditry will be surprised when they finally notice Apple's growth in the enterprise, at 2-3 times the industry rate. Anyone who's paying attention will realize that the features and capabilities that will make Apple unstoppable in the enterprise in a few years are being designed into Apple products today.
Similar things can be said for Apple TV's prospects for becoming a more ubiquitous consumer appliance - but don't be surprised if even Apple TV shows up in the enterprise, as a device to stream corporate training podcasts hosted on a MacOS X Server.
Apple introduces useful new capabilities that provide compelling reasons to buy new Apple products. What compelling reason is there to upgrade Windows PCs, other than for the sake of upgrading?
Apple now has two highly successful, separate platforms that feed one another: it's iPod/iPhone platform (handheld) and its Mac platform (PC). As others have noted, the iPod isn't going anywhere; the iPhone/iTouch sub-platform is very compelling and has a lot of room to grow; the Mac is enjoying growth unprecedented in the platform's history (to my chagrin, largely thanks to Apple's defection to Intel, which allows people to replace their PCs with Mactels). The substantial growth seen in Mac market share will cause developers to take the platform a lot more seriously than they have in the past and may spur traditionally unfriendly developers to enter the Mac market. Apple's corporate image is great in most quarters. Now I'd love to see a consumer Mac tower for those who are never going to buy iMacs, but that's probably not coming any time soon.
Part of the hardcore faithful who believed in Apple long before it was cool again to do so
Hooray! Apple lowered the price on SOMETHING. Oh, it was the lame shuffle with no screen or any features to it? Who cares? I think most of their stuff is overpriced to begin with. The iPod now seems more of a fashion accessory than a necessity to me. (I am not an apple hater)
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
OK, take off your tinfoil hat for a moment and consider the state of manufacturing in the US circa approximately 1970. There were several things working against the US auto manufacturers at the time that were irrelevant (or even favorable) to the imports:
So while it is very popular to bash on American car companies, I say that at least some of this is unfounded. People really need to take in the full situation to understand why things are the way they are (and were). And on top of that, I know of plenty of US cars on the road daily that are over 20 years old.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Dang! I remember wanting to buy an 80 column card for my s-100 buss and agonizing over whether to get one using 5x7 dot matrix or go for broke with 6x8 dot matrix. Or possibly building my own using the TV_typewriter cookbook.
By the way, please advise, Should I get the new fangled double-buffered version or try to write to memory during the re-trace?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Hilarious...
http://www.thestreet.com/video/index.html?bcpid=1078966384&bclid=1137812485&bctid=1517472316
"Those are not computers. Those are things that parents use.
They're not computers. These are these devices that parents got because maybe they got talked into it, or because they didn't understand what was cool, but they're not computers.
A computer is a Mac, um... and, you know, like an iPod is your music device, a Mac is your computer, and these other things are just things that were from another day. They might as well be typewriters to these kids, and I just can't emphasize enough that when Apple goes down, like it reports this week, and I'm sitting here thinking, please report a number that people hate, because this is, again, the new iteration, now it just really started shipping in volume in October/November, so the beginning was the holiday season, and a lot of people weren't wise to it, um... the true acceleration began in February. So I mean, there'll be a lot of people who say, "I missed it, I missed it, I missed it" as they did say with the iPod. And the stock's still down substantially from where the iPhone had taken it, but... It only takes one session of watching your kid, to know that the other companies who make these devices, are no longer relevant."
I have met Amazon.com's DRM-FREE MP3 downloads and Steve Jobs is no longer my lord and saviour.
I find this utterly astonishing, if you're referring to compressed music. Even uncompressed, that's an enormous collection at your fingertips. Do you really listen to all that music? If so, I have concerns about: a) your hearing, as damage is related to length of exposure; b) your mental health, as locked away in a private auditory world is ultimately alienating; c) your substitution of listening for creation (i.e. you don't make any music); d) your identity being somehow reliant on your consumption of music; e) your inability to make a decision and just pick a playlist for the road. If you aren't listening to it all, yet must carry it around with you, you're engaged in a strange variant of conspicuous consumption.
Okay, that's partly facetious, except for the hearing bit, and don't take it personally, I direct my concerns to all those I see lost in earphone land (disclaimer: I have one too). There are lots of reasons to have all that space used: you're an ethnographer studying music; you're a musician using it for reference; you're backing up hard drives; you're storing video. All of which is perfectly reasonable for requiring 60GB.
Damn those pesky terrorists
He wants ACCESS TO HIS ENTIRE LIBRARY, at ALL TIMES. No, he doesn't PLAY HIS ENTIRE LIBRARY at all times.
He's not alone.
-
damaged by dogma
Fancy enough that I convinced my semi-retired dad that if all he needed to do was travel lightly and surf the web and do email, take short notes, reference maps and view documents and photos, he didn't need a laptop. He got an iPod touch instead, and is more than pleased. It's better than a laptop, because he's more likely to have it when he needs it. Much better than the blackberry option too, once you get used to the keyboard.
Damn those pesky terrorists
How about instead of superficially keeping the high price of iPods stagnate by re-releasing and "upgrading" the player every year, Apple just lets it fall into a more comfortable range?
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
I almost went mac this year in a serious way. The prices were about right and I was tired of the hassles of the OSS world. Why didn't I go mac?
I went to a very nice mac store, 3 times. The first time I asked one of the sales people a question I knew the answer to. I could see in her face she didn't know the answer. Instead of telling me that she gave me wrong information that could have cost me money. The 3rd time I went back I spent a lot of time playing on one of their systems to get a feel for it. I liked it very much. I didn't like the idea of having to relearn everything to migrate and I thought Ubuntu is very nice. Then a young clerk with a snotty attitude asked me to get off the chair I was using to check out the computer. I guess I wasn't as important as the class they were holding in the store. I figure if I was going to deal with snotty 20 somethings I should do it with the linux community and save myself a grand.
Then I wanted an MP3 player.
I was seriously considering an iPod.
Then I found out I could not use iTunes on Ubuntu without an emulator. Then I read a few "fuck you" articles from the mac high priesthood addressed to linux people who used iPods. then I read articles about how the iPod would get changes making more work necessary to get it going with linux.
I went on the ubuntuforums got some recommendations for linux friendly mp3 players. Then I bought a used one for $50 that does everything the iPod would have done for me and more.
Windows performed in the past? When did that happen?
I must have blinked. Did anyone get a screenshot?
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Right on. I didn't want to pay for a new 8GB iPod, so I bought an 8GB "refurbished" which looks brand new but cost about the same as a 4GB new one. It would sure suck for an MP3 player to be confined to one app, but fortunately the iPod is not that player because I found at least 2 pretty decent (non-iTunes) iPod apps (among several mediocre ones), and chose the better one.
I notice you don't say what kind of player you got, but simply that "the interface is fine". I haven't seen any MP3 player with a half-decent interface that isn't an iPod, so if there was another one, I'd love to hear about it, but I doubt it exists. Good work, though: you're playing off the classic "Apple is expensive!" meme, while not giving slashdot readers an alternative to pick apart. That's the sort of vague memethink that gets you to +5!
Apple has a good schtick going on. I don't know why anybody would buy a new Mac or iPod when you can save a ton of money buying one a couple months old (but which looks brand new). But apparently most people want that new-Mac-smell because their refurb and clearance pages are almost always full.
You know, sometimes the "unit growth" metric ticks me off. Markets saturate, get over it.
Apple's laughing all the way to the bank because they still sold over 10 million players AND managed to make even more money on those sales than they have previously. Every other tech company in existence would see their revenue shrink (but not their profits, if they're good) due to price cuts and whatnot.
Last I checked, Apple's still selling more iPods in a quarter than MS has sold Zunes, ever, and by a healthy margin. I'd hardly call it a "slump".
If Apple's success is so heavily dependent on a single product I think they've got more important things to worry about.
Honestly, I think this is a problem with American companies and media. All they seem to care about is that one hit. They're desperate to come up with the one product that will ensure success, at least temporarily. Because then all too often they seem content to rest on their laurels or worse go to extreme lengths to prevent competition.
So what do we constantly hear from the media, nonsense about this-killer and that-killer, how a particular product is going to change everything and there apparently is little patience for methodical, evolving improvements.
The iPod didn't just fall out of Apple's collective ass. It really was the embodiment of Apple's design philosophy and corporate vision. It also helped that Apple actually had the resources to design the device, develop the software and actually have a direct hand in it's manufacture.
Contrast that with other companies who claim they want to develop something to compete with the iPod. In many cases, like Microsoft, they take an existing product, a Toshiba MP3 player, and customize it for their use. For that reason alone it will never be as well integrated as the iPod.
In many other cases companies will take existing products, particularly Chinese-made products, rebrand them, maybe modify the external design slightly, and resell them here. So the American consumer gets stuck with a subpar product. In the short-term the company earns some easy money but in the long-term they've hurt their brand.
There are many other issues here, but this is one of the bigger problems I see afflicting American companies. Many American companies don't actually make anything anymore. They've effectively dumping the engineering and manufacturing core of the business and have focused almost completely on marketing. Innovation seems to only exist within marketing departments. They're constantly hunting for new advertising gimmick to sucker people into buying more of the same.
Instead of taking the approach of focusing on quality at a premium they're still trying to compete on price. Then they wonder why they lose to the, usually foreign, competition. And when things go south they always blame everyone and everything but their own decision-making. Granted, I'm over-simplifying a bit, but I do think it's a big problem nonetheless.
I totally expect some new iPod models this fall which will make all other iPods look clunky and obsolete. Face it, the only reason why there wasn't much of a growth is because the latest crop of lower end iPod updates are incremental at best. The Touch helped to prop things up, but I think they could have done much better sales wise if their resources weren't stretched as thin as they were for the last 9 months or so.
Have you seen the recent news about food prices in Asia? Rice prices have doubled and people are starting to protest and even riot. If the current trends continue, including the short sightedness of trying to use food as fuel, that emerging market could collapse rather quickly.
We are *so* insulated here in the US and Europe. Food prices have inched up here, but nothing like what they've done in developing parts of the world. Maybe we should stop paying farmers to NOT grow food, then maybe people will be able to afford iPods in other parts of the world.
Then again, as others have pointed out in this discussion, they are more likely to buy cheap fakes anyways.
I use a new MacBook Pro because I wanted the snazziest laptop I could get (bought in early 2007)
My G5 iMac is still running fine and is my media server (bought in late 2004)
My G4 PowerBook is still running fine and is my print server. (bought in early 2002)
My G3 Blueberry iMac is still working but its getting replaced because my friend has no more use for it because it sucks too much power. (bought in 1996)
Though I will admit that my old Mac (a 7200 I seem to remember dimly) died in 2002.
On the other hand both my wife's Windows eMacine and my own Linux eMachines went down and needed replacement of some parts after a year or so.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
The other thing you've forgotten is that until this time the car companies had worked closely with the Union of Auto Workers to provide very generous pensions, healthcare, etc for their employees, and through the UAW's monopoly on the industry, basically subsidized all of these things by charging higher prices for cars. This was fine with the Big Three in Detroit, since starting up a car manufacturing firm required a ton of capital (I think GM was the world's bigger corporation at one point), so that even if you wanted to undercut them on prices you wouldn't be able to start operating.
Enter Japanese auto firms, with smaller margins, lower overhead, and government assistance with pensions and healthcare, and the rest is history.
entirely. Awesome, which is why I load all of my electronica onto my iPods from CDs. Mac sales have gone up, most likely to the yuppies who cannot sync the Itunes software to a Windows box and decide to buy the Mac due to the customer support representative with Mac stating, "it works better with a Mac," or the idiots logical thought process that decides a Mac is a cost effective option (cough, cough). ... or because their experience with Apple products is light years ahead of their experience with the bargain-basement electronics companies that try to push their hacked-together products as computing solutions for the masses? Buying a Mac is for the glorified rich who eat too many donuts and watch too much TV. If you enjoy my lovely view of the world, read my blog. No thanks.
What's really funny about this is that you seem to have it totally backwards. Your attitude puts you smack dab in the middle of the Mac stereotype.
Check out stuffwhitepeoplelike sometime. The Mac user is supposed to be a yuppie elitist who likes to brag about not owning a TV, drives a Hybrid, shops at flea markets, participates in athletic activities for fun (jogging, cycling, etc), listens to electronic music, and generally disdains middle america. In other words, you.
I'm a Mac user, but I guess it all makes sense because I'm a Bay Area elitist who drives a BMW and commuted 60 miles to work by bicycle today.
My only failing is that I refuse to apologize for the fact that I watch TV when I have nothing better to do.
That is a very good point that I neglected to mention. I suspect we've probably both seen the numbers on how much of an American car's retail price goes towards paying the pensions of workers that are no longer on the assembly line. Starting a car manufacturing company is another interesting historical note, particularly if one compares how many were active pre-WWII to how many exist in this country now.
And your point on the lower costs shouldered by the Japanese firms is dead-on. I have often wondered why the people who want to see universal health care don't push more on the fact that it could well ease the burden that it places on the manufacturing sectors in this country. I think it even came up in a previous slashdot disucssion on universal healthcare.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Bah, I don't like Mac's because they cost too much money. Maybe someday, when I can afford such items that cost $$$ like BMW's, Mac's and Hybrids; I still don't think I will be like you. Some urban class idiot who needs a fancy car and to ride a bike to work to feel some sense of accomplishment for the lack of diversity, the lack of creativity and true accomplishment in the Silicon Valley; the place that sucks your life out of your soul and slowly kills you day by day. (Can you tell I live here too).
While it's true that Apple does a lot less pure research than it did in the 90's
Apple didn't do much "pure research" even in the 90's, and there has been essentially nothing since. That's particularly galling because Apple has been using so much of the results of academic and other people's corporate research.
Microsoft is evil when it comes to their business practices, but they at least employ a lot of computer scientists and have some programs to support academic research. Apple just leeches off other people's results. Any academic computer scientist who supports Apple is a fool: if all computer companies were as stingy as Apple, computer science would cease to exist.
which player is that that you have?
I want to use FLAC everywhere, but there's a problem. Each song is about 50MB (or so). This means I can fit about 4 albums on a 2GB player. It kind of destroys the utility of a personal music player.
In practice this means that unless you have a 20+ GB player, FLAC is not terribly useful.
I agree with your point, by the way. If the iPod support WMA and FLAC, it would be perfect. As it is, it's just "really good".
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
http://www.ipodjuice.com/?gclid=CJ_-8IuF9ZICFQN-lgodtw1TGA http://www.ipodbatterydepot.com/index.asp?en=google&pl=&no=3&n=specificmatch&at=3-ipodbatteries-ad-3.5&gclid=CPCt-P-E9ZICFRcdsgodpCD7GQ http://mp3.longlast-battery.com/Scripts/default.asp don't say i never did anything for ya.
Bah. Macs don't cost that much money, especially when you consider how long you could be using them. Extreme case might be me; my work machine is a Sawtooth G4 running Tiger. With a tiny bit of fiddling, it does what I need to do just fine. The Sawtooth is what, 9 years old? Yeah...not too expensive. Show me someone who's using a 9-year-old knockoff PC in the same capacity I'm using that Sawtooth, and I'll show you a damn liar.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
I prefer buying DRM free 256k MP3s from Amazon. The last 4 albums I've purchased in electronic format have been from there. I buy CDs if I want to make sure I have a physical backup of the music.
First of all your computer is an old piece of shit and nobody would want to use it except for you.
But, if you insist, A 9 year old PC that cost as much as your Mac would be a dual-proc ~1Ghz Pentium III and would be perfectly adequate for WinXP/Office use at least.
It's not like there's some special "apple magic" that makes hardware last longer. They used good components and made you pay for them.
I'm sure an iPod would go nicely with my MBP, but for some reason I have more problems committing to a $200 purchase than a $1800 one.
And that, my friend, is why the rest of us consider most Mac people to be arogant braggards.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Ipod's will continue to sell to yuppies who enjoy paying for an overpriced mp3 player with a network of music that lacks diversity to foreign markets. As a US consume I can enjoy not having access to England, Hollands and Germany's fine selections of electronica, which Itunes America lacks almost entirely.
Mac sales have gone up, most likely to the yuppies who cannot sync the Itunes software to a Windows box and decide to buy the Mac due to the customer support representative with Mac stating, "it works better with a Mac," or the idiots logical thought process that decides a Mac is a cost effective option (cough, cough).
Buying a Mac is for the glorified rich who eat too many donuts and watch too much TV. If you enjoy my lovely view of the world, read my blog.
http://pupples.blogspot.com/ Read your blog? Why? To see more ignorant comments such as above? You do realize that you can load ANY MP3 or CD into your ipod right? Unlike those "plays for sure, until microsoft turns out the DRM lights"?
iTunes works the same on the mac and the pc. Perhaps people are buying macs because they are tired of the bloat and virii on windows.
Why don't you put your "blog"up on myspace? it will fit right in with the 90's geocities, flaming skull pages of the time. Troll on dude. Troll on.
Sociometric firms and national security agencies will pony up for ipod playlists so that they can cross reference them with other disparate sources of personal/behavioral information. That's worth more than the music downloads, ipods and replacement batteries combined.
If Big Media is the Harvester of Eyes, does that make Apple an arms dealer?
NEED music? Try again...
You have a bad attitude.
Mac sales have gone up, most likely to the yuppies who cannot sync the Itunes software to a Windows box and decide to buy the Mac due to the customer support representative with Mac stating, "it works better with a Mac," or the idiots logical thought process that decides a Mac is a cost effective option (cough, cough).I bought my first Mac in November of 2006. At the time, the MacBook was considered the best notebook, as it was very powerful, thin, and rated as the best Vista notebook (with Bootcamp.) Considering Vista's poor reputation; I decided that it was worth trying MacOS, after all, I'd still be able to run Vista if I wanted to.
Overall, I'm happier with my Mac then with my Windows computers; however, Mac does have its issues. Apple's development environment is about 10 years behind Microsoft's development environment. Mac mail doesn't work on Leopard. (I met one of the developers... He gave me a bunch of lame excuses.)
Yet, even with Mac's flaws, I'm still happier using it over Windows! I ended up replacing my Creative Nomad with an iPod because I got fed up with my Nomad's crash-prone syncronization procedure. Granted, there are a few features from the Nomad that I miss; but overall, the iPod is much easier to use.
No, I will not work for your startup
I actually as a result of these positive reviews of mac have brought me closer to actually purchasing one. I did always hate how macs were more expensive then pc's, but that doesn't seem to be the case today if you consider you are using the computer for 4-5 years.
I guess I expect better from Slashdot. Foolish me, I guess. But I had always expected that Nerds, Engineers, would be able to better analyze data and draw conclusions about it.
Let's define collapse: A collapse is a dramatic drop in population, numbers, etc. In this case it is the population of iPods sold each and every quarter.
Have iPod unit sales dropped this quarter? Nope, they actually increased. Was that increase statistically meaningful? Nope, but it was an increase.
Now, how about iPod revenues? Have they increased? Guess what, they have! The total revenues for iPods has continued to increase.
Now, if you wanted to talk about the drop in iPod unit or revenue growth over time, I would agree that this has happened. Was it a collapse? I would argue not. It has been an ongoing leveling off moving to a steady state replacement rate.
Face it, the iPod is a mature market. Folks aren't out there buying there first iPod (or even their second or third). We are looking at a replacement market. One where folks are looking at upgrading (or truly replacing because it broke, was lost, etc. their iPod.
But the iPod market is bigger than that of just iPod players. It is about iTunes for music and video, it is about accessories, etc. Apple has created a vibrant and significant business here. Is it going to grow like it did in the past? No way. But it will continue to throw off significant free cash flow, which can be invested in new businesses or returned to shareholders (via share buy backs [most likely] or a dividend).
Apple's immediate term growth opportunities are the Mac and iPhone platforms. Both are growing significantly and are supported by and support the iPod business.
Longer term, their drive to become "The American Sony" and be the leading consumer electronics company will continue and develop. AppleTV will someday be significant, and when it is, it will have build on a foundation provided by the iPod and iPhone.
So, let's get this right: How will Apple deal with a mature iPod business? Pretty damn well.
Cheers -
Jordan
I think they'll deal with this the way they dealt with the iPod for the last six years or so: they'll bring in something new with some cool feature, drop the price on the older model, probably drop the shuffle and figure out how to sell a nano with a screen and GPS and HDTV for $100.
I'm reminded of the rumor that the old iPhone 1.0 might not disappear, but be reborn as a subsidized AT&T phone while iPhone 2.0 has a faster network and GPS and.. HDTV. Or whatever the gnomes of Cupertino have in store.
In ten years, why not a $100 iPhone/iPod/GPS/Gameboy/TV/Tricorder? Then where's the "iPod slump"? You'd think after so many years, Jobs wouldn't surprise you guys anymore.