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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."
> Do you bitch about the battery on your motherboard to?
No, because that one is user-replaceable...
You could check out the Cowon Q5W. It competes with the high-end Archos PMPs. I have a Cowon A2 and for the kind of player it is, it's easily the best one I've used. Though the next player I plan on getting will be Cowon's successor to the D2, whatever that will be, as the idea of just swapping out high-capacity SD cards works for me.
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The 3rd-party iPod battery market has been over-saturated for years. You can get a new battery for any iPod model, including the tools needed to perform the replacement, for under $30 dollars.
ENDUT! HOCH HECH!
Lucky you. The mommyboard battery on the older Compaq Deskpro I have at home is spot-welded in place. :-(
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
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I've replaced the battery in my 1st gen mini twice by myself. the company i ordered the battery from ($9 btw) even included the tools to open the mini's case without damaging it.
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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
Apple should be looking at Dell as a cautionary tale of what can happen if your company doesn't expand their business. I don't think I made that clear. Dell is trying to expand but haven't had much success in other products other than computers.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
And there you have the answer. The smaller iPods will remain, but the real money is in the new convergence wireless touch devices. Once those hit $250-300 in decent sizes (and that will probably happen in the next iteration - the 8 gig is already $300), and the SDK means that there will be games and apps and allsorts, who wouldn't want one? There have been promises of such devices from companies like Nokia, and the PSP is probably the closest, but the iPod Touch and iPhone look like the first real winners.
(FD: I bought a 16 gig, but gave it to my wife so I had an excuse to buy a 32gig - it's enough for the essentials. I'll have to find someone else that needs a gift when the 64gig comes out)
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Most? No. I've been working or playing with IBM PC-compatibles since I was 12 when Dad brought a second-hand 286 home from work. I've never seen a single battery that was welded in. Anecdotal evidence, of course, but I've laid eyes on easily hundreds of different mainboards. I certainly wouldn't purchase a board where you couldn't replace the only piece guaranteed to die in ~5 years.
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Lucky you. The mommyboard battery on the older Compaq Deskpro I have at home is spot-welded in place. :-(
Most of those are not spot welded in place. After working in a repair shop for many years, I noticed it was common for many of the coin cells to have spot welded terminals which are then simply soldered onto the PCB. A soldering iron replaces these with ease if you have any soldering skill. Often a standard coin cell socket will go in it's place. Leaving out the socket is a cost cutting move an is seen only on the lowest quality boards made. The battery is replaceable, but not by breaking off it's terminals. Congratulations on getting one of these cheap motherboards. Many of these expect a battery life of about 5 years which is past warranty.
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