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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.
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.
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?
Your argument is like renting a 5' by 10' apartment on the reasoning that you can just store everything you're not using in a storage unit, then haul it in when you need it. When you finish watching TV, just carry the whole TV and stand out and bring in your bookshelf so you can do some reading.
Klingon programs don't timeshare, they battle for supremacy.
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.
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.