Slashdot Mirror
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."
What about an 80-column card? (If you get that, I know how old you are...)
> Do you bitch about the battery on your motherboard to?
No, because that one is user-replaceable...
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
" 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.
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...
OTOH, Apple's been around for nearly a decade longer than Dell, and people have been predicting Apple's demise since before even Dvorak began his torrent of verbal excrement. And yet, Apple has managed to persevere and surprise all of us over and over again. You may not like Apple, but you can't deny that they know how to weather ups and downs. Steve Jobs seems especially good at getting people excited about even their mundane products. I think Dell should be looking at Apple.
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!
Or is this the one which was supposed to hit two years ago? Or the one from last year?
No, no, you're getting that confused with the Year of the Linux Desktop(TM) again. Keep it straight, man!
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?
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.
Kiteboarding Gear Mention slashdot and get 10% off!
1.5 billion people who are happy with fakes. Have you been to China and seen their middle class buying habits? Many of them don't even know there is a real difference between the Apple product and the fake.
Apple is pretty good at planning things but they are secretive so you don't know what they are planning. The iPhone was in development for 2 years before they announced it last January. And the only reason they announced it 6 months before they were able to sell it was that Apple had to apply for a FCC license on it.
Over 10 years ago, Apple bought NeXT to save themselves. Some analysts couldn't understand why Apple with it's faltering personal computer product line would buy a Unix computer company whose product line wasn't very successful. Was Apple going to start selling 2 product lines? What few understood was Apple bought NeXT for their OS expertise not their hardware business. That expertise became OS X.
Just yesterday, Apple bought PA Semi. This slump might be something that planned for a long time and PA Semi is just the start. We don't know what Apple has in store for PA Semi if NeXT is a good example.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
While I don't own a Mac Book Pro, and I haven't looked at its specs
when I first saw those commercials, I immediately though Wow!!! I remember ads for laptops and luggables in the late 80's/early 90's -- they didn't fit in no inter-office envelope.
I know someone a few years ago who bought himself an Apple laptop, because he was frustrated with his Windows laptop work provided. He seemed to think it was well worth the money, as it just worked.
I honestly can't say if it's a lot of hype and hot air or not
I guess it's all a matter of what you want and need.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Actually I think he has it right. THIS is always the year of the linux desktop. Apple will always be bankrupt by NEXT year. And the next version of windows will be the most secure ever.
Apple could likely make just as much money with a slower rate of new products coming out. However, that would make it far easier for competitors to catch up.
Microsoft's second generation Zune, had it arrived a year earlier, would have been competitive hardware wise with the then current iPods. As it was, Apple's rapid upgrading left it looking like nothing special.
The old Apple of the late 80s basically stopped the frantic pace of upgrades, and that's exactly what allowed Microsoft to catch up over a ten year period from 1985-1995. The bumper sticker that said "Windows 95 = Mac 89" was funny, but the sad part was that Mac 89 wasn't so far behind Mac 95.
Now the tables are turned, and Microsoft is the one coasting along on past performance, allowing Apple to catch up and surpass it.
Windows Vista, 7, and Singularity: The New Copland, Gershwin, Taligent
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.
>I'm not even confined to one vendor for application and use.
Spoken as the non-iPod owner you are. Buy music from Amazon and put it in the iPod? How about free podcasts? Audible.com? Transcode your own movies? Download mp4s from bittorrent and play them in your Touch/iPod video? Free apps for jailbroken iPhones/iTouches? All of the above work for me, zero worries. Notice how I can fill my iPod to the brim without even mentioning the iTunes store?
And then, I still that option if I want to exercise it to get commercial music, latest movies an option that you certainly don't have. It might be "absurdly high" for you, it's absurdly convenient for me.
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.
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.