The.1% figure refers to the manufacturing defect that causes screens to crack, not the scratching issue. Anyway, Apple has said it will replace 100% of the nanos with this problem. That is the most relevant statistic. Even if all units were defective, it's on them. I've been planning to buy a nano as a gift this upcoming holiday season. This promise by Apple is enough to give me assurance to go ahead with those plans.
The are different ways for Apple to come up with the statistic. They could take samples from the production line and identify the percentage of problem units. Alternatively, the problem could have been traced to a particular batch of screens amounting to.1% units shipped, all of which are defective. But, again, I don't really care as long as a bad unit will get replaced.
Apple knows what it is doing. Jobs just made a statement about this yesterday in reponse to an interview question. He said that there is not much demand for it. I assume that Apple understands the market dynamics quite well. If lack of radio tuner were really a deal-breaker for a lot of people, Apple would include one. So, however strong your desire for radio may be, you are in a distinct minority.
Apple also said that Podcasting offers a better way to get programming onto iPods.
For those who really want live radio capabilities, there are third-party add-ons for iPods and, of course, other mp3 players. For the rest of us, why clutter up the product? Feature creep is not without negative consequences.
Apple has plenty of power here. The comment by Jobs today marked a willingness to take the argument over pricing to the public. Record labels may own the content, but they aren't likely to want their already terrible public image to be trampled on further. Jobs is a powerful spokesman, and he can hit the recalcitrant labels hard if he wants to. He was careful to warn that people will turn to illegal music downloading if prices are not reasonable, a not very subtle point that happens to be true. I am sure that the labels do not want Jobs reminding everyone about this option.
Besides, as the recent New York Times article noted, two of the four major labels are not in favor of changing the pricing structure at present. EMI said, for example, that they want to encourage the growth of the downloading market. So the alignment of powers is not what you suggest.
The point is that the design work for the iTunes Music Store is done by Apple. Bandwidth costs are paid by Apple. When all is said and done, the labels marginal cost is only the royalty payments.
Now a couple of the record labels are coming along and demanding that Apple raise prices. They are just being greedy, like Jobs says, and he says that knowing what it costs Apple to run the iTMS.
Out of that 99 cents, Apple has very little left to give. The labels get 70 cents, and Apple has other costs to cover. In the end, Apple gets less than 10 cents per song. The iTunes music store finally started turning a small profit in the last quarter.
NPR is not directly responsible for many of the programs you mention as they are created and produced by NPR member stations. These programs set their own policies for making podcasts available.
NPR itself has to deal with rather complicated set of factors. They have a bunch of dues-paying member stations who pay quite a lot to get programs like All Things Considered and Morning Edition. The member stations are not too keen on NPR making free podcasts of these programs available. They pay the bills and lose listeners in the process.
These member stations also have to pay for programs like Prairie Home Companion and This American Life. This is perhaps why these programs are available for sale and can be streamed but not downloaded as a podcast.
Yet, there is evidence that NPR is moving toward having podcasts of is news programs. They recently dropped their deal with Audible.com, which was selling their programming. We have yet to see what will replace this service. It may very well be podcasts, but they will need to work with member stations to do this in a way that doesn't undermine the whole system. Sponsorship of the podcasts is one possibility, and Jobs has said that he sees the podcasts on iTunes moving in this direction.
So, what higher capacity, flash-based player are you buying?
Apple is so "behind". Right. Then why are the iRiver folks pissed at Samsung? They now can't compete with anything based on flash and they know it. They are the ones scrambling to keep up. Apple just threw out the player that they were all trying to beat, the iPod mini, and completely changed the marketplace.
Why is this modded insightful? It is a tired, old complaint.
"The iPod would be great if it only had [fill in the blank]." Of course, to satisfy all the random little requests that people seem to think are so darn important, the iPod would have to be packed full of all kinds of crap. The best way to judge a device is not to add up the number of functions.
It is quite obvious that the "lack" of an FM tuner does not matter to the vast majority of the marketplace or else they would not buy iPods. Most people, in the U.S. anyway, want to escape the crap on the airwaves. Podcasting makes live radio even less relevant. TiVo is popular for a reason. We can watch what we want, when we want, and we can skip the commercials. Podcasting gives us that with radio.
If you really, really need radio, that's fine. Buy something else or get the appropriate accessory, but I for one am glad that Apple doesn't load up the iPod with a bunch unnecessary crap.
When I go to a record store or large retailer, the new releases are always being sold at a special discount price. Later, they go up in price, not down. Why would the record companies be pushing something that is inconsistent with the way they sell the physical CDs.
One other other point: if prices are going up I want higher quality tracks. $1.49 is way too much for 128kbps.
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The .1% figure refers to the manufacturing defect that causes screens to crack, not the scratching issue. Anyway, Apple has said it will replace 100% of the nanos with this problem. That is the most relevant statistic. Even if all units were defective, it's on them. I've been planning to buy a nano as a gift this upcoming holiday season. This promise by Apple is enough to give me assurance to go ahead with those plans.
.1% units shipped, all of which are defective. But, again, I don't really care as long as a bad unit will get replaced.
The are different ways for Apple to come up with the statistic. They could take samples from the production line and identify the percentage of problem units. Alternatively, the problem could have been traced to a particular batch of screens amounting to
Apple knows what it is doing. Jobs just made a statement about this yesterday in reponse to an interview question. He said that there is not much demand for it. I assume that Apple understands the market dynamics quite well. If lack of radio tuner were really a deal-breaker for a lot of people, Apple would include one. So, however strong your desire for radio may be, you are in a distinct minority.
Apple also said that Podcasting offers a better way to get programming onto iPods.
For those who really want live radio capabilities, there are third-party add-ons for iPods and, of course, other mp3 players. For the rest of us, why clutter up the product? Feature creep is not without negative consequences.
Apple has plenty of power here. The comment by Jobs today marked a willingness to take the argument over pricing to the public. Record labels may own the content, but they aren't likely to want their already terrible public image to be trampled on further. Jobs is a powerful spokesman, and he can hit the recalcitrant labels hard if he wants to. He was careful to warn that people will turn to illegal music downloading if prices are not reasonable, a not very subtle point that happens to be true. I am sure that the labels do not want Jobs reminding everyone about this option.
Besides, as the recent New York Times article noted, two of the four major labels are not in favor of changing the pricing structure at present. EMI said, for example, that they want to encourage the growth of the downloading market. So the alignment of powers is not what you suggest.
The point is that the design work for the iTunes Music Store is done by Apple. Bandwidth costs are paid by Apple. When all is said and done, the labels marginal cost is only the royalty payments.
Now a couple of the record labels are coming along and demanding that Apple raise prices. They are just being greedy, like Jobs says, and he says that knowing what it costs Apple to run the iTMS.
Out of that 99 cents, Apple has very little left to give. The labels get 70 cents, and Apple has other costs to cover. In the end, Apple gets less than 10 cents per song. The iTunes music store finally started turning a small profit in the last quarter.
NPR is not directly responsible for many of the programs you mention as they are created and produced by NPR member stations. These programs set their own policies for making podcasts available.
NPR itself has to deal with rather complicated set of factors. They have a bunch of dues-paying member stations who pay quite a lot to get programs like All Things Considered and Morning Edition. The member stations are not too keen on NPR making free podcasts of these programs available. They pay the bills and lose listeners in the process.
These member stations also have to pay for programs like Prairie Home Companion and This American Life. This is perhaps why these programs are available for sale and can be streamed but not downloaded as a podcast.
Yet, there is evidence that NPR is moving toward having podcasts of is news programs. They recently dropped their deal with Audible.com, which was selling their programming. We have yet to see what will replace this service. It may very well be podcasts, but they will need to work with member stations to do this in a way that doesn't undermine the whole system. Sponsorship of the podcasts is one possibility, and Jobs has said that he sees the podcasts on iTunes moving in this direction.
So, what higher capacity, flash-based player are you buying? Apple is so "behind". Right. Then why are the iRiver folks pissed at Samsung? They now can't compete with anything based on flash and they know it. They are the ones scrambling to keep up. Apple just threw out the player that they were all trying to beat, the iPod mini, and completely changed the marketplace.
Why is this modded insightful? It is a tired, old complaint. "The iPod would be great if it only had [fill in the blank]." Of course, to satisfy all the random little requests that people seem to think are so darn important, the iPod would have to be packed full of all kinds of crap. The best way to judge a device is not to add up the number of functions. It is quite obvious that the "lack" of an FM tuner does not matter to the vast majority of the marketplace or else they would not buy iPods. Most people, in the U.S. anyway, want to escape the crap on the airwaves. Podcasting makes live radio even less relevant. TiVo is popular for a reason. We can watch what we want, when we want, and we can skip the commercials. Podcasting gives us that with radio. If you really, really need radio, that's fine. Buy something else or get the appropriate accessory, but I for one am glad that Apple doesn't load up the iPod with a bunch unnecessary crap.
When I go to a record store or large retailer, the new releases are always being sold at a special discount price. Later, they go up in price, not down. Why would the record companies be pushing something that is inconsistent with the way they sell the physical CDs. One other other point: if prices are going up I want higher quality tracks. $1.49 is way too much for 128kbps.