What do you Think… Mini-iPod?
Comments
I dunno, I think I’m gonna wait for the next media medium to come along, you know blue lasers and crystals and stuff. I think by the time ipod anything comes down to affordable people will be saying “Mp - what?”. In about a hundred years.
And yes, I will be very old.
Well, unfortunately, it’s not $100. It’s $249, but it is indeed 4GB, or about 1000 songs. It’s the exact size of a business card, and half an inch thick. And it comes in snazzy colors. And it’s official name is “iPod mini”.
My issue with it, and I’m sure by summer it will come down--but it’s only $50 away from the smallest capacity iPod--which at this same time they have increased the capacity from 10 to 15GB. $50 for 11more GB of storage. Of course it’s larger, but I’ve never complained or thought that the iPod wasn’t already small enough. 
$250?!?! Thanks, but no thanks, Apple. Were I going to get one I’d definitely spring an extra $50 (or 20%) for 275% of the storage capacity. But, that doesn’t really matter since there ain’t much chance of me forking out $200+ for something like that.
I’m curious about what type of storage mechanism it’s using to get 4GB in a half-inch package. I was expecting it to use something like a microdrive, but I can’t think of what would be that small and still store 4GB. Unless it uses multiple flash cards...?
I really think Apple missed a great opportunity releasing something using a 1-1.5GB microdrive with the expected great Apple interface, but only selling for $100-150. Oh well.
It’s flash based. He commented that they already have 32% of the market share of all MP3 devices, but that 60% of the overall market is “high end flash based” devices.
At $200 for those, they generally hold about 60 songs at full quality. So a jump of $50 isn’t so bad compared to that---but that same logic kind of defeats the iPod mini itself when sitting next to its big brothers.
Now, Jobs DID say that this entire year there would be great new products, rounding out a fabulous 20th anniversary. So it could be that they are just getting their manufacturing costs low enough to release something in the $100 range. I’m presuming that, since he called the iPod mini the “second” member of the iPod family.
Ayear ago i was reading a magazine and saw a picture of this harddrive ibm labs made that was teh size of a quarter and held 1gig of data. It was only 1/8 of an inch thick as i recall… theres no telling the amount of things you can do with it…
if your intersested in small storage check out the archos arcdisk
...*sigh* i tried to use nice titles… it dint woik
What you’re referring to was the IBM “microdrive”, which I mentioned above. It’s now made by Hitachi since they bought IBM’s harddrive unit. Incidentally, it appears that Hitachi does have a 4GB microdrive, so perhaps that’s what’s in the iPod mini? You sure it’s flash-based, Derek?
Cornice is also introducing a drive similar to the microdrive coming in 1.5 and 2.0GB versions. I know it’s slated for use in some portable MP3 players.
(Oh, and as for the “Nice Titles"… it got messed up because you had a “]” character in the title part so it ended early.)
Actually, according to the tech specs for the iPods, the mini is hard drive based.
I wrote a nice little tidbit over on my site about it. More or less, their pricing makes sense. It will create more demand and is better than the Flash Players out there. Manufacturing costs being what they are, they probably could have made it $50 cheaper though. Most of my friends who want iPods would love to have it sub-$200 so they do not go broke buying one.
I already have a second generation 20GB iPod, so I think I am going to hold off and wait for another price drop before exchanging it for a 40GB one. My music collection is already 15GB and I like to back up data on it as well, so an upgrade will be needed eventually.
No, their pricing still doesn’t make sense. They are leveraging that “an extra $50 gives you sixteen times the storage.” Well, *another* $50 increases you another 11GB. It’s priced too close to their larger offerings.
If you were a consumer who really wanted an iPod and you only had, say, 5GB of MP3s, would you buy the one for $250 or for $300? If the $250 was the newest and coolest iPod yet, I think you would go for the $250 even though you are not getting as great a value. The iPod is a lust object and consumers, if they have the choice, will usually go with cheaper over practical value.
I agree that it should have been cheaper, but they are still going to sell these things pretty easily.
I think im on Derek’s line of thinking with this one as well. If its going to have half the good stuff, it needs half the price as well… or 1/4 .. whatevers adaquate. Now im sure it might cost a penny or two more to make something so small.. but then again.. thats what you get into when you try to step into the ultra portalble market. I have a great little wma/mp3 player that i got for $110 a year and a half ago when 128m of usb drive was $99 and it doubles as a usb drive. It was good pricing with hella good sound. (for the time. it still sounds like cd-quality to me with a 64bps wma file). i think the same should apply here. If its going to be in that market.. it needs to play in that market… not try to sell its name… I like apple, but hell quit money gouging guys. (windows is just as bad so i dont wanna hear any XP/OSX llike flame… i like BOTH 
thpppptt)
ok, now why in the name of all thats holy didnt my nicetitle work THAT time....
Well, while I certainly contend that the new iPod is $50 too high, I certainly don’t agree with your sentiment of them to “not money gouge.”
They’re in business. There’s a reason that here, twenty years after they did it before, they’re ahead of everyone else in terms of innovation, technology, and revenue to cost.
And if you think that all Apple does it price things high to make up for what they lack in volume...just wait until you read my post about the keynote address.
Ah Ah Ah… dont put words in muh mouth there.... im just saying their stuff is to high, and stuff like $129 a pop for an os upgrade once a year that you better get if you want ANYTHING new or anymore upgrades what-so-ever is a little steep in addition to the allready investment grade pricing. ( though, ive still got my eyes on a powerbok and im gonna get one, break-the-bank or no)
Nice ad Derek..... but in all seriousness, who really needs to carry an Ipod around anyway? I mean I listen to music in the car, at home, in the bar, on stage(as I am playing). I just don’t see what makes it a neccessity when I aleady have four cd players, a record player, three radios and a guitar. I guess it would be cool to have one, but more than likely it would probably just sit on the dresser. And for 250 bucks I think a couple of lava lamps might look better.
$250 worth of lava lamps? for that much money they had better come with cd players in the bottom.... if not just to add to the stack.
no the whole stigma is based on the fact that you can store around 900 albums in something the size of a pack of ciagarettes and not have to have cd players and most importantly every where you go… theres stereo, computer and car attachments for the ipod, which makes it amazingly handy. Not to mention digital is simply a far to over conveniant way to carry and trade music. Its a revolution thats not going to stop, and that the newest generations among have allready adopted… its no longer in the “going to” stage.
that was ment to say, “and most importantly CDs and CD holders everywhere you go”
No. I mean that music is accessible everywhere I am at any point during the day. I am a guitar player and a guitar is alot bigger than a cd so I don’t mind cds at all. I think it’s just yuppy to want something you don’t really need. If you got no players, then get an ipod, thats cool. But as for me I just don’t need one, no matter what the price is.
Actually, caesar, you’re somewhat making the same case I was originally: it’s simply not worth that much money for me, regardless of how much music it carries. Like you, I don’t really have any specific uses for one.
However, that isn’t necessarily true of other people. What about the businessman who’s always travelling? The cross-country runner? Someone who works at a job that keeps them on the move all day, but where being able to listen to music would be fine. All those would be good targets for a high-quality-, large-capacity device like the iPod.
But not me. Or you, it seems. Obviously, it’s not for everyone. For me, though, if it started getting into the $100-150 range then I might consider getting one simply because occasionally I will have a use for it, even if those times are infrequent. Once the device is inexpensive enough ("enough" being defined by the individual) then it may become something to consider.
well thats why you need an iguitar.. its about the size of a pack of cigarettes and it can hold about 900 full albums of talent in it and uh.....
i got nothin
And not to mention that I do not own 900 albums. I own less than forty with fifteen or so more on my puter. Again I do not need it. Besides I still don’t care for digital recordings and never will. I’ve been in enough recording studios to know that analog is the way to go for sonics reproduction. Even recording analog to digital is better than alot of these all digital recordings springing up nowadays. My point is that .mp3 and .wma, etc; are not my choice deisire for audio storage. The Ipod is cool if you want it, but I just don’t personally care for it.
buy it… BUY IT!!!
By the way Greg… http://www.iguitar.com/iGuitar/iGuitar.asp
those appear be brian moore guitars… which play quite well, but i wouldnt trade my Carvin for one..
those dont LOOK to be the size of a pack of cigarettes so thier OFF MY LIST :thumbsdown:
Well, to me, the whole point of the iPod was that I could use it for *more* than just music, and when I was using it for music, I could use it more intelligently than any other CD or mp3 based device.
And no, Chris, I wasn’t sure when I said that they were flash based--with Steve Jobs’ comments about how that was the market they were wanting to “drill into” I presumed that their was just a more advanced flash offering.
I wouldn’t trade ten guitars for my Carvin.
Yep, that would be insta-grab for me. Woot!
By Derek Jones on December 24, 2003 at 12:03pm link