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January 07, 2004
iPot (mini)
So this latest announcement from the Big S yesterday was the iPod mini. I've played around with one right before they were announced on a keynote (as soon as Apple booth had the black curtain dropped) -- and I must say that they indeed look pretty nice. I am not sure of the color selection, but I liked most the pinkish and the yellowish one. They retain that nice smooth feeling the iPods have, and while it is different somewhat, it is still nice. The scrollwheel with the buttons embedded in it works as advertised and frankly, that design decision was to be expected -- it's not that hard to track just presses apart from the circular movements. The whole thing is not completely light, but compared to the "bigger" iPods, it is lighter. The armbelt thingie is groovie. So the whole thing looks, feels and sounds pretty much right. The only thing that's wrong, in my humble opinion, is the price. Huh?! $250? Why not add $50 and get a real thing with 15 gigs instead of 4? I am pretty sure there's a good market for the mini thing -- despite the price, it is smaller, and more convenient to many. So I guess that's the price you pay for portability. Either way, $200 sounds more right to me for that kind of product, but who am I to set the prices, right? Off to the expo where we have another presentation at 3 pm at the OWC booth (tossing out t-shirts to the crowd is the best part!). Groovie!   Posted by slava at January 07, 2004 09:58 AMTrackback Pings: TrackBack URL for this entry: Listed below are links to weblogs that reference iPot (mini): Review: Apple Mini-Ipod 4 GB from Mp3 Player Guide Tracked on June 24, 2005 10:44 AM Related:
Comments
I think the mini is a joke. Exactly right: $50 more gets you 11 gigs more, and there's not a tremendous difference in size. Most people seem to think that the mini is flash, not hard drive. I think that will sell a lot of them, then of course lead to disappointment. Other people who will buy it are ones who see the iPod as a fashion accessory or statement, which I see a lot of around NYC. Posted by: Ken on January 7, 2004 10:03 AMThe pricing was a big mistake. Why would someone pay $250 for it when they can get a full 15G iPod for only $50 more. Slava, I'm with you on this one...Apple is overpricing a critical product and will lose marketshare to the onslaught of competition. If you are going to make a lower-end iPod, charge accordingly and stop trying to act like it compares to the higher-end models. Posted by: CREB on January 7, 2004 10:17 AMI was expecting a mini iPod to be closer to $150. It sure would kick the composition's ass even more if it was a bit cheaper. Can't wait to try GarageBand with my more musical friends. I'm interested in the loop part of it, but I could do some cool stuff with friends. Posted by: NetworkShadow on January 7, 2004 11:09 AMIt's not $50 dollars mor egets you a 15 GB iPod. It's $50 dollars more gets you 3.8 GB more than the high end flash players. You people are looking at it from the wrong angle. Posted by: James on January 7, 2004 12:17 PMYour right, its not $50 bucks thats gets you a 15 gigger, its a $100 bucks more that gets you 14.8 gigs more! 3.75 mini ipods = One 15 gigger. 3.75 times $250 = $937.5 Bucks!! I could get nearly 50 gigs of ipods with the same amount of money if I bought the 15 giggers. I'm no math major, but it doesn't add up. (no pun intended) So, if we did price per gig. the mini's should cost $80 bucks. 300 bucks for 15 gigs is 20 bucks a gig. So 4 gigs should be 80 bucks. Then I would buy one! the price of ipods are not linear ;) the price is a little out there, i do agree...I dont think apple is going to lose marketshare though, if anything they will just continue to own the competition at the current rate. Posted by: cloudaj on January 7, 2004 5:05 PMdrew: the iPod mini is not the current iPod lineup with a smaller hard drive. Posted by: James on January 7, 2004 7:16 PMAll this, and no one YET has offered to help me knock over a bank! :) Posted by: J on January 7, 2004 7:21 PMI am sad. And was sorely let down by this Keynote which I have waited months to watch. I requested off of work to watch that thing. What did I get for it? Something ELSE I can't afford. I had so hoped a cheap $100-200 iPod was coming. I wanted to believe it. I could taste it. I guess it was just not meant to be. Even looking on eBay shows 5GB iPods 1G to still go for over $200! Is there NO WAY to get an iPod for less than $150? Posted by: Jason Anderson on January 7, 2004 9:18 PMApple WILL miss it market share objective as the other manufacturers will simply lower their pricing. If Jobs' had really wanted this market he would have brought iPod Mini in at $199. The issue is that Apple diehards are willing to pay Apple's higher pricing for what they've come to love, but the general masses is not. Apple's biggest challenge in the future will be "pricing" and not product. If the masses find something similar (and the word "similar" can mean many things to each consumer) to a product that Apple has and it's cheaper, the masses will purchase the cheaper product versus Apple's. Posted by: CREB on January 8, 2004 1:51 PMHere's my idea... with the purchase of an iPod Mini, customers should also receive a Gift Certificate for $100 at the iTunes Music Store. Or $75. Hell, make it $50. That way it "feels" less expensive than $250, and you'll get another customer hooked on the iTMS. Yes, I know those songs cost Apple money, but not $0.99 each. There's gotta be wiggle room here... and at $249 for the hardware alone, it ain't gonna sell. Posted by: Josh on January 8, 2004 7:26 PMIf you don't need more than 4GB then the real question is, why pay $50 more for a bulkier, heavier iPod? This is not an unreasonable view. Most people can't fill at 4GB iPod. At $1 a song you'd have to spend $1000 to fill it up. Others who could fill 4GB, like myself, don't mind swapping new music onto the iPod from time to time to keep their choices fresh. With firewire you can refill 4GB in just a few minutes. Additional perspective at 37 Signals Blog. Well guys and girls: check out the just announced SanDisc Cruzer Micro, which is "one of the world's smallest USB 2.0 hi-speed flash memory storage drives". It has got a Cruzer Micro MP3 Companion, that turns the whole thing into an MP3 player. Cool, eh. It costs $160 in its largest capacity (512MB). The MP3 companion MP3 player costs $50. So for $210 you get a nice flash memory based mp3 player. Now take the 'expensive' iPod mini. And guess what: for a mere $40 more you get a huge 4GB capacity player that does all the things the Micro does and then some. It has fab music management features (whereas the micro features 'a backlit LCD screen to more easily identify songs that are playing') *sigh* Check out Rio's products. Rio's 1.5 GB Nitrus model retails for $199. They've just announced their new Nitrus model, a 4 GB model. And "estimated street price" is... guess what? $249. I would say Apple priced the mini iPod exactly right. Yes, Apple controls the supply chain really tightly so you won't see significant discounts until Apple drops the price. (And do they ever? No. Instead they keep the price the same and offer more for the same money.) And yes, you will find the Rio discounted significantly as it ages. BUT: for the same $250 which would you rather have right now: the mini iPod with its award- and heart-winning user interface, or the Rio and its clunky one? I can't tell you how blown away I was when I realised how quickly I could scroll through _and select_ any one of the 2,500 songs on my iPod. Trying to manage that many songs on any other portable device is a nightmare. Sure, NetworkShadow, you were 'expecting' something in the $150 range, as was Jason. Expectations fuelled by the rumour sites, no doubt. But think of it this way: you only need to save up $250 instead of $300 -- and for that you get the real iPod experience and all that implies. Or buy a used 5 gigger for $200 if you want, but then you can't run the new OS or use the new accessories. And CREB: Apple _is_ competing on price. Their MSRP is $249, while Rio's estimated street price of $249 implies that their MSRP is higher. (Ummm... James... the mini iPod _does_ use a hard drive, although you are right it's not the same form factor as its big brother, it uses pretty much the same technology: it's not Flash based.) iPod mini is too expensive; I donīt think that it has a chance Posted by: Reinhard on January 14, 2004 5:17 AMAs one wise slashdotter wrote a few days ago: Some people can't justify $299 just for space, but might justify $249 for style. Posted by: alex on January 14, 2004 1:01 PMApple's marketing team has always been extraordinary; and rarely do they miss a beat. However, I too was disappointed by the price of the iPod mini at first and believed that they totally missed the mark. But then it occurred to me, perhaps they are using this to try and gain more regular iPod customers? In marketing there is a concept called "up-selling"... By bumping the capacity of the low-end iPod to 15 GB, they made it much more desirable, especially when compared to it's little brother the iPod mini. But the problem is, most of us are comparing iPods to iPod minis instead of iPod minis to Rio players (even with Apple's cool keynote example) which makes us disappointed with the high price / low capacity. It's perfectly human for us to compare the capacities of the two and say to ourselves, "for just $50 bucks more I can have 15 gigs worth of space instead of 4 gigs", while applying the same "upsell" philosophy against the flash market, "for just $50 more bucks I can have 4 gigs instead of 256 megs. Perhaps this is what they were banking on; that people considering buying a portable music player would look at the iPod mini as a much better product than the other little mp3 players out there, but then hesitate at the counter and pay "just $50 bucks more" on top of that for the 15 gigs of space. If you're a die hard Apple fan, and remember Apple's near extinction, it may help to look at it this way: Every 15 GB iPod that Apple up-sells a customer on is $50 more bucks going to Apple-- and they can probably use every penny they can get just to keep themselves afloat and continuing on the path of innovation. I hope it works out for them, but deep down I'm still rather disappointed with the iPod mini's price because it hit me on a personal level. I have a little sister that has been dying to get an iPod, but $300 is way too expensive. So when I heard rumors of a lower capacity / cheaper iPod coming out soon, I imagined it would be announced at 5 GB for $199, or better yet, a 2 GB model for $99. At those prices and capacities, it would still blow away the flash memory-based mp3 players on the market, so I don't understand why Apple didn't do it that way, unless they were afraid that it would slow down sales of the regular iPod line (by announcing too low of a price/capacity on the iPod mini). Perhaps they'll redeem themselves to the masses by either dropping the price on the iPod mini, or adding to the iPod mini product line with the capacities/pricing mentioned above. Posted by: Kaleb Wyman on January 14, 2004 11:29 PMIt's also funny that they released them with colors... ...as if they thought it would become the next hot seller like the original iMac was. Too bad they got a little too ambitious and blew it with the high price. Oh well... they still have a chance to redeem themselves with the public by offering better pricing at lower capacities. lets keep our fingers crossed... Posted by: Kaleb Wyman on January 14, 2004 11:41 PMRumors are that the price might be lowered to $199. If so, Apple has a winner. They'll have me at that price. Posted by: CREB on January 16, 2004 9:52 AMApple sold a shitload of these things. So you haters can die. Posted by: avida on March 12, 2004 2:17 AMKeep comments on topic. If a comment is unrelated to this post, it may be removed or moderated. |