Apple today announced that it is moving the worldwide availability of iPod mini to July due to the much stronger than expected demand in the U.S. far exceeding the total planned supply through the end of June. Apple expects to ramp up its manufacturing of the iPod mini to meet worldwide demand in the July quarter.
“The iPod mini is a huge hit with customers in the U.S. and we’re sure it will be the same worldwide once we can ramp up our supply in the July quarter,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s executive vice president of Worldwide Sales and Operations in the press release. “The iPod mini adds further momentum to the iPod, which is already the leading digital music player in the world.”
The iPod mini is the world’s smallest portable music player to hold up to 1,000 CD-quality songs, and is encased in an ultra-portable, lightweight anodized aluminum body, available in five colors-silver, gold, pink, blue and green. iPod mini features the Click Wheel for effortless one-handed operation, along with the same award-winning user interface as the rest of the iPod family, and works effortlessly with Apple’s iTunes, the world’s number one digital music service.
More information about Apple’s iPod mini here.
MacDailyNews Take: So much for US$249 being “too much money” for the iPod mini.
was there ever any doubt?
July !?
My mate Sue is going to be exceptionally pissed off by this. In fact, I’m too scared to tell her.
I’ve got mine already
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Sounds like Apple messes up big time. Expensive and in short supply – not the way to to in my book!
So the US have snapped up all the iPod mini players that Apple expected to last a lot longer. Great. Well done Apple. But why must the rest of the world be forced to wait until the US gets some more (the units that were planned for the rest of the world supposedly)? Surely we should get some over here in the UK to buy and keep the worldwide momentum going instead of the ‘them and us’ attitude being displayed by a worldwide outfit like Apple.
Come on Apple, you know what the right thing to do is.
Sheesh, yet another US centric decision by Apple. This is not the way to gain global marketshare.
“So much for US$249 being “too much money” for the iPod mini.”
$656.68 Ebay http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3084710994&category=41002
$565.00 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3082808814&category=41002
guess what dave, she wouldn’t have gotten her hands on one anyway.. which might have also pissed her off.. that’s the whole point..
It’s a small price to pay, for an item which has been a resounding success.. I’m sure she doesn’t mind the feeling that it was 250 well spent
Oh.. and yes it is North America centric… seems logical to start in the US.. where all the big press is!
“MacDailyNews Take: So much for US$249 being “too much money” for the iPod mini”
I dont know how you reach that conclusion MDN (or should we call you Apple Marketing Department?) – it is far too early to be proclaiming a winner in this market. Apple seems to enjoy pulling the “sold out” trick on the market to create a buzz.
The only press in the US is the US press. Over here in Europe we have our own thank you very much. If Apple is ever to reverse its declining global market share then taking the rest of the world seriously and not as second class citizens of the digital comunity would be a good place to start.
I do wonder whether the huge uptake of the larger iPod models in the rest of the world is also allowing this decision to be taken. Everybody seems to either have one or is buying one, even the students @ UCL are spending their student loans on them. Of course, they are also buying the $499 G3 iBooks that are being offloaded by Tottenham Court Road retailers, so perhaps they are felling a little more flush thatn they expected.
After all Apple is an American company. How many products out of Europe take forever to make it to the North American market? Plenty. We haven’t seen the SMART cars here yet for example. Apple didn’t “mess up big time”. Remember people there is only one company making the iPod mini for Apple in Taiwan. They are obviously not set up to manufacture the quantities needed. As far as Apple “pulling the sold out trick” has any of the competitors in the marketplace with 1.5 GB drives trumpeted large sales? No they haven’t because they aren’t selling that well compared to the mini. Have we ever heard from Dell on the “enormous” successful of their player? No, because it isn’t selling that well. They have plenty in stock because of that.
pkradd: sounds like Apple messed up with their choice of manufacturer, obviously not set up to manufacture what is needed. Which is no excuse as modern mass production is so advanced that such issues should not arise. By shipping an item 7 months after its anouncement sounds like a amateur company that has bit off more than it can chew. Apple mayi like to run the now very tiring “sold out” buzz marketing slogan – but we all know they dropped the ball, again.
If they had priced it at $199 they’d have had a real success on their hands!
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Seriously – they are shifting so quick that I’m not surprised. The iPod was like this in the UK before Christmas. Any company has to ramp up production otherwise you have to make a million of them before you launch. That would be really stupid if the product then tanks.
the opportunity costs here are huge…why can’t Apple get it right?
It’s not necessarily Apple. They’re maybe building them as fast as Hitachi ships the drives to them.
MIke: no offence, but I haven’t got the foggiest idea of what you’re talking about.
All I said (not Dave, me), was that my friend Sue, who really wants a mini, would be annoyed by it. Which is understandable I think.
If you check the news at news.com:
http://news.com.com/2100-1041_3-5179117.html?tag=nefd_top
It says that Hitachi is the one having problem delivering enough Micro Drives to Apple, and not the third party manufacturer.
Anyone who thinks Apple screwed up with the iPod Mini must believe that the only reason Apple sold out is by not making very many.
I suspect the numbers will tell a different tale.
The usual deal… Apple has a great product, and a certain type of person finds a reason to throw blame at them
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Yet again Apple proves their critics are dead wrong. They’re obviously not priced too high because they sell them as fast as they can make them. Obviously Hitachi is having a major problem keeping up with demand, but hopefully they’ll get that straight by summer. I’m sure Dull and Napster would love to have such “problems” right now with their failed devices. LOL
“it’s not necessarily Apple. They’re maybe building them as fast as Hitachi ships the drives to them.”
“We’re actually consuming just about all the 4 gigabyte, 1- inch drives they make. As they make more, we’ll get more,” said Greg Joswiak, vice president of hardware product marketing for Apple.
Why put the blame on others when you can blame beleguered Apple for selling expensive things that are designed to be in short supply? Of course, Apple messed up with their choice of manufacturer. There are hundreds of companies that manufacture 1″ drives. Apple is always guilty, even for earthquakes. Damn them!!
Nobody,
Well put. Apple, my bank account is negative, damn you Steve, damn you, and damn you for this friggin’ hang over!!
Artist:
Thank you for repeating the bit that some people obviously found too difficult to read.
The critical component is the drive: Hitachi – who inherited part of this technology from IBM only recently – were obviously not expecting this level of demand and are in the process of creating a new production line to cope, are the sole suppliers of the component, therefore it’s not an Apple problem in any way except that some people might be disappointed that they can’t buy one right now.
The only other game in town is Cornice, who are probably not even as geared up as Hitachi so Apple made the right choice for component.
At the risk of being controversial: maybe $249 was too low.
>the opportunity costs here are huge…
“Huge” is the difference between being profitable or taking billions in loss. If I were Creative, Dell, Napster, Sony, etc… my sneaky, little eyes would be gleaming!
The “sold out” trick is cute maybe once if at all… and is highly unlikely. Apple HQ dropped a billion-dollar ball. Who’s gonna pick it up?
>the opportunity costs here are huge…
“Huge” is the difference between being profitable or taking billions in loss. If I were Creative, Dell, Napster, Sony, etc… my sneaky, little eyes would be gleaming!
The “sold out” trick is cute maybe once if at all… and is highly unlikely. Apple HQ dropped a billion-dollar ball. Who’s gonna pick it up?