“Short of an actual prize, one of the most coveted handouts at this year’s Grammy Awards, Academy Awards and MTV Video Music Awards was the iPod music player stashed in celebrity goody bags… Sales of iPods, which Apple Computer Inc. introduced in October 2001, are expected to hit 10 million by the end of the year. The success of the digital music player has burnished Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple’s image as a maker of sleek, elegant computers,” Terril Yue Jones reports for The Los Angeles Times.
“But as with any pop culture phenomenon, iPod’s popularity could fizzle as public tastes change… Apple founder Steve Jobs said he wasn’t worried that iPod might one day be considered the Rubik’s Cube of the 21st century. Instead, he said, iPod is capitalizing on a fundamental shift in the way people buy and enjoy entertainment in the digital age. ‘I don’t think we’re seeing trendiness here,’ Jobs said of the iPod. ‘I think we’re seeing a product that’s truly revolutionizing the way we listen to music. We didn’t sell 2 million of them last quarter because it’s trendy, we sold 2 million last quarter because it’s a phenomenal product that’s reinventing the way people enjoy music,'” Jones reports.
“Indeed, Apple’s strategy has been to use iPod to promote home entertainment networks powered by its big-ticket computers and laptops such as the iMac and PowerBook. ‘That’s where the real opportunity is,’ Munster said. ‘Apple has done a bunch of things right. They came up with a brilliant hardware design that’s compelling to touch, that you want to hold,’ said Darcy Travlos, who covers mobile multimedia for brokerage Caris & Co. ‘Apple has executed a tremendous strategy right under the noses of everyone, and people didn’t notice until they sold 2 million of them last quarter,'” Jones reports.
“And just look at history, said Rod Bare with Morningstar in Chicago. ‘It looks like iPod is penetrating at a similar rate of digital cameras and DVD players,’ he said, pointing out that ‘both are still going strong,'” Jones reports.
Full article here.
Ipods Rock!
Happy Turkey Day!
I agree… since I’ve got my iPod my music listening habits have changed… mostly for the better. You’d think that you wouldn’t listen to new music once you’ve got all your own stuff in hand, but I’ve found I crave even more.
Damn, I love my iPod
Jb
Happy Thanksgiving!!! (even though I am in Japan and they don’t do thanksgiving here).
Apple certainly has a lot to be thankful for this year and I’m betting they will have even more next year.
It is amazing how one man with vision can affect the world so much.
Happy Thanksgiving, MDN and U.S. readers!
Happy Thanksgiving Turkeys – You too MDN
I guess it will be a cold day in hell when someone in the press mentions Mac OS X as an OS that is.. oh.. 5 years ahead of XP and, stable and totally secure?
Ok… we’ll just talk about groovy hardware designs..
The iPod is one of the best prducts this decade. Totally awesome!
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!
mike:
“I guess it will be a cold day in hell when someone in the press mentions Mac OS X as an OS that is.. oh.. 5 years ahead of XP and, stable and totally secure?”
Amen!
In an e-mail (sent many months ago) to Thurridiot to counter his ludicrous claim that the iPod was a failure, I once pointed out that the iPod was penetrating the market at the same rate as DVD.
His somewhat predictable reply was that DVD was a truly revolutionary product that defined a new marketplace, whilst the iPod was just another music player so it should have sold more units.
He did, however, completely ignore my request to quantify the sales of Dell’s DJ product – because that would have shot his argument down in flames.
Nice to see my argument being used by the guy from Morningstar.
Funny, I’ve just set up 4 new iMac G5’s in a room FULL of Dell PC’s. I put the Beach Scrrensaver on two and the Cosmos on the other two. People were gathered round, asking the beleagured IT geek why their screensavers are just Flying Windows. His response- “we’re here to work, not look at pretty pictures.”
I guess some people will just never get it, will they?
Happy Thanksgiving all who celebrate it
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Damn, I just LOVE
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MCCFR (about Thurridiot):
“His somewhat predictable reply was that DVD was a truly revolutionary product that defined a new marketplace, whilst the iPod was just another music player so it should have sold more units.”
DVDs are nothing new. They are videos (VCR tapes) in CD form. Using very similar tech to CDs, they changed the wavelength of the laser to make it smaller and higher res. So combining 2 existing technologies (VCR, and CD) and adding vid compression, you come up with DVD. It does nothin that you cannot do with a VCR other than have higher quality, and that could be had with different tape techonogy than VCR (betamax?). They are smaller so you can pack more on a store shelf, so stores like DVDs better obviously. And often they have “extra features” but not always, and this is a matter of convention and not technology. So other than *portable* DVD players, they are just a slight improvement over existing technology.
The iPod “another music player” ?????
That is just an example of where poor Thurrot got dropped on his head one too many times as a young boy, poor soul. Going from Record, to tape (8-track or casset), to CD you basically have the same number of songs in a variety of formats. The only thing that changes is size, convenience (you can skip to your favorite song on a CD), durability (CDs are weak if you scratch them, but if you’re careful they will last longer than tapes or records). Being able to carry around 1000-15000 songs in your pocket? WHEN did records, tapes, wax cyllindars, CDs… ANYTHING ever allow you to do that? Maybe you had a VERY big pocket?
Bottom line is compared to existing technologies and their improvements (VCRs-DVD or records-tapes-cds, or CRT TVs-LCD or Plasma TVs or pick your other technology) the iPod is a quantum leap in technical achievement. I can state rather fairly that it compares with the invention of the cell phone.
I think the only thing that is missing is a massive infrastructure of ways to share the iPods music everywhere you go. Stuff like speakers, and car adapters. They are coming out now, but they hardly saturate the market. How long did it take all cars to have CD players (at least if you rent a car they all do, you can’t even get one with a tape player now)?
Given that unlike the Walkman by Sony, the iPod is a little more pricey and requires the ownership of a modern computer (no Windows Me or 98), the iPods level of penetration is astonishing, and it’s accellerating. Once Apple finds a way to bring the price of entry down to $100 or below, you *will* see iPods sell like DVD players do today. That may take a few years, Apple just has to find a way to hang onto the top until then. Once you can have $100 songs in your pocket for 100 or less, the clones won’t have a chance in hell. Price won’t matter then, they will have to be *better* than the iPod to compete.
I think there is a DVD player in 1/4 US homes? Maybe it’s more by now, I don’t know. So in 8-10 years I’m saying there will be at least 80 million iPods out there.
I guess it will be a cold day in hell when someone in the press mentions Mac OS X as an OS that is.. oh.. 5 years ahead of XP and, stable and totally secure?
Ok… we’ll just talk about groovy hardware designs..
Hey “mike” …
Was it you the other day that posted the comments below about Apple not marketing OS X? If so, now are you changing your tune?!!
“all these twits on here thought Apple should do more to market Mac OS X like it was frikkin’ Halo 2 … like PC users would see the groovy graphics and UI and just ditch their PC’s … no.. it’s not a video game”
Mike,
Not every PC user cares about video games or even the iPod. Some alone would appreciate the included software packages in OS X (iLife, etc.). When I switched to the Mac platform (3.5 years ago) iPods, the iLife suite, and the refinements of Jaguar and later Panther were still under wraps. Yet, the iTunes and iMovie apps coupled with the Unix underpinnings of the then “new” OS X 10.0 (as limited as it was 3rd party product support) as well as cool hardware design prompted me to make the switch. No one around me had any Mac’s — I’ve “switched” over 20 people to the Mac platform over the last 3 years — most of these “switchers” were interested in hassle-free productivity offered by OS X. What came later — cooler hardware, iPods, iTMS, better security, iLife, Safari, iSight & iChatAV 10.2, 10.3, etc. — was icing on the already plentiful cake!
As the public’s curiosity rises about Apple products, familiarity (via marketing) with ALL of Apple’s offerings will entice more and more people to embrace the Mac / OS X platform.
“Once you can have $100 songs in your pocket for 100 or less”
doh! make that 1000 songs in your pocket for $100 or less…
:: mumbles something unintelligible ::
Saw something Uber-Scary today… A marketing campaign by a large petroleum company offering an “I-pod”…
Weak
Hey Steve,
How about a “click wheel on the new iBooks and PowerBooks? I’d settle for a two button track pad. Control-Click is way out of date.
If you don’t use the proper name of Thurrott -like Thurridiot or Thurrturd or whatever- anyone Googling him won’t find your references – which might tell them a lot more about him than the actual articles he writes…!
A bit mean. But what the hell. He deserves it.
If the article on MDN is about Thurridiot, MDN uses proper spelling of his name in the articles, I believe. I’d rather not feed him tho as if he’s worth the interest… I think he’s making his living with bad publicity and knows it.
Have you ever heard the saying “there is no such thing as bad publicity”? Thurridiot has.
being that I now work for Apple — I have to say, when I came to the Mac OS in 97′, I thought it was a pretty neat system — but now, not only is it neat —
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it’s elegant and very powerful. I am glad to say, I am not a bandwagon jumper — I’ve been here before it all started, I’ve believed in this company, even when everyone said, Apple is ten feet under.
I love my G5, my two Cinema Displays, my Powerbook, my girlfriend’s iMac G5, my U2 iPod, my girlfriend green mini iPod, Final Cut Pro, DVD Studio Pro, Motion, Soundtrack, and the list keeps growing.
Chalk up another one … a Mini for my better half.
Magic Word: zebra
It’s good that the magic words are simple for those who have trouble speling.
:-p
I want a diamond iPod like Pdiddy
In this era of $40K SUVs and quarter million houses, when did $2500 for a decent PowerMac setup become a big ticket?