“Apple has teamed with Seagate to deliver a revision to its trendy iPod mini digital music player early next year. Apple Computer this month has entered into production the first update to its colorful iPod mini digital music player, highly reliable sources tell AppleInsider. The production, which is now taking place in Asia, has reportedly been underway for at least a week. The company’s objective is to produce an ample supply of the players before making an official announcement of the new models in early 2005,” Kasper Jade reports for AppleInsider.
“Inside the new iPod mini will be a 5GB hard disk capable of storing up to 1250 music tracks, a 25% increase over the the current iPod minis which hold 1000 songs on a 4GB drive,” Jade reports. “Apple is reportedly hoarding as many of Seagate’s 5GB ST1 drives as possible, in an effort to build a stockpile of the new minis that will adequately cater to initial product demand.”
More details in the full article here.
This is nothing new. Logical move.
hmm …. I thought a more increase in size would be the next step, not just one gig. Granted it’s a lot smaller thanthe others, but you would have thought the next logical would have been approx. 10 meg….
this is great… drop the 4 gig to 200 bucks and have a 250 dollar 5 gig…
forget the flash bullshit.. at 200 bucks you’ve got the market sewn up..
of course.. demand is through the roof.. and you have people fighting in the streets for the 4 gig..
10 GB would probably require a dual disc thus having to make the player thicker. No way Apple would do that. I don’t think they’ll keep the 4 GB as past revisions have shown that they simply sell out the excisting supply of the previous model and add more storage at the original price. There’s no need to lower price…. yet, particularly if the flashpod actually comes out.
It’s a wonder any other manufacturer can get any drives at all.
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“hmm …. I thought a more increase in size would be the next step, not just one gig. Granted it’s a lot smaller thanthe others, but you would have thought the next logical would have been approx. 10 meg….”
It’s a mini.
Jupiter Research found that for most people 1000 songs is the magic number. That and the small form factor is why they’re flying off the shelves to people who were holding off buying an iPod.
Stick a bigger capacity drive in there and you ruin it by having to produce a bigger player. Unless you know of someone manufacturing 10GB drives the same size as the current 4GB/5GB ones. You’ll get a bigger capacity iPod mini – keeping pace with people’s growing music collections – as and when drives that don’t compromise the form factor are being made.
10.3.7 has gone public, and the magic word at the bottom is …. public!
joe
wandering_joe
the fastest updater on the web
We need a device a non-computer person can buy and download music to their iPod and have stereo in it.
Sure 56k is slow, but a compression alogrithm perhaps?
jesus christ, mr. “high and mighty” with the first comment over there.
yeah sure $200 is a low enough price. NOT. Can you imagine buying a Sony Walkman for $200??? Not a chance, and yes, this is the SAME THING, just in a different decade. Compare the number of Walkmans sold to iPods and it makes the iPod seem like an outright chump…SO FAR. If Apple can get an iPod out for $50, then we’ll see the real revolution.
iPod Mini has sold-out at its current price and capacity and you propose dropping the price to make it competitive? Wake up; the competition has been beaten.
I do not think that 5GB is a significant upgrade. Personally, I will consider an iPod Mini when its capacity moves up to 20 GB.
What Sol said.
Sol.. i think your post has SOMETHING to do with my original post.. the point is NOT that the mini is too expensive.. they’re selling out like crazy.. the point is that ultimately Apple has a 65% marketshare of all digital music players because many musicplayers are flash players..
Rather than introduce a third form factor, Apple could just introduce the $200 iPod mini at 4 gig, with a $250 a 5 gig.. This would not compete with other players, but it would compete with the entire flash market… 4 gigs for 200 makes the flash all the more unattractive a purchase decision.. that’s the point..
a $200 iPod mini would serve to trend the entire line upward in terms of HD size
make no mistake.. the HD market is Apple’s.. they’re now looking at the overall digital player market.. and then maybe we can talk about the overall portable music player market.. (competing with discmen, etc)
so.. the urge this discussion forward.. since we’ve seen the convoluted design for an iPod flash.. what’s apple’s move.. convince the flash ppl to get an iPod mini by making pricing irresistible or will they come up with an iPod flash design that actually works
GSpank said
“yeah sure $200 is a low enough price. NOT. Can you imagine buying a Sony Walkman for $200???”
Well, I’m old enough to have purchased 2 of the ORINGINAL walkmen. They were well over $200, and back in the late 70s, that was alot of money. (by original I mean cassette players)
In the 80s, when CD walkmen came out, they were still expensive, and the cheaper competition were just that, cheap. By late 80s, and early 90s Sony branded walkmen became cheap (price and quality) to compete with the knockoffs. By becoming cheap imitations of the imitators, Sony lost any advantage they had to differentiate and retain value in their brand.
I hope Apple doesn’t make the same mistake. Paying a little more for something of REAL quality in design, production, and useability isn’t a bad thing, in spite of what the Wal-Mart mentality thinks.
G-Spank: “Compare the number of Walkmans sold to iPods and it makes the iPod seem like an outright chump…SO FAR.”
No it doesn’t. Walkmans may have sold 300 million in their lifetime, but the iPod has sold about a million more than the Walkman did in its first three years. If you’re going to compare the two, at least make it a fair comparison, rather than comparing something that’s been out for over twenty years with something that’s only been out for three.
http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=765 quotes
a Merrill Lynch report that, among other things, looks at the iPod’s adoption rate.
And people wouldn’t pay $200 for a Walkman because it’s NOT THE SAME THING. Would you pay $200 for a device that forced you to carry all your tapes or minidiscs or CDs with you in case you wanted to change what you were listening to? Didn’t think so. An iPod might be pricey, but you’re paying for the convenience of having all your music right there with you.
I agree with you in that the price isn’t really low enough for mass adoption. Most figures given about market share are for the US and there are still lots of places where Apple doesn’t dominate or have a foothold. But you can’t reduce the price when you can’t make enough players to satisfy people willing to pay the current price. When demand starts to drop off, the price will come down and the player will be affordable to more people – or they’ll introduce something like the flash player at a lower price.
and the walkman didn’t have ANY DRM and would play ANYBODY’s TAPES!
thanks for the figures and info. lets hope Apple sells 300+ million iPods in its future!
And the iPod doesn’t have any DRM, will play anybody’s ripped CDs, in lots of file formats, mp3, AAC, WAV, AIFF, Apple Lossless. What is yout pointy exactly?
To be fair, none of the other digital players have any DRM either. DRM is a music store function that is a requirement of the Music labels, no9t a function of the player hardware/ software.