“Steve Jobs, the chief executive of Apple Computer, will this weekend be putting the finishing touches to Wednesday’s quarterly results announcement that should prove the crowning glory to a remarkable 12 months for the 49-year-old technology tycoon,” Damian Reece reports for The Independent. “Next week’s figures will cover the Christmas shopping period which analysts reckon should show that sales of iPods, Apple’s revolutionary portable digital music player, burst through the 4 million barrier in the October-December quarter alone.”
“Worldwide, sales of the gadget, already a design icon, are reaching the 10 million mark, helped by the barnstorming success of iTunes, the online music store where iPod users have bought more than 200 million tracks,” Reece reports. “The question is whether he can turn the undoubted consumer success of his music-related products into greater sales of his Apple Mac computers high-specification desktops that have yet to find mass market appeal.”
Reece reports, “A visit yesterday lunchtime to Apple’s new retail store in Regent Street proved the pulling power of the Apple brand. Hundreds were milling about inside, testing the iPods but also playing with the new iMac G5, Apple’s latest desktop dream machine. But it was not just browsing. The queues at pay tills were impressive with many consumers who, through the iPod, are getting their first taste of an Apple product… If the rumours swirling the technology industry are true, Apple could be about to launch a version of its much-coveted personal computer but within the price range of far more consumers the sorts of consumers who were busy snapping up iPod music players yesterday.”
Full article here.
iPod iSchmod…
Xserve, Xserve RAID… now theres a product.
I did a quick poll amongst some of the other consultants on a project I’m working on. 5 out of eight would buy the cheap Mac, 2 of us have PowerBooks already, and only one said he was out and out against.
Now if only Apple release the thing……
A product everyone can afford, doesn’t Xserver start at $3000?
<start 2001 theme music here>
While at the SOHO NY Apple Store last week, my girlfriend noticed that they were running a teasing commercial in the upstairs theatre about next weeks Expo. Very strange being that I’ve never heard or seen of Apple ever doing this before, so something “wonderful” is about to happen.
<end 2001 theme music here>
<delusional rant>
I think Steve Jobs is going to announce that Apple will be giving away free computers to anyone who owns a PC and wants to switch. The catch: You have to take your PC to the junkyard and have it crushed, then mailed to Bill Gates in protest.
Start the revolution… man. Peace.
<end delusional rant>
Brought to you by the word “way”, as in no way this is going to happen.
True.
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I have people that have never owned a Mac before telling me they’d buy a $500 Mac. Now that is telling you something.
I don’t usually comment on the ads here, MDN, but Napster?!? No thanks.
People telling you they’d buy a $500 Mac doesn’t say anything. These are the same cheap asses that continue to buy sub par Wintel machines for no other reason than low price point. Mac fans want to pretend that if Apple would just release a cheap Mac, the wintel followers would gobble them up, and thus we could proclaim them amongst the enlightened or something.
The truth is, if Apple were to offer a cheap box, the installed user base would gobble them up, and what was left for the wintel people would certainly sell, but not for the right reasons. They’d sell because they were cheap, not on any real merit. Maybe merit doesn’t mater to most people, but I’m willing to bet it does for Steve Jobs.
It looks like Apple will be releasing some sort of $500+ box in a few days. Could be Asteroid, could be something else. I would be floored if it were actually a headless i/eMac, and not in a good way… unless they found some way to release this box with going wintel cheap on every single internal component.
MDN – would it be possible to list the source in the headline or dateline to help people prioritize which articles they want to read first? Not suggesting that it be a link; I recognize that you want folks to click through, read what you excerpt (the points you find most interesting from an editorial viewpoint) and the MDN take on the item (and comments, of course).
A simple “Friday, January 07, 2005 – 09:27 AM EST — Independent (UK)” in the case of this particular story, for example. Just a suggestion. Thanks for a great “one-stop” summary of Mac news that goes beyond a simple list of links.
rageous
The people I polled are corporate IT people, pretty much all of whom have not used a Mac since System 7. A couple of them were thinking about an iMac, but thought it was too expensive for something they didn’t know they would use. The cheap box is a perfect try out for them. If they do start to actually use OSX, it’s going to dispel a whole lot of false beliefs that I still hear, especially from the younger tech supports who have only ever known Microsoft.
However, like you I think the $500 figure being quoted is too low, and very similar to the $200 iPod mini that we were being told about last year. $599 is a much more likely price point if this thing exists.
And the magic word is “County”, which together with “Stock” the other day, means great things for the Hatters. Not that I’m superstitious at all.
rageous:
More elitist “if you won’t buy it now, why should we create a product you will buy” crap, I’m afraid.
There are literally millions of users out there for whom even the iMac is overkill – they simply need a system to pick up e-mail, do a bit of surfing, write the odd letter, manage their music library (and thus their iPod) and manage their digital camera.
They don’t need upgradable graphics, they don’t need dozens of ports for I/O, they just need something that can be taken out of the box and connected to a 15″ VGA flat-panel.
Take out the LCD (and that cripplingly expensive arm) from an old “dome” iMac, take out the Superdrive, rationalise the mobo to a minimal number of USB/FireWire ports (2 and 1 respectively). Ship a slower hard drive. Otherwise use a mobo design that has been amortised to death.
There you go, $599 – no corners cut, just waiting for the revenue to be made on the iPod, the .Mac membership, the iTMS downloads, the OS X upgrades, the iLife lite upgrades, the extended warranty and the Airport units.
MCCFR, you forgot the profit to be made when they upgrade their computer and give the “cheap” one to their kids to bang on. Heck, I’m already convinced that we need to give our eMac to our kids (the oldest is 3) and get a new one. I haven’t been able to get on the thing until he goes to bed each night. We’ve already decided to buy a Power Mac, it’s just waiting for an expected check to arrive (though I’m going to try to speed things up when I get home from work, I couldn’t even get on when I was home for lunch today!).
The price of an item is important to most people and they will buy when they think it is a good deal.
Fact is that a lot of people think $1000 for a computer is too much.
The cannabalization effect will be minimal compared to the hoards of people wanting to buy a $500 mac. I agree with MCCFR than the old imac imnards with a 1.25 GHz G4 will easily do for that base model.
Those who require more power / performance will do their homework and buy what they need – whether it be a G5 tower or iMac.
Treadlightly – a word of warning – if your 3 year old kid is already bossing you around, you’re going to be in big trouble as they get older. I think you need to get them to understand who is the boss in your household!
No joke. If a sub-$700 Mac is releaseed, I’ll be in line for two right off the bat. I have a 400 MHz PowerMac G4 running in my office that I picked up in ’99. I still have no plans to retire it any time soon. The memory is maxed out and I added a 120GB hard drive about a year and a half ago. Clearly it’s not my primary machine any more, but it works very well as a server and to off-load tasks to. Much of the time I don’t even have a monitor hooked up to it – but I do have a few firewire hard drives hooked up to it.
Adding a couple of low-end Macs to the network would be great.
free Apple computer + $500 shipping fee.
Now that’s something! Most people would think it is free and end up paying the ridiculous shipping fee. This is sort of like when you buy a cheap Wintel box for $399 that is actually $699 with a $300 rebate if you sign up for MSN, AOL, or Earthlink…
<spontaneous thought>
Ok, $500 computer after $99 rebate on .Mac service (Which means the computer is $599 if you don’t sign up!).
<end spontaneous thought>
Sorry if I’m getting more cynical as time goes by this week, but all the rumors are repititious. The mainstream media is picking up all the rumors from the fan sites and its boring when we comment on the rumors based on our own rumors.
Wait until MWSF!
edgeknight
The catch: You have to take your PC to the junkyard and have it crushed, then mailed to Bill Gates in protest.
That is classic. Thank you for the good laugh.
Talk about mainstream: Citibank’s giving away free iPod minis for opening EZ Checking accts. Remember when banks used to give away *toasters* ???
Are toasters the things they used to use before microwaves?
=) you gotta love (or I suppose hate) the iconic state the iPod has reached.
Technology ages quicker than we do…. is that good or bad?