Strong demand for iPod music players could bolster shares of Apple Computer Inc., Barron’s said Sunday. Consumer electronics is the hot sector as gift-buying season approaches, according to the Barron’s report, with Apple’s iPod Nano music player and its new video iPod flying off shelves, and likely to see strong sales into next year, according to retail analysts.
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got my 4gig white Nano two weeks ago, early present to myself.. all set, whew.
I have bought 6 iPods in the last week
4 – 4GB Nanos picked up from a Apple Store as gifts.
1- 60 GB viPod delivered from a reseller in PA, but bought on the Apple web site, came via UPS. For myself.
1- 30 GB viPod bought again from the Apple web site but shipping directly from Shanghi China via Fed Ex. (it’s picked up and in the system) For someone else.
Once you start seeing shipments directly from China via Fed Ex (more money) you better believe they are getting low.
It’s cheaper to send a large shipment by boat, but won’t make it in time for the holidays.
I hear Apple resellers are mostly out, waiting for shipments from Apple. My local Radio Shack was supposed to carry iPods but didn’t get squat.
The viPod is very nice, but takes awhile to process/load videos (DVDs) on it and it takes forever it seems to disconnect when you eject it. Like a good 2 minutes.
But it’s jet black and cool as hell, I got pr0n on it, DVD movies, TV shows, video Podcasts, all my music, music videos etc.
It’s totally addictive to watch what you want in the palm of your hand, like one does music sometimes.
EyeTV 200 with component video in from a DVD player records nicely and then processes into MPEG 4 viPod friendly size, takes time though. Have to watch the show while recording it, then it takes time to process. Even on a DP machine.
Drop it into iTunes Library and that takes a few minutes and then it takes a few minutes to sycnh to the viPod.
Lots of work but I figure one can get about 60 DVD movies or so max on a 60 GB viPod.
Battery seems to go down rather quickly running video. It must be 20 hours on music alone in the Apple specs.
Wonderful toy, need a frigging Quad to process the video fast enough though. Video eats hard drive space in a hurry too with all the multiple copies (DVD rip, processed original, iPod version original, iTunes Library copy. etc), use a external drive.
No Doubt about it, Apple have excelled, first Music, then Pictures, and movies… now it has wings!!
They’re flying, but they ain’t pigs!
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iPod and X-box are the number one tech gifts this holiday season.
The X-box is already sold out, they only had a limited amount.
That leaves the iPod and while folks are buying they consider getting a new computer to go with it.
Mac sales should go up as well.
Pay in cash or credit card folks at the Apple Store.
You don’t want to use a check trust me.
Macdood:
I have a 60gig iPod video – I can eject it within a matter of seconds, not minutes!
Our Apple Store has iPods in stock.
Wal-Mart is SOLD OUT except for a few iPod minis left over and the white new vPod.
Radio Shack is SOLD OUT.
Target is SOLD OUT.
Comp USA is SOLD OUT.
Best Buy is SOLD OUT.
White or Black ipod nano???
PLEASE HELP ME CHOOSE!!!!!!!!
How come Apple Store is for every item on 1-2 business days shipping?
Can think of two possible reasons:
There is something brewing there, another announcement maybe
or more likely:
Certain items are in such high demand that their system is getting overloaded, putting everything on a backlog. (Check their web-site, even iSights, keyboards and 3rd party items are on 1-2 business days.
Curious for the reasons behind it. Any suggestions, anybody?
The local Apple flagship store in LA says that they have ample iPod Nano supply, with no concern about running out of stock soon.
This really surprised me, as it means that either things are slower than expected, supply is far greater than previous holiday seasons, or Apple is completely hoarding the iPod supply for themselves.
I only wonder what this means for iPod sales, and if Barron’s take has any substance.
@ Luc
Either Apple is holding a lot of stock back for it’s own stores or the demand for the iPod is going expodential in the run up to Christmas and the component suppliers additioanl production streams still havent come on line yet. According to earlier reports Apple was only shipping 30% of ordered stocks to 3rd party resellers.
Mugwump, looking at Local Report’s check, it simply means that Apple stopped delivering or lowered it’s deliveries to 3rd party selling-points.
Also count in the fact that Flagship Store has a lot of impact on people. I mean, people running in there finding an item being sold-out would most probably start panicking, analysts up front.
So you’ll try to make sure your flagship store is the last one to run out of stock, let that be the case at a WallMart, Radioshack, etc, who cares…
my 2 cents.
winmacguy, have seen the reports on the 30%, true. Also, the additional production-streams not on line yet, agree.
But if they are holding back keyboards? Mice? iSight? 3rd party products as well? What’s that supposed to mean? Just doesn’t make sense at all .
I think there is a big shortage of flash memory.
get the white nano. the black nano looks cool, but the scatches show up more…
I dunno…I’d save up the extra 50 or 100 bucks and buy the 30gig video, if at all possible. It has so much extra storage space and capacity for the money, compared to the 4 gig nano.
I bought a 100 last week, this week I need a thousand more!!!
Love those nano´s.
Don´t you wish you had as much money as me! Or on my Christmas list….
To Local Report: You actually wasted all your time going to those stores to check on iPod sales?
You gotta´ get a life.
My black nano looks nice, but it’s true that the scratches show up more. You should either buy a protective case when you buy the nano, or adopt the “battle scars are cool” attitude.
Mac Dude –
Regarding your battery life being BELOW expectation, it is important to realize Apple only suggested a couple hours for video playback on battery. I would highly recommend the Universal Dock and remote control along with a power cable to boost your enjoyment while watching iPod video on a TV.
Also, be sure you are using Quicktime Pro to transcode to iPod format. The additional pixels are wasted and will cause your iPod to overwork itself. for $30, Quicktime has an iPod specific configuration. Transcoding from H.264 takes a long time, but regular Quicktime 1080i HD will come over quickly.
Does anyone remember the PSP or PS2? There is no talk of these items in the news. The PSP is a sweet little player.
I can’t believe Sony isn’t pushing these more as far as marketing. It blows my mind Sony is so absent this holiday season. I think they really blew it not promoting the handheld or dropping the price of PS2 and adverting it against the X box. PS2 is a LOT cheaper and still has excellent games. Someone wake up Sony.
Personally I’m hoping for a 30 Gig Ipod
Luc, may the force be with you.
Is it possible that shipping is a bit slower and less reliable this close to Xmas?
Just a thought.
Mac Dude,
I heard an interesting thing on the MacCast podcast (one of the best mac centric podcast ever, IMHO), that due to the fact that the cache in all iPods is good for 20 min (remember waaaaay back when Apple used to advertise this 20 min “non-skip” feature of the iPod?), that when you listen/watch content longer than 20 minutes long, that the cache stays full and your content is continually streamed from the hard drive (via the cache).
Long story short, your hard drive is constantly spinning and this drains your battery quicker. I found this to be true with my iPod mini. If I only listen to music, I get a full 8-10 hours on a charge. But when I listen to podcasts all day (most of which are over an hour long each), my run time drops way down to 4-5 hours.
I’d imagine you’d experience the same thing watching videos longer than 20 mins. Hopefully one day Apple will update the iPod chip set to include a cache that’ll buffer 2 hours of content and give the hard drive a rest while you watch a movie or tv show.
Also for those fortunate enough to own a video capable iPod, try out Handbrake (check Version Tracker site). It allows you to rip commercial dvd movie discs into mpeg4 format. Takes a tad longer to rip than the movie’s length, but you don’t have to sit and watch it while it does its work. I’ve had very good results with these mpeg4 movie files. Look great on my 19″ monitor and tv. I know viPod plays mpeg4 format, although I’m not sure it’s the same as these. Worth a try though.
Lastly, if you’re into making your own movies/dvds with iLife and need to rip your dvd movie back into your computer for iPod viewing, I like DVDxDV. Works like a charm and also delivers files in a format you can use to rework them in iMovie or FCE/FCP. There’s also a Pro version of this utility that has high end features. I didn’t buy that one.
Thanks for the replies folks.
I do have QT Pro, was originally screen recording into viPod size using SnapZ Pro and then processing with QT pro. Was taking forever and my widescreens movies were getting chopped on both sides. Plus it was taking way too long.
I haven’t had much luck with DVD rippers, seems they miss so many things, lose sound. MIAA tricks and games etc.
Maybe EyeTv will update their software so that there is a option to record directly into a viPod friendly format and even drop it into iTunes automatically. Maybe even offer a time to stop recording or when it meets a static screen for 5 minutes.
This way I can pop a DVD in the DVD player, set it to record and just mute the sound and hide the window and go about my Mac buisness, knowing in 3 hours it will be on my viPod.
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Mac Dude,
“This way I can pop a DVD in the DVD player, set it to record and just mute the sound and hide the window and go about my Mac buisness, knowing in 3 hours it will be on my viPod”
Well, that’s pretty much my experience with Handbrake. It doesn’t matter whether the movie is in widescreen or standard formats. I too tried Snapz Pro and agree with you. It takes too long and you must keep the movie in fhe “front most desktop window”. Pretty much prevents you from doing anything else on your system while the movie records. Not good.
Won’t have this problem with Handbrake. I even use the “double pass” encoding function which gives superior results but requires two passes through the movie, thus it takes twice as long. Not a problem. Just let it do its thing in the background while I work on other stuff for 3-4 hours.
I’m on a PowerMac G4 AGP DP machine (not a G5) so I stay mindful not to do too many cpu processor heavy jobs while this is going on in the background (ie other encoding/decoding tasks in QT, FCE, or iTunes). So far, no problems. Oh, yea. Just remember to not put your machine to sleep or shut it off while forgetting it’s working on this
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Handbrake is a free download. You have nothing to loose.