“The Apple rumor mill has been hard at work lately, with plenty of folks prognosticating about what exactly Steve Jobs would announce today in the company’s ‘It’s Showtime’ event. I found the actual announcements mostly underwhelming, with some potential bright spots on the horizon,” Alyce Lomax writes for The Motley Fool.
“First off, there’s a whole slew of new iPods at new price points, with increased storage capacity. For example, the newest high-end iPod will have 80 gigabytes of memory for $349. New iPod-ready video games like Tetris, Pac-Man, and Bejeweled, available through iTunes, are kind of nice, but certainly nothing earth-shattering,” Lomax writes.
Lomax writes, “While Apple did make good on digital movie downloads, it hasn’t gone the whole nine yards. Its first offerings are only from Disney (NYSE: DIS) and subsidiaries Pixar, Touchstone, and Miramax — a no-brainer considering Jobs’ Disney connection. The iTunes offerings also address one of the major hurdles in digital film downloading: price. New releases will sell for $12.99 when preordered or purchased in the week following the release of the digital and DVD versions, and $14.99 thereafter. (Older titles will sell for $9.99.) Those prices seem more reasonable than the fees charged by other nascent digital movie offerings like CinemaNow and Movielink.”
“Jobs previewed iTV, a device that will allow people to wirelessly view movies and TV shows they’ve downloaded to their Macs and PCs on their TVs. That device, expected to retail for $299, is probably the most exciting part of the announcement, but alas, iTV won’t be available until the first quarter of 2007. Meanwhile, one of the longest running Apple iPod rumors of all time — the mythical cell phone/iPod hybrid — remained a no-show,” Lomax writes. “Apple needed to impress today, and I’m not quite sure it did.”
Full article here.
Related articles:
Analyst: Apple ‘s iTunes+iPod+iTV model ‘the gold standard for the digital home of the future’ – September 12, 2006
Analyst: Apple ‘s iTunes+iPod+iTV ‘will be hard for other players to match’ – September 12, 2006
Apple gives sneak peek of ‘iTV’ set-top box to debut Q1 2007 (with images) – September 12, 2006
Apple posts new iPod nano ad online – September 12, 2006
Apple’s QuickTime stream of Steve Jobs special event now live – September 12, 2006
Apple’s iTunes 7 installer shows ‘iTunes Phone Driver’ as greyed-out option – September 12, 2006
NFL and Apple team up to offer 2006 NFL game highlights via iTunes Store – September 12, 2006
Apple debuts iTunes 7 – September 12, 2006
Apple debuts new iPod in 30GB and 80GB with Hollywood movies, games and new lower price – September 12, 2006
Apple unveils new iPod shuffle: world’s smallest digital music player – September 12, 2006
Apple intros new iPod nano with new aluminum design in five colors and 24-hour battery life – September 12, 2006
“Apple needed to impress today, and I’m not quite sure it did.”
Yeah–the stock really took a beating.
Freakin’ Apple didn’t even debut the new 90 inch iMac or the 12 inch HDTV iPod, nor did they come out with that printer that prints $100 bills. Damn them, they underwhelmed what I expected.
He is correct! Movies aren’t HD, no subscription service, obscene price. No thanks.
Yeah, for the second or third “Apple special event” in a row, the announcements have really been somewhat underwhelming. New products, but mostly evolutionary rather than revolutionary. If the hype doesn’t end up matching reality, the stock will drop… that’s the nature of Apple… it’s all in the ‘next big thing’ that keeps the stock growing or dropping; not always an enviable place to be however.
“He is correct! Movies aren’t HD, no subscription service, obscene price. No thanks.”
True. And the iPod is overpriced and will never sell. And nobody will ever buy TV shows when you can just record them yourself. Blah blah blah blah.
This happens every time after a keynote.
(The only time that I think it was completely true was after the ipod Hi-Fi and iPod case presentation…I suspect that was due to an unexpected delay from some other offerings they had in mind. )
Moving on…movies, iTv, etc will be HUGE. And the price is quite competitive to DVDs
Underwhelming?
He isn’t going to be singing that same tune once these new Nanos are selling like candy bars.
iTV appears to be the long awaited iPod wide screen. Sorry for all of you who can’t wait to watch $14.95 movies on a 4in screen.
Games available through iTunes, are kind of nice, but certainly nothing earth-shattering,
Ummm, didn’t Apple just open up “games” to third party developers?
Sure, these aren’t state-of-the-art games, but doesn’t this open up the iPod game market?
The annoucement was underwhelming when compared to the hyperbolic speculation before the event. Even with normal expectations, the announcements were all good, but there was nothing revolutionary EXCEPT the iTV.
iPods: all nice evolutions. Yes, evolutions in many respects, but there was no huge leap.
iTunes: again, nice evolution.
iTV: this could be great.
Overall, nice day. The media integration program is marching along. I was very happy with all the announcements and will probably buy an 80GB. Just because there was no home run (waiting for the full iTV before that counts), does not mean it was a bad day. It just was not the blockbuster many were expecting.
So while people may chide the author, she is fairly accurate.
the other mark…..
If you want TV on your iPod just purchase Elgato’s EyeTV – and get software that allows you to output recordings to iPod MP4 files
Has everyone on Earth missed iTunes games? Or am I the only one who thinks this is significant?
It’s still too soon for HD movies. More importantly, the delivery mechanism is in now place, end (iTMS)-to-end (iTV). How hard will it be to start selling them when the time is right? Not very.
Jimbo nailed it.
Snoozer – not worthy of a media event.
Just some incremental upgrades to iPods.
Will it be enough to stop the dropping iPod sales????
Advice to the nay-sayers: Go kick an old tin can instead of bothering honest people with your useless jive talk. Some people just love to criticize. Apple has lowered the price and improved the feature set of a supremely successful product that already had no competition. They have also launched (albeit modestly) yet another killer-industry-to-be in the form of movie downloads. Let’s hear the nay-sayers tell us a year from now what a bad idea this was. They’ll be singing a different tune, I’ll wager!
so does this mean, I can now export video for iPod using 640×480? instead of something less inferior? I have a 5G 60Gb iPod black..
hmmm
While I appreciate the satire of “bond co. stooge”, I think that The Mootley Fool actually got it about right this time. Its not like Apple is screwed or in any serious trouble here, but today’s announcements were pretty – well – underwhelming.
At the very least the world needed to see a truly new iPod device, and Apple simply didn’t deliver. I for one am glad to see that Apple brought back the variant colors for the nano, but design-wise, that’s completely retro. If the nano would have, at the very least, been given the software to play video it would have helped us believe there was something new there.
As for the video capable iPods – Again, nothing really new there. I was most disappointed that we did not see a bigger or wider screen on the iPod product line, especially with the announcement that all video is now going to be 640×480. Oh well, prices look very good, but I’m still not going to buy an iPod till the screen dimension choices are expanded.
Another huge disappointment for me was that Apple was not able to work something out that will allow us to burn DVDs from our iTunes video collection and play it from our component DVD players. Of course this little hole will be plugged by iTV, which I’m very excited about, but…
Apple made a lot of prepress waves, but really delivered the proverbial drop-in-the-bucket. All of the updates and upgrades released today are needed and wanted, but considering the hopes that were raised, I think more careful thought should have been given about going public on this particular day.
I believe Apple is under some pressure to come up with new and expanded iPod products, and well they should be in my estimation, but it all ended up leaving the impression of, much ado about a little.
All that being said, rock on Apple, and next time be sure to make us swoon. Its really Steve’s fault you know, he’s absolutely spoiled us.
unfortunately for all the naysayers Apple’s lead just got bigger. Apple does things one step at a time, even when the iPod came out most people were like “that’s it?”. Then when iTMS came out, people were like “that’s stupid” on these very same forums. Seriously, it’s funny how most people get it all wrong. Apple is dominating. iTunes 7 is HUGE. iTV is going to be great, but it’s gonna take awhile. Nobody can compete with the iPods. Apple WILL have the best solution for the living room, while MS will continue to flounder. Thems the facts.
I loved this. In fact this last week’s Cupertino-based happenings have finally convinced three people I know to buy Macs.
Apple will soon be everywhere you go for digital entertainment – your PC, your TV and your pocket.
The reason Apple will never include a TV-tuner or -recorder option in something like iTV is…
Other products already do it well, if not better. Think how easy it is to use a TV. Having a computer that can crash and get outdated and get viruses just complicates things.
It competes with Apple’s business model of selling shows. If you can set your Mini to record the whole season of Lost that you can keep forever, what’s the point downloading it?
Going international is more difficult due to the different TV standards, providers and rights-issues (though this point is also true for the current Apple model, hence the fact that the US is still the only store with TV shows).
If anyone says the implications of todays announcements are underwhelming, then they are being paid to say so, or they are genuine fools.
Lomax is a Motley Fool!!!
I, for one, am quite impressed with today’s announcement.
Very cool new shuffle
Cool new nanos…my kids will each get one for Christmas
Movie store…SWEET!
iTV…GONNA BE HUGE!
Rock on, Apple!
“Underwhelmed”?!
I’d like to have these “underwhelmed” columnists compare the new iPods and iTunes with other similar devices. How can they be “underwhelmed” when there isn’t ANYTHING else on the market that even comes close?
The best was made better, and all that these lazy-assed armchair quarterbacks can do is criticize Apple because they didn’t produce any of the fictional devices that these same “professional writers” were mindlessly yacking about in their rumor blogs.
When their writing improves from year-to-year as much as the iPod does, THEN they can criticize Apple’s lack of innovation.
What I find really disturbing are all those who are under-whelmed or disappointed by Apple’s offerings today, who act like Apple owes them something! Get over yourself because this is not about you and your feel-good moment.
Any product lacking in some new feature you were hoping for will probably appear in good time, just like the seamless transition between songs; it probably took Apple’s scientists a while to figure that one out. So cut them some slack. Apple did reveal a little more of their business strategy today and in some respects fired a shot across the bow of the SS Microsoft.
If you, like me, who are an Apple shareholder, you have no complaints either, especially if you share Job’s vision for the future, because regardless of how Wall Street reacts to today’s news, it doesn’t change their business strategy, which is to continue polishing the apple while inventing new stuff.
Apple is in the driver’s seat, not the clueless Wall Street anal-cysts.
My stock has good days and bad but I’m not going to dwell on a single day’s earnings, because I’m in it for the long haul and I’m certainly not in it for the money because I couldn’t make a large enough investment in Apple to matter. I am however impressed with Apple’s performance year-over-year.
I am in it for are bragging rights though. I’m waiting for the day when I can look at all the nay-sayers in my circle of friends and family who have bashed Apple for years, called my computers toys, so that I can say to them, welcome to my world and what took you so long.
There has never been any single event or product that evened my conviction that I’m on the side of a winner but a culmination of events, people, and things that have transformed silicon, carbon, metalloids, and steel to into objects of beauty, with style and class that make life a joy.
Todays event was a press briefing to introduce a roadmap of sorts outlining the direction Apple is headed and anyone who was surprised by today’s announcements doesn’t have a finger on the pulse of Apple Computer and to those who are under-whelmed, well I hope you can adjust.
MDN MW: Movement, as in forward.
Please, oh wise ones, can ANYBODY cite ANYTHING released by Microsoft, Dell, Gateway, HP, or any other company of that ilk in the past 10 years that isn’t truly and undeniably UNDERWHELMING?
OK, how about something from these stooges that is OVERWHELMING?
How about something REVOLUTIONARY instead of EVOLUTIONARY?
Nothing? What a shock.
Gawd, but I am sick and tired of the MDN posters that can NEVER be satisfied by anything Apple does. You make Lord Pococurante (Voltaire’s “Candide”) look like an amateur!
“If the nano would have, at the very least, been given the software to play video it would have helped us believe there was something new there.”
Hahahahaha hahahahaha. Good one.
I like Apple’s vision and the big picture is looking brighter and more vivid. I have no doubt that video downloads will eventually become faster and that video content will achieve, if not exceed, current HD-quality in 2007.
All other products delivered better functionlaity and performance, just as I expected, and with significantly lowered prices, which I hadn’t expected. I am very satisfied with Apple.
Apple. Constantly. Innovating.
Users. Constantly. Salivating.
Competitors. Constantly. Immitating.
Critics. Constantly. Sniveling.
©2006 All Rights Reserved.
I thinks this anal-lysts’s own command is way under-whelming!!
Casting pearls before swine.
MDN magic word: wrong.
I can’t wait to see the numbers for Q4 Macbook, Macbook Pro, and the just announced iPod product line.
Year over year numbers are going to amaze everyone. I’m sure that AAPL has forseen the growth, and has long ago planned their “end game” strategy…. checkmate.
has anyone used itunes 7 ???
it is amazing….the best music (media) storage software in the market
the album artwork browse on my 4000 item library is the best ui i’ve ever used
game, set , match Apple
Underwhelming when compared to the crazy rumors that spread before these events. But look at what was announce. Each item will be a winner. I’m sure the iPhone deserves (and will have) its own special event, when Apple is ready.
Compare this to Apple “competition.”
Sandisk – Where’s the 8GB player announce a month ago? Your web site STILL says “pre-order now.”
Zune – Is that device actually going to be released?
Amazon Unbox – I’ll bet Apple sold more movies in the first six hours than Amazon sold all week.
Apple delivers.
Why is it that “At the very least the world needed to see a truly new iPod device”? Why is
“Apple under some pressure to come up with new and expanded iPod products”?
All Apple needs to do is 1) earn more revenue and profit this quarter than last (or last year’s quarter), 2) point to a future that is better than its competitors, and more profitable than Apple is today. The world does not need to see a truly new iPod device, or expanded iPod products for these two goals to be met.
And since Apple did deliver a new set of new design iPod nanos, a new iPod shuffle design, and reduced price iPods (per capacity) across the board, odds are sales will rise again. Only us who frequent Apple rumor sites even know about widescreen-touch screen iPod designs, and get disappointed. The mainstream, the other 100s of millions of people, who have yet to buy an iPod just need to get another reason to do so. Besides new smaller designs and lowered prices, Apple offered them two: games and movies.
And for the financial analysts, Apple certainly re-emphasized two directions: the living room, and other stuff on the iPod (games). What has the competition done lately? Origami? Media Center? PlaysforSure? MSN Music Store? Zune? Zen Vision:M? Sansa? Sony anything?
And once the idea of games catches on, then adding comm (wifi, cell, wimax, etc) becomes even more interesting. My son has a DS, and he finds the best part is playing with or against others over the wifi connection. Games, even more so than music, are definitely a community thing. Like Origami and MCE, the Zune feature set will be misaligned with what people want at the price MS wants to sell it to them.
Apple keeps zigging when everyone is zagging. The competition moves to white and black, so Apple goes back to colors… They are even playing the fashion thing perfectly.
Prediction: Apple will sell over 15 million iPods during the Christmas quarter. The $79 iPod shuffle will play a big role in this.
The blame-Apple-first-crowd wants Steve Jobs to get up and give us a sales job like Mr. Haney. Trust me, after listening to Mr. Haney’s manure show after show, I appreciate things that really work and are really real.
One curly tail up for Mr. Jobs (I ain’t got a thumb)!
These announcements are soooooooo exciting.
Some time in 2007 Apple will launch a “Media Center Extender” type product of the kind that’s been available in the PC world for years, iTunes now has some of the features first shown in Windows Media Player, and the iPods have been updated about as little as you could update an iPod and still claim with a straight face that you’d actually done something.
I wonder if Apple will sell 14 million iPods this Christmas on the back of this?
Underwhelming indeed.
Poor Apple. Their audience is so used to being blown away by their new products that it’s getting harder and harder to impress them.
The new iPod nano should fly off the shelves. It combines everything that’s great about the nano with all the style that people loved about the mini!
And iTunes 7 is awesome!
I’d be disappointed, but of the rumored products…
— The widescreen iPod with the virtual scrollwheel is something I’ve always believed to be a fantasy of ThinkStupid. I’ve never believed this thing exists. If I’m wrong, I’ll apologize to ThinkStupid in this forum and stop calling them that. But Apple had better do a good job of selling an iPod that you control by smearing your finger across the viewing area.
— The iPhone I could care less about, and also seems to be third-party vaporware, in this case via analysts who seem to believe they can wish it into existence. In any case I, and 80-90% of all cellular customers won’t get one. We like our cellphones cheap from our service providers.
— The set top box? Well, they previewed it. It would have been nice to have it for sale, as is usually, but at least it’s coming.
Love the new nanons! And I can´t wait to get one of them iTVs under my telly.
And also I can´t help thinking Apple is NOT going to deliver a real iPod Video. And I´m okay with it cuz it seems like a dead end. Is it really needed ?
obviosly Apple had hoped to get more than Disney on board before toady. Sadly no in the cards. Apple share some blame in the disappoinment in my opinion- they certainly build things up prior to a special “event,” even playing off 64 bit iMacs as a speed bump the week before. . .
Oh well. I hope the stock tanks tommorow- so I can buy more. Methinks the mac is going to explode onto the scene this holiday season- when all the kids/ college students who DIDN”T get a macbook this fall want one b/c they toyed with their buddy’s.
Oh. iTV will com out before 12/25. Watch.
Excitment, Apple’s in no rush. Why rush out products when there’s no real competition? Apple has 88% of the US music download market and is #1 in every one of its 21 countries, and obviously #1 in the US video download market. Apple has 75% of mp3 players in US. Why not use the extra time to just make the next product works for sure, and work even better?
Yes, Apple would’ve liked the iTV to be ready before Christmas. But with regard to iPods, I just can’t see rushing product to market since one mistake (one crummy non-working product) in the consumer space can really hurt the brand, and putting more cutting edge high cost technology into the product reduces the profit margin.
So yes, put in just enough to keep it interesting and keep it flying off the shelves. Find me a mainstream market that does more than just enough in every release. Not cars. Not TVs. Not PDAs or cell phones. Not even computers.
No matter, I repeat, Apple will sell more than 15 million iPods/nanos/shuffles in the Oct-Dec quarter – even with one week less than last year’s quarter – assuming that Apple can make them that fast.
Another case of unsubstantiated expectations has turned into trashing Apple, albeit in a very subtle manner.
Totally agree with the post above that says this idiot is either on the payroll to be “underwhelmed” or is just an utter and complete fool, and not in the positive sense.
Arnold Ziffel
I’m probably the only one old enough to get the “Green Acres” reference.
I think the annaouncements were right on key and perfect!!
Without companies like Apple continually innovating and pushing technologu and usability forward society and the human race would still be using abacuses and horse and carts.
Apple is the Da Vinci of the the modern age.
And if leonardo Da Vinci was alive today, guess which computer he would be using… A MAC!
What do they expect?
We got 2 virtually new products and a significant upgrade to a third.
We got an upgrade to an already dominant piece of software, an upgrade which should consolidate and even extend its lead.
We got the addition of movie downloads at a reasonable price in relation to the competition but done in a decent way, in a way that extends the pinoeering and dominant tv downloads business.
We got an upgrade to the quality of said downloads.
We got notification that 450,000 little dongles you stick in your shoe have been sold. This would be massive news for any other digital player company in itself.
We also got the announcement of a product which if it is even half as popular as the iPod, will no doubt to go on and dominate the living room arena and which will only improve with subsequent versions and integration.
Not everything has to be new to be revolutionary. There’s nothing wrong with consolidation and evolution, we evolved and we’re arguably great.
The poor fool is too blind to see.
The fullscreen iPod IS coming, right? Because the announcement made by Jobs wasn’t very exciting. I actuall skipped through a good portion of the video…
I guess it’s just that everyone already knew everything that was announced except for the Shuffle – and no one WANTED to know about that.
Fullscreen iPod and iTV soon, PLEASE!
the only reason it was ‘underwhelming’ is that the nattering nabobs of negativism were expecting either a touchscreen ipod or some sort of iphone, neither of which appeared.
rather, jobs introduced a whole slew of updates that keep a category killer a category killer. plus, itunes 7 is pretty damn cool. and, oh by the way, the movie thing will rule. apple’s been pushing hd for years. i’m sure they’ll figure out a way to get high-res movies onto your tv or ipod soon enough. this is only the beginning.
i’m now going to exit the patented steve jobs ‘reality distortion field…’