MacDailyNews Take: Apple’s iPod doesn’t live in the shadow of iPhone and iPad, it lives inside each and every one of them.
Boudreau continues, “Steve Jobs, expected to be on stage for the 10 a.m. event at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, may announce a front-facing camera on the iPod Touch, some analysts say, allowing use of Apple’s new FaceTime video chat technology that comes with the iPhone 4.”
“Jobs also may unveil a Wi-Fi-equipped iPod Nano, which would enable users to stream music. Apple is completing a $1 billion data center in North Carolina, and last year acquired streaming music site Lala.com, fueling speculation that it is preparing to launch a cloud-based service,” Boudreau reports. “While many observers say Apple is likely to focus just on its iPod line, some speculate it will reveal new features for Apple TV, the company’s contribution to the revolution in living-room entertainment.”
“Apple sold 9.41 million iPods during the third quarter ended June 26, an 8 percent drop from the year-ago quarter,” Boudreau reports. “But many analysts attribute the drop in popularity of the iPod to the extraordinary sales of the iPhone; Apple has long said it expected the iPhone to cut into iPod sales.”
MacDailyNews Take: We attribute iPod’s so-called “drop in popularity” to people who can’t count: Every iPhone and iPad contains an iPod. Surely McDonald’s, when counting how many burgers they sell, counts them all and doesn’t ignore the millions they sell inside Happy Meals, right?
Boudreau continues, “For the first seven months of 2010, Apple’s iPod claimed 77 percent of the MP3 player market in the United States, according to the research company NPD. ITunes now controls 70 percent of the legal digital download market and 28 percent of the total music market in the United States.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: iPod sales are not declining when you actually count all of them.
iPad: The Happy Meal™ of smart appliances.
So when Apple phases out the click wheel, how long will it remain on the iPod icon on the iPad/iPhone/iPod touch? And will Apple license it out to the also-rans?
When explaining Apple TV to iPhone Windows peeps I always describe it as an iPod for the living room. That’s what it is, at least until later today.
Apple ought to license the click wheel and accompanying software to auto makers.
I like the happy meal image. It is well put.
Has anyone suggested to RIMM that they could keep their market share numbers up if the ask McDonald’s to put a BlackBerry in every Happy Meal box? They could do a PinkBerry for the girls.
@MacDailyNews Take,
Brilliant. On that same note, aren’t something like 80% of all hamburgers now sold in a Combo?
No smart retail business is selling “iPods” anymore. Up-sell my boy!
Cross-sell. Integrate!
Everyone from travel to insurance is trying to sell “iPhones” and “iPads”. Some more successfully than others.
If you include all mobile devices Apple sells ~20MM per quarter and 40MM in the Xmas quarter. On an average basis, over 100MM units are sold every year.
Apple have solved the issue of what happens when you have sold an iPod to almost everyone. Just create a new device that can do a lot more. Clever!!
It’s more appropriate now to class ‘iPod’ as software, as that is what it is on the iPhone/iPad/iPod touch…
My $0.02.
MDN,
I like your conviction in reminding everyone how iPhone has an iPod inside. I have to say, though, you are really, really stretching it there.
Mobile phone and portable media players are two separate markets. While they do overlap in functionality in that one is a subset of the other, in terms of addressable target market, they are most certainly distinct product groups, which explains why other manufacturers still continue to make portable media players, even though almost every cellphone of today includes such functionality.
People don’t buy cellphones so that they can listen to music and watch videos; they buy them so that they can make phone calls (and access web and e-mail, for which they then get a smartphone). Conversely, if they want just a media player, they are not going to get a cellphone; they will look for a media player.
My daughters likely won’t get a cellphone until they turn (at least) 13. They simply do NOT need one, and as long as they aren’t the last one without a cellphone in the class, they aren’t getting it. The older one does have an iPod already (She’s 10 now), which will probably get upgraded to a better one in a few years. For millions of other daughters (and sons) out there who aren’t getting a cellphone yet, an iPod is the right product. And kids surely aren’t the only market for them.
But are the listeners just software?
@ Predrag,
Let the accountants count the iPod decline, but in the real world we know that a large part of the drop is not a decline at all, but an up-sell to a more fully-featured (and more lucrative) product.
I bought an iPod Touch three years ago to read online, and never even kept a set of headphones on me. Everyone counted it as an iPod sale, when we all know I really bought a “small iPad”.
@predrag
You’re missing the point. Obviously smartphones & media players are different device categories. But when Apple sells an iPhone or iPad, there’s an iPod in it. Just because that iPod is part of another device itself doesn’t mean it’s any less of an iPod. It should be counted as such. I haven’t purchased a standalone iPod ever since I got my iPhone and I never will again, because I already have one in my pocket.
@ Predrag
Also, if the iPod, were actually declining in mp3 player marketshare, that would be worrisome for Apple, but the iPod has maintained that >75% dominant position for years.
And yes, MDN is correct. The vast majority of people who buy an iPhone will never buy another iPod. Every bit of iPod functionality (and then some) is included in every iPhone.
Tony – your logic, taken to it’s conclusion, would count every device that can play iTunes media as an ‘iPod’
– iPod – check
– iPhone – check
– iPad – check
– AppleTV – check
– Mac mini – check
– Macbook/Air/Pro – check
– iMac – check
– Xserve – check
– Windows PCs – check
– Motorola Rckr- check
– Palm Pre (with USB hack) – check
Give it up – iPod is a SKU, not a feature (regardless of the App’s name)
My old iPhone (original) is now an iPod, with web capabilities.
Wonder how Zune sales are doing….
@ me,
No one is actually saying that iPod sales aren’t declining. Just that it’s actually a good thing, and could probably be noted as such in reports.
Apple didn’t just successfully replace it’s goose that lays golden eggs, Apple has actually cloned it twice over and they got to keep the first one going at 90% egg-laying capacity!
The difference between other cellphones/smartphones that can “play” music and an iPhone is that there actually IS an iPod inside. A lot of my friends and people I know have had iPods in the past, but got iPhones when they came out and never bought another iPod. The reason being that they can now carry all in one device. I have had the other music “capable” phones, they are awful, never work like advertised. But with iPhone, I didn’t need to worry. And to Predrag, really “as long as they aren’t the last ones in class with one, they won’t have one”? Really? So if they were the last ones on the bridge would you push them? There is no reason for a 13 y/o to have a cell phone. That is ridicoulus, people wonder why our children are the way they are. That’s the reason, let’s teach them they need the best and most everyone else. That’s GREAT!!
It makes sense for the ‘stand-alone iPod’ to be counted apart from the ipod integrated into the iPhone and iPad. It’s silly for MDN to fault others for thinking of the iPod as the physical stand-alone device. I suppose MDN would be satisfied if the term “stand-alone iPod” was used to describe the non iPhone, non iPad simple iPd. But it should be obvious that what is meant by “iPod” in the media.
I get the impression MDN thinks the decline in sales of ‘stand-alone’ iPods is irrelevant.
In my iPhone Dock Phone Mail Safari iPod
Yep, therte is a real, true, iPod in every iPhone. umm, make that iPod Touch to be specific.
So MDN, if I bought an iPad I would have no use for a standalone iPod, right? Let me just walk around listening to music with my iPad in my pocket. What a stupid take.
I guarantee 90% of people who have an iPad will also have an iPod (or iPhone). Just because iPod functionality is in all three of these devices doesn’t mean you can count each one as an item sold.
Should Apple be counting display sales with every laptop sold?
Well, you can’t count them twice. If you’re counting iPhone sales, don’t also count those as iPod sales. No double dipping, except at the ice cream store.