“It could be deja vu all over again for Apple Computer Inc. Just one week after launching the tiny iPod Shuffle, a lightweight and much cheaper model of its market-leading digital music player, customers face a wait of two to four weeks before their order is shipped, according to the company’s Web site on Tuesday,” Reuters reports.
“The backlog of orders comes not quite a year after the introduction of the iPod mini sparked a six-week wait when ordered online,” Reuters reports. “There is a two- to three-week wait for the $99 iPod Shuffle, which holds about 120 songs, while customers face a wait of three to four weeks for the $149 model, which has double the capacity, according to the Apple Web site.” Full article here.
According to a November 12, 2004 report from AppleInsider, “RUMOR: Apple to start making flash-based iPod stockpiles for January debut,” Apple was rumored to be building a stock-pile of approximately 2 million iPod shuffle units before the product began shipping world-wide after a Macworld Expo debut. We can only wonder if Apple had 2 million units on hand by the time Steve Jobs unveiled it. If so, “Wow!” Regardless, if for the publicity that is sure to be generated by this shortage alone, Creative, iRiver, and the rest of the also-rans are seriously hating life right now.
MacDailyNews Take: More popular than Apple thought? It’s almost, we say almost, beyond reason (well, maybe not so unreasonable, if Apple sold 2 million iPod shuffles in a week) that Cupertino could’ve underestimated demand for the iPod shuffle, but Apple does have its voluminous [pun intended] history of supply problems. Anecdotal evidence from retailers suggests that people are buying multiple iPod shuffles at one time – have they bled the initial run dry already? Not bad for a “fad and a one-product wonder,” as Dell CEO Kevin Rollins was quoted yesterday to describe Apple’s iPod line. It seems that Rollins offered no catchy descriptions for the Dell DJ line.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Tech columnist Wendland: ‘Apple’s new iPod Shuffle to be the next must-have product’ – January 18, 2005
iRiver CEO on Apple iPod shuffle: ‘It will be very difficult for users to find their favorite songs’ – January 17, 2005
Dismissive Dell CEO not impressed with Apple Mac mini, calls iPod a ‘one-product wonder’ and a ‘fad’ – January 17, 2005
Apple VP: Apple received more prerelease orders for iPod shuffle in Japan than for iPod mini debut – January 14, 2005
Creative CEO: Apple iPod shuffle ‘a big let-down, worse than the cheapest Chinese player’ – January 12, 2005
Walt Mossberg tests Apple’s new iPod shuffle and concludes that ‘the iPod juggernaut will roll on’ – January 12, 2005
Analyst: Mac Mini and iPod Shuffle are big winners for Apple – January 11, 2005
Apple introduces iPod shuffle, first iPod under US$100 – January 11, 2005
RUMOR: Apple to start making flash-based iPod stockpiles for January debut – November 12, 2004
Crap.
to the moon , this is going to be great
Damn, and I was going to buy one for this girl to hopefully…….well…….you know.
No soup for me.
It’ll be the same with the Mac mini – just watch.
Magic word = didnt
“Why didnt I buy Apple at $12 in summer 1996?” Answer: Gil Amelio
NUMBERS! I want to see the number of orders for the first week. I bet they will jump to 75% market share for flash players in the first month. Of course I have 1 question, what possible upgrade path is their for such a simple device?
I found the 512MB shuffle at an Apple Store yesterday. They had maybe 20 or so left at the moment I bought mine but they were selling briskly, so I’m sure they were all gone an hour or two later.
There doesn’t have to be an upgrade path. This is the sort of device people will simply buy an identical one of to replace an old/broken one. This is true, to some degree, of the iPod as well (though the price is higher). This is also going to be huge as a gift (as seen by people buying multiple shuffles at once). All the iPod loving people out there are spreading the joy.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” /> Win, win scenario for Apple. Free advertising, more income, and a larger chunk of the flash marketshare pie.
I ordered mine on the day of Macworld and got it yesterday. I should have not opened it and put it on ebay. Im sure there are people out there willing to pay double just to get one of these..
Man, I ordered one hours after the announcement and still haven’t heard squat from Apple’s online store about shipping dates….
Come on, Apple–I want my shuffle!
mine is coming today !!!!!!!! ray no one is going 2 pay double for it. It’s a flash ipod. It’s a cheap ipod. That’s the whole point. you guys think I should take pics of it’s opening. mac mini is high!!!!!!!! My imac is delicous. so is my powerbook. daddy steve ah. apple is god
Argh–just checked the order status, and it says “on or before 1/28”!!
Well, my birthday’s the 29th…. Maybe Apple will get it into my hands then
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Ordered on the day arrived yesterday. The Mrs is exceedingly pleased, listening to Mozart Mass in C walking the dog!
The Shuffle is going to be mega mega mega…
Magic word is STARTED…it has indeed.
At the Apple store in San Francisco on Tuesday last week (i.e. day of Keynote), I noticed people buying 2, 3 and in one case about 10 of them. They only the 512Mb version which we weren’t interested in, but I’d heard they’d sold out of those by the end of the day.
Guess when people buy 10 at a time, it’s no wonder. They probably have lots of lucky friends right now!
I think I am going to get a 512 Mb one. That is like 8 hours of music right? Plenty enough for the short trips or exercise sessions I plan on using it for. Usually I will continue to use my 30 gig iPod that only has like 4 gigs left open. And only music!!
My order for 2 of these bad boys goes in soon, I guess I will be waiting unless I can catch some at the Apple store
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EAT IT DELL!
I’m more concerned about the Mac mini supply. If they can’t keep up it could dampen momentum.
16 hours
The upgrades? Increased capacity for the same price.
The Apple store in London got 200 in on Saturday morning – sold out in a couple of hours.
I just saw the news on CNN.com and sent the link to MDN, but they were ahead of me. The iPod shuffle is going to be a dinosaur-killer, likewise the Mac mini.
My local Apple Store got them in on Monday. I called first, but they wouldn’t hold one for me. By the time I arrived, they had already sold out. I heard one person bought several dozen – probably to sell on ebay.
Bastard.
The demo model one of the Geniuses was wearing looked pretty cool.
I ordered one.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” />
Hope you get yours soon.
There are TONS of iPod shuffle’s already on ebay. Check this out: http://search.ebay.com/ipod-shuffle_W0QQxZ0QQyZ0
A 1 GB model for ‘buy it now’ of $169.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=73839&item=5745181173&rd=1
Or a 512 MB for $130.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=67835&item=5745201242&rd=1
When I ordered two 512 shuffles on Saturday at the online Apple Store, and the store’s web page said I should expect a delay of two-three weeks.
The two shuffles arrived today (Tuesday) using the standard free shipping. It was a day late because yesterday was a holiday. Reuters as far as I can tell did not look beyond the two-three weeks for the 512 model and three-four weeks for the 1024.
Who knows how shipping works, but I would try the online store before they really run out.
BTW, the shuffle was PERFECT for running at the gym, much better than my 3G 40GB iPod. So light I didn’t notice it at all after a few minutes. I went to the gym immediately after delivery because the shuffle was charged out of the box. I am happy and so will my wife be when she arrives from work.
I was thinking iPod shuffle would be big (and said so here), but I had not really looked closely at what the competition was offering.
After looking at the paper on Sunday and seeing the ads for Best Buy, Circuit City, Conn’s etc., I am amazed at how little these other companies offer and also how much they are asking.
No ad could touch iPod shuffle for price/capacity. Of course some of them do offer a screen, but none of the ones I saw could be described as cool or attractive (at least not by me). I have thought about it and agree with Steve that a screen on a 512Mb/1Gb flash player is not really needed (I know while working out or riding, I don’t need a screen, just keep the music coming).
I saw other players (from companies I’ve heard of) with a close price but half the capacity and I saw players with the same capacity at $50 more.
I have since changed my mind about the impact of iPod shuffle, this will be bigger than big, huge. I know I’m ordering two. I’ve said it before, sometimes my silver iPod mini is just too big and heavy to carry around. Bob C seems to agree.
~M
Flash memory is made by the assload..and Apple still cant comply with their obligations…Typical..
Brought to you by the magic word “Firm” as in Apple has a “Firm” grip on all you Turd Tappin Shills.
MWHAHAHAHAHA!
First of all “don’t feed the troll”
And second, I ordered one the day it came out and got two days later-awsome, hard to imagine the quality sound that comes out of souch a tiny and light gizzmo.
The funniest thing is that these other manufacturers and whatever poor consumers they hook will probably see the popularity of the iPod shuffle as more evidence of the cult of Apple; that they will buy anything from Apple simply for the sake of buying from Apple. But this is far from the truth.
I remember the market for jukeboxes before iTunes and it blew – hard. When iTunes came along, I was so happy to have something that managed to be what I wanted out of a music player. With iTMS, it just became that much better. I did go the file sharing route for a while but it was way too frustrating. I value my time, and $1 a song was more than worth eliminating the hassle.
I liked the idea of the iPod when it first came out, but it was beyond my price range for what I wanted. I don’t have that much digital music and I don’t have much of a need for transferring large files or keeping my calendar and address book at hand. It may be a great value by the numbers but I just couldn’t justify the purchase (I’m extremely stingy; for example, I completely skipped the CD revolution for music).
But the iPod shuffle is exactly what I’ve been waiting for. I don’t need a screen. I don’t want to mess with browsing playlists to find a particular song. I just want something to take with me on my long commute every day so I don’t have to listen to the stupid radio. Lunch too. I also now have a viable way to listen to audio books. And the price is perfect.
I can’t help it that Apple is the only tech company that understands what I want and consistently delivers on it. The demand for the iPod in general and the shuffle in particular just goes to show that I’m not a rarity with such sentiment.
And though I don’t mind waiting, I must reiterate my initial comment:
Crap.
Mozfan says: “sometimes my silver iPod mini is just too big and heavy to carry around”
now i have heard everything! Who would have thought this kind of comment was possible even 3 months ago?
That’s Apple for you i guess: figuring out what we want before we know we want it,
(and then giving it to us in a better way than we could have thought of, and (in this case) for a price we can afford)
Hello iPod shuffle … I’ll be ordering the 1Gig one to complement my 20Gig 3G, which i cannot take snowboarding. The shuffle is perfect for my needs. Load up a playlist with about 10 hours of music. Send to shuffle. Listen and ride. Who needs a screen for that?
Does anyone know how the shuffle’s battery capacity will hold up in colder conditions? My 3G iPod’s battery disappears faster than an iPod shuffle from an Apple store.
Poor “NoMacForYou”!
Sadly so intellectually stunted that “it” cannot tell the difference between the supply of something and the demand for that thing.
And also unable to account for the fact that, if Apple only has 3% of the PC marketplace, the vast majority of iPod purchasers must – by simple statistical necessity – be customers of the ultimate mind-altering cult (inasmuch as their products are poorly designed, perform poorly when compared to their peers and continually require the cult-member to pay for more products merely to correct the problems contained in the original product), namely Microsoft.
So, either the 3% figure is a load of BS [B]OR{/B] Windows users are seizing freedom from the yoke of mediocrity presented by Microsoft. In reality, I suspect that both are true – but what do I know?
Aah.. I was hoping the University Store would have some by now :@
I’m gonna keep checking every day…
There are over 200 iPod Shuffles for sale on eBay now. Unbelievable. Just from a quick scan, it looks like they’re currently going for around 50% above retail. Pretty easy way to make some quick money for those people who had the foresight to go scoop up an armful.
i’m getting 2
The genius of the Shuffle is not its price, but AUTOFILL.
Try using Autofill a few times, and you’ll realize what makes the Shuffle inherently and substantially different from a displayless flash player from the competition.
In a few weeks, we will see tech writers discover Autofill via the serendipity of product testing an Apple gizmo. Autofill will be the software equivalent of the Click Wheel – so simple in concept, so elegant in execution, but a true revelation only when one has the chance to use it.
Let’s do the math on this…
Apple sold 4.5 million HD players last quarter, for 65% of the market. The 6% that the iPod wannabes got was roughly 400,000 players. That means that the remaining 29% market share that the Flash players commanded amounted to 2.0 million players for three months.
And Apple has already sold up to 2 million Flash players. In a week.
There’s a lot of complaining in here about not buying Apple at $12. In a year, there’s going to be a lot of complaining about not shorting Creative and iRiver.
If the iPod Shuffle is the player of choice for exercise then what does that make the iPod Mini? The arguments for buying a Shuffle seem very similar to those used for buying a Mini when it was first introduced, ie, small, good for exercise, not all music in your library is necessary, etc. I think the Mini will now become the player of choice for beginners who have under 4 GB of music and women who love the look of it.
Of course, real men use iPod Photo. Arrrrr!!
“If the iPod Shuffle is the player of choice for exercise then what does that make the iPod Mini? The arguments for buying a Shuffle seem very similar to those used for buying a Mini when it was first introduced, ie, small, good for exercise, not all music in your library is necessary, etc. I think the Mini will now become the player of choice for beginners who have under 4 GB of music and women who love the look of it.
Of course, real men use iPod Photo. Arrrrr!!”
You said it, Sol!
anyone making more than 15,000 a year can get an iPod mini… It’s leaps and bounds better than the shuffle.. You can obviously do way more, including all the iPod extras.. Not sure why you think you can so easily press the ‘cannibalize’ button without some concrete evidence.. they’re different products aimed at different people
I have an iPod
I have 3 kids
My Middle Child ordered an ipod shuffle with Xmas money the day after it was announced.
I predict the other two will have them within 12 months and will upgrade to the latest in the lower range every 2 years after that.
Oh! and come December I will most likely buy them a mac mini each unless I wait till the January round of announcements:-D
How many more of us are thinking like this, God it must be so hard to be an Anal yst
My magic word is ‘knew’ as in “I knew I should have bought Apple shares”!
I wonder if “autofill” will inspire people to separate the wheat from the chaff in their iTunes library. A couple of random selections of “Football Crazy” or “Snoopy vs. the Red Baron,” and I might have to ditch them altogether!
My wife pre-ordered a 1GB Shuffle from a local electronics store. They say they’ll have it for me on the 25th. I’ll believe it when I have it in my hot little hand….