January’s MacWorld Expo brought about several exciting hardware and software products from Apple worth getting excited about. Editorial contributor Mike Banks Valentine had the fortunate pleasure to be among those that attended the show and provided osViews with a detailed report about what was announced as well as a handful of other Apple-centric news events that occured around the same time.
I understand what apple did ‘n’ all but I (like, i guess, alot of laptop owners) have all my cds on my laptop and i want a cheap enough mp3 player that’ll hold about 100 songs for when i’m walking about. it’s a pitty i won’t be able to buy i nice little stylish one with an apple on it
I hope the prices come down. I was planning on getting a 20GB ipod but it just costs too much. Ill proably end up with a nomad
See, if you compare the mini to, for example, the 1.5 gb rio nitrus, which is seeling for anywhere between $199 and $249, or the new rio that will have 4gigs for $249, the ipod mini is priced just right.
In any event, all I know is that three of co-workers already ordered one. People in my office are talking about the iPod mini and I don’t hear any of ’em talking about any of the other players out there.
When you see just how freakin’ small the mini iPods are, you’ll be amazed. It’s an amazing piece of technology.
You can pick up a 40MB Creative Zen (similar to an iPod) for $250-290. Ten times the storage for around the same price as a mini iPod.
Apple better reduce their prices… otherwise you’re gonna have a repeat of what happened to their computer biz… no market share in 2-3 years.
It’s difficult to say why anyone would want a player that doesn’t support OGG, FLAC, or any of the other great quality codecs. Apple should get on the ball and add more codecs to their music players.
The new Rio models even sound better than the iPod… and support more codecs.
Apple is definitely falling behind by sticking to their closed design and the high price points. I mean… the 40GB Creative Zen is over $200 cheaper than the 40GB iPod.
Come on Apple… don’t do a repeat of the Mac market share power dive…
Music isn’t that important to me.
I look at a 10 gig iPod and think “shameless markup”. I can’t think of a damn reason those cost more than $100 — and I say this as a Mac user.
Whoever hits the $100 price point and gives me 5 gigs minimum gets my money.
“I look at a 10 gig iPod and think “shameless markup”. I can’t think of a damn reason those cost more than $100″
The cost of the hard drive alone is $250-$350 depending on size. The fact that Apple has its prices as low as they are while also making the best MP3 player OS and navigation hardware combined in one package and for a price as low as they do is a testiment to the company’s competativeness in price.
“Whoever hits the $100 price point and gives me 5 gigs minimum gets my money.”
You may be waiting a little while longer… although not too long… I imagine that the current iPod mini’s form factor will replace the standard iPod’s form factor and storage capacities will go up accordingly despite the small size. The means that the current 4 gig model will go down in price when the new ones go up in storage… and you may have your $100 after all.
I suspect it will be in at least a year’s time however before anyone offers what you’re looking for. Because of the fact that Apple is the volume leader, the will be the ones to lower prices first, thus compelling me to believe that your next MP3 player will be an iPod and not some wanna-be copycat.
I understand that many people put their music on their laptops or desktops but with the iPod standard or mini, you can move all that to the iPod. When you hook it up to your PC or Mac you can play it through iToons just like you would a CD or a file on your system. You don’t have to use up that disk space on your systems HD(s) for those 10 CD’s.
Additioanlly you can use it as an external FireWire/USB drive for transfering files, a voice recorder, backup for your digital camera, some PDA functions, etc. All this in a pice of hardware the size of an old zipo lighter.
Like its already been stated the price on the current ones will come down as ones with larger capacity become available and I don’t think that the other flash MP3 players can do as much as a mini can do same goes for the standard size MP3 players.
The price is more than fair. The value you get for the enjoyment it brings is the true economic decider. But ask your self this would you spend 199 for a PS/2 or XBox to play games on? How much enjoyment and satisfaction does that bring?
My gues is if you don’t want to part with the money to purchase one you’re not the kind buyer that Apple is targeting. I’m sure that they will get over it, if you choose to buy someone else’s product. Just count yourself as one of the 3 out of 10 people who chose something other than iPod, and then ask yourself why the other 7 decided that the iPod was worth it and you didn’t.
First off, I thought that you were just trolling I found your rant to be very funny, so I respond:
“You can pick up a 40MB Creative Zen (similar to an iPod) for $250-290. Ten times the storage for around the same price as a mini iPod.”
The iPod mini is $249
The Zen is $250
So what, its not what you pay, its about what you get, or don’t get.
What is the difference between the iPod Mini and the Creative Nomad Zen in weight and dimensions, as this affects portability (smaller = better)?
the Creative Nomad Zen is:
9.5 oz (with built-in Li-ion battery)
2.99″ x 4.43″ x 0.95″
the Apple iPod Mini is:
3.6 ounces
3.6″ x 2.0″ x 0.5″
The Apple iPod mini is 5.9 ounces lighter, more than twice as light as the creative Nomad Zen, so the iPod Mini is better in this respect.
The iPod mini is 3.6 cubic inches in volume, the Zen is 12.583415 cubic inches. The iPod mini is 8.983415 smaller than the Creative Nomad Zen. If you don’t know already, miniturization costs money, those tiny hardrives are expensive.
Which screen is bigger and higher resolution, bigger and higher resolution are better:
Apple iPod Mini
1.67-inch (diagonal) grayscale LCD with LED backlight
Creative Nomad Zen
132 x 64 pixel resolution blue EL backlit display
From the documents on Apple’s and Creative’s website I can not see any obvious difference, so neither screen can be compared.
“Apple better reduce their prices… otherwise you’re gonna have a repeat of what happened to their computer biz… no market share in 2-3 years.”
“It’s difficult to say why anyone would want a player that doesn’t support OGG, FLAC, or any of the other great quality codecs. Apple should get on the ball and add more codecs to their music players.”
Yes, it is difficult to say, why you would say this?
There are quite possibly DRM issues that Apple must contend with when dealing with the Record Labels. So they probably choose AAC for this reason.
“The new Rio models even sound better than the iPod… and support more codecs.”
Good for them. This doesn’t make the iPod Mini any worse or better than the Rio Models, because the Rio models don’t support AAC (understand the difference?)
Apple Ipod Mini:
Also, the iPod Mini does support the following codecs:
AAC (16 to 320 Kbps), MP3 (32 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible, AIFF (Mac only) and WAV
Creative Nomad Zen officially supports the following codecs:
MPEG Audio Layer 3 (MP3), Windows Media™ Audio (WMA) and WAV
The Zen supports fewer codecs than the iPod mini. So it would seem that the iPod mini is more “OPEN” than the Zen.
“Apple is definitely falling behind by sticking to their closed design and the high price points. I mean… the 40GB Creative Zen is over $200 cheaper than the 40GB iPod.”
Your argument starts off trying to belittle the iPod Mini as not as good as the Creative Zen model, and now you shift to the high end iPod and how its HD capacity is not as high as the Zen. Then you compare prices…
You are arguing features without regard for experience.
The iPod sells so well because of the overall simplicity, and consistency in its interface, qualities that Creative and Rio (most non-apple digital music players for that matter) still don’t get, or fail to apply succesfully.
I have not read any rave reviews about the interface of the Zen, but Apple’s iPod UI has received several excellent reviews. Again, the iPod wins not on having every single possible feature but it excells in a great consumer experience.
“Come on Apple… don’t do a repeat of the Mac market share power dive…”
Power Dive? I thought you were ranting about digital music players, why shift over to the desktop market (that is also profitable for Apple) when you were doing so well?
Please, do your research by experiencing things, not recycling ages old myths.
Thank you.
you can’t make a ipod very cheap, Harddrives cost money after all.
Far as if the price is right or not, well there are two ways to look at it, thus conflicts, both are correct. The mini is great if you compair to the competition, but sucks if you compair it to its big brother. All depends on your point of veiw. I don’t think it’s a good deal at all. Not much price differance and the size differnace (as in exterior size) is very small. Its not much smaller then the normal. So any gain the size differance gets you si very little.
I don’t know how you truely can compair things. I really don’t know why the flash card units even exist, if you can get a base ipod for similar price, and not much bigger. I thing the flash ones are for those who are really into wasting money. If new mini harddrives come more common, then the flash ones will soon die. All rio needs to do is come out with a good mini hardrive based unit and they could get back at apple.
“The cost of the hard drive alone is $250-$350 depending on size. The fact that Apple has its prices as low as they are while also making the best MP3 player OS and navigation hardware combined in one package and for a price as low as they do is a testiment to the company’s competativeness in price.”
A 10 GB laptop HD may be had for $85 retail. Apple doesn’t pay retail on parts. The “competiveness in price”
bit is a bit amusing when viewing the company’s lineup as a whole – so is the “best” thing submitted as fact.
Laptop HDDs are 2.5 inch drives…..the iPod battery is a 1.8 inch drive and the mini drive is a 1 inch drive….so your numbers are wrong, and anonymous’s numbers are correct.
Fine. You and anonymous are still costing this at retail, which is *hardly* what Apple pays.
Heh…for me it’s “Whoever hits the $100 price point and gives me 1 gig minimum gets my money.” I think apple should release a 1-2G iPod…for about $100-150.
Oh, and I forgot the fact that for $50 more than the mini, you can get a 15G iPod. And yes, i know the mini is smaller.
350 may be retail, but the at cost would probably run about 250 at the least. the fact is, it is still amaising that they bring the price of a 4 gig mini drive in at 250, especialy with all those features.
“350 may be retail, but the at cost would probably run about 250 at the least. the fact is, it is still amaising that they bring the price of a 4 gig mini drive in at 250, especialy with all those features.”
A 1.8 inch 5 GB drive retails for about $208. Wholesale at Apple’s purchasing volume should be more like $100 to $150.