New iPods

October 27, 2004 - 9:57am — Anonymous

The new iPods are not all that exciting. iPod Photo? You mean iPod Color Screen with expected functionality. I must definitely not be the market most companies are targeting these days, because I tell ya, the music that is coming out and the technology coming out is absolute crap these days.

Apple continues to miss the boat in a number of aspects of the Digital Hub. They don' t even mention it any more - out of sight, out of mind.

So Apple doesn't want to add video recording functionality to the iPod - fine. They go the photo route: the half-effort photo route. No integrated digital camera.

Is Apple suffering from iPod focus? So the iPod doesn't need video or still frame - but video and still frame devices need elegant interfaces, compact sizes and hard-drive-based storage. Apple wants to sell you sixty GB to store your photos - just like the iPod, Apple will discover that the average user's photo library is probably around 1GB tops, so the iPod Photo will sell poorly. But give the thing a 5MP CCD so people can begin filling up that huge space - that is the winning hit. The important placement is not the large storage with the photo library, it's the large storage with the elegantly designed camera. Once again, like CD-RW and the home A/V hub, Apple is missing the whole photo hub.

The iPod U2 - a six year old idea slapped on to a more expensive iPod. Just one color this time, as if the iPod was the PowerMac of music storage, and the Mini the iMac Rev c, the one that needs color. All iPods need a color choice, people are openly rebelling against Apple's earbuds because everyone has them, 2 million new earbuds every quarter now.

I'm guessing that Apple has too large a hit on its hands that it can't see the forest from the trees, and can't pull itself away from the sales figures to look at the 3-5 year Hub strategy again.

I plan to buy an iPod really soon, and get the additional iPod Battery that one of the third parties sells (40 additional hours of battery life, the life the iPod should have to begin with), but it won't be any of the models introduced today, it will be a decent piece of equipment.

One other possible take on this - iPod is a product with a hefty premium, but it's the market winner. Apple takes the same risk with stronger competitors in the photo market where products are easier to compare based on features with each other, so Apple may not want to risk muddying their cash cow and prompt a backlash from people fed up with the "everyday high prices" philosophy they follow.

Home Networking etc.

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April 30, 2005 - 5:55am — gfair

Old rebuttal

Didn't realise there was a reply to a post of mine that still interests me.

Why exactly do you plan to buy an iPod pretty
soon? Especially since, according to you, it is lacking in many ways
and it carries a hefty premium.

I purchased a regular iPod 40G because I knew I was going to be using the space. The hefty premium was on the iPod Photos at the time, and since then the prices have taken quite a deep cut. With over 1400 songs, almost all encoded in ALAC format, my iPod uses over 30GB of the 37GB net storage on the hard drive. My entire music library of some 300 CDs is available to me round the clock in CD Audio. I purchased this product because I knew I would be using the capacity. Apple's iPods were selling like hotcakes before Apple announced that most people use no more than 4GB.

Can you succinctly explain Apple's digital hub strategy? The one that you claim they are no longer following.

Yes, Apple's Digital Hub strategy is to make the Mac the hub of the digital media world, with a focus on consumers, while also making significant strides in the pro side of things (pro video and audio software).

Apple's strategy was to do so by creating the applications (iLife) , but in addition it has also been rumored, or announced, that Apple would be creating devices. Since the digital hub strategy was unveiled some years ago, the only device we have seen is a portable hard drive with music capabilities.

But Apple's iPod is such a massive success that, as I said, Apple can't see the forest from the trees. Apple seems entirely focussed on the iPod, having had the iPod out for a number of years now, but having failed to introduce any more hub products, and this is what worries me. Nokia has announced a phone with a hard drive, every MP3 player manufacturer is targeting the iPod (and not many of them get it), but Apple has done nothing to broaden the media device offering.

I believe Apple is neglecting the hub strategy by focussing on the iPod entirely. Apple doesn't seem to realize that the crucial factor to success isn't the iPod, it's the iPod treatment: this treatment could be applied to phones, digital cameras, and digital video recorders. Now that I think of it, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple's next product was a cell phone with a hard drive, it almost seems far more likely than a camera and video.

Take the iPod treatment and apply it to digital cameras and digital video recorders, and I think Apple will have huge success across the modern day digital hub, on the hub hardware and software, and the appliances that integrate into it. But don't sit around developing new iPods without expanding to other products.

The only downfall with the appliance side of things is that with music player, digital camera, and digital video recorder, Apple makes competitors out of some of the biggest companies around, like Sony, Canon, Fuji, and many others. Defending that product lineup will only work if the camera and video recorder are successes on the same level that the iPod is to secure a marketplace that can be defended.

October 29, 2004 - 8:08am — Anonymous (not verified)