Apple unveils new 1GB iPod nano at $149

Unsubstantiated blurb:

Now these will be gobbled up and market share will rise again with investor confidence. Why is it that all these research and investment firms seem so much like pussy cats?

i don't get it. why would anyone want a 1GB Nano? then again, i didn't really understand at 2GB Nano, either.

guess i just like having more music than that with me....

the shuffle was a great idea.. it's ideal for working out... plop your good workout music on there and go, but for general iPod use i need something with more storage

It was only a matter of time....

I'll probably get one of these bad boys for the gym! But at the same time shuffle prices are better, but can I sacrifice a navigation screen? Sure I can't change songs in the middle of a set but I can change playlists between exercises.

Anyways this will sell like hotcakes, or like ipods, take your pick.

I may get the 1GB Nano simply because at times I just want to have my top 200 songs available. I plan on getting a larger iPod someday but I still have to rip my whole collection someday.

It's only 20 bucks more than the shuffle but it has playlists and it's damn near as light for working out with.

So what will happen to the shuffle? My hopes are they keep it. Perfect for the gym. Use the 30GB for everything else.

the shuffle still blows away the nano for working out simply because it has better clip options. With the right clip you can put it on your shirt collar and have as close to a wire free hassle as possible, which is perfect for working out.

for the car and for watching videos from the music store on the TV, the ipod video is perfect.

nice to have both!

$50 actually (now).

Presently they have just lowered the prices. Previously reports were they were selling all they could make. My guess is it stays for the time-being. They don't seem to be saying much about it however. It is just "there". And why should they. They have an answer for the extremely price concious, but they would love to sell the higher margin products instead.

Wow! Apple just proved me wrong in an earlier post where I thought Apple would kill the 512 shuffle instead of going lower than $99.

I'm surprised. This means they're not going to leave any space for anybody else to make any money in the mp3 player business. Wow again.

Cost. 1GB easily holds about as much or more music than can be played on a charge. I have a few smart playlists that I use to automatically change out the tracks that I've played on the nano for new ones.

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!

The thing that has been really clever about the way they have done this...is they have done it relatively slowly.

Yes. 240 songs (at 4 minutes each) is 16 hours of music! Well more than my commute + work day + commute home. I am serious considering iPod nano 1GB when it comes time to replace my 20GB 3G iPod.

Video doesn't hold much interest for me. I could probably still put my entire photo collection, contacts, calendars and 9-10 hours of music on the thing and be quite content.

Gee...I wonder why the nanos are selling so well.

Would it really kill Apple to include voice recording on the Nano?

This thing is perfect to carry around and make quick notes to yourself, or even do short interviews.

Does the Nano lack the necessary hardware to record, or is it something that can be hacked?

I think Apple is getting to the point where the top end of their iPod line is going to "evaporate" for most of the market. It seems to have been whithering away slowly anyway. Who on earth really has 60GB worth of music? OK...some folks do. Now, after those 1,000 have bought their iPods, why does anyone else need one that big? Well...in comes video. But portable video is a small market. An Apple iTMS+TiVO+Netflix-ish thing has got to be their next big play to generate growth.

Yes, 16 hours of music is more than enough... but what if you want to listen to something that isn't on there at the moment? Not to mention you have to remember to sync your iPod every time you're going anywhere (to get different content) regardless of whether it needs to be charged or not.

I had a mini for years, and it served me well, but when I started getting into podcasting I was constantly having to decide what music I probably wasn't going to listen to so I could make space on the thing. Now that I have a 30GB video it can hold all of my library and more... it's just a much better solution for me. I like having all my options available when I'm going to be using the iPod for a while.

Same reasons as a shuffle. It's basically a slightly larger shuffle with a screen.

I love the shuffle, but I'm very tempted to spend the extra $50 to get a screen.

Maybe someday I'll get a "big" iPod. But I have MORE than 60 gig, they need to come out with a bigger one before I'll be interested.

From what I hear and see, the iPod (30 or 60) has been doing really really well. Many teens I know got them, not nanos, for presents over Christmas. And the reason is video. (Yes, it's anecdotal and maybe I just know teens with rich parents/grandparents).

For Apple, the nano is the perfect music-mostly, some photos device. Priced at $249 and down.

And the iPod is now the video device, but it's just the first version. I expect a significant redo by October that fully addresses the portable video experience, just like the nano was a significant redo of the mini. And I can see it continue to be priced at $299 and up for the next year or 2.

All quite true. I suspect most users probably don't fit into that category. I don't (anymore).

Eh, maybe not quite as low as 1,000 ... maybe 2,000! But seriously, I've been an iPod adapter since the second gen, and I've had every generation of the full sized iPod. I also have ~12GB worth of music. I thought long and hard before abandoning my 20GB 4th gen for the 30GB video, but then decided, why not? I like having all of my music with me at one time, and the video may come in handy. You never know what kind of day it'll end up being, and so you need the music to go with it. I was listening to "Eye of the Tiger" going into an engineering exam this morning. I came out and sulked back to my dorm to the "Imperial March" from Star Wars. I just couldn't go down to a nano because I'd have to leave 1/3 of my library on my computer.

I do agree that some Movie distributors or companies will need to get on board. Podcasts, TV shows and MV's are great, but will only carry you so far. Apple is doing well with TV shows, but movies have to get in there too. I have a few DVD's ripped to my iPod as H.264's, and they look great. Buying movies through iTMS where they're already formatted and scaled would be much easier and save me some time. A movie is what, like 3 - 5 times longer than a TV show, so charge maybe 4 times more for movies? Would you pay $6.99 - $8.99 for a movie formatted for the iPod? That's going to be where the consumer hesitation is. Yeah, you can hook the iPod up to a TV and watch it, but how much does quality suffer. Will you lose DVD navigational functionality? Chapter markers wouldn't be too hard to incorporate, but what about the people that actually want the bonus features? These are all things Apple would have to investigate before distributing movies...

Chris

And that, my friends, is called upselling.

the Shuffle is now 69 dollars kids!!!!!!!

i hope people buy lots of them so they will keep it I love the shuffle!!!!

Well, I do. When taking even an hour-long ride, I like to be able to listen to what I want (the whole point of an iPod, I thought), not what I thought I might have wanted to listen to the night before. And even if you got the first trip OK, on the return trip, its "Man, I wish I had that Fogerty album on this thing!". And with a small player, if you're looking to listen to an album or two, you might as well leave the iPod at home and just put 6 CDs in the car.

Of course, I've got 40GB of music, audiobooks, radio programs, etc on my iPod. The audiobooks and radio stuff could be left off in a crunch (when I was maxing out my 30GB 3G, I had to start trimming the fat to get everything on there), but its just nice to be able to pick what I want to hear (or just say "Hey, shuffle me up some of my favorite music". (Of course, Apple's "Shuffle Play" menu is useless to me, since it just does everything, when I usually like to shuffle through just 3-star or better music).

It's cool. That's why they have the upper pods. I just suspect it is a dimishing segment of the market.


Well...even the 1GB is like 12-20 albums.


Understood.

Yep, and Apple has been brilliant at it.

Good thing Apple continues to take the tack that HP did for printers... continuous improvement and price reductions that undercut all competitors along with the billion song promo. Heading for more record-breaking numbers from Apple.

The random sampling system I use seems to ensure that a few tracks of everything are on my player. And I don't really bother thinking about what is loaded, my system is fully automatic.


I use smart playlists to load only 3+ star stuff on the player. I also can uncheck tracks that you don't want on the player, there is a setting to not load checked tracks onto the player. There is a per-file setting that says to not play said file in shuffle mode, but there is no easy way to change that setting in groups of files.

How about for improved sound quality? I realize many people will think this concern may be relegated to another 1,000-person batch, but the sound degradation that goes along with downampling music to 128kbps is not only very noticeable, it's also really annoying. I've heard voices broken into pieces, missing tones, and dramatically-different tonal moods as a result of downsampling. It's like the difference between digital cable and analog cable; squares appear on the screen whenever high-contrast images, color shifts, or rapid motion appears in a digital broadcast. I'm not saying digital is inferior, but the way it's been employed so far has made it seem so. And the "tin-ear" argument I often hear (most people can't tell the difference) holds very little water in my opinion. I truly believe most people can't tell the difference because the majority of people are used to crappy quality due to crappy mp3s and crappy speakers. Not saying you need to go out and buy an audiophile system for thousands of dollars, but most people hear things in less-than-great listening conditions.

I realize I'm probably coming off as a sound-snob, but the truth is I'm just sick of the industry trying to give us less than we deserve. If we lose the big iPods, we lose any chance at real sample rates and real sound quality. The music industry, including Apple, would love this because it provides for cheaper, lighter transport and more content at a lower price (again, like digital cable's zillion-plus channels at very crappy quality). In my opinion, that's not OK. I'd take less content in favor of quality content any day without hesitation. Take some time and listen to Johnny Cash's voice splinter at 128 kbps and you might agree with me.

Side note: I refuse to buy music from the iTunes music store until they offer lossless-quality downloads.

Deserve? What exactly do we deserve?


That is primarily a function of the sales of these guys. Right now they are doing fine, so probably little risk. Down the road who knows.


And you have this option with CDs and lossless ripping. Am I wrong?

There will always be room for others to make money. Not as much as Apple, but there will always be more room. And grabbing the entire market is not a good thing.

DoJ may come knocking to their door more often than they would want them to.

Certainly true.


Well...Microsoft doesn't seem to be hurting too badly.


True. They may. But remember, having a monopoly, in and of itself is not illegal, but using predatory or monopolistic tactics or leveraging one to form another is. At this point Apple hasn't shown such tendencies.

As someone purchasing music, I feel like I DESERVE to get a product of the same quality if I'm paying the same price. If I pay $10 for a CD and $10 for a downloadable album, I shouldn't have to sacrifice sound quality for what's pimped as an equivalent.



You're not wrong and I'm very glad you aren't. I've just been looking at the trends in media distribution for the past few years and they've been migrating toward a model of inferior quality/more quantity. I caught "Good Will Hunting" on digital cable the other night and in more than one scene Matt Damon's face was rendered no better than what a kindergartener might throw on paper with some giant crayons. It's so highly compressed the the details become giant squares, a digital mosaic. Music has been skewing the same way. I fear that in the future, the only way to get what used to be and is currently STANDARD quality will be relegated to the realm of PREMIUM quality and, in my opinion, that's wrong. You pay the same money for an inferior product and have to pay more for what used to be normal. That's not something I deserve as a consumer. I mean honestly, how can you defend the steady move toward sub-standard quality that multiple industries have been pushing?

Careful here. People assume that the two products are the same. They are not. They have different "features". The iTMS provides buyers with two advantages that buying a CD does not:

1. Ability to buy singles
2. Instant gratification

You are correct that there is a quality trade-off.

But some people (enough to have bought 850 million anyway) have decided that this trade-off is worth it. You have more options now that iTMS exists than before it did.



Hmmm...

First, you have a choice as a consumer to not buy the products of inferior quality. Second, it seems to me that the quality has been increasing (DVD vs. VHS as one example). Now the prices on DVDs have been higher, but these too are beginning to come down. Next up to bat is HD DVD (of one form or another).


Well, it may be headed that way. A valid concern indeed. But we have a choice to not buy as well. I mean media entertainment (TV, movies, music, DVD players, digital cabel, TiVO, iPods, etc.) aren't exactly like food, clean air and water, clothing and shelter. They are not essential to life. It might take an adjustment, but I could live without them. Once the value (price/quality ratio) diminishes to a certain level, I likely will. Chances are, my life will actually be better for it too.


I'm not really defending it at all.

I agree with many of your points, especially the fact that currently, I do have a choice (at least when it comes to music, because when it comes to cable/satellite, that choice is pretty much long gone -- unless you want to pay a lot of money). I'm just afraid that the days of choice are coming to a close and I'm not a fan of that. And I also realize these items are less than essential, but it doesn't make me like current industry practices.

And yes, if things get so crappy as to make us not want them at all, my life would improve as well. The grip of consumerism is nasty and strong.

does the nano use the same connector as the 3g 20g ipod(scrol wheel-pre click wheel) and what comes in the box?? does the lanyand like the shuffle come with it or is it separate??

130 for education ain't too bad...

I have a 4 GB nano and an older mini but now I might just pick up a 512 MB shuffle to tote files around with and to use at the gym. Sure, I've used my mini and nano at the gym with iPod armband, but the nano is simple and easy and if it only held my workout playlist it'd be something easy to grab and go and I wouldn't worry about my nano in any way..

The nano has a dock connector, just like the 3g and later iPods and mini. It comes with a USB dock cable, installation CD, earbuds, the nano itself, and maybe some random crap. (Apple should include the legendary Apple stickers.)

The nano lanyard headphones, dock, armband, AC brick, condoms (nano tubes), etc. are extra, ranging from $30-$50.

i couldn't wait bought the 1gb shuffle and personalized it for my wife when she works out--valentines day you know. again, simple, no cords, great lanyard and personalization was free. i like the nano but only one computer has usb2.0 and i didn't want to buy more accessories. simple is wonderful. also i'm waiting for an ipod with BT
i gueess with 1gb she can also put on audio books and podcasts

thanks xool for the info, but i think this simple solution for my wife will be the ticket.

I hate to say this, but it is already happening. Not with the DOJ, but the same way it happened to MS.

http://news.findlaw.com/scripts/prin...2slattery.html