Demand for Apple's new iPod shuffle outstripping supply - Page 2

nice. In my opinion it's better to have more demand than supply. Who wants extra units sitting around taking up space and losing you money?

Re Deckard

I changed my mind.

I think I overvalued your worth.

You know, you're one witty son of a bitch ain't ya?

Did you think that one up all by yourself or did you have help?

The new Shuffle is exceeding expectations. The first gen Shuffle sold 10 million units over a period of a year and a half. The second gen shuffle may end up selling between 6 to 8 million units in ONE QUARTER.... That kind of success is very hard to predict.

Damn. Apple made a good product and it sold better than they expected. Shame on them! They shouldn't make such good products!





I got my hands on one before the local shop sold out... It is tiny and it sounds great. Gave Apple a present by plowing through the iTMS and downloading enough songs as to not want to see my credit card bill next month.8)

PS Apple should get CNN from endorsing the shufffle while presenting the Zune.

Tee hee hee.

I'm wondering if Apple's sales for the quarter will be substantially over $7 billion. some estimates are already at the $7 billion mark.

18, here in the US, normally.

What's worse, is that I still have my blue Hula Hoop!

if anyone asked me if i would ever get a shuffle, i would have said " an ipod with no screen, NEVER!"

but even after i bought the new nano i still wanted to get the new shuffle and now i use it more than the nano......... who could have ever predicted that ?!?!?!
this shuffle is certain to be iconic

Heh. You really got sucked in 8) ... Very appropriate nickname too.


I think the new Nanos are iconic, the Shuffle is cheap and cute and a bit of a novelty. I fooled around with one last week, it seemed a bit too fiddly and flimsy and the OMFG! THE CLIP BROKE!!!11!!! thread still haunts my memory

nano #2 looks like the nano #1 and also like the mini , imagination needed, but the shuffle is unique in its style and clip

did you cut your fingers ? i smell a lawsuit
yeah...i like my gadgets

I agree, but it's just their way of trying to build hype about a new product...Apple are very good at hyping their products.

Yeah, just like the new Mac Book exceeded expectations, and the new Mac Book Pro and the new iPod, and the Product Red and so on.

Did you know that no other country can even buy product red merchandise? At least, no Asian country... what if we people in that region want to support this?

Don't get me wrong (and in the original post I said this); if this happened now and then it could be put down to a simple under-expectation of demand, but it happens with Apple all the time. And it's getting old.

For what it's worth, I bought the new nano and love it - when I saw the new shuffle on the Web I thought that it would be perfect for the gym and waited the requisite period for our local stores to have display stock to have a look at one in the metal... it is cheap, it is fiddly and the clip looks like it'd last about 10 minutes in the average users hands. I was going to pony up the $120 odd AUD required to buy one, but when I actually played with it I decided to stick with the Nano - the new shuffle's a great form factor and another fabulous design, but it's obviously built to a cost point and wouldn't stand up to the sort of life it would have in my hands.

To each his/her own.

Then get a Zune. No supply problems there. As far as the FUD about the durability of the shuffle, it was tested at Ars and went through all kinds of abuse. They dropped it, stepped on it, dropped it from a three story balcony, dropped it in a glass of beer (nice amber looking beer to boot) and drove over it WITH A CAR. Only driving over it with a car broke it! If it ain't tough enough for you, just how would you use it?

I just bought my second pair of Sony "middle-of-the-road" ear buds. I don't buy anything outrageously expensive since I've already worn out two pair. What wore out is the coating on the wires. The sweat from the back of my neck, where the wires rest, seem to eat through or really weaken the plastic coating on the earphones. Within 4 months they start to tear and I'm left with bare wire. But I guess it depends on how much you sweat.

thanks,
Yes, I think I'll get something cheaper just in case. The Etymotic is nice but very expensive and during workout you have not time to appreciate all the details of a nice earphone anyway.
Usually I sweat a lot on my head and that cripple right in my ears and damage the earphones. i tried Apple in-canal and did not last long.
Cheers.

Could be because the last time Apple overestimated demand it was called the Cube and lead to the first unprofitable quarter in 3 years...and that was only 6 years ago (2000).

Vinea

Man you enjoy bitching about Apple.
Have you ever took the time to realize sometimes is not completely Apple's fault.
Being in a smaller market share put Apple's not in the priority list of many vendors. Also Apple must be somewhat cautious when predict the amount the units to produce. It's note asy to foresee the huge success of their products.
There are a lot of factors. It's true that shipping delays are common, but that's living with Apple. For many years it's been like that. If you don't like then go buy a Zune like have been said here before.

It's normal for foreign countries to not get all the products offered in the USA. I am a foreigner and I experienced that in my country with many manufactures, not just Apple. If you don't like it then move to America. (by the way that would be a silly because Australia is a very nice place)

just checked quickly, but it didn't seem like any educational discounts were offered on the apple site for ANY ipods.

also, blueproton reduced the shuffle price ($79.99), but their nano 8gb is $329.99(!), surpassing the 30gb ipod by $80.

They quit edu pricing on ipods after the last update. I don't think it makes sense to offer edu discounts for entertainment products anyway.

Many foreign products are not available in the USA... that's just life.

Bought the shuffle a week or so ago and use it every day. No problems; it is not cheap or weak. A quick check on Apple's duscussion boards showed no major problems with the shuffle yet... nada about the clip being cheap.

To each his own, I guess, as you said.

Hi fellow Melbournian (or is that Melbournite?) I'm not from these parts here. The weather is crazy down here!!! WTF!!!

Anyway, seems like you're taking heat. But I understand your frustration. It's only in the past 3 years anyway that Sydney and Melbourne have started to get more attention and good iPod and Mac supply as demand itself has ramped up. In this city, seriously, about every other schoolgirl in their teens has white earphones. When I go for a run, about every fifth person has white earphones.

Your use of "frigtard" is hella funny.

To me Sydney and Melbourne is Apple paradise compared to the frigtards in KL, Malaysia. You'd be fracking shocked, and those in USA/ Euroland would just brush it off -- in KL there are like 6 major Apple Mac resellers, not just iPod resellers, within say 25km of the city centre. The Mac range on display is ultra-fan-fracking-tastically pathetic. One place still had the sunflower-iMac g4 on display as demo model. I asked them if they were selling it and they were like "no, we need it do demo". WTF??!!

And I was asking about MacBooks, they were all like sold out, sold out, no demo models, new stuff, nowhere to be seen. iPods you can play with and listen to, not just locked up in boxes, nowhere to be seen.

For Asia except Japan, I think Singapore is the main HQ for Apple so Singaporeans get first choice to all Mac stuff I reckon, and they treat smaller less wealthy countries (Singapore is pretty much a "developed" country with now 4 million people) like mushrooms - feed em' sh1t and keep em' in the dark.

I looked at Amazon.com shipping of Red nanos out of the US and prices were exorbitant. This is because, as the article mentioned, it comes out of a company called Blue Proton rather than Amazon themselves, and they also don't get the super-bulk-discount shipping rates of Amazon.

Part of the Mac appeal is its scarcity

In the vein of perceived flimsiness, there's a major psychological component to that. Something might feel like it would be weak, when in real use, it may hold up well.

We'll have to wait until next year's back-to-school season where they usually have the iPod + MacBook edu deals.......

Given how well the iPod sells in general and it's not important to break into the edu market with it (tons of people at college/high school probably has/ is going to get an iPod anyway) .... I guess there's no "need" to edu discount iPods. \

FUD from the Internet and my own toying with the real thing for five minutes have contributed to a major psychological feeling of its weakness.

One thing is the clip does seem loose so it needs to be anchored on your waist or a thick shirt/ sweater. I like my SonyE v600i because it has a nice really scratch-resistant big bright *glass* screen, and there is an earphone quite-small-ish clip that is higher up which I can clip to the collar of my sweater/ thin running shirt...

Again with my SonyE v600i, earphones/cables holding up well in runs and sweat and stuff so far for about 1+ month... Hope it doesn't develop the problems you've had.

Heh. ...Anyways I don't think that's available anywhere outside the US. Maybe one could get it off eBay for like $5.00 since it's sh1te.


The thing about Shuffles is I can't visually choose a song or playlist. I don't care what order songs are in a particular playlist (it's shuffled within playlists) ..... but I *definitely need* to choose a particular playlist... If I have sleepy music while running or running music while going to bed, that would be unfortunate.....

2008if it's still around!

That's an inherent weakness in that model. It's to small for a screen. The Nanos your model if you want to see a playlist and choose your song. I was taking exception to Deckard's claim that the shuffle is flimsy and cheap. That may be his opinion but the review I saw at Ars suggests otherwise. I do sympathise that getting Apple products can be frustrating but that's a result of Apple's products being very strong and popular at the moment.

Shuffle is pretty nice. Of course I believe you got to be careful and don't abuse it. is a small thing so you can always get in trouble if you don't take care of it.
I have mine and I love it.
I don't think is cheap and flimsy at all.

Yeah. I read that Ars Technica review. Pity it was for a gen 1 Nano though.

I enjoy bitching about Apple? Well, hang me from the nearest tree... could have sworn that I said 'Apple's logistics' people. But hey, you only read what you want to read I guess.

hahaha, you make me laugh
chill out, mate!

Given such a small form factor for the new Shuffle, do you think it's possible they'll be able to move to 2Gb storage in the same size?

You can ask that about every generation of product.

As memory density gets higher, and there have been new announcements in that area, it will happen.

Of course, Apple has to change the design so as to entice buyers of the old model to move on.

Then try this review. It is about gen 2 shuffle.

http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/shuffle.ars

I believe it was "the frigtards at Apple fulfillment". Problem is, they can't fulfill what they ain't got to fulfill with... More "frigtards at Apple supply-chain-management" but ultimately I think it's the high-up bean-counters that have to set some sort of parameters on how much to make when and how to ramp that up including extra dough for the contractors to ramp up their production............ Historically Apple has been very conservative, which *can be* frustrating as I mentioned before.

The nano 2gb will have to be bumped slightly if they go 2gb with the shuffle... But of course the nano is different with a screen and all that. But you're right, design changes may need to happen.

We should remember that last year the iPod range was not changed for like a block of at least 8 months. They were still selling strong. But Ives and Jobs and peoples took their time wisely to create a killer holiday lineup that might extend all the way into mid-2007.....

If you look at the sales numbers, the 8 GB model is lagging. Apple's original idea of going to 2 and 4 GB has proven to be correct. People are more interested in price than memory. I wonder if the color has anything to do with it.