Tomi Ahonen (see the Nokia Q2 results thread) predicted around 2006 (or earlier, I don't remember) that phones in general would eat the IPod eventually, especially from the low end. Apple itself recognised the same thing, hence the iPhone. And Apple being Apple started at the high end where the biggest profits are.
He mentioned that in his post here.
There's no question that people are becoming more demanding and sophisticated about their devices.
The question is who will respond the best to that.
OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!!! Bring on the next logical path.....iTablet.
Hoping for a small form factor desktop machine...looking at my G5 tower to my right, I cant help but wonder why its SO BIG....especially when its sits next to my 15" Macbook Pro.....
This article shows that Apple is not necessarily against cannibalizing its own products, yet
they do not seem willing to do it with desktops. There always seem to be many people who
say they want a mid-tower Mac. I wonder how many people who buy Mac Pros really need
all those drive bays and card slots, or if they could get by with a mid-tower. Is it possible
that the Mac Pro is the equivalent desktop to the iPod classic????
The iPod Touch is cool but they need to keep a player that you can use with one hand and without looking at it. The iPod Touch isn't really a music player... it's a small handheld computer that requires a lot more of the user. I'd be happy with a 128GB Nano.
Apple likes to move on. If they see that a market is moving to saturation, they want to be on something else. While I think that in the long run, there will still be a growing music player market as India and China increasingly move aboard, that could still be a few year off. When they do, Apple will have products for them.
Meanwhile, cell phone makers sell ten times as many. Even though that's a mature market, relatively, its a big market in total. In addition, the smartphone portion, which is where Apple is competing, was just 10% of that when Apple entered, but is expected to become 75% in a few more more years. The kind of young market Apple likes to enter.
So what about those cheap iPods? Does Apple care. Sure. Or they wouldn't be selling them. Not everyone can afford an iPhone or Touch.
FINE post big guy ...
A baby touch and a baby phone pods will come about . IN fact all pods will have touch to them .
dick tracey ipod watche/phones will show up.
A
Its all bullsnot . All ipod s are one . and an iphone os an ipod so is a ipod-touch an ipod .
Jibberish talk about stolen sales .
They all play music . They all link to itunes .They all are wonder ful machines and i hope to one day own one of each model .
First everyone is assuming the Shuffle is the reason for declining iPod sales. I see nothing to support this in the public info. In fact I can make a good arguement that Nano sales are the cause of the decline.
Second the Classic has become a limited interest device. Limited in that people who want it currently need it for the storage. The app capability of Touch attracts a broader interest.
Limited storage is a huge issue on all of Apples devices, frankly I'd like to see half a terabyte real soon now. In fact if Apple skipped a generation of Flash sizes and put 128GB in the coming Touch updates I would consider that a very smart move on their part. More so if part of that storage could be accessible as a USB disk.
One thing that bothers me about my current iPhone is that I can't seem to sync music to it while at the same time syncing movies. At least it wouldn't let me do that. Hopefully this has something to do with flash storage, but I still have plenty of space. Strange but I'm thinking it can be resolved as it seems artificial. In case you are wondering I synced some video files related to iPhone development.
In any event I looks like both Apple and the analyst are blowing this one. IPhones and Touches are iPods. Taken that way sales are booming. Seems like the wrong spin.
First everyone is assuming the Shuffle is the reason for declining iPod sales. I see nothing to support this in the public info. In fact I can make a good arguement that Nano sales are the cause of the decline.
What can you say that you can support with public info?
If the Touch and the iPhone are cannibalizing lower end iPod sales I don't think anybody is very worried. In the Pod world those are high end, high price items.
If the Touch and the iPhone are cannibalizing lower end iPod sales I don't think anybody is very worried. In the Pod world those are high end, high price items.
Some analyst/pundits have been studying the trend in iPod sales in an attempt to predict
the date of Apple's demise. This is an alternate thesis to the one that says Apple cannot
be successful selling high-end items during a time of economic recession and high
unemployment. These stock prophets are the only ones worried, because their model
of how companies succeed or fail has been unable to predict results for Apple.
iPod Touch is the future. The Classic will go away once the Touch gets the 128GB flash drive. We will end up with the Shuffle, a different Nano, and the iPod Touch. It wouldn't surprise me if Apple dropped the next iPod Touch price to $199.
They will have to drop it a lot more than that, the Classic serves a market that the iPod touch can't 'touch' at the moment, and they will lose sales to competitors if drop it.
iPod Touch is the future. The Classic will go away once the Touch gets the 128GB flash drive. We will end up with the Shuffle, a different Nano, and the iPod Touch. It wouldn't surprise me if Apple dropped the next iPod Touch price to $199.
I think the Classic with go away when the touch reaches 256 GB. Not because of capacity, but because of cost. The 128 GB capacity will need to trickle down to the mid-level Touch to be price/capacity competitive with the Classic.
And it's more than capacity concerns. 64 GB would probably suffice for me, but if the Touch doesn't get a disk mode, I'm still going to be dependent on my hard drive iPod.
It's not cannibalizing.. It's smart. The 'tradiional ipod' market isn't something that is going to last forever. You have to innovate, and if that eats away at your old market, so be it.
You want Apple to be like GM and never innovate in 20 years?
It's not cannibalizing.. It's smart. The 'tradiional ipod' market isn't something that is going to last forever. You have to innovate, and if that eats away at your old market, so be it.
It's cannibalizing, I think even Steve Jobs said it in an interview once, or maybe even several interviews. One way he said it was to obsolete your product before someone else does. As you say, it's necessary in order to stay ahead of the competition. I'm pretty sure that Apple knew that phones were going to replace separate music devices eventually, that transition was already well under way in Japan and Korea years before Apple introduced their iPhone.
I use my click wheel iPod a lot more than my iPod touch. It's easier to use. If the touch had a bigger screen I might use it more (for web and email) but probably not.
I also prefer the no-need-to-look iPod over the iPhone/touch.
However, with the iPhone headphones, I don't even have to do reach down to adjust the volume or the track. I can even activate voice-over and ask what playlist I am playing without looking.
The touch is the natural upgrade path plus it is a gaming system. If Apple puts a camera in it, it will become a great tool. I'd like to see a GPS, too, but that's just me.
It's always better to cannibalize your own sales than let a competitor do it.
Traditional iPod sales are declining, but there are still millions of kids being born each year for whom an iPod touch is too expensive.
The Shuffle went from an inexpensive way to get into the iTunes universe to a fashion accessory and then got made too small and generic looking to be noticed as a fashion accessory. That was a huge mistake on Apple's part. It still has a role as a workout accessory, but its glory days are behind it.
The Nano is still selling very well to people looking for an easy way to carry around a decent sized music and podcast collection. The UI is simple to learn and use and the screen is just large enough to make selecting from playlists efficient. That UI is what originally separated the iPod from everything else and I expect it to be around for years to come.
The Classic occupies a niche and will soon be squeezed out by a high capacity Touch. A small number of users will be inconvenienced, but Apple has never cared about that sort of thing. Even my collection, which is almost entirely lossless on my Mac, gets compressed before loading onto my iPod because environmental noise covers up the subtle differences between lossless and AAC.
It's always better to cannibalize your own sales than let a competitor do it.
Traditional iPod sales are declining, but there are still millions of kids being born each year for whom an iPod touch is too expensive.
Yup
The Shuffle went from an inexpensive way to get into the iTunes universe to a fashion accessory and then got made too small and generic looking to be noticed as a fashion accessory. That was a huge mistake on Apple's part. It still has a role as a workout accessory, but its glory days are behind it.
Previous one is still available and I've got one of the new ones and I love it..
But the touch is definitely the future.. can't wait for the new one in september !
Just out of curiosity, what do you have on there? Tons of video and lossless music?
Main music library is 25K+ songs, 140GB. Most are mp3's, so not much loslsess at all. This does include around 25GB of podcasts and about 50 music videos.. So yah, the 160GB classic is gettin full
I think the Classic with go away when the touch reaches 256 GB. Not because of capacity, but because of cost. The 128 GB capacity will need to trickle down to the mid-level Touch to be price/capacity competitive with the Classic.
And it's more than capacity concerns. 64 GB would probably suffice for me, but if the Touch doesn't get a disk mode, I'm still going to be dependent on my hard drive iPod.
They'll drop it when sales fall below the point in which they can manufacture it and support it while making a profit.
It's always better to cannibalize your own sales than let a competitor do it.
yup, if you don't cannibalize your own products with newer technology, someone else will eat YOU alive. just ask poor pathetic Sony ... the General Motors of electronics.
I also prefer the no-need-to-look iPod over the iPhone/touch.
However, with the iPhone headphones, I don't even have to do reach down to adjust the volume or the track. I can even activate voice-over and ask what playlist I am playing without looking.
The touch is the natural upgrade path plus it is a gaming system. If Apple puts a camera in it, it will become a great tool. I'd like to see a GPS, too, but that's just me.
I tend to avoid using the voice controls, it always tries calling my grandmother and then I have to get the thing out of my pocket quick.
Comments
Tomi Ahonen (see the Nokia Q2 results thread) predicted around 2006 (or earlier, I don't remember) that phones in general would eat the IPod eventually, especially from the low end. Apple itself recognised the same thing, hence the iPhone. And Apple being Apple started at the high end where the biggest profits are.
He mentioned that in his post here.
There's no question that people are becoming more demanding and sophisticated about their devices.
The question is who will respond the best to that.
OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!!! Bring on the next logical path.....iTablet.
Hoping for a small form factor desktop machine...looking at my G5 tower to my right, I cant help but wonder why its SO BIG....especially when its sits next to my 15" Macbook Pro.....
This article shows that Apple is not necessarily against cannibalizing its own products, yet
they do not seem willing to do it with desktops. There always seem to be many people who
say they want a mid-tower Mac. I wonder how many people who buy Mac Pros really need
all those drive bays and card slots, or if they could get by with a mid-tower. Is it possible
that the Mac Pro is the equivalent desktop to the iPod classic????
Apple likes to move on. If they see that a market is moving to saturation, they want to be on something else. While I think that in the long run, there will still be a growing music player market as India and China increasingly move aboard, that could still be a few year off. When they do, Apple will have products for them.
Meanwhile, cell phone makers sell ten times as many. Even though that's a mature market, relatively, its a big market in total. In addition, the smartphone portion, which is where Apple is competing, was just 10% of that when Apple entered, but is expected to become 75% in a few more more years. The kind of young market Apple likes to enter.
So what about those cheap iPods? Does Apple care. Sure. Or they wouldn't be selling them. Not everyone can afford an iPhone or Touch.
FINE post big guy ...
A baby touch and a baby phone pods will come about . IN fact all pods will have touch to them .
dick tracey ipod watche/phones will show up.
A
Its all bullsnot . All ipod s are one . and an iphone os an ipod so is a ipod-touch an ipod .
Jibberish talk about stolen sales .
They all play music . They all link to itunes .They all are wonder ful machines and i hope to one day own one of each model .
Apple keeps on trucking on and on
Second the Classic has become a limited interest device. Limited in that people who want it currently need it for the storage. The app capability of Touch attracts a broader interest.
Limited storage is a huge issue on all of Apples devices, frankly I'd like to see half a terabyte real soon now. In fact if Apple skipped a generation of Flash sizes and put 128GB in the coming Touch updates I would consider that a very smart move on their part. More so if part of that storage could be accessible as a USB disk.
One thing that bothers me about my current iPhone is that I can't seem to sync music to it while at the same time syncing movies. At least it wouldn't let me do that. Hopefully this has something to do with flash storage, but I still have plenty of space. Strange but I'm thinking it can be resolved as it seems artificial. In case you are wondering I synced some video files related to iPhone development.
In any event I looks like both Apple and the analyst are blowing this one. IPhones and Touches are iPods. Taken that way sales are booming. Seems like the wrong spin.
Dave
First everyone is assuming the Shuffle is the reason for declining iPod sales. I see nothing to support this in the public info. In fact I can make a good arguement that Nano sales are the cause of the decline.
What can you say that you can support with public info?
If the Touch and the iPhone are cannibalizing lower end iPod sales I don't think anybody is very worried. In the Pod world those are high end, high price items.
Some analyst/pundits have been studying the trend in iPod sales in an attempt to predict
the date of Apple's demise. This is an alternate thesis to the one that says Apple cannot
be successful selling high-end items during a time of economic recession and high
unemployment. These stock prophets are the only ones worried, because their model
of how companies succeed or fail has been unable to predict results for Apple.
iPod Touch is the future. The Classic will go away once the Touch gets the 128GB flash drive. We will end up with the Shuffle, a different Nano, and the iPod Touch. It wouldn't surprise me if Apple dropped the next iPod Touch price to $199.
They will have to drop it a lot more than that, the Classic serves a market that the iPod touch can't 'touch' at the moment, and they will lose sales to competitors if drop it.
iPod Touch is the future. The Classic will go away once the Touch gets the 128GB flash drive. We will end up with the Shuffle, a different Nano, and the iPod Touch. It wouldn't surprise me if Apple dropped the next iPod Touch price to $199.
I think the Classic with go away when the touch reaches 256 GB. Not because of capacity, but because of cost. The 128 GB capacity will need to trickle down to the mid-level Touch to be price/capacity competitive with the Classic.
And it's more than capacity concerns. 64 GB would probably suffice for me, but if the Touch doesn't get a disk mode, I'm still going to be dependent on my hard drive iPod.
You want Apple to be like GM and never innovate in 20 years?
It's not cannibalizing.. It's smart. The 'tradiional ipod' market isn't something that is going to last forever. You have to innovate, and if that eats away at your old market, so be it.
It's cannibalizing, I think even Steve Jobs said it in an interview once, or maybe even several interviews. One way he said it was to obsolete your product before someone else does. As you say, it's necessary in order to stay ahead of the competition. I'm pretty sure that Apple knew that phones were going to replace separate music devices eventually, that transition was already well under way in Japan and Korea years before Apple introduced their iPhone.
However, with the iPhone headphones, I don't even have to do reach down to adjust the volume or the track. I can even activate voice-over and ask what playlist I am playing without looking.
The touch is the natural upgrade path plus it is a gaming system. If Apple puts a camera in it, it will become a great tool. I'd like to see a GPS, too, but that's just me.
Traditional iPod sales are declining, but there are still millions of kids being born each year for whom an iPod touch is too expensive.
The Shuffle went from an inexpensive way to get into the iTunes universe to a fashion accessory and then got made too small and generic looking to be noticed as a fashion accessory. That was a huge mistake on Apple's part. It still has a role as a workout accessory, but its glory days are behind it.
The Nano is still selling very well to people looking for an easy way to carry around a decent sized music and podcast collection. The UI is simple to learn and use and the screen is just large enough to make selecting from playlists efficient. That UI is what originally separated the iPod from everything else and I expect it to be around for years to come.
The Classic occupies a niche and will soon be squeezed out by a high capacity Touch. A small number of users will be inconvenienced, but Apple has never cared about that sort of thing. Even my collection, which is almost entirely lossless on my Mac, gets compressed before loading onto my iPod because environmental noise covers up the subtle differences between lossless and AAC.
Traditional iPod sales are declining, but there are still millions of kids being born each year for whom an iPod touch is too expensive.
Yup
The Shuffle went from an inexpensive way to get into the iTunes universe to a fashion accessory and then got made too small and generic looking to be noticed as a fashion accessory. That was a huge mistake on Apple's part. It still has a role as a workout accessory, but its glory days are behind it.
Previous one is still available and I've got one of the new ones and I love it..
But the touch is definitely the future.. can't wait for the new one in september !
Just out of curiosity, what do you have on there? Tons of video and lossless music?
Main music library is 25K+ songs, 140GB. Most are mp3's, so not much loslsess at all. This does include around 25GB of podcasts and about 50 music videos.. So yah, the 160GB classic is gettin full
I think the Classic with go away when the touch reaches 256 GB. Not because of capacity, but because of cost. The 128 GB capacity will need to trickle down to the mid-level Touch to be price/capacity competitive with the Classic.
And it's more than capacity concerns. 64 GB would probably suffice for me, but if the Touch doesn't get a disk mode, I'm still going to be dependent on my hard drive iPod.
They'll drop it when sales fall below the point in which they can manufacture it and support it while making a profit.
It's always better to cannibalize your own sales than let a competitor do it.
yup, if you don't cannibalize your own products with newer technology, someone else will eat YOU alive. just ask poor pathetic Sony ... the General Motors of electronics.
I also prefer the no-need-to-look iPod over the iPhone/touch.
However, with the iPhone headphones, I don't even have to do reach down to adjust the volume or the track. I can even activate voice-over and ask what playlist I am playing without looking.
The touch is the natural upgrade path plus it is a gaming system. If Apple puts a camera in it, it will become a great tool. I'd like to see a GPS, too, but that's just me.
I tend to avoid using the voice controls, it always tries calling my grandmother and then I have to get the thing out of my pocket quick.