Man I spent 30 bucks on my sony discman(then add another 25 for headphones), it's fine and dandy, gets the job done, doesn't have the highest output level, but I get really really good battery life. I couldn't imagine spending so much on a discman, but I guess, if you really think it's necessary.
Actually, a cheap iPod could be a great manouver, but... there is that margins thing with the bigger models. Drives are not the problem. Toshiba has competition in the 1.8" space now -- Hitachi even makes a 40GB 1.8" drive!
They could have sourced 5GB drives if they'd wanted to.
But, in the category of lifestyle devices (AND ONLY in the category of lifestyle devices) we can forgive Apple a little excssive margins. They have the undisputed high-end MP3/4 product, and iPods lie firmly in the superfluous consumption category. It's the new thing (or the first time the new thing's really been done right) and demands a premium ATM. The first anything costs, how much did the first DVD players cost? The first VCR's, discmen, HDTV's, yadda yadda...
Prices will get better when a little more technology can come to the mid and top range models such that while the low end becomes available at a very attractive price there remains a real reason to "upgrade" to the higher end models.
I'll expect a 249 and then 199 bottom end as the upper models get more storage, FM/DAB tuners, and a built in voice recorder/line-in, all in time, mebbe a long time.
Here's another partial explanation for why the iPods costs so much...
Recently, when looking at an online photo-gallery of the new iPod, one of our designers poked his head into my office to ask a question. Upon seeing the iPod pictures, he was fascinated by the design, immediately wanting to know what it was. Since the guy isn't exactly part of the MP3 generation, I paused for a second to formulate an intelligible reply.
"Its a gadget which can store all the music you've ever owned or will own in the future."
Our music collections may not fit on a single iPod but I'd bet that but most people's will. The designer was absolutely flabbergasted. "All the music? Is that actual size? What?s the catch?" When people are this amazed by a product, you can charge whatever they are willing to pay?
Well, for starters, iPods are selling out at current prices, so given demand, prices will stay up.
My impression is that iPods also sell at a fairly low margin because with the Mac catalogs for example, they barely make mention of them. When the first-gen iPods were selling at the current prices, the hard drives they used when sold separately cost as much as the iPods. While there's a significant amount added to that price at resale, there's also a lot that gets added to the iPod that could eat up most of the difference.
$50-$80 seems waaay too low considering there are casette players, not to mention cheap CD players that sell for that much. I could imagine as much as a $100 price drop as reasonable, but going back to points 1 and 2, why would they at this point?
-Large library of music all in the palm of your hand (up to 7500 songs)
-Farely decent battery life
-Compact size
-Nice Design
-Ease of use
-No need to reburn anything (your music is just there, no CDs to fumble through)
Cons:
-Depending on how you look at it, it can be pricey
-Back of iPod is prone to being scratched
Discman
Pros:
-Some discmans have nice form factors but those can end up being somewhat pricey (200 dollar range)
-FM radios on some models
-Durable
-Lowprice (again it depends on how you look at it)
Cons:
-As small as they can get they are still larger than the iPod
-At the most you have 700MB worth of music on one CD and that is if you player supports MP3 CDs
-Cumbersome to deal with too many CDs
-Cumbersome to navigate through large libraries of music. This is the real killer. If your CD player supports MP3 CDs it just sucks trying to shuffle through the music on it. If you discman doesn't support MP3 CDs than you only have at the most 20-30 songs on a CD at the most.
There might some things I skipped but for the most part I can't imagine not having a iPod. It is just so much easier. The pros for the iPod compared to the pros for the Discman, really outweighs it. I would much rather save up for a little while longer and get a iPod even at the price that it's at than deal with a Discman. You couldn't pay me enough to give up my 30GB iPod. That is just my opinion.
Comments
They could have sourced 5GB drives if they'd wanted to.
But, in the category of lifestyle devices (AND ONLY in the category of lifestyle devices) we can forgive Apple a little excssive margins. They have the undisputed high-end MP3/4 product, and iPods lie firmly in the superfluous consumption category. It's the new thing (or the first time the new thing's really been done right) and demands a premium ATM. The first anything costs, how much did the first DVD players cost? The first VCR's, discmen, HDTV's, yadda yadda...
Prices will get better when a little more technology can come to the mid and top range models such that while the low end becomes available at a very attractive price there remains a real reason to "upgrade" to the higher end models.
I'll expect a 249 and then 199 bottom end as the upper models get more storage, FM/DAB tuners, and a built in voice recorder/line-in, all in time, mebbe a long time.
Recently, when looking at an online photo-gallery of the new iPod, one of our designers poked his head into my office to ask a question. Upon seeing the iPod pictures, he was fascinated by the design, immediately wanting to know what it was. Since the guy isn't exactly part of the MP3 generation, I paused for a second to formulate an intelligible reply.
"Its a gadget which can store all the music you've ever owned or will own in the future."
Our music collections may not fit on a single iPod but I'd bet that but most people's will. The designer was absolutely flabbergasted. "All the music? Is that actual size? What?s the catch?" When people are this amazed by a product, you can charge whatever they are willing to pay?
My impression is that iPods also sell at a fairly low margin because with the Mac catalogs for example, they barely make mention of them. When the first-gen iPods were selling at the current prices, the hard drives they used when sold separately cost as much as the iPods. While there's a significant amount added to that price at resale, there's also a lot that gets added to the iPod that could eat up most of the difference.
$50-$80 seems waaay too low considering there are casette players, not to mention cheap CD players that sell for that much. I could imagine as much as a $100 price drop as reasonable, but going back to points 1 and 2, why would they at this point?
$200. I just can't justify buying one at the current prices.
iPOD
Pros:
-Large library of music all in the palm of your hand (up to 7500 songs)
-Farely decent battery life
-Compact size
-Nice Design
-Ease of use
-No need to reburn anything (your music is just there, no CDs to fumble through)
Cons:
-Depending on how you look at it, it can be pricey
-Back of iPod is prone to being scratched
Discman
Pros:
-Some discmans have nice form factors but those can end up being somewhat pricey (200 dollar range)
-FM radios on some models
-Durable
-Lowprice (again it depends on how you look at it)
Cons:
-As small as they can get they are still larger than the iPod
-At the most you have 700MB worth of music on one CD and that is if you player supports MP3 CDs
-Cumbersome to deal with too many CDs
-Cumbersome to navigate through large libraries of music. This is the real killer. If your CD player supports MP3 CDs it just sucks trying to shuffle through the music on it. If you discman doesn't support MP3 CDs than you only have at the most 20-30 songs on a CD at the most.
There might some things I skipped but for the most part I can't imagine not having a iPod. It is just so much easier. The pros for the iPod compared to the pros for the Discman, really outweighs it. I would much rather save up for a little while longer and get a iPod even at the price that it's at than deal with a Discman. You couldn't pay me enough to give up my 30GB iPod. That is just my opinion.
im not saying that apple sucks i just think they need to work on a few things
one being the way you can add stuff to the ipod
you should be able to drag and drop music like creative labs
they could learn from some of those company's
i just dont like being told i have to use there programs like itunes to be
able to listen to music and watch movies
with out itunes the ipod would be a paper weight.
The price is to high when you can get a creative labs for much cheaper
im not saying that apple sucks i just think they need to work on a few things
one being the way you can add stuff to the ipod
you should be able to drag and drop music like creative labs
they could learn from some of those company's
i just dont like being told i have to use there programs like itunes to be
able to listen to music and watch movies
with out itunes the ipod would be a paper weight.
it took me a while to figure out this guy pulled a 6 year old thread out of the basement.
I was all "10gb ... wtf"
and creative - thats a name i haven't heard in a while! Remember when they claimed the creative zen was going to be the iPod killer??