[jgm50d]

You say the price is too high on the iPod and at first I did agree. Looking at the iPod a day or two later, I realized that this little zippo lighter looking gadget is worth every penny that Apple is charging. Consider if you will the price of all the components you would have to buy to have something that still falls short of the iPod.

1. High sound quality MP3 player with only 128MB of memory on expensive media and a chincy little LCD that's hard to read - at least $250

2. 4-5GB Portable Firewire HD - $150

If i'm doing the math right, that comes out to $400 and the two do not have inter-functionality, that is they do not play together at all.

Or if you prefer, the Nomad Jukebox. Much slower USB connectivity From user reports that I've read in various locations, the battery life on this thing ranges from only 2 to 3 hours per charge, and the batteries develop memory so you will be buying new batteries unless you let them die everytime before you charge them up. The menu on this device is in my opinion very small and only halfway legible. This unit is large and fairly heavy and tends to skip quite frequently. Price...the lowest I've seen is $220. If it's worth it to you to sacrifice all those great features of the iPod then be my guest.

With the iPod you get Firewire connectivity, 8-10 hour battery life (depending on who your source is) , 5GB HD to put anything you want on, easy to read 2-inch backlit LCD with jog dial navigation, and software that has functionality built in for your toy and none other. This is not just an hour of music on a flash memory card and clearing it out and putting more on. This is never having to load up MP3s again unless you buy a new CD and when you do, you're done in 5-10 seconds. And you want them to charge the same amount for a product that's so much more? For shame. Apple has done well for their first foray into the portable audio department. In fact, they have exceeded all others in the market as usual.
So if you want one...be ready to fork over the $400 that it's worth.

[KeyLimePi]

Actually I just bought a 20Gb pocket-sized, firewire-powered HD* for $230. Following Apple's logic I could carry 20,000 songs around in my pocket, and still have room for that extra $170 and change.

*QPS M2 QuadSlim 20Gb HD, Outpost.com, price reflects mfn.'s mail-in rebate.

Yes, but the iPod's hard disk is twice as small...and retails for around $500. Tech TV took one apart already. They were quite impressed with how small every thing is in it.

[KeyLimePi]

I'm not questioning the technology behind the iPod. I'm sure that it's amazing and I'd love to have one. But for the same money I could buy:

a QPS 6GB firewire pocketsize drive and a Handspring Visor Deluxe and a new Sony Cinema Sound DVD player.

I guess it's not really a question of money so much as a question of priorities.

[jguidroz]

Originally posted by KeyLimePi:
<STRONG>Actually I just bought a 20Gb pocket-sized, firewire-powered HD* for $230. Following Apple's logic I could carry 20,000 songs around in my pocket, and still have room for that extra $170 and change.

*QPS M2 QuadSlim 20Gb HD, Outpost.com, price reflects mfn.'s mail-in rebate.</STRONG>

But you can't play those 20000 songs while carrying that drive in your pocket.

[KeyLimePi]

Um, when would you ever need to play 20,000 songs?

Besides, my math was wrong. My new 20GB HD will only hold 4,000 songs (3,248 of which are polkas!)

[fastfreddy]

I understand it is a fine line Apple is riding here, but I think the pricing is ok for now. It is a top of the line product for the portable music industry. There is not an MP3 player as good on the market. I believe Apple recognizes this and is pricing it accordingly. Know people will buy this and it probably did not cost them a lot in R&D to make iPod. Also the margin on iPod is more than likely high so this is a no lose situation for Apple. Think Different....

ff

[Aykew]

You guys might want to check out a similar forum thread The economics of the iPod. Yes, I did start it and it contains my thoughts on the matter. I'm not trying to be an egomaniac, but I was hoping for an in-depth discussion. Thus far, it has languished in obscurity.

(Or, if you don't want to look, it is in a nutshell: iPod does not equal cube because it's more attainable (lower price) and released before christmas. iPod is a premium product, and people tend to buy more premium products durring the christmas season. Expect a small ($50) price cut at macworld SF due to falling component prices (greater demand = ramped supply = more efficient manufacturing = lower unit price). Expect big rebates on iPod to help drive Mac sales.

[hardcat1970]

when Sony memory stick first came out, it cost about $400 too! personally i think the price of IPOD is fair enough, the toshiba drive that IPOD uses cost $399 alone. It is probably a good idea to wait until the price drop if you can resist the temptation. Look at mini disc recorder today, you can get one under $160.[/LIST]

It's really not accurate to compare the iPod to other MP3 players, or any other piece of computer hardware for that matter (including the Cube) because of one severe limitation: it only works if you have a Mac.

I'm no economist, but here's how I see it. According to the 2000 U.S. Census there are 54 million homes with personal computers. So if you're selling a Rio or a Nomad or some other cross-platform MP3 player (or any other digital device) your pool of potential customers is about 54 million.

But we know that only about five percent of computers in the world are Macs, or roughly 2.7 million. And of that number slightly less have Firewire....and of that number slightly less are interested in an MP3 player...and of that number fewer still would/could spend $400 on one.

If Apple really wants iPod to attract new Mac owners, take a lesson from iMovie, iTunes and iDVD. How many times have we heard PC-columnists grudgingly concede that making movies, burning CDs and DVDs is much easier on a Mac? And then lament that Mac owners get them free! Now that brings in new owners.

Now of course I'm not suggesting that Apple give away iPods, but make them so irresistably priced that people almost forget they have to have a Mac to use it.

[ort888]

I don't care if the price is comparable to competitors. I'm not buying any of their stuff at that price either. $400 dollars is just a lot of oney for a fancy walkman, no matter how many features it has, or how advanced the technology is. $400 is $400.

[Kristoff]

If you haven't seen it, go watch the Jobs iPod speech.

At about 15 minutes in, he puts up a price chart. I don't get where they came up with the idea that $399 was a good price for this. A breakthrough isn't going to sell if it misses the market.
I heard a funny one the other day:
iPod = idiots price our devices.

I think it's true. I just can't justify the $399 price tag, and I am a music junkie (we have 300+ cds between my wife and I).
I said in another thread that I would buy two if the pricing was $299. But I will not buy one for $399. The value is just not there. Maybe when I see one in person, I will be persuaded, but I just can't imagine the market for $400 for this thing.
I am notorious for early adoption. Bought the Rio when it first came out. Bought the Sony MD when it first came out...etc. Hell, I even bought a Cube 500 when it came out. Thought it was pricey, but was willing to strech it a bit. The iPod is just too much.
Apple needs to do better market research. The pricing for this thing is out of touch with what the economy is willing to bear. Maybe Bill Gates and Ted Turner will buy one, but not me. It just misses the mark.
At $299, I would buy two. At $350 I might buy one. But $399 ! I know what Santa is NOT bringing into our three-mac-house: an iPod.

[ 10-25-2001: Message edited by: Kristoff ]

iPod = idiots price our devices.

Okay now that's funny. So far my only joke has been:

"I like da device, but i PO'd about da price!"

Hello All,

the iPod does look really cool, but I think most people won't even want to buy it simply because who wants to run around with 5 gb of music? It would definitely be a pain in the you-know-what to sift through nearly 1200 songs... And for me, money is most important when it comes to little techno gadgets like mp3 players, pdas, etc. 400 bucks is just too much

Apple ought to stick with improving OS X rather than jumping on the mp3-bandwagon 6 months too late.

Just my little rant about the topic.

-Aileen

[QUOTE]Originally posted by jgm50d:
[QB]You say the price is too high on the iPod and at first I did agree. Looking at the iPod a day or two later, I realized that this little zippo lighter looking gadget is worth every penny that Apple is charging. Consider if you will the price of all the components you would have to buy to have something that still falls short of the iPod.

iPod is $369 at apple education online store

Originally posted by &lt;epic&gt;:
<STRONG>iPod is $369 at apple education online store</STRONG>

Nobody's going to pay $399 for a fancy walkman.

College students are the bread and butter of this market. Thanks to them, the acceptable price spectrum of this market has already solidified. You have the low end players in the sub $100 range all the way up to the highest end players at maybe $299 maximum.

This is a 4 year old market. The market leaders are set, the product types are set, the prices are set.

If you come into this market with a player that doesn't work with 95% of your prospective customers' computers, and at a price point $100 higher than any of your competitors, you will be laughed right out of the marketplace.

the iPod = yet another Cube, just smaller

Well it's better then a 384 meg rio that cost 350.

But the Rio will still probably outsell the iPod since it's PC-compatible.

For what it's worth, I see that MacRaffle.com is now raffling off an iPod. Tickets are $5 each. So, while it's not worth $400 to me, it is worth $10 for a 1-in-100 chance to win one.

Originally posted by &lt;epic&gt;:
<STRONG>Well it's better then a 384 meg rio that cost 350.</STRONG>

Nope. The Rio, unlike the iPod, will still work after you've dropped it.

The Rio, unlike the iPod, is solid state, and has no moving parts.

The Rio, unlike the iPod, comes with a decent warranty. How many years, I forget.

There is a REASON that Apple only offers a pathetic 90-day limited warranty.

You drop it, it's dead.

There is a REASON the Creative Nomad is a relatively hefty unit. When you have a hard disk inside, you need all the shock absorption you can get.

The iPod's flimsy shell couldn't protect an egg, let alone a fragile hard disk.

The iPod's designers obviously went to art & design school but never took a single class in industrial engineering.

What a rip.

[doctre]

I have a Rio 800 with 384 megs... and I'm replacing it with an iPod. Why you may ask, here's why:

1) More storage

2) Faster Transfers (it takes way to long to copy 256+128 megs of data over USB)

3) Ease of use (The Rio has some serious interface problems and their button layout isn't the what it could've been. Mostly its their buttons themselves that annoy me. When I pust Vol+ I want the Volume to go up. It doesn't always do that, most of the time the Vol goes down.)

4) Its made by Apple and I like to support them any way that I can, something that some people can't seem to grasp about a lot of us. They condescend the average Mac user for spending too much money on what they consider to be outdated equipment. I guess it ever occur to them that a lot of us (and don't even think that I'm stating that every Mac person is in this crowd but I know a few that I can speak for on this topic) don't mind paying a little extra for a device with an Apple logo on it because we know it'll just work?

5) I can sell it and recoup my costs on the iPod as even new its still more expensive than the iPod.

6) Oh... because I want to, and thats what it really comes down to.

[jguidroz]

Originally posted by &lt;theninthcloud&gt;:
<STRONG>... but I think most people won't even want to buy it simply because who wants to run around with 5 gb of music? It would definitely be a pain in the you-know-what to sift through nearly 1200 songs.
</STRONG>

Well, I don't have 5gbs of mp3s, only 3gbs. And will I put every mp3 I own on the device, no. I'll just put all my favorites. And what will I do with the left over space on the drive, oh just put some important files that deal with school, my resume, apps, oh and maybe a system folder so I can boot off of it.

[itai195]

Let me guess wiggles, you know all this because you've had an iPod for a couple weeks and have done extensive testing to verify the truth of your statements right? What? No? Oh... I guess it's easier to assume things. By the way, if I'm incorrect about this, please feel free to let me know

Rio's warranty is a year. Better than 90 days (though 90 days is pretty standard for consumer electronics) but certainly not several years, as you implied. For the sake of argument, Sony's mp3 players also carry a 90 day warranty. The Creative Labs Nomad Jukebox also comes with a 90 day warranty.

Perhaps you should do more research next time... In case you missed it, the hard drive in the iPod can withstand an operational shock of 200g and a non-operational shock of 1000g. Thanks to the 32MB buffer, it's not operational most of the time. Hardly sounds fragile to me -- it can easily withstand a precipitous three foot drop. You also mention that the Nomad Jukebox is superior because of its larger mass? Were you aware that the drive in the iPod weighs about half what standard 2.5" drives weigh? It's also about three times smaller by volume than those drives. Don't give the Nomad credit where credit isn't due.

While we're talking about the Nomad Jukebox... I don't see how you can't at least give the iPod some points for faster data transfer rates, much longer battery life, longer shock protection, and a much better UI. The Nomad is notorious for terribly slow transfers and an even worse UI. People are being so damn negative (BTW, I don't dislike Creative, still have my Nomad 2!)

I just don't understand how anyone except some of the more demanding audiophiles can see any glaring fault with the iPod's design, especially considering most of us haven't even had one in our hot little hands yet.

[nana2]

Originally posted by itai195:
<STRONG>Perhaps you should do more research next time... In case you missed it, the hard drive in the iPod can withstand an operational shock of 200g and a non-operational shock of 1000g. Thanks to the 32MB buffer, it's not operational most of the time. Hardly sounds fragile to me -- it can easily withstand a precipitous three foot drop.</STRONG>

The key to those G ratings is over what time duration they occur. Can a physics person tell us how many G's an iPod will sustain over what time when droppped from 3 feet onto a concrete sidewalk?

Also how does the 32MB buffer work. I can understand the drive working and filling up the buffer, then turning off to reduce the battery drain. But then at what point does it turn on to refill the buffer? Because if it waits till the 32MB is nearly empty and then you start jogging things are going to go pear shaped

[scadboy]

just a thought:

I bet if apple introduced the iPod at $299, everyone would be saying...

"well shucks, I would've bought it if it were $199, but $299 is just too much..."

Even though it is slightly out of my grasp, as a shareholder, I consider it to be reasonable and think it won't prevent those who are interested in such a device, and have the means, to purchase one, while simultaneously providing apple with a means to increase revenues in a market where pc sales are slowing.

And, let's be realistic... The Apple of five years ago would be charging closer to $500-1000 for a device of this caliber, it is simply the best, most-fully featured MP3 player on the market.

ciao,

michael

[PBG4 User]

If it had a built in condenser mic and stereo line in, I would buy one in a second. Using it to record classes would be great! Between 2 people it would be cake to sneak this thing and two mini mikes into a concert and record the show!
When iPod comes with mic/audio in, I'm getting one. That way I'll have a portable HD, MP3 player and sound in for my PB.