Here's my dilemma: I want this device. Feature-wise, it's a hands-down winner. I never even considered the Nomad jukeboxes because they're huge, bulky and ugly. With the exception of a laptop, if I can't drop a device in my pocket, I don't buy it. I'll pay a premium for this because if I can't drop it in my pocket, it will ultimately just gather dust at home.
I also understand why this device must be as expensive as it is. It has a lot of expensive parts, and obviously a great effort went into building a best-of-breed product.
The issue I have is that Apple seems to keep making this mistake, the same one they made with the Cube. It's really simple economics. If the current state of the art is N, Apple manages to produce N+1. The problem is, the price of Apple's solution is not P+1 (where P is the price of N), but is something more like 2P.
This is a great formula for producing products that everyone wants but no one buys. The fact that Apple can justify the cost means nothing to the consumer, who must justify the expense. It may be mouth-watering, but is it "2P" worth of mouth-watering? Unfortunately, probably not. Consumers will sigh with regret when they buy the slightly inferior competition, but the competition still gets the money.
I may actually get one. I've been known to pay $400 for a digital music player in the past. I truly haven't decided. But in addition to the large cash outlay, I would feel a little bad about enabling this kind of self-destructive behavior at Apple.
Oh, also, Steve REALLY needs to learn to stop stealing his own thunder. The device is cool, but the expectations he built beforehand just set everyone up for disappointment. It's like Tim Burton's BATMAN: really a pretty good movie, not well-received because the pre-release hype led people to expect total jaw-dropping go-change-your-shorts sorts of amazingness.
You want to generate a buzz, but not so much hype that NOTHING could EVER live up to it.
