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5 GB iPod Mini?
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maya
macrumors 68040
powermac666 said:
An informercial by Apple, ROTF are you trying to make Apple like Dell. I do not see Microsoft advertise only they server OS.
I do not see linux or unix for that matter advertise. I have yet to see OS X advertised in full only glimpses of the screen.
To a budget consumer a PC is just a PC as long as it runs M$ apps for cheap. You can show them a better way however they will turn to another PC or Mac user to help them when the problem arises. People only see a computer as a computer, the same cannot be said for auto's since even though they all have 2/4 doors, 4 wheels, gas, people still know the difference between a 15k USD car and a 40k USD car, why safety, luxury, etc...
I do not see much for a computer, I mean sure it will only be so much more safer than its competitors, however technology advances at a faster rate than cars, so people do not want to invest $$$ into a computer that in a year the value and its components are already worthless, the same cannot be said about cars, sure some loose value however they hold it longer and better than computer. Besides the last time I checked a computer cannot blow wind in your face and your hair all wild all you get is this static experience.
I always felt it was odd that Jobs compared Computers to Cars, what next compare it to air planes or speed boats.
Apple do not own 92 of the HD based player market globally, just in the USA. The market is bigger than the USA, much bigger. In the global market the iPod does not even account for the majority of MP3 players sold. Apple marketing is good, very good, but at the end of the day they are just hyping the figures that favour them (like USA HD and MP3 player stats) and ignoring those that dont (global stats.)
bobringer said:
sinisterdesign
macrumors 6502
dontmatter said:
i'll admit that 1GB isn't a huge bump, but it IS a 25% increase. and not like there's huge pressure to get too crazy right now. they're still selling like mad w/ the same size HD and easter egg colors they've had for, what, a year or so now? 6GB would open up the low end for the iPod micro, though.
c'mon apple, how had is it to throw out some new colors? i mean, really. those 5 are tired. orange, purple, yellow, navy, matte black, white, stripes, BLUE DALMATION, anything!
Peyote
macrumors 6502a
desdomg said:
That's what 99% of corporations do. That's what marketing IS. It should come to no suprise to anyone that Apple might focus on the numbers that make them look better. However, where are the numbers that show the iPod and iPod Mini's market share globally? NPD has done studies, but nothing I've read has specified where those studies took place. So where are you getting your info on the iPod global market share? You should at least back statements like that up with some factual evidence.
I want to see something that says that the iPod accounts for less than half of the global HD-based music player sales.
FelixDerKater
macrumors 68040
Over Achiever
macrumors 68000
Funny, I bought an iPod Photo last week -_-m a y a said:
I said the MINI market, the micro-drive market, they can still lose ground there.
Remind me why I don't post here often anymore ... oh that's right. EVERYONE IS SO RIGHTEOUS!
Gah ...
swissmann
macrumors 6502a
powermac666 said:
I agree with you to some degree. I give one of my friends an "infomercial" on my Mac and they suddenly realize that they want to switch. However, if Apple did an informercial it almost would put them down on the amazing knife set that really doesn't work when you get it home level. Apple is way above that which is why I think they are doing an informercial thing with their Apple Stores.
Tying this back into the topic. If the iPod mini only goes up to 5 GB without much change no deal of infomercial is going to get me to buy one. For me the storage space doesn't match the price - I don't care what color or how small it is. Now drop the price $100 or even $50 now I am being tempted.
bankshot
macrumors 65816
powermac666 said:
I don't think an infomercial is the way to go. I'd rather just see more Apple commercials, period. They don't have nearly enough mindshare. I see multiple HP and Dell commercials each evening during primetime TV, but rarely any Apple (and those are always iPod, not Mac). Most people think of the Mac as an oddity, if they even know it exists at all. When it's time to buy a computer, they go with what they've heard about on a regular basis - HP and Dell. A nightly barrage of primetime commercials would help change that in a big way. It's not about making one good commercial that will convince people, it's about getting your brand name out and obtaining more mindshare.
Of course, with the problems Apple always seems to have keeping up with demand, maybe a barrage of commercials is a bad idea. Imagine if demand for Macs increased by 300-500%. There'd be a 15-month waiting list! 😱 😛
Back on topic, it's really too bad Hitachi hasn't been able to squeeze more than 5 GB in these little drives. 25% in a year is pretty small, and it's keeping me from buying my wife a mini. She wants an iPod and really would prefer a mini, but her collection stands around 10 GB right now. So it's either (a) 20 GB iPod, (b) 4 GB mini and shuffle songs in and out (not much better than the MP3-CD player she currently uses), (c) wait for a mini with enough capacity, or (d) buy myself a 60 GB iPod Photo and give her my 30 GB iPod 😀.
I'm debating whether to go with option (a) for Christmas this year (option (d) is more than I'm willing to spend!). I was really hoping Apple would make the decision easy for me (make (c) come true) but figured it was hopeless when they hadn't announced anything by November.
maya
macrumors 68040
Over Achiever said:
If I had 4gig or less of music regardless of price I would buy the mini, too bad it was not available when I was visiting an Apple store. Apples loss I bought an iPod instead and still loving it. Though would have loved the mini more with its size advantage.
for those with the 25% increase give it up already its sounds lame as is people do not see it as a % they see it as gee wiz one extra gig.
Drop price 50 USD.
Increase Battery Life.
Custom Colour Options. (would be nice)
Better screen resolution and FONT. (heard something about this awhile back).
And IF IT can be done maybe a 2gig increase would be better and if available I am buying. 🙂
rdowns
macrumors Penryn
m a y a said:
Not to single your post out, but drop the price drop thing already. Apple has had a very successful strategy in growing the iPod business. Keep the price the same and increase the capacity and add a feature or two. Why stop now? It's not like the Minis are sitting on shelves gathering dust. Apple would be stupid to lower the prices; a smart business does not leave profits on the table.
wrldwzrd89 said:
Do what I did, convert all your music to AAC (this doesn't erase the lossless encoded material), put it into identical playlists like "U2" for lossless and "U2 mini" or add something else to designate it (I chose "m" for mobile). Then tell your ipod preferences to only sync those with the "m" or "mini" ending. You won't be able to tell the difference with apple's headphones anyway.
wrldwzrd89
macrumors G5
I would do that if I used my iPod more AND I wasn't waiting for HE-AAC support in iTunes. HE-AAC is so good that any savings I get with AAC at a particular quality I can get in HALF the space and HALF the bitrate in HE-AAC. Let's say my library is 55 GB right now (which is an overestimate). Then let's say I get 16:1 compression with AAC vs. 2:1 with Apple Lossless. That would make my AAC library 13.75 GB. The equivalent HE-AAC library, at 32:1 compression, would be 6.88 GB - small enough for 2 iPod minis.smharmon said:
obeygiant
macrumors 601
swissmann said:
Right. ...why not upgrade it to a whooping 5.2Gig. ...that will rock!! 🙂
Nope Apple! You will have to do better. 6Gig is the minimum AND a price drop if you ask me.
We'll see.
desdomg said:
The rest of the world (mainly Asia) is dominated by flash players, not HD players. If you want to say Apple is losing ground there... that's fine.
For $100, I'm sure players like this are all the rage in China. But that's a completely different market than the mini.
Isn't that why we'll be seeing a flash player in a few months?
Apples/Oranges
Trowaman
macrumors 6502a
obeygiant said:
Excellent, except for the Kaliedoscope effect at th end, Hummer kinda ran that one into the ground with some of their recent commercials, besides it just looks a little tacky. However, everything else I really did like about it. Anyone else notice how there is no commercial on the iPod mini in existance yet?
Mainyehc
macrumors 6502a
wrldwzrd89 said:
I've been thinking about something lately... HE-AAC will be the next big thing, indeed. What if Apple implemented some kind of "on-the-fly encoding"?
Picture this: You could have your entire collection encoded in Apple lossless (or "HE-AAC lossless"? Is HE-AAC scalable? I don't know a lot about encoding so bear with me 😛), which would be nice if you wanted to connect your Mac/PC to your stereo system, and each time you plugged in a regular iPod, it would convert them to AAC, or HE-AAC.
The same goes for the Mini, or the rumoured "micro-screenless-whatever" iPod; If you plugged in one of those, iTunes would automatically re-encode your lossless/AAC tracks in HE-AAC. A mini would hold a lot more songs, and a 1GB "iPod micro" could hold as much songs as a mini can hold now (and the lack of screen *would* become a problem 🙄 ). This way, you wouldn't need to keep different versions of your tracks in your computer's HD, just the lossless ones. I'm preety sure Apple could pull this off, and make a very useful and straightfoward feature out of this concept. The only problem would be re-encoding M4P tracks. I don't know if Apple could find a way to implement that without breaking their DRM.
Let's hope Apple gets it right with HE-AAC, and if they do, it will be a huge slap in the face of Sony, because of their "ACRAP/8TRACK 3 plus" enconder 😉. By the way, if the iPod uses a more compressed format, won't we be getting better battery life? 😕 😀