60GB iPods - Not Soon?

[vitaboy]

Joswiak states "We have no plans in regard to announcing 60-gigabyte models, We are trying to create a much more compelling lineup with two models for 20 and 40 gigabytes at extremely compelling prices"

So, what this clearly means is that Apple hasn't decided when, where, or how to make the announcement.

If Apple really wasn't going to intro the 60 GB iPod soon, Joswiak would have stated, "We have no plans with regard to the 60-gigabyte iPod." The "announcement" qualifier indicates he's being really sly with his words, which one can infer to mean that there really is a 60 GB iPod.

But it makes sense. By only announcing the 20 and 40 gig units today, everyone is focused on the lower price. Check google news - all the headlines are "Apple lowers price on iPods."

Once the hubub has died down a bit, that's when you introduce the 60 GB unit, to show that you aren't just sitting on your laurels. And you get all the free PR as journalists write about the huge new 60 GB unit.

 

[sushi]

Presenting: the iCam! Apple's digital video camera, using the same high-quality optics as the iSight. With built-in 60GB hard disk, allowing for 4 hours of DV-quality HD recording!

Interesting idea.

There are HD video cameras coming out soon. Maybe Apple is looking at this market.

Sushi

 

[Thussy]

I HAVE AN IDEA!

The new 1.8" 60gig Tosh's are for the up and coming Newton TabletBook!

It'll be an inch thick, anodized aluminum, and also convertible into a PowerBook. YES THIS IS IT!

Flipping... I just bought a PowerBOok.. but what i really wanted was a Tablet.

 

[Yvan256]

I find his statement a little off-putting. I mean Jesus, Greg. We're not morons, we can easily see that your new pricing structure is actually a worse deal for us. Let's take a closer look.

I have the 3rd gen 20GB model ($399 - middle tier iPod when I bought it) which shipped with dock, carrying case, and remote. If I want the 4th gen 20GB model I will pay $299. This time, though, I don't get the dock. I don't get the remote. And I don't get the carrying case. So I add them to my iPod order for $39 a piece. That's an extra $16 over the price of last year's 20GB iPod. Roughly the same specs, for $16 more.

Now that's NOT compelling Greg! Nice working shuffling the shells around though.

Well, if you don't want the remote, case and dock, there's no point in paying for them. And so the new entry model doesn't include them.

Heck, at first I bought the 3rd Gen 20GB exactly because of these items. The next day I returned it and bought the 10GB. At 40$US a piece (about 60$CAN) this makes those items inflate the price +120$US (or +180$CAN), which ain't peanuts.

Imagine the entry price if those items WERE included. Besides, they now include the USB cable (which I had to pay about 40$CAN to get). So in a sense it's about 25-30$US *lower* because of this.

Besides, I prefer the iSkin a lot more than the carrying case Apple is selling.
http://www.iskin.com/

It'd be interesting to know how many people actually have/really use their carrying case/remote/dock. Or even how many resell those items on eBay because they had no choice in getting them to get a bigger HD.

Final point is: it makes the entry model cost a lot less, and the inclusion of the USB cable is a really smart move. I was really pissed to have to buy a 40$CAN USB cable to be able to use my brand-new 350$CAN iPod (the stupid USB cable costs 11% of the price of the iPod? Insane!).

You don't *need* the dock, carrying case or remote. You *need* to be able to connect it to your PC (and a lot of PCs still don't have FireWire).

 

[rogo]

"They didn't buy 350,000+ of these 60GB drives (for 10,000 iPods)... "

No, in fact no article that was even remotely correctly reported claimed they bought 350,000 60GB drives.

The articles correctly reported (more or less) that Apple buys 350,000 drives each month from Toshiba -- for ALL sizes of iPods.

The 60GB drive is >>not shipping yet<<.

Re-read this article on Cnet and it will be clear.

The drives will ship in September or October. I've no idea what Apple's lead time is, but I'd guess there could be a 60GB iPod out in time for Christmas shopping. But it can't happen sooner.

Seriously, the media is as much to blame as this site, but facts are facts:

* There was no actual comment about Apple buying huge quantities of the 60GB, just that they were a customer for it (which I'm sure is true)
* There is no way a 60GB iPod could be sold right now as there are no manufactured drives for it.

I'd be stunned if one didn't come out soon enough. It's going to carry a higher margin than the 40GB and would be successful enough to sell at least several thousand units per month. Apple knows a little about margin maximization.

 

[mhouse]

He Said 'Very Few'

I don't agree. I have nigh on 50GB of music, as have a few of my peers. I would actually use the majority of the space on a 60GB iPod for music.

Yes, I do know how to use Smart Playlists etc. to manage my iTunes library, but nothing beats just being able to dump the whole lot on to your iPod and stride out knowing it's all there when you want it (not to mention a good backup).

He did say 'very few.' While there is a market for 60gb music-only iPod, he is certainly correct in saying that 'very few' people would have this need. Frankly, even the 40gb doesn't sell that well compared to the 20gb and 15gb version.

A recent poll found very few potential digital music player customers who felt they would ever really need more than 1000 songs. Hence the massive success of the iPod mini.

 

[bighairydoofus]

I love some peoples lack of logic. If apple has that many 60G hard drives on the way, why WOULDN'T they put them in the iPod? Even if they're slated for some other product, there's going to be people that will buy a 60G model (like myself) for any number of reasons. As far as market segments are concerned, how many people are going to buy 30" LCD displays? Not as many people that'll buy 20" models, but apple still released the 30" despite the fact that fewer will be sold.

They have the 60G drives on the way. There IS a market for a 60G iPod, however small in comparison to the lower end ones. They WILL release the 60G eventually.

And me? I have a 30G and use mine for music and language tapes. 90 pimsleur language lessons at 30 minutes a shot uses up a lot of space pretty fast, and that's only one language. My 30G is full, and now it's down to taking stuff off every time I buy new music. I have over a thousand CD's and about twenty feet of LP's, much of which will never come out on CD. I'm in the process of turning my favorite stuff on LP to digital, and that alone would fill a 60G.

I'd also like to have my music at a higher bitrate for better sound quality. Or heck, even lossless compression. When I listen through headphones, I can hear that 128kb doesn't sound all that great, and even doubling it would help. And it'd fill a 60G iPod instantly.

When I bought my iMac, I waited four months before buying an iPod because I was sure that the third generation 'pods were around the corner. I was right and I was happy I waited. I'll be happy I waited when the 60G comes out.

 

[ClimbingTheLog]

Considering the speed of these tiny HDD's (ie: slower than 4800rpm), and the fact that the industry is moving towards faster drives (5400 and 7200rpm, since they give so much performance gain), how can you still believe that they're going to be using them in Powerbooks? It would be nice, but they're too slow.

"The Industry" runs Windows, which has an ass of VM scheme and it goes into it hard and fast.

I have a 4200RPM drive on my iBook and it performs fine (e.g. capturing video, burning a CD and decoding iTunes simultaneously). I also have a ton of RAM and OS X uses it well.

Sure non-predictable reads are going to be faster on a 5400 in most circumstances, but caches are usually good enough.

 

[akw]

Well, if you don't want the remote, case and dock, there's no point in paying for them. And so the new entry model doesn't include them.

Heck, at first I bought the 3rd Gen 20GB exactly because of these items. The next day I returned it and bought the 10GB. At 40$US a piece (about 60$CAN) this makes those items inflate the price +120$US (or +180$CAN), which ain't peanuts.

Imagine the entry price if those items WERE included. Besides, they now include the USB cable (which I had to pay about 40$CAN to get). So in a sense it's about 25-30$US *lower* because of this.

Besides, I prefer the iSkin a lot more than the carrying case Apple is selling.
http://www.iskin.com/

It'd be interesting to know how many people actually have/really use their carrying case/remote/dock. Or even how many resell those items on eBay because they had no choice in getting them to get a bigger HD.

Final point is: it makes the entry model cost a lot less, and the inclusion of the USB cable is a really smart move. I was really pissed to have to buy a 40$CAN USB cable to be able to use my brand-new 350$CAN iPod (the stupid USB cable costs 11% of the price of the iPod? Insane!).

You don't *need* the dock, carrying case or remote. You *need* to be able to connect it to your PC (and a lot of PCs still don't have FireWire).

The fact remains that the price has increased over the 3rd gen iPods. I'd like to hear them say that they're offering less for less money. Pretending like we're getting a great deal because we don't have to buy the dock or the case now is insulting. Plus, who the hell priced the case at $39? That's absolutely absurd. They build a product that scratches if you look at it the wrong way and then charge you 40 smacks to protect it. Nice. Maybe I can give them the dock and remote. But the case, no dice.

I guess I'm a sucker though, because my 40GB model is on order. I got a case too. Grand total with tax and shipping: $479 and my right testicle. Guess I'll have to do without the remote cause I'm keeping my left nad so I can have children. Thanks for giving me the option, Apple.

 

[~Shard~]

I wasn't really expecting the 60 GB iPods anytime soon, so this is no real surprise. Toshiba isn't even releasing/shipping the drives until September, right? So Apple would no doubt need a few months to incorporate it ito the iPod, test it, and all that, before they could actually release the 60 GB iPod.

We all know it's coming, but as with many other things, it's just a question of when!

 

[Multimedia]

The Click-Wheel Is A Major Improvement In The Interface

The fact remains that the price has increased over the 3rd gen iPods. I'd like to hear them say that they're offering less for less money. Pretending like we're getting a great deal because we don't have to buy the dock or the case now is insulting. Plus, who the hell priced the case at $39? That's absolutely absurd. They build a product that scratches if you look at it the wrong way and then charge you 40 smacks to protect it. Nice. Maybe I can give them the dock and remote. But the case, no dice.

I guess I'm a sucker though, because my 40GB model is on order. I got a case too. Grand total with tax and shipping: $479 and my right testicle. Guess I'll have to do without the remote cause I'm keeping my left nad so I can have children. Thanks for giving me the option, Apple.

The Click-Wheel Is A Major Improvement In The Interface. No matter what new higher price for twice the memory, you cannot dispute that the 4th gen iPods have a WAY better interface than all the previous models. I cannot stress loudly enough how fantastic that click wheel interface is. As soon as I saw it in January on the iPod-mini I knew it would be on this next gen iPod and am now only waiting for the 60 GB model to eclipse my 2nd gen 20. I love my 20 but I have more than 60 GB of MP3 & AAC files to fill up a big one. And I'm Click Wheel Crazy.

 

[Quark]

We have a winner!

There is no reason that both could be true. No 60Gb iPod soon, but Apple could have ordered those 60Gb drives for use in something else....

Bingo! We have a winner.

Note that Toshiba never said that they knew exactly what the drives were for, Martyn Williams did however make a speculative statement, not based in fact.

Here's the quote:

Source: http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/06/02/HNappletoshdrive_1.html
Ahead of the launch, Toshiba has been showing the drive to customers and has already received an order from Apple, Lee said. Toshiba is currently shipping 350,000 of the 1.8-inch drives per month to Apple for use in the iPod, which is manufactured by Taiwan's Inventec Corp.

The author of the article (Martyn Williams, IDG News Service), not Lee, was speculating on it going into the iPod and that is what really upset Apple -- and not only that Apple had ordered them.

And Greg was very specific with his wording -- even though it may not seem that obvious. Here's his quote (in reference to the question about 60GB iPod models):

Source:
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=technologyNews&storyID=5707511
"We have no plans in regard to announcing 60-gigabyte models," Joswiak said.

This is for the other device, we're getting close to a release. Something with photo management and viewing on a TV -- but very iPod'ish in concept but not necessarily in design.

Take care,
Quark

 

[akw]

The Click-Wheel Is A Major Improvement In The Interface. No matter what new higher price for twice the memory, you cannot dispute that the 4th gen iPods have a WAY better interface than all the previous models. I cannot stress loudly enough how fantastic that click wheel interface is. As soon as I saw it in January on the iPod-mini I knew it would be on this next gen iPod and am now only waiting for the 60 GB model to eclipse my 2nd gen 20. I love my 20 but I have more than 60 GB of MP3 & AAC files to fill up a big one. And I'm Click Wheel Crazy.

My girlfriend has the mini, and I personally prefer the touch method. The click wheel feels prone to breakage in comparison. Maybe the 4th gen iPod's wheel is an improvement on the mini's but either way, I certainly would not call it "A Major Improvement In The Interface". It seems more like a nominal difference in the interface, and it most definitely does not justify an increased price. Besides, I'm still pissed off about having to pay for a case.

 

[tsaxer]

Why not?

I was thinking, in response to the "hardly anyone needs 60" vs. "some of us do" debate, would it be so incredibly difficult to have as a special order option a 60 gigger? Yes it would take some extra engineering, but if they could produce them to order (perhaps waiting to have a sufficient amount ordered and then making a production run) then both groups of thought are satisfied. The 60 would not be a part of the routine production, and yet it could be an option for those who would be willing to wait an extra few weeks for one.

Just my two cents, I'm no Steve Jobs

 

[Windowlicker]

what if apple ordered those HDs and they're still being supplied? what will they be used for? laptops? don't think so...

there's not much anything I could think them to be used for if not an ipod -- and I don't see a video pod coming out any time soon

 

[flipperfeet]

Maybe they are going to HP

As was predictable upon the announcement of the agreement with HP. A shedding of those ugly buttons and a move back towards an interface the SMS generation is more than capable of controlling with their thumb was inevitable. Plus the obvious price drop. But as so many people here are whining about, no 60.

But wait, there is another iPod due this summer... We have even seen its form factor. However what is the incentive to purchase the now dated interface on a premium priced HPod... perhaps a 60GB version?

A fairly extensive search of the HP site shows that there is no news on this product since the announcement of their Digital Music Player in January. Here we are in summer and the product is not shipping. Apple saying they have no plans to ship a 60 does not mean a partner is precluded from doing so. Wouldn't this be an interesting development?

 

[JFreak]

Put two of them into one computer (ultra-slim laptop) and configure them as RAID and you have something which is probably faster than a 7200rpm drive.

do you have any idea what you're talking about?

yes, raid0 makes things a bit faster, but it also has zero error-tolerance, which means should either drive fail you lose everything. raid0 cannot be reconstructed and having one without backup is even more risky than having a single hard drive that you kick every now and then.

raid1 on the other hand is slower than single drive. while it offers error tolerance, it will take double the time to write anything to the raid array of two drives, and the read performance of a software raid is not optimized either. so you get a backup but will also take a performance hit.

you would have to have a very huge raid array to make many 3600rpm (?) or even 4200rpm drives achieve the speed of a single 7200rpm drive. have you ever wondered why the REAL raid arrays of the server cabinet run 10000rpm or 15000rpm speeds? raid is not used to get more speed. it is used to get more fault tolerance. (yes, it can be optimized for speed, too, but that requires a hardware raid controller.)

 

[JFreak]

What's better than AIFF format?

the one that has exactly the same quality but uses a smaller file size

 

[JFreak]

this race for Gigabytes and gigabytes of storage is a losing race... I'd recommend everyone to get themselves a Mini and an external FW800 HD.

i second to that, although i broke and changed my mini order to the new 20GB model i always hated the 3G buttons and i just could not even think about buying one, so ordering a mini was a no-brainer at the time. but then apple got rid of the ugly buttons and i thought it's not so much more expensive than the mini, and has nicer rounded corners, so i decided to want to be able to take all of my 9GB of music with me instead of maintaining a 4GB playlist to sync with the mini. in addition, i can have a nice portable storage of about two dvd's size, which is nice.

BUT... i did not even think about wanting a bigger model, because - let's face it - as a firewire hard drive those gigabytes are severely overpriced. for 200 euros i can have 250GB of very fast fw800 storage, and putting a 100 euros more to my ipod order would have given me lousy 20GB more and we all know that the ipod hard drive performance cannot even be compared to the 3.5" 7200rpm drives. and i already have one fw400 external 160GB drive, so i only want to be able to carry my music with my ipod. i don't care if it's only half full.

(and i consider myself an audiophile. i cannot say audiophiles want or need the 40GB or 60GB model. no. audiophiles like me buy shure E5 headphones and would always want a little better audio quality out of the little thing. audiophiles are the only people who don't mind the trouble of maintaining old vacuum tube amplifiers and lp players, just to be able to say it sounds better. an audiophile doesn't care about storage that much, so people please just drop that argument.)

 

[sushi]

I was thinking, in response to the "hardly anyone needs 60" vs. "some of us do" debate, would it be so incredibly difficult to have as a special order option a 60 gigger? Yes it would take some extra engineering, but if they could produce them to order (perhaps waiting to have a sufficient amount ordered and then making a production run) then both groups of thought are satisfied. The 60 would not be a part of the routine production, and yet it could be an option for those who would be willing to wait an extra few weeks for one.

Just my two cents, I'm no Steve Jobs

Interesting idea!

Made to order through the Apple Store only.

Other than a HD change, not much would be different I would think.

Sushi

 

[JFreak]

I find his statement a little off-putting. I mean Jesus, Greg. We're not morons, we can easily see that your new pricing structure is actually a worse deal for us. Let's take a closer look.

I have the 3rd gen 20GB model ($399 - middle tier iPod when I bought it) which shipped with dock, carrying case, and remote. If I want the 4th gen 20GB model I will pay $299. This time, though, I don't get the dock. I don't get the remote. And I don't get the carrying case. So I add them to my iPod order for $39 a piece. That's an extra $16 over the price of last year's 20GB iPod. Roughly the same specs, for $16 more.

Now that's NOT compelling Greg! Nice working shuffling the shells around though.

not everyone wants those. it makes sense to sell a lowend product without all gadgets. i myself couldn't care less if i had or didn't had the remote, because i wouldn't be using it anyway. and the dock? please. for a laptop user that is a complete waste of money. the carrying case on the other hand could be useful. i still think that i would keep the ipod in my pocket anyway.

all in all, this just saves me some money not being forced to buy accessories i don't want to use. if you want those, you could easily buy the 40GB model which has those, and i guess the price would still be quite the same that you paid for your 20GB model. you compare gigabytes to gigabytes, but you should be comparing lowend to lowend and middle model to middle model. get it?

and if you think that the pricing has become worse now, just be happy that you bought your ipod at the right time no reason to whine...

 

[JFreak]

Interesting idea.

There are HD video cameras coming out soon. Maybe Apple is looking at this market.

Sushi

yep. one hour of DV video consumes 13GB of space if i remember correctly, so these 60GB drives could hold enough uncompressed footage. but it remains to be seen if the performance of the drives can keep up... it is not so easy for a hard drive to keep up with a DV stream. has anyone hard facts how many MB/s is required for it?

 

[b-randomly]

A Different idea, maybe

Now I don't know if this has been suggested, but it's what made logical sense to me (and I'm not sure if anybody else noted it in the last six pages -- oh, and it's a bit offtopic):

Maybe the new iPod style and competitive pricing was made for one reason -- to stop the iPod mini craze. I know I just bought the new iPod today (ordered it online with a PowerBook, yay for Cram & Jam) because it was the ClickWheel I wanted without a four week wait. I don't have 4GB of music yet, or would I need it on me all the time.

People are buying the iPod mini for one of a few reasons -- small, the pretty colors, or the ClickWheel. For me it was going to be the ClickWheel, because I loathe the 3rd generation style of touch sensitive buttons. Now, people who were thinking as I do have a competitively-priced option, more easily available, with larger space.

 

[Trowaman]

yep. one hour of DV video consumes 13GB of space if i remember correctly, so these 60GB drives could hold enough uncompressed footage. but it remains to be seen if the performance of the drives can keep up... it is not so easy for a hard drive to keep up with a DV stream. has anyone hard facts how many MB/s is required for it?

Hard drive based digital video cameras . . .

*slaps forhead*

genius. If the quality is good enough (as in if it could make Canon and their XL-2 and GL-2 look back and wonder what the competition is up too) I'll be first in line for one of these.

 

[iMeowbot]

They didn't buy 350,000+ of these 60GB drives so that they can sell 10,000 60GB iPods.

That number that has been floating around, 350000, is not the number of 60GB drives sold to Apple. That's the number of 1.8" drives, all sizes, that Toshiba are currently selling to Apple. At Computex, Cindy Lee didn't say how many 60GB drives Apple ordered.

If Apple placed an order itself for drives, it would only be in sample quantities for engineering or R&D. For production quantities, Apple would not be placing the orders, their ODM parter would do that.