Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

A 5GB Low-End iPod?

Re: Re: Re: dont know how?

Originally posted by dguisinger
Actually the Hard Drive probably costs Apple around $100. The electronics probably cost them around $15-$20 in the quantity they buy, and LCD around $30, and the battery around $20-30. You can see the hard drive is about 1/3 of the cost of the iPod. Smaller hard drives do not mean lower costs. Going from 10GB to 5GB doesn't save a nickel. They cost the same to produce. Apple may have to pay more for the 10GB, but there is a point in where quality hard drives that are brand new can cost no less than a higher end model. I am sure Apple could do a 512MB flash iPod for under $150, and sell a ton of them, and it would compliment the rest of their line nicely. BTW, these prices are based on common pricing for electronics in the industry, check a suppliers catalog on LCD or battery pricing, or call them for quantities approaching hundreds of thousands, and you will find the price falls very quickly.
Click to expand...

That's been my point all along and it's why we'll never see another HD based iPod less than 10GB. It would make no sense whatsoever to introduce a 5GB model now, and I can't help but laugh when people say they should put out a 5GB model for $100 less than the 10GB one is because the cost to Apple would be virtually the same.
 
Apple isn't paying retail value for any of the parts they use in any of their products, so those numbers are off. I'm sure they save tons just by buying in large volumes.
 
A motivation for cheaper iPods might be the looming competition for iTMS. While the iTMS exists primarily to sell iPods, the relationship is actually circular -- without enough iPods, the iTMS will whither. Apple wants to push FairPlay AAC over WMA, and to do that it needs to get a bunch of iPods out there. It might be willing to do something special for this particular holiday season in order to drive iPod sales. That might be price drops, or even a new model. Sure, a 5Gig might not be actually cheaper to produce, but that's not the point -- it might be worth Apple cutting its margins on a bottom-end iPod to establish ACC and iTMS as the de facto standard, so it can continue to sell the high margin models.

I think this Christmas is a unique opportunity for Apple -- next year, everyone, including Microsoft, will have a music store. Apple would be wise to sacrifice margin for marketshare in this arena, at least for this holiday.
 
I've been saying this on these boards for months! People don't realize that
(1) The 10 GB ipod is too much money for most people.
(2) The 10 GB ipod is too large for most people's needs.

I seriously know 4 people that would buy a 5GB ipod for $200, but since one doesn't exist, they are going to buy cheap Rio MP3 players. 3 of these people are PC users- a Market that Apple wants to take.

Apple is going to face major competition amongst Digital Music Players, and if ithey want to stay on top, they have to compete.

BRING ON THE CHEAPER IPOD!!!
 
Originally posted by the_mole1314
b.) Flash is dead
Click to expand...

Dear Lord! I almost went into convulsions when I read that! I believe you are sadly mistaken.

Flash is just beginning to take off. Once the prices fall... lookout!
 
Good Point Tulse

I think this Christmas is a unique opportunity for Apple -- next year, everyone, including Microsoft, will have a music store. Apple would be wise to sacrifice margin for marketshare in this arena, at least for this holiday.

Some very big players (msft and Wal-mart) are going to enter the music download biz soon so Apple needs to get as much market share as possible. Most people stay with what they start with.

Get them now Apple or you might not have another chance.
 
Originally posted by the_mole1314


b.) Flash is dead
Click to expand...

That’s a pretty bold statement considering the music player industry is built on flash players. Go into a Best Buy, CompUSA, Circuit City and see how many flash players there are compared to hard drive devices. 70% That is the % of players that aren't iPods. And a good portion of them are CF/SD/MM/MS players.

Also tell that to people who jog, do aerobics, and generally work out. Moving parts aren't your friend when it comes to a workout. Also hard drives aren't particularly happy with cold weather. Funny how hard drive failures seem to spike in my office right around the dead of winter. Try leaving your iPod in a car when its 15* out and start it up. Do that a few times while leaving it out in the baking sun as well. Flash was designed to be rugged. The iPod is not.

CF, SD have their place just as hard drive based units have their place. There are now SD cards, which are about the size of a quarter, that have just now hit the 1GB barrier for these chips. 2GB is expected next Summer. For now the price of such chips is out of reach but in 12-18 months?

If they do released a 5GB iPod they better have a huge stock available. If they have it out before the holiday season they better have a ginormous stock because these suckers will FLY off the shelves.

I hope Apple is learning something here. Forget if you build it they will come. More like if you make it cheap they will maul you for it.
 
I would buy a 5gb ipod is all I had was less than 5gigs of music. But I havn't even had my mac with itunes for a year and I already have 5.5 gigs, ad growing. So, I am hoping to get a nice 20gb ipod for x-mas. I am only a teenager, but I love music more than anyone I know. I feel the ipod is the perect gift for any music lover, so if someone loves music and just happens to have a small collection, bring ont eh 5gb.
 
The reason I said flash is dead is based on stuff I've heard and my own opinions. Simply put, people don't like them. It's simple as that. Flash based players are selling so well because they are cheap, if a cheap iPod comes out without SD, Compact, or other drives, it will destroy the market.

Now, the USB drive market is alive, ditto for those players that use that system.
 
Originally posted by the_mole1314
The reason I said flash is dead is based on stuff I've heard and my own opinions. Simply put, people don't like them. It's simple as that. Flash based players are selling so well because they are cheap, if a cheap iPod comes out without SD, Compact, or other drives, it will destroy the market.

Now, the USB drive market is alive, ditto for those players that use that system.
Click to expand...

how can something that's selling well (no matter the reason) be "dead"? you said it yourself, "flash based players are selling so well." one aspect of flash is that it's cheap. it's not some magical thing happening in the market that allows flash based players to be cheaper. being cheap is one property of flash...

perhaps you meant "flash won't be able to compete against a 5 GB iPod cheaply priced." that i can understand.

aren't those usb drives based on flash memory...?
 
Well, I think a cheaper 5 gig iPod would be terrific.

There is no way in hell it would hold all my music, but neither would a 40 gig iPod. Given that, I would put a collection of my favorite music on the iPod. A 5 gig iPod would hold say... 1000 songs?
That's pretty good.

The only big drawback is having to encode new stuff I would want to add to the iPod.
 
There is someone on here that does testing for iRiver the new 1-2GB versions and has said flash is still way behind having the speeds that are in the iPod.

Flash is only going to take off in certain applications but I doubt it will in MP3 players as most companies are now going to HD design.

I've been saying for months Apple needs a 2-5GB iPod maybe with a new gen. interface. Why would Apple bring a lower price iPod back? Simply competition and they also see sells of 10GB iPods killing all other versions of the iPod sells in this holiday season.

Remember the iPod is no Mac and can be downgraded to sell more because the only big difference would be storage size and price.
 
surely 10GB HD's have come down enough for the new CHEAPER iPod to actually be a 10GB version? (at a lower price)

and even if they were to bring out a 5GB version then i can't see it dropping no more than 50$ over the 10GB version. unless they really managed to cut a real good deal with a supplier.
 
Originally posted by 1macker1
Apple isn't paying retail value for any of the parts they use in any of their products, so those numbers are off. I'm sure they save tons just by buying in large volumes.
Click to expand...

Actually, from work in the electronics business. Those prices are probably very close. There is still a certain cost to everything that Apple can't lower. The LCD, and batteries, chips, and PCB. Not to mention the HD.

I'll tell you this, without the HD, the iPod does not cost Apple $5. Nor $20. It likely costs Apple around $50-$80 to build an ipod complete with LCD and battery, and casing, before you add the hard drive.
 
a 5GB mini-HD isn't $100 cheaper

10 GB - 5 GB <> $100. no way.

this is a page 2 rumor because the chances of it coming true are very, very low IMO. apple would do better (for their bottom line) to come out with a compact flash iPod with a 1 GB compact flash card. the chances of that are even lower, i think.

however, it would delight most everyone, but competitors, to see current model iPods drop about $50 or more in price to $250, $350, and $450.
 
hmm i think the idea of a "bargain" ipod will devalue the product line. the ipod is the most prestigious player on the market and i feel that making a cheap model might make it rather "bourgeoisie" to a certain extent. while i certainly believe that more people with apple products is better, i also think that apple must do all it can to preserve the allure of the ipod, considering the number of similar players that are considerably cheaper (Dell).
 
Originally posted by hmmmmmm
surely 10GB HD's have come down enough for the new CHEAPER iPod to actually be a 10GB version? (at a lower price)

and even if they were to bring out a 5GB version then i can't see it dropping no more than 50$ over the 10GB version. unless they really managed to cut a real good deal with a supplier.
Click to expand...

You miss the point. Hard drives are expensive to manufacture. Thats why IBM recently got out of the business. Why? Look at how much metal is in the drive. Look at how much presicion is needed in machining the heads and platters. This stuff is NOT cheap. A 5GB hard drive will sell the same as a 10GB drive....not because they are the same physically, but because you hit the bottom of what a manufacturer can take for the amount of time and materials to put it together. On the other hand, look at chips. Say you look at a 512MB chip and a 1GB chip. Funny thing there is, you see the reverse economics situation. The 1GB actually uses the same amount of material as the 512MB, because its probably built in a better process. The costs of silicon are the same, which end up being a few cents per chip after R&D is paid for. There is much more margin, and the they are able to continue seperation on pricing for a long time after its outlived its usefulness in the market
 
Apple doesn't want to go slower and thats what most folks say about flash drive based players they tend to be slower then HD based ones.
 
Originally posted by ITR 81
Apple doesn't want to go slower and thats what most folks say about flash drive based players they tend to be slower then HD based ones.
Click to expand...

Umm, I had two different flash players. To make a note with everyone's slowness statements:

a) Flash is not too slow to play music. I just want to make it clear we are talking about a possible bandwidth problem on loading the music, not playback.

b) Flash is faster than a USB 1 interface, but slower than USB 2. However, I see very few problems with this, and for a good reason. So you buy a cheaper iPod....it takes you as long to upload 200 songs as someone else would 500. Oooh, big woop, if you were going for the smaller one you probably wouldnt have 500, or 1000 songs anyways.

I think this is bullsh*t to say Flash is too slow.....the market is for the low-end, to stop competing players from grabbing market share....its not for the people with a brand new powermac G5 with FireWire 800 who need things to happen before they even finish clicking a button.
 
Originally posted by dongmin
I'm not sure it's as simple as that. You're asking the ipod to recognize your camera via a USB-to-firewire adapter. I don't think you can do this without custom drivers written into the iPod OS for each camera model.

As clumsy as it seems, a card-reader is the only way of insuring universal compatibility. It'd be nice if the card-reader could draw power from the iPod but I don't know if it's possible.

Now if your camera was a firewire camera, it could be a different story.
Click to expand...

Not quite - drivers for "EVERY" camera would:

a) take up a lot of space on the iPod that could be used on music.

b) would immediately leave every camera released after the release.
 
wouldn't it make sense if apple came out with a cheaper drive? they have started the ipodrocks.com web site targeted at kids (to persuade their parents to get iPods for the holiday season) so wouldnt it help if the kids were begging for $150-$200 toys instead of instead of $300-$500. and heck, i might even buy one for my mom just so i can jump her into the 21st century . . . (now how can i rip all of her casset tapes(oh yeah and records) to aac?!!!)
 
Well 5GB ipods were $149.99 earlier today at expercom. they were refurbs but still, I doubt they lost money selling them. They sold out in a matter of hours after being posted on dealmac.

I think $249 is probably the lowest Apple can go right now and make any profit. I agree the difference in cost to them between 5 and 10GB is probably a matter of $10 or less.
 
ePod?

How about ePod.
Smaller and Yellow
Plays Flash Memory.
They can market it to sports people and people in rough e-nvironments.

Or maybe it is the same size as an iPod but they pack it with 4 cheap 256MB CF Cards. It could require a smaller battery and no reworking of the case. All in all cheaper.
 
On second thought..

Everyone who loves rumors gets overworked and over anticipates and wants to believe that apple will come out with something great.
I ahve been disappointed before (Except for the backlit keyboard that was cool)
Anyway my realistic prediction for all this fuss-----


rainbow colors.

You can see the adds with the green and red ones dancing around.


Of course this would be 100% a bad idea. The iPod in white only makes it such a signature item. Please Flash memory instead of colors.....
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back