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HP iPod To Appear September 5?

macridah said:
I was also wondering why apple would let HP resell a rebranded iPod but some analyst think it's a good move. Maybe it's just to keep the iPod dominance ... HP was smart and didn't want to waste R&D money to develop a iPod killer cuz they know they can't. Next, HP said we'll install iTunes on all of our millions of PC's if you let us resell a rebranded iPod.
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Indeed.

macridah said:
I just hope this doesn't cause anymore iPod 4G shortages.
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I hope that too. My 4G 20 GB iPod order is dated 29th July. In a few days that'll make a month. The estimated ship date has been already revised three times. Now they say 30th August. We'll see. I emailed Apple Store and the reply was "Unfortunately due to the extreme high demand for iPods we are currently experiencing delays in the production. Our manufacturing team is trying to resolve this situation as soon as possible and is working hard to keep the delays as short as possible."
 
I'm at a loss to understand how or why some posters are unaware of this deal. It was unveiled months ago and was all over the press. It means that every HP consumer desktop will have as a default iTunes/ iTMS right on the desktop. Quicktime will also be bundled with HP computers. HP has probably 100 times the retail outlets as Apple worldwide. They will sell lots of HPods along with their computers. Apple is making the player for them. They have not licensed to manufacture it themselves. This will help increase visibiltiy of iTunes to the PC crowd. Believe it or not, there are still millions of PC users that are unaware of iTunes/iTMS/Quicktime. Apple will, with this deal, probably double the amount of Pods sold in a short period of time. HP would never have agreed to a deal if given "old" technology, i.e. 3rd Gen. Anyway, the manufacturer of the iPods for Apple is in Taiwan and they discontinued making the old Pods months ago and it would be costly to start a new line making them over. No need.

P.S. I suspect some of the shortages may be that Apple's manufacturer has been busily making HPods for the start up and has fallen behind on getting iPods out. I don't believe Apple has more then one vendor making the player (although I could be wrong). Perhaps someone knows?
 
I think this is great news - more iPods out there = better for Apple! Not that I'll ever buy anything other than my nice, white Apple-branded iPod (the true iPod!), but still, I think this will start touching market segments previously untouched by Apple and will be beneficial to them in the long run. It'll help HP out too but I hate them, so I could care less... ;)
 
toughboy said:
I'm very sorry to claim that but I guess it will cheapen the iPod's image.. I guess we all deserve a keynote, explaning why Apple did this.. there should be a reason other than "englarging the market domineance bla bla bla"
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I think you're wrong... big time... this opens the door for ipods to be sold wherever HP sells their computers, without a lot of heavy negotiations. Apple might not be able to get into certain places, but HP IS already in those places and sell a lot of stuff. Partnering with them was very smart.
 
i don't think this is as weird or complicated as some of you think it is. the mp3 and handheld (read: pda, cell phone) market is young. if apple can increase it's market share of mp3 players, then the ipod becomes the standard. right now it is the leader and the best and the player to beat, but it does not have the renown of "walkman." it fifteen years when ipods and other good players cost $50, kids will put "ipod" on their Christmas list. they won't put "mp3" player.

i know market share isn't everything with apple computers, but i think market share is a big deal with apple (or hp) ipods. apple computers lost their dominant position in the pc market years ago, and apple is fighting to prevent its dominance from being lost again. although apple is not typically seen as a handheld company, apple was the first with the pda (i think), the best with the mp3 player, and now they are partnering with motorola cell phones. i think the hp partnership is wise on apple's part.
 
off topic.

does anyone else think it is odd that the reported wait for a mini OR an ipod is a month?! i guess it's not hurting sales or else people wouldn't have a month's wait to get their ipod.
 
appleface said:
does anyone else think it is odd that the reported wait for a mini OR an ipod is a month?! i guess it's not hurting sales or else people wouldn't have a month's wait to get their ipod.
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A couple weeks ago I was at the Apple store in the Ginza.

They were having a tough time keeping iPod (20GB model) and iPod Mini (all models) on the shelves. They were continuously restocking the shelves while I was there over a 3 hour period.

The iPod continues to be a success.

Expanding to a PC compatable model has been great. And now with HP on board it can only get better.

Sushi
 
the good, the bad, and the ugly

The good - Apple will get a bigger share of the music market, players and store. A lot of people won't touch Apple products, this is a way to get those people. Also just when Microsoft's music store is coming online. :p

The bad - if this does take off what sort of production problems will Apple run into. I would say that the current lag time is due to Apple stock piling the hPod for its debute.

The ugly - hp blue, damn that's a butt ugly color. But I'm sure some people will like the color.
 
Why are people whining? God some of you are babies.

I'd buy a hPod in a heartbeart merely because it is BLUE! Why would I care if its got HP stamped on its back? Its internals are still Apple inside.

If this is good for apple then let it be, why should Apple always go it alone, some people here seem to think so. Anybody ever thought that if Apple were seen as being more "intune" with the rest of the PC industry then people would see them more as being more PC rather than Mac and lose this stigma of being incompatible and out of reach that the Mac name has attached to it, the one that clueless windows users are used to?

I'd get one and then show it all to my PC friends, even though two of them already have the white ipods!

Another reason for buying a hPod is because you cannot get it IN blue from Apple, simple reasoning.
 
If anybody remembers, HP was able to convince Apple to allow them to sell HP iPods. Apple is still reaping benefits by licensing the iPod essentially, and HP is installing iTunes on all new machines. Remember, HP is the closest to having a working a digital hub on the PC, in my opinion. Their advertisements have always been about how your digital camera, MP3 player, music, and movies all come together under one machine. Not that I'm saying they're the best choice in buying a PC, but they share similar interests with Apple.

Here's the stumper for me though. Why would you choose to buy an HP iPod over an Apple iPod? Besides the blue color, there really isn't a reason. Let's forget the brand and the color for a moment. It'll most likely have the same features, the same hardware, and same price.

The only way I can see this help HP is if they bundle it with PCs for a discounted price or they have special HP iPod-only accessories. It might be better having HP sell the Apple iPod in their stores and reap the profit they get out of it. But, I could be wrong about the HP iPod. It may be a great idea. Now, allow HP to make some Apple clones, and we'll talk. ;)
 
applekid said:
If anybody remembers, HP was able to convince Apple to allow them to sell HP iPods. Apple is still reaping benefits by licensing the iPod essentially, and HP is installing iTunes on all new machines. Remember, HP is the closest to having a working a digital hub on the PC, in my opinion. Their advertisements have always been about how your digital camera, MP3 player, music, and movies all come together under one machine. Not that I'm saying they're the best choice in buying a PC, but they share similar interests with Apple.

Here's the stumper for me though. Why would you choose to buy an HP iPod over an Apple iPod? Besides the blue color, there really isn't a reason. Let's forget the brand and the color for a moment. It'll most likely have the same features, the same hardware, and same price.

The only way I can see this help HP is if they bundle it with PCs for a discounted price or they have special HP iPod-only accessories. It might be better having HP sell the Apple iPod in their stores and reap the profit they get out of it. But, I could be wrong about the HP iPod. It may be a great idea. Now, allow HP to make some Apple clones, and we'll talk. ;)
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Having different 3rd party extras for hPods and iPods would fragment the 3rd party market and make it a hurdle to create other extras because there are 2 types of regular ipods.
 
Sneaky Steve...

i was at Macworld a few years ago when Steve announced that iPods weregoing to be Windows compatible. the crowd groaned as if Steve had just made a racist remark. Steve looked out over the crowd and said," i know, i know. but think of it... they are going to get just a taste of how amazing the Apple products are. people who own an iPod LOVE their iPod. and that Apple logo will come to mean something very different to them than it does now." (i'm paraphrasing because it was a while ago...)

i was skeptical. i wanted the PC world to come to us and beg for forgiveness and ask, "Pretty Please, can i buy a Mac so that i can use one of your wonderful iPods?"

but i've seen it happen just like Steve said. Apple bashing journalists... turned by the power of the iPod. i was at CompUSA about a month ago talking to the Apple rep. for the store (i have no life, and speaking to someone who works for Apple is as close as i get to greatness) when i couple came in and started tooling around with an iBook. the Apple rep and i talked to them for a few minutes and the guy pulled out his iPod and asked, "is this laptop going to be as cool as my iPod is?"... he bought the iBook and $400 worth of software.

my point? the hPods will have the Apple logo show on start up (at least i heard that they will). they will be integrated with iTunes which proudly shows off the logo. Steve is very smart. he knows that technology people are the new junkies. give them a taste and they will want more.

come on man... all the cool kids are doing it.. ;)

-Cannibal-
G3 300MHz minitower... Waiting for the G5 iMac...
 
lou tsee said:
ok. to all of you who don't see why this is happening:
apple keeps telling the world that the music store is barely making profit and that it's all about iPod sales. this is not the (whole) truth.
IT'S ALL ABOUT THE MUSIC STORE!!!
Apple has to assure, that the iPod (or derivates of it like hPod) gets
absolute market dominance. THEN the game will turn around and all
those millions of iPods, hPods will driver the MUSIC STORE!
This game is about Online-Music Dominance, not Player colors....
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I'm surpirsed that there has been so little discussion on this -- it explains why Apple has brushed off all attempts to make other music stores compatible with the iPod. If it was all about hardware sales, they would have done it a long time ago.

The fact is that Apple's music store *is* making money. And if it parleys its 70% market share of on-line music, into a 30% share of the total music market, that will be A LOT of money.

Ted
 
I don't see why this is happening... It doesn't make sense at all... WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?!?! - ALIENSAREFUZZY
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My thought is this that the average PC user knows that "Apple stuff doesn't work with PC stuff" and might be dismissing the IPOD altogether because of supposed incompatibility. With this misconception in probably many people's heads, Apple is losing IPOD sales because people just don't know that Apple makes a PC version.

And it's not a bad supposition. Which person here wouldn't have been dumbfounded if Apple would have brought a PC version when they introduced the Mac version back in November 2001? The success of the Mac version armed them with the knowledge that a PC version was a must. Only with that success is it easier for us to swallow that Apple makes something that works with Windows. It's still kind of hard to believe. So it makes sense that a lot of laypersons just aren't "in the know".

By allowing HP to sell their own branded version, they break through this barrier. Now people won't be thrown (and walk away) from the Apple Brand. Now the average customer can buy with confidence that their HP ipod will work with their PC. Also, it allows the ipod to be sold wherever HP products are sold, so it automatically gets them into vasts amounts of stores that would be impossible to negotiate on their own. It also becomes a very nice money-maker for PC buyers who like/want "extras"... sell a computer and then talk up the new HP ipod that perfectly complements "your new computer"!

Smart move, Apple.
 
Dr. Dastardly said:
I still don't understand why HP would want to do this. People associate the iPod with white. At least I think so.
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yes, and people still associate the iPod w/ Macs. i had a friend (who is computer literate) tell me just the other day that they would love an iPod, but they have a PC. i know that seems moronic to us, we keep on top of every little shred of Mac-geek knowledge, but it showed me how long it takes for the message to get across to people.

throw a "HP" on the back and paint it blue and middle-america goes, "oh, nice. now i can buy one!" also, bundle an iPod and a printer w/ HP's "multimedia PCs" and you've got a great all-in-one marketing package.

it seems a little silly to me, but think of it this way, if Gateway had some cool new gadget (that was by some fluke Mac-compatible), would you have thought about walking into your local Gateway store (when they still existed)? most PC users would rather run the risk of being seen in the local porn shop than be seen shopping at an Apple store. :p
 
The new iPod?

2A Batterie said:
do you think this will give us any insight, or have something to do with the "secret" features of the new iPod?
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Can anyone tell me if the 4G iPod was released? Oh, wait, it was. If what is available now isn't good enough for you go get the premier high end digital music player. Oh, wait, that's the iPod. When new isn't good enough and future new won't satisfy why bother? Seriously... Why bother. Hidden features of the G4 iPod. Don't believe everything you read. "Hidden potential" may be a better phrase. I think any device Apple makes has "Hidden potential".

Yea, I'm bitter about everyone not enjoying the iPod (or any other Apple product for that matter) for what it is and always holding out for that next big thing only to berate it because it doesn't meet the insane requirements of the rumor mill. Oh yes, all the while, machines are not being purchased and less support is given to the very company which creates the devices in the first place.

No no... We need a 3.5 Terabyte iPod with a 30" color display now! You can have that now you know. Grab a G5 Xserve and an X-RAID, Get a 30" display and a 6800 DDL (to drive that big display). Install OS-X Server on a current iPod. Connect the iPod via FireWire to the Xserve. Hold down the option key during boot-up and select it as the startup drive. There, now you have a 3.5 TB iPod with a 30" display. Think HP will sell one? Think it can be done for $400 or less?
 
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