Over the break, I spent my fair share of time underground. Bringing along a CD player turned out to be an ingenius idea, as it was Boxing Day, a holiday specially designed for buying music. Of course I broke into my purchases immediately. Walking out of the subway station, I passed a subway musician playing a pan flute. He happened to be playing in the same key as the song blaring through the headphones, and at roughly the same tempo. Thus it came to be that Lois Maffeo and Greg Moore would gain some unique accompaniment that day.Only later did I figure out what the song was: “I Hate The Sun.”
The
new mini iPods were announced today at MacWorld San Francisco, and in light of the rumours around the device, the actual announcement seems anti-climactic. While the new device is smaller than the 3G iPod, the difference is minimal (think small cellphone), but the biggest blunder is the price: $249 US for 4GB vs $299 for the also-announced 15GB iPod, which replaces the old 10GB at the same price point. Consider what else you can buy in that price range:
High-capacity Jukeboxes- Apple iPod Mini 4GB: $249
- Dell DJ 15GB: $249
- Creative Labs Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra 30GB: $299
- Apple iPod 15GB: $299
Compact Jukeboxes- Apple iPod Mini 4GB: $249 (3.6″ x 2.4″ x 0.5″, 3.6 oz)
- RCA Lyra 1.5GB: $199 (2.2″ x 2.3″ x 1″, 3.2 oz)
- Rio Nitrus 4GB: $249 (3.0″ x 2.4″ x 0.6″, ~2.0 oz)
- Rio Nitrus 1.5GB: $189 (3.0″ x 2.4″ x 0.6″, 2.0 oz)
So not a huge blunder, but also cause for head scratching. Many of the features that make the iPod mini attractive despite the price point—bootable hard drive capability, Firewire compatibility, games, contacts—aren’t big selling points to the audience this player targets; while many people have issues with the inability of Dell and Creative jukeboxes to just work as removable USB hard drives without drivers, I doubt many younger people or casual music fans will miss that sort of thing much. Plus, again, not that much smaller than other high-capacity jukeboxes,
including Apple’s very own offering.The big concern before the actual announcement was that Apple might be cannibalizing its own market share at a time when it can ill afford it, what with iPod killers appearing left and right these days. There’s not enough differentiation where it counts (price, size) and thus the naysayers might have been right on this one. We’ll see.
