iPod mini: It's not the size it's how you use it.

[BTs_Mysterio]

Well I ordered mine from an American reseller that ships to Canada...the April world wide shipping was abit too long to wait. And by god that's the same aluminum that the G5 has. Siiiiiiilllllvvvvvvveeeerrrrrrr iPod Mini.

With that out of the way, the iPod mini wasn't made to compete with the iPod, it was meant to compete with High End flash players. People say "250 is too much to pay for 4 GB" but it isn't. Tell RIO who wants $200 for a 256MB player. Or iRiver who wants $200 for 256 too. Digitalway, same deal too. The idea of the iPod mini isn't to compete with the iPods price wise; it's meant to attack those flash based players.

Digtalway and iRiver are the only 2 non -iPod players in the top five (iRiver 256 and Digitalway 128..about 150 for the 128). If you compare the iPod mini to those 2 players you'll see it truely is the better deal.

Take into account the 1" Hatachi HD that the mini uses may cost up to $200. I don't see Appl being able to lower the price at this stage.The iPod mini is perfect for my price range, I couldn't go as high as $300 so I was going to get a iRiver, but thank god the mini came.

If people would stop being wrongfully disappointed and take a minute to watch the comparison the keynote gave us, you'd see it's the best deal for it's specific market.

You can now skip ahead to the iPod announcement at time index 1:50:35
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/mwsf04/

Give it a chance, best deal out there in it's market.

[*DAMN Hazard]

I just got my 10 gb iPod for Christmas. 5 GB is too little for me.. I'm just glad that Apple is getting all this good publicity from the iTunes music store and the iPod's.(everyone and their mother got one here)

P.S. The iPod is the best cheat sheet I have ever had... I assume the minipod would be even better.

[c| Hathcock]

Lol Haz.  The mini happens to be the perfect thing for me.  I only have 3.4 gigs anyway and my original 5gb is definetly showing it's age.  Add in the small size which will be ideal to run w/ and I have the perfect replacement.

The mini looks like more of a specialty.  Basically people will love it for what they need or just get the 15gb Ipod.

[Jeb]

i still like, and use my 5gig ipod daily.
5gigs is plenty and i could probably live off 4gigs, but since i have 50gigs of mp3s there is no hope of me getting all my music on an ipod. I guess i'll wait to get a new one once my battery/ipod dies in 6-8months.
 

[BFG]

I went to the other extream with the 40Gig ipod - but i use it as a portable HD as much as a mp3 player. I keep a back up of all inportant files, email, all the Film project files (FCP is so great for small files) , 20Gigs of music etc...

However if i had had the choice i might well have just got another internal drive, emptied out one of the firewire external drives, used that, and got a minipod for the music! doah!

[Mr. Paper]

Mysterio-

The funny thing about when Steve Jobs announces the mini, and then says and for the new low price of 249, the crowd was ghostly silent.  The New York Times did an article on this also

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/07/technology/07apple.html

 and although I realize they are trying to compete with the rio and the other 199 players-- I was hoping that they could have at least dropped down the price to 199.  But what can ya do.

[Toxic::Joka]

paper you mind copy pasting, I don't have a account

[Mr. Lothario]

     For the accountless ones:

Apple Introduces a Smaller, Less Expensive iPod
By JOHN MARKOFF
 
Published: January 7, 2004

 

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 6 - Apple Computer introduced on Tuesday a smaller, slightly less expensive version of its iPod digital music players for $249 and a more powerful $3,000 to $4,000 server computer based on its new G5 microprocessor.

The announcements were made by Steven P. Jobs, Apple's chief executive, on the opening day of the Macworld exhibition, which will continue here through Friday. They were less dramatic than the company's usual introductions aimed at wowing customers with innovative technologies and new product lines at this regularly scheduled event.

Mr. Jobs, however, gave every indication that Apple is solidifying its consumer strategy of selling easy-to-use digital software and hardware focused on music and video, as it strives to re-establish itself in the corporate world by aiming to create a more stylish alternative to dominant players like I.B.M., Sun, Dell andHewlett-Packard.

The theme for the day was clearly digital music and music players. Since he returned in 1997 to revive the company he helped start two decades earlier, Mr. Jobs's marketing strategy has been to focus with intensity on a single product or technology at a time.

In his talk on Tuesday, Mr. Jobs invoked the 20th anniversary of the Macintosh computer, which Apple originally introduced with its rarely viewed but long remembered "1984" advertisement during the Super Bowl. The advertisement evoked George Orwell's novel, and featured a hammer thrower barging into a Big Brother setting, where she destroyed a large video screen. After a showing of the original advertisement, Mr. Jobs showed a new version in which the hammer thrower is carrying an iPod music player.

Attired in his trademark black turtleneck and blue jeans, Mr. Jobs made much of Apple's strong market share in commercial music downloads and portable music players. He said that Apple's new iPod Mini family was aimed at its less expensive and less powerful competitors, which use solid state flash memory - instead of the iPod's small hard disk - to store digital music.

"The iPod Mini is designed to go after the high end of the flash market," he said.

The Mini is the size of a business card, relies on a four-gigabyte disk that holds about 1,000 songs, and has a control screen and buttons that are similar to those on the existing iPod players. Current iPods are somewhat larger and, depending on the model, store 15 to 40 gigabytes, enough to hold up to 10,000 songs. Unlike the current iPods, which come only in white, the Mini is available in five colors.

Apple sold 730,000 iPods in the last quarter and has sold two million of them since the product was introduced just over two years ago. "This thing is on fire," Mr. Jobs said. "It's the No. 1 MP3 player in the world.''

How long Apple, which is based in Cupertino, Calif., will be able to maintain its newfound momentum is a question that is now gripping the computer, consumer electronics and recording industries. Mr. Jobs said the company has a 70 percent share of commercial music downloads and also dominates the digital music player market, selling about 31 percent of all players and, because Apple's players are more expensive than competitive models, garnering about 55 percent of revenues.

Industry analysts said Apple is chalking up significant profits on the players it sells, which have been priced at $299 to $499.

"If you look at their numbers over time, they are doing extremely well," said Mike McGuire, research director for GartnerG2, an information technology market research firm. "IPod margins represent a significant part of Apple's profits for the past quarter."

But while the bottom line remains focused on the iPod, Mr. Jobs devoted much of his attention during his two-hour demonstration to previewing improvements in Apple's iLife software. Apple is adding a software music synthesizer called GarageBand to the $49 iLife, which now includes iTunes, iPhoto, iDVD and iMusic.

"ILife '04 is like Microsoft Office for the rest of your life," he said.

Apple has sold 30 million songs via its iTunes music store, Mr. Jobs said.

But when it comes to the big corporate server market, Mr. Jobs took a swipe at one of his Silicon Valley neighbors as he acknowledged that the company had a long way to go.

"Saying Apple and server is a bit like saying Sun and client," he said. "It's not something you think of."

[c| Splinter]

Some rumor sites are saying that Apple reps on the floor at Macworld are saying that the mini will be dropped to $199 in about 4 months.  I guess they want to milk an extra $50 out of the early adopters

[alaric]

John Markoff is a tool.

[|GM|Kuza@School]

my friend who works at apple says that The price on the mini will be dropped to 199 when the new ipod comes out. I even got a sneak preview at the new ipod's, pretty sweet.

[*DAMN Hazard]

Mind giving us a taste Kuza?

P.S. Ny times accounts are free just sign up.

[kami]

Alaric, I read that as "Jerk Me Off".

Hazard, signing up for things like that is incredibly annoying, waste of time.

[crypt]

I want an iPod mini, but the shipping would be sometime in Feburary, I don't wanna wait that long.

[*DAMN Hazard]

I personally don't see the point of getting a minipod when it is the same price as a much bigger one that stores much more songs. Unless you need a smaller size for jogging or whatever reasons. I have heard some people say they were gonna get it just because the silver one looks "hot".

[crypt]

I wish they had a black one.

[|MP|Cringe]

I ordered mine from Apple the day they released them (aka before myst), so there!  
Apple's timing was excellent, since i was about to buy a 300 dollar, half gig iriver flash player. (Having just turned 16 around christmas time, no one had any idea what to get me, so they gave cash) Thanks to apple, i just bought eight times the capacity for 50 dollars less in a package about the same size, with a much better interface (and shiny silver aluminum casing). I cant wait till feb 16 when they finally ship them. And i dont care if people dont buy them, ill have mine.

[BTs_Mysterio]

I have heard some people say they were gonna get it just because the silver one looks "hot".

The Silver is hot! iPodsare so G$ styled, same chrome shit as the MDD and consumer white plastic. The Mini is G5 Al and the silver matches my too hot G5. End communication.