Tuesday, December 23, 2003
Ipod on the cheap
I have harped in the past about the way Apple overprices its products, the Ipod being a case in point. I bought my Creative Nomad Zen Xtra 30 GB player for about $200 less than what an Ipod with similar capabilities would have cost. Yes, the Ipod has a better user interface, but thats about it. I havent noticed much of a difference with any other feature. So, is a marginally UI worth an extra $200? More importantly, would Apple be willing to give up on the lower end of the market, as the big players like Sony and Dell enter the market?
The answer seems to be no, if this report can be believed. Steve Jobs is planning to unveil new Ipods which cost about $100 each.
The lower-end iPods, which are expected to carry a price tag of about $100 and will hold 400 to 800 songs, are a necessary answer to the bevy of MP3 digital music players now on the market that cost $100 or less, analysts said. "Odds are it's a flash-memory-based player, something to position Apple against the low-cost offerings from Creative and Rio," said Rob Enderle, principal of market search firm the Enderle Group.
Flash memory? Jobs seems to have the idea right -- that he needs to lower the cost of Ipods, but flash memory and 400-800 songs when my Nomad can hold 8,000 songs???? And of course, Sony has plans to enter the market in 2004 with a sub $100 player. Yes, there's a market at the very low end, but I believe what Jobs needs to do is to lower the prices on the original Ipods if he hopes to compete against Samsung, Creative etc as awareness of their products grow (the name recognition of Ipod has thus far been its biggest selling point -- the security guy at Heathrow looked at my Nomad and asked if it was an Ipod).
The answer seems to be no, if this report can be believed. Steve Jobs is planning to unveil new Ipods which cost about $100 each.
The lower-end iPods, which are expected to carry a price tag of about $100 and will hold 400 to 800 songs, are a necessary answer to the bevy of MP3 digital music players now on the market that cost $100 or less, analysts said. "Odds are it's a flash-memory-based player, something to position Apple against the low-cost offerings from Creative and Rio," said Rob Enderle, principal of market search firm the Enderle Group.
Flash memory? Jobs seems to have the idea right -- that he needs to lower the cost of Ipods, but flash memory and 400-800 songs when my Nomad can hold 8,000 songs???? And of course, Sony has plans to enter the market in 2004 with a sub $100 player. Yes, there's a market at the very low end, but I believe what Jobs needs to do is to lower the prices on the original Ipods if he hopes to compete against Samsung, Creative etc as awareness of their products grow (the name recognition of Ipod has thus far been its biggest selling point -- the security guy at Heathrow looked at my Nomad and asked if it was an Ipod).
