Mini IPod Prices

[Cat]

I think the price is the stupidest thing I've ever seen. For an extra little bit you can more than triple your storage...I mean, why wouldn't you? It's like pricing a Dual G5 2GHz at $1000 and a G3 600MHz at $950...which would you choose?

I'd rephrase that: I think the price is the SMARTEST thing I've ever seen. For an extra little bit you can more than triple your storage...I mean, why wouldn't you?
Why wouldn't Apple want you to? In this case they just made you spend $100,- more on their own products! I think the pricing is brilliant. Everybody who considers the miniPods will be attracted to the megaPods: excellent hooking. The miniPods are just the bait. And you know what? I think they will sell like hot cakes! There a re plenty glitzy people around that always buy the smallest, shinyest gadget around. Apple did a great job IMHO.

 

[cybergoober]

I'm sorry, but $250 is way too much for 4 GB IMO. Who the feck cares how much the POS Rio 4 GB player is? /sigh

BFD, the mini is slightly smaller. WOOHOO!!
The iPod is no behemoth by any means. Plus the iPod is Sexy®, the mini is cute. I hate cute…

 

[Cat]

Have you seen this? Incredible, isn't it?

 

[lbrandt]

Isn't there some advantage to flash rather than disk? Maybe it's more robust for joggers and others who move the pod around vigorously? Maybe flash has a longer expected lifetime than disk?

 

[MacMuppet]

In the MSWF thread i wrote:

Quote:

Originally Posted by garymum4d
The new Mini iPods are NOT on the UK apple store. All the other new stuff is, iLife, G5 Xserve and so on, but No mini iPods!!!

Are we not good enough? after all we are still waiting for ITMS


Good. It gives them lots of time to re-think the price, before they make a loss on productiuon of these things. 4gb when you can have 15gb for $50 more? Thats so poorly thought out as to be laughable. I thought they were only looking at smaller sized iPods to take on the the other smaller mp3 players on the market, something they will utterly fail to do with this pricing scheme - what exactly, has been the point of designing, producing and manufacturing iPodMinis, other than research and trial and error for the next generation of iPods.
Regardless of how beautiful, functional, small, long-lived practical and durable it is, £249 is too much for a personal stereo (mp3 or not, data-carrying-able or not), and £220 for one with a third of the capacity is not only no better, its actually worse.

I loved the complete deadpan non-reaction when Steve announced the price - like "no seriously dude, how much will it be? No, no we're not falling for it, stop yanking our chains, what will the price be? WHAT? YOU'RE ACTUALLY SERIOUS!?!?!"

 

[MacMuppet]

Also it doesnt help that Apple have no regard for exchange rates.
Currently the 15Gb iPod is $299 at apple.com and £249 at apple.com/uk - at current exchange rates it should be £166. Now, obviously rates fluctuate so we couldnt expect them to stick to them, but a more realistic approach might be nice, I mean the percentage markup is daylight robbery.
I guess if we're not Californian, we can get lost.

Oh well, sorry Apple, someone from my company goes over to NYC about once a week, at current rate by the end of the year over a hundred of us will have bought an iPod for about £160-170 - the only people I know who have them from the UK have more money than sense.

 

[cybergoober]

Isn't there some advantage to flash rather than disk? Maybe it's more robust for joggers and others who move the pod around vigorously? Maybe flash has a longer expected lifetime than disk?

And what has that to do with the iPod mini? iPod mini is still Hard Drive based.

 

[lbrandt]

And what has that to do with the iPod mini? iPod mini is still Hard Drive based.

An assumption on my part, apparently mistaken - I agree with other posters that the price is way to high and the product is not enough differentiated from the 15GB model. I'm still interested in the comparison between disk and flash, though.

 

[pds]

Of course if you chip in another 50 bucks you get another 11 megs of music, but that may not be the point. Looking at the Rio, the point is that for 50 bucks someone can go from 256 meg to 4 gig. From 120 songs to 1,000

I think the thing will be hot hot hot. Not for you, but for those who are considering a Rio.

 

[Crobot]

I'd rephrase that: I think the price is the SMARTEST thing I've ever seen. For an extra little bit you can more than triple your storage...I mean, why wouldn't you?
Why wouldn't Apple want you to? In this case they just made you spend $100,- more on their own products!

I disagree. I think the key part of what you just said is at the end of your quote. In your line of thinking Apple is cannibalizing themselves to make a few extra bucks. That doesn't sound like brilliance to me.

Think about it.... if Apple priced their low end iPod to just be $50 more than the top end competitor, then that logic would hold out. I mean, buy spend $249 on a Rio with 4GB of storage (flash based or drive based), when you can spend $50 extra and get tons more storage, style and convenience with an Apple iPod? .......In this scenario Apple is taking away from the competition. If Apple is simply cannibalizing one of their own lines, then they are only hurting themselves, right?

The miniPods are just the bait.

I mean, think of all the money that has to be dumped into R&D, design, manufacturing, marketing and production of the iPod Mini. And you think all that has been done just to be sacrificed just to sell a few more iPods? *shrug* You might be right.... but it doesn't sound like a sound business decision to me. Why spend millions on a product that you don't expect to sell?

I have a different reason that Apple has priced their Mini's too high. (and yes, i think it's too high) It's quite simple..... The iPod has been selling like hot cakes. The market has shown that people are willing to fork over alot of cash to own something as cool as an iPod. In other words... people have shown that they are *willing* to pay that amount of money.

I mean, really..... Why sell something alot cheaper when people are willing to pay $299 and up? To be honest, i was surprised they even released the Mini. So, when they released it, i was disappointed but not surprised at seeing the price.

IMO, they priced themselves $50 too high. At a price point of $199 the Mini would still make them money, yet it would be cheap enough for more price conscious consumers, and the price/storage ratio would kill the competition. As it stands, i treat my 15GB iPod the same way i baby my iBook. The thing cost me alot of money, and i'm paranoid about it be dropped, stolen, or lost. However, if a Mini were priced at $199, it would be easier to conceive of buying one for a friend as a gift and not feeling like i've just broke the bank or spent too much on an gift.

So.... i think Apple needs to attack and hurt the competition.... not themselves.

Just my opinion....take it for what it's worth. YMMV.


Dave........

 

[Cat]

I'd rephrase that: I think the price is the SMARTEST thing I've ever seen. For an extra little bit you can more than triple your storage...I mean, why wouldn't you?
Why wouldn't Apple want you to? In this case they just made you spend $100,- more on their own products!

I disagree. I think the key part of what you just said is at the end of your quote. In your line of thinking Apple is cannibalizing themselves to make a few extra bucks. That doesn't sound like brilliance to me.

Well, cannibalizing usually works the other way round: the lesser product drawing away sales from the higher ones. Example: if Apple made a 1.6 GHz iMac it would cannibalize PowerMac sales. Cannibalizing in this case is bad because people buy the cheaper product instead of the more expensive one. In the case of the iPods I think it will be exactly the opposite: people looking for a flash player will see the miniPods just $50 above them and they'll think "hey its just as small and neat but holds a lot more songs", then they'll notice the miniPods bigger brother and they'll go "Wow! Even more gigs!" and perhaps they'll be will to spend $50 more ... the marketing trick is that they originally would have never considered the iPods at all, but by being hooked with the miniPods they possibly will be spending 50 bucks extra. This is not a negative way of cannibalizing sales.
By the way, if you had quoted me in full, I do think the miniPods will sell on themselves:

I think they will sell like hot cakes! There a re plenty glitzy people around that always buy the smallest, shinyest gadget around. Apple did a great job IMHO.

I still stand by that!

 

[Crobot]

By the way, if you had quoted me in full, I do think the miniPods will sell on themselves:

I think they will sell like hot cakes! There a re plenty glitzy people around that always buy the smallest, shinyest gadget around. Apple did a great job IMHO.

I still stand by that!

I didn't quote it because i agree with you. I agree because the market already has proved that people will be willing to pay the prices. I also think they will sell some due to the cute colors. Also the reduced size will sell units also.

I also agree that taking sales away from the cheaper products to buy more expensive ones is alot better than vice versa.

However, i still stand by my statement that they should be taking sales away from the cheaper products of the competition ....... *not* themselves.

 

[UNIX X11]

Crazyness.
The smaller something gets, the more expensive its gonna be most likely...
there will be a major price drop, if it wont flop like the cube.

 

[chevy]

Apple wants to sell products with margin. Low cost "iPod" and similar cannot make margin. Only the high end devices make real margin.

 

[iluvosx]

I thought so too, at first, but that's because we are underestimating the power of style. I know three women that bought original iMacs for one reason and one reason only...they liked the cool colors.
Some people will definitely pay for a slightly smaller, stylish iPod at that price. If you don't need 15 GB, you don't need 15 GB. I won't be surprised at all to these sell well.

As per Steve Jobs' key note, the iPod Mini was supposed to compete with Flash players which cost between $100 and $200. Now why should someone who is buying a $100 flash player spend $150 bucks more to get a Mini ? If at all he can afford it, he would as well spend $200 to buy an iPod. - 10G extra.

iPod Mini is not supposed to compete with iPod !!! But I bet thats what is eventually going to happen. The price makes absolutely no sense to me.

 

[Cat]

Apple wants to sell products with margin. Low cost "iPod" and similar cannot make margin. Only the high end devices make real margin

Hmm, Apple wants to make profit, which results (inter alia) from the combination of margin and sales volume. If you sell >2million products with even a small margin, your profit can be very high indeed...

As per Steve Jobs' key note, the iPod Mini was supposed to compete with Flash players which cost between $100 and $200. Now why should someone who is buying a $100 flash player spend $150 bucks more to get a Mini ? If at all he can afford it, he would as well spend $200 to buy an iPod. - 10G extra.

Well, the iPod mini is supposed to comepete with the _high end_ flash players: those that cost between $150,- and $250,-. In that expensive, high end segment the mini Pod is very competitive and a lot of people will consider it. Since they were going to spend ~$200,- it is just 50 bucks more. Yes, that is 25% more, but you get 16 times the storage, etc. If they go for the normal iPod, well, all the better, yet $50,- dollars more for Apple!
The iPod mini s going to sell very well on its own, but will also attract customers to the bigger line. T sum it up:

1) Make glitzy miniPod
2) ???
3) Profit!

 

[diablojota]

Well, here is what I find interesting. There is the 15gb iPod for $299 and the 20gb for $399. That is now too large of a price difference. I think if the iPod mini came in at $199 followed by the $299 15gb, then you just opened up your market share much more.

 

[lilbandit]

Too expensive and whats the point of competing with yourself? People who have $250 to spend will probably spend the extra money and get a full size ipod. When I heard the mini ipod rumour I thought to myself, "Right, here comes a chance to make a cheap, small music player that can make the flash based players look like really bad value. Also, here comes a chance to make AAC/mp4/mp3 the dominant formats. Sell buckets of cheap players that can't play WMA and you have cornered the market in hardware and online music retailing." But what did they do? Make a 4GB (too big in my opinion) mini-ipod that costs too much. PC's conquered the world because they were cheap and only supported Windows, a small cheap iPod could be in everybodies pocket playing mp4/AAC/MP3 leaving WMA a distant memory

 

[MacMuppet]

from The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/news/0,12597,1118474,00.html

9.15am update

iPod mini outcry prompts price review

Neil McIntosh
Thursday January 8, 2004

Apple Computer is set to review the UK pricing of its iPod mini music player, launched on Tuesday, after complaints about a substantial mark-up for non-US buyers of the device.

The iPod mini will go on sale next month in the US for $249 - which would translate to a UK price of £162 including VAT if today's exchange rates were applied. Yet Apple's UK arm announced on Tuesday that it plans to sell the device for £38 more, at £199, immediately sparking an outcry from the company's European customers.

Now a senior Apple executive has said the company will review its pricing outside the US, and blamed the high pricing on the continuing weakness of the dollar against other currencies.

In an interview, Apple vice president Greg Joswiak told Online the price announcement was "subject to change" and that the company would settle on a UK price "closer to the availability date, simply because of the volatility of the currency exchange".

The exact pricing would depend on the strength of dollar relative to the pound, he said. "What we don't want to do is lock Europe into a price now, see the dollar continue to weaken, and have done all of ourselves a disservice by pricing too early," said Mr Joswiak.

He also dismissed pre-show rumours that Apple had been considering launching a sub-$99 player as "something we don't want to get in to."

"That's why all this nonsense about us doing a $99 player was just that. We weren't going to do a player that does 30 songs - it's very uninteresting to us."

 

[MacMuppet]

"That's why all this nonsense about us doing a $99 player was just that. We weren't going to do a player that does 30 songs - it's very uninteresting to us."

of course its 'uninteresting' to you Greg, what wouldnt be uninteresting is a 500 song player for $100-200 - but then you wouldnt make $97.99 profit on it, would you Greg?

Actually, to be fair to the m(e)an at Apple, anyone who thought there would a $99 player must be stupid - the man's not wrong, its just not worth it...