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iPod mini

11 comments on iPod mini

iPod mini
: Happened in on the Steve Jobs keynote just as he introduced the iPod mini: 4gigs of memory… 1,000 songs… half-inch-thick… size of a business card… comes in colors (silver, gold, blue, pink, green)… $249.

It’s a clever positioning, putting the customer between a rock and a hard place. Hmmm. I can buy a flash player for $199 and get 256megs of memory to play 60 songs or I can spend another $50 and get this. And once I’ve made that leap, well, what the hell, another $50 and I get a real iPod for $299 and they just increased its drive from 10gigs to 15gigs.

I wish I could buy music and put it on my phone. I can’t. So I’ll proabably buy the mini. (And maybe that will work with that @)$&@#^#%^$&#&@#^ Audible.)

11 responses to “iPod mini”

  1. Rex Hammock Avatar
    Rex Hammock

    I’m confused with the marketing strategy of offering an iPod that holds 1,000 songs yet costs only $44 less than one that holds 7,500. (Maybe my math is wrong. Surely.) This is waaay more than what the rumors had predicted as they predicted an iPod priced lesss than $100. (And the WSJ today predicted lesss than $200.) Here’s a better name for this very expensive “high-end, low-end” model: The Not Free Mini Pod.
    (However, I love that new GarageBand software announcement. I currently use Amadeus, which, ouch, could be really slammed by this new product.)

  2. Steve K. Avatar
    Steve K.

    Yeah, I was sucked in my by the mini iPod rumors, and I was salivating at a potential $100-150 price tag. But alas, no deal! It almost makes me wonder if Apple got spooked by all the pundits who were prophesying doom for the whole iPod line if Apple came out with something that cheap. That would explain why a mini iPod that *should* cost $100-150 is priced at $249 instead. I hope mini iPod sales are dismal and Apple is forced to drop the price — maybe then I’ll be able to buy one.

  3. Tim Avatar
    Tim

    I actually like it, but it has a whiff about it of the IBM PC Jr, down to the multi-colors…

  4. Myria Avatar
    Myria

    Will this one have a replaceable battery, or just turn into a brick when the battery dies like the last one?
    Myria

  5. Del Simmons Avatar
    Del Simmons

    As for working with Audible, it’s not tough to convert those Audible files to MP3.
    I do it regularly to listen to my audible audiobooks on my Archos Jukebox. Enjoying a biography of Churchill at the moment. It’s done with a little tool called GoldWave. Check it out. Well worth the registration cost. You have to use an older version of the Audible software to make the conversion work smoothly, but it’s no big deal.
    Jeff, if you need some tips, feel free to email me. Of course Audible doesn’t support it, or like it, I’d have to guess. But I did pay for the audiobooks, and would never let anyone have a copy. Good audio books are well worth the cost of purchase, in my opinion. Gives me something to do while stuck in traffic.

  6. tim Avatar
    tim

    On the Audible files, if I’m not mistaken they should integrate directly with the iPod through Apple’s online store as well.
    I agree that iPod mini was a pricing disappointment but, as the realists on the rumor boards kept insisting, this much flash memory costs a heck of a lot more than 99-149 bucks.
    My big disappointment was that there wasn’t an overall price drop on the flagship line, as I’m ready to make the jump from my 10gig to a 20 gig (and that should finally be as big as I need….)

  7. Independant George Avatar
    Independant George

    Oh, Crap! and I just bought the 10GB ipod! Of course, I also got 15% off, so 2.5x memory for essentially the same price as the mini…).
    The pricing scheme mostly makes a lot of sense – the marginal value of each additional gig of drops tremendously. The fact that it’s such a struggle for you on which one to buy means that it’s priced well. I would actually recommend shelling out the extra $50 for the 15GB iPod. You’re paying $0.25 per song on the mini, but $0.09 per song on the 15GB iPod. To put it in more stark perspective, each additional song from the mini to the regular iPod is costing you only $0.02!
    Incidentally, the marginal cost to go from 15GB to 20 GB rockets back up to $0.057 per song, but drops back to $0.02 per song for the 40GB model. Basically, you’re maxing out your value at 15GB.

  8. tom Avatar
    tom

    My .02 as the owner of a first-gen ipod: The only reason to have an ipod with a plus-5-gig hard drive is if you’re going to store lots of data on all those extra gigs.
    There’s no reason on earth to have more than a thousand songs on a portable … it’s hard enough picking a few hundred songs to go on the ipod. My optimal song count is about 200 … about 1g of hard drive space. Can’t wait till the day when 1g flash players come along.

  9. Steve Rhodes Avatar
    Steve Rhodes

    You can buy songs from Apple, burn them to a CD then rip the CD as MP3s and put them on your Treo.
    It is a pain, but worth doing for a while. The iPods will only get better and cheaper (I bet the price of the mini falls pretty quickly – the size of it is nice – though there is the same fear as with a Treo, what if I lose the damn thing?).
    I bought 2 256MB SD cards for my Treo a few weeks ago for $60 each. If I had known about this, I might have just bought one and saved the $60 to use for an iPod (probably a 15GB or more to take advantage of the hard drive).
    If you have any questions for Audible, I’ll probably stop by their booth at MacWorld again. They’re supposed to let me know if they have an estimate on when Treo Audible player will work with a Mac.

  10. Pixy Misa Avatar
    Pixy Misa

    it’s hard enough picking a few hundred songs to go on the ipod
    Well, the whole point of the iPod (as I see it) is that you don’t pick a few hundred songs – you dump your entire mp3 collection on it. Since I have 40GB of mp3s, this works well for me.

  11. Wrap Avatar
    Wrap

    Whether you get an iPod mini or a regular iPod, cords will still be an issue. SmartWraps are alot simpler than other iPod Accessories but solve a real problem associated with iPod Headphones and iPod Earphones that are too long.