iPod
Why stock analysts are worthless
(Alternative title: There's an reason the word "anal" is in "analyst") Apple quadruples its profit, but the stock takes a ten percent-plus dive because the company "missed" the number of iPod sales stock analysts --who are not employees of Apple, do not sit on the Board of Directors, and who are not Apple executives-- said they thought the company should have sold? They sold 6.4 million iPods in a three months. How many Rios did Creative sell in the last three months? Oh, that's right, they canned that music player. Hold on, it gets better. Those same analysts, who are poo-pooing Apple for failing to sell as many iPods as the analysts thought they should have sold, seem to think Delphi is a good buy. No wonder monkeys are just as good at the stock market as these guys. [With thanks to John Gruber, and Matt Deatherage and W.R. Wing on the MacJournals-Talk list.]
iPod <i>Nano</i>?
I realize with a new, slimmer design, Apple would want a new moniker to grace its smallest-iPod-with-a-screen, but who came up with Nano? That word should imply something very small, as in smaller than the Shuffle, which the Nano is not. Better they had kept the Mini name for this range of iPods, or possibly gone with Micro.
Just Can't Get This Out Of My Head
So while ripping CDs and loading up my wife's Shuffle, I decided to listen to a few tunes on it. I am still amazed that music comes out of this little chunk of plastic. One of the tunes I came across was Depeche Mode's "Just Can't Get Enough". I remember it was used in a commercial, but the commercial made such an impression on me that I cannot recall what or whom the commercial was for. Anyone?
Napster needs to do the math again
See Napster's Super Bowl ads? Think you'll remember them three weeks from now? Right. Ashlee Vance dissects Napster's supposed costs, which do not take in to account the fact that most people's songs on their iPods are not from the iTunes Music Store:
From where we sit, the math doesn't break down terribly well in Napster's favor.
Let's take a look at consumer A. This consumer goes to Amazon.com and does a search for Creative - one of the Napster supported music device makers - and picks up a 20GB player for $249.99. Let's assume he keeps the device for three years, paying Napster all the time. That's $538 for the Napster service, bringing the three-year total to $788.19.
Consumer B types iPod into the Amazon.com search engine and finds a 20GB device for $299. Apple doesn't offer a subscription service, so this customer has to buy songs at the 99 cent rate or at $9.99 per album. Subtracting the price of the iPod from the $788, consumer B would have $489 left over for music. That's roughly worth 489 songs or 49 albums.
We posit that during this three-year period both Consumer A and Consumer B will actually end up with close to the same number of songs on their devices. Customers do not, as Napster suggests, pay $10,000 to fill their iPods with 10,000 songs just because the capacity is there. They take their existing music, CDs and MP3s, and put that onto the device first, then later add iTunes songs as they go along. A Napster customer would have a similar mix of old music and new downloads.
The big difference here is that after the three years are up, Consumer B has something to show for his investment. He still owns the music. If the Napster customer stops paying for the service, his music is all gone. He's paying $179 per year to rent music. This isn't high quality stuff either. It's DRM (digital rights management)-laced, low bitrate slop.
You could once buy a CD and then play that music on your computer or in your car at will. Hell, you still can. You own it. You can burn an extra copy of the disc in case it gets scratched or pass along the disc to a friend to see if they like it - just like you would with a good book. Five years from now, you will still own the CD. No one can tell you where and when you can play it.
This is not the case in the Napster subscription world. After six years, you've tossed away $1,076 for something that barely exists. Forget to pay for a month and watch your music collection disappear. (Not to mention, you're betting on the fact that Napster will even exist two years from now. At least you know that a year's subscription to the Wall Street Journal will still work in 12 months time.) I'm a CD man, myself. I like the versatility of being able to do whatever the heck I want to with the music I purchase. I know it will run aghast of some, but I still use CDs in my Pilot. Most of the time, however, the CD arrives at the phisch bowl, gets opened, ripped to MP3 format in iTunes, and is loaded in to the music library (tunaphisch) and on to the iPod (phischpod). The only tunes I've downloaded from the iTMS are the free ones I occasionally will like. That may change a bit with the new Pepsi-iTunes promo, but other than that, I do not see myself purchasing digital music directly from Apple, much less from Napster. [Via DF.]
Microsoft overrun by the iPod
MacMinute notes a Wired article showing how despite the best efforts of management, Microsoft employees know a clear winner when they see one. [Thanks, Lee.]
Thought shuffle
So according to Apple, one of the big reasons for bringing out the iPod Shuffle is the shuffle "phenomenon with iPod users - the 'shuffle songs' playback mode that randomizes either portions or the entirety of your music library." I'm just wondering if I'm alone in iPod-dom in that I rarely, if ever, use the shuffle songs mode. Anyone else of similar mind?
iPod flash
Engadget notes TheMacMind.com's report on the supposedly forthcoming iPod flash, a tiny, flash memory-based MP3 player that will round out Apple's music player line-up. Several things don't jibe with the picture of the supposed iPod flash: 1. When the iPod mini was released, Steve Jobs did quite a bit of trash-talking with regard to the myriad flash-based players already on the market, did he not? Why would Apple now want to wade in to that market, when they can barely keep up with demand for the iPod mini, the company's flash player killer? 2. Okay, let's say Steve does an about face and wants Apple to compete in the flash-based market. I don't see this design being it. It lacks visual feedback, and that has been the iPod's strong suit, coupled with the physical controls' ease of navigation, when compared to its competitors. 3. The overall design doesn't flow with the rest of the iPod line, plain and simple. I could be drastically wrong, and if this design is real and released, it would signal a sort of departure from the iPod line. Personally, I'm not opposed to a flash-based iPod. Such a device would be perfect for my wife, who only has need for such an audio component in rare circumstances, such as when working out. Even the iPod mini is really overkill for her needs. I just don't believe that TheMacMind's version is the real deal. At the least, I hope it isn't. [Wave of the flipper to Michael.]
Ballmer smackdown continuation
As usual, Mr. Gruber does a better job than most at dissecting a topic, in this case Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's crude comments regarding Apple and the iPod:
I'd love to see his source for this. I have no source either, but I'd place a wager with Mr. Ballmer that the most common source of music on most iPods are unencrypted songs legally ripped from CDs. Most iPod users I know own hundreds of CDs; it'd take ages to bootleg the amount of music they already own on CD.
[...]
The point of all this seems to be that Ballmer is saying that Apple can't lead the way here -- where by "here" I'm talking about the convergence between the computer, entertainment, and consumer electronics industries -- because the iPod allows for and even encourages the use of non-DRM-protected digital media.
But I would argue that Apple is already leading the way in terms of music -- in large part because they don't enforce draconian DRM measures.
Tattoo residue
Engadget is reporting that the iPod tattoos being provided by HP can leave an unpleasant aftertaste.
Wi-FiPods
MacMinute notes a report by The Register on open positions within the iPod team for wireless networking engineers. Tony Smith proceeds to pontificate over the possibilities of this, including the use of Wi-Fi to sync data and music with the iPod. Your reasoning for this, Tony, other than a certain coolness factor, would be? The best wireless speeds right now are 54 Mbps, which is great for surfing the web and downloading your e-mail, but I would hesitate to use it to load ripped CDs on to my iPod. Even 100Base-T Ethernet would be faster. With iPod iFireWire connectivity at 400 Mbps, why bother with wireless syncing? The wireless access does make sense for turning the iPod in to a remote control for iTunes and streaming music via Airport Express. However, Smith and The Register have a history for speculation that turns out to be incredibly wrong, so take this one with the usual grains of salt. Obviously, from the Apple job postings, the iPod team is looking at Wi-Fi integration for some reason, but it's too early to tell what that reason might be.
About that halo effect
Apple's trendy iPod digital music player, which has revitalized the company, is giving laptop sales a boost during back-to-school season.
Many students, after falling in love with the iPod, are packing for college with new Apple Macintosh computers. Of course, the "journalists" at USA Today could head on over to Microsoft's Mactopia and verify that Outlook is not part of Office for Macintosh, but I suppose that would be too much trouble. I guess it's just one more rag I really need to stop reading...
New iPods Monday?
Engadget has the Newsweek cover with Steve and the new iPod. It's still white, reportedly has an even slimmer case, and sports the iPod mini-style scroll wheel, which I really like over my 40 GB iPod's multiple buttons. I'm curious to know if Espy Sans made the move from the mini as well. I am now depressed, as this appears to be the iPod I wish I could have had six months ago... (Thanks to Gruber's linked list for the link.)
Fun with Apple toys
You can now have your iPod fully integrated in your over-priced German automobile. Apple product managers have an iChat AV video conference while one is at 35,000 feet over Canada. (Danke, Lee.)
The meaning of iPod
The Economist has a noteworthy article on how the iPod has changed and is changing the way we listen to music. Rumormongers of the video iPod should take note of the article's conclusion:
Are video iPods next? Strikingly, none of these shifts in usage patterns applies to video. People do not watch movies while walking the dog, make playlists of their favourite movie scenes, or clamour to buy individual scenes online. Portable video-players, which are already starting to become available, undoubtedly have their uses, such as providing entertainment during long journeys. But they seem unlikely to be the kind of industry-changing products that the iPod and its imitators have unexpectedly proven to be. (via The Iconfactory)
Color Showcase
My favorite iPod carrying case is going color on May 15th. The Contour Showcase will be available in six different colors, as well as black and the original white. Personally, the only one that interests me is the black Showcase. Contour is doing a buy-two, get-one-free promo with the new Showcases, but I doubt I'll be buying a new one when they're $39.95 a pop. Now if a couple of people want to go in with me and split the cost of two Showcases three ways, I wouldn't mind... Eric reviewed the Showcase for ATPM.
Who needs satellite radio?
Lee linked to the Alpine iPod Ready in-dash receivers in a recent post. I must say I am very interested, though I will probably hold off on anything like this until we figure out my vehicle situation later this year.
iPod mini thoughts
I stopped by the Willow Bend Apple Store last week for two reasons. First, I needed to pick up a couple of extra FireWire-to-Dock cables for iPod use. Second, I wanted to see how the Genius Bar LCD retrofit turned out, since that has been my principal project at work for the past month. While there, I also played around with the new iPod mini. If I didn't already have the 40 GB iPod, and was still using the original 5 GB one, I would jump on the mini. I love how they're using Espy Sans for the screen font; I hope that carries over to the next-gen full-size Pods. Likewise, I hope to see the combination mechanical/capacitance-sensitive scroll wheel with the built-in buttons on the next-gen full-size Pod. It make navigation so much simpler. Of course, with my 40 GB iPod, I use it 50-50 as a music player and as an external hard drive. Every day, I back up my Mailsmith and Entourage mail folders to it to shuffle to and from work. Between the two, I've got about 1.3 GB of stuff, not to mention anything I may have downloaded during the day that I want to take home. So from that usage standpoint, a mini is not in my future. Then again, by the time I'm ready to upgrade again, the mini may just have the storage capacity to suit my habits.