Is Apple selling themselves short on the iPod?
I know Apple may have a large chunk of the marketshare on portable music players, but they are really the innovators when it comes to new and unique design. I think if they lowered to their price within reach of more average consumers, like myself, then they would most definitely dominate the market and possibly eliminate much of the competition. To be honest, I’d love to get an iPod, but they are priced just out of my budget, which says a lot since I probably dump a load of money on gadgets in general. Here is a for instance: I have a Philips HDD070 which does its job well, and only cost $80 for a refurbished unit. I think they sell for $160 new, but that is even too high. For the equivalent iPod, the Nano 2GB, the price is ~$200. If this pricing structure were set at $150/$200 instead of $200/$250, I think that would throw Apple over the top of the market. In fact, if it were priced as such, I’d likely pickup the 4GB for $200 just out of principle. The pricing I’m suggesting applies to all models, except the Shuffle. I don’t think the shuffle belongs in the iPod family. The best iPod out right now is the 60GB iPod Video for $400. That’s $400!! That is the price of a decent camcorder, or half the price of a decent TV. $350 may not make that much difference, but it would be the most expensive iPod on the market.
Side note: If you didn’t see Saturday Night Live last night, the Weekend Report had a parody of Steve Jobs, and they poked fun at the short lifespan of each iPod, meaning newer and better is always around the corner. In the skit, he said the newest release was the iPod Micro, about the size of a miniSD card, which he then joked about it being obsolete by Thanksgiving. Then he pulled another out of his pocket called the iPod Pequeño, about the size of a Pez candy, that would hold 1 million songs and be obsolete by Christmas. After that he reached into his pocket one more time and pulled out nothing apparently, but he had his fingers pinched together and called it the iPod Invisa, which would hold 8 millions songs and float in the air when you dropped it. Anyway, the entire thing was poking fun at the iPod Nano, which was out for a week before the iPod Video came out to take away attention.
2 Responses to “Is Apple selling themselves short on the iPod?”
Posted by: cranst - 11/20/2005
I found someone who had recorded the skit via camcorder: See it now!
Posted by: kmackert - 11/22/2005
I saw the parody too and laughed it up…true, I admit, even as I am a Mac Envangelist. -km
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