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For six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul

Thursday, July 24, 2003

Dispelling iPod myths
He didn't mean to do it, but Merc columnist Mike Langberg nicely dispenses with a slew of iPod myths in a story about hard drive-based portable audio players. First, the iPod does not have 50 percent of the portable audio market, as so many people now tell me when they complain about Buymusic.com, which doesn't support the iPod (in other words, "If it's so pervasive, why doesn't it support 50 percent of the portable audio market??" I've been asked). Well. As Langberg points out, hard drive-based portable audio players are a "niche product today." Indeed, the last statistic I saw was that they represented 12 percent of the total market, so if Apple owns 50 percent of that (and sure, why not?), it owns just 6 percent of the total market for portable audio devices. But even that isn't the reason Buymusic.com doesn't support the iPod; the reason is that Apple refuses to add (the free) support for Windows Media Audio (WMA) 9 format, probably because it's afraid users would notice the quality difference if they had AAC, MP3, and WMA all running on the same player. Second, Apple didn't invent, innovate, or otherwise create the hard drive-based portable audio player either. Indeed, they were quite late to the game: "Creative saw the opportunity first," he writes, "introducing the original Nomad Jukebox with a 6 GB hard drive at $499 in September 2000. Apple followed with the first iPod in November 2001." Finally, the iPod is not a tremendous bargain at all. Despite the fact that the iPod is, in most ways, nicer than any of the comepition, consider these prices and tell me which product is the shoe-in. "Creative is already out front of Apple in capacity; the new Nomad Jukebox Zen at $399 offers an awesome 60 GB of storage," Langberg explains. "Apple's iPod at the same price offers only 15 GB, with a $499 model at 30 GB." Best of all, "Creative broke through the $200 price point with its 10 GB Nomad Jukebox 2 at $199." Apple has no such product; it's cheapest iPod is $100 more, at $299, for the same capacity. But wait, there's more: The 60 GB Zen gets 14 real hours of battery life; Apple advertises 8 hours for the iPod, but it's more like 6 hours in real life. In other words, it's a no-brainer. And no, the iPod does not come out ahead.

[ Posted at 10:32 AM | Permalink ]