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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

Tuesday, January 13, 2004

MacWorld disappoints

Last week's MacWorld was one of the weakest Apple events since Steve Jobs took over. But the big news was the small news iPod Mini, which is at least $50 overpriced at $250. What's interesting is that even some of the most die-hard Apple advocates on the planet have been forced to admit this as well. Some interesting related reports include:

Fortune: "Macworld's Mini Disappointment - Two decades after it introduced the Macintosh, Apple proved it's still as innovative as ever by unveiling a trio of new products, most notably a smaller iPod. The only problem? Price."

Washington Post: "Apple Focused on Compositions, Not Computers - The first people on the thousands-long line to watch chief executive Steve Jobs's keynote presentation of the Macworld Conference and Expo trade show here said they had showed up at 2 a.m. For all their troubles, they got a guided tour of new Apple Computer Inc. products."

The Register: "Jobs caps snoozathon with cut-down Emagic, iPod - One prolonged product demonstration today clocked in at over 40 minutes, which tested even the patience of the faithful ('the longest demo on earth') and left neutrals catatonic. With no new product lines, or any key hardware updates (for example, to the flagging iMac line), this turned out to be the dullest MacWorld keynote since Gil Amelio's notorious snoozathon seven years ago."

Business Week: "Even Jobs's Jedi-esque powers of reality dispersion can't alter the unfavorable math behind Apple's new offering. Here are the hard numbers. The new miniPod will cost $249. That's about $100 more than the rumor sites had posited. It will offer 4 gigabytes of capacity on its hard drive. By comparison, the entry-level iPod now costs $299 and has 15 gigabytes of disk space. The miniPod's cost per gigabyte is $62.50. In the entry-level iPod, it's about $20. So Apple is asking customers to pay three times as much per gigabyte. I have one word for that. Ouch."

Washington Post: "And while the products unveiled at this year's expo 'were less dramatic than the company's usual introductions aimed at wowing customers with innovative technologies and new product lines at this regularly scheduled event,' ... many observers were put off by the 'low' price of the iPod mini -- $249 verses $299 for the current low-end iPod model."

O'Grady's PowerPage: "At US$249 the new iPod mini is just too expensive ... Apple has to remember that iPods are designed for the Consumer Electronics (CE) market and not for the computer market - despite what they think ... Apple is taking advantage of the market leadership in the MP3 player space and gouging customers who they know from experience will have to be the first on their block to have an iPod mini."

1115.org: "We are big supporters of Apple Computer and praise our Macs and iPods loudly and without hesitation ... $250 is ... a significant amount of money for many people, which will limit the iPod Mini's appeal as an impulse purchase. And the new player's biggest competition comes from Apple itself; at $299, the "normal" 15gb iPod offers more than three times the capacity for only $50 more ... Apple missed an opportunity here."

Newsweek: "When he announced the mini’s $249 price tag in his keynote, the reaction—from a crowd predisposed to give standing ovations when the maestro cleared his throat—was like the air being let out of a volleyball. The price is neither fish nor fowl: more than a high-end flash player but not much less than the entry-level maxi iPod."

[ Posted at 8:48 PM | Permalink ]