The forest floor at Oscar Scherer
So here we are, on the morn-before-a-SteveNote: wherein Apple CEO Steve Jobs gives the keynote address for the (usually) twice-annual MacWorld Expo tradeshow, often introducing neat new products (such as the original and flatpanel LCD-based iMac), the super-small 12 and gi-normous 17″ PowerBooks, and so on.
This time around, the rumor-mill started about two weeks ago, when a bunch of paid Apple watchers (“analysts”) got together in a room and decided to release a joint press-release over Reuters saying they expect so-called “mini-Pods” — new, low-cost portable music players, based around the iPods — at this expo. The device(s) would cost about $100, use Flash-based memory instead of hard drives, and would help make the iPod as ubiquitous as Sony’s Walkman in the early 1980s.
While I agree that the timing for such a device is correct, I am having trouble reasoning out how Apple would be able to make it for $100. As As The Apple Turns noted recently, it seems unlikely Apple will be able to hit such a price-point.
However, as Cam pointed out to me in the car-ride to work this morning, there was an announcement yesterday on the availability of tiny, cheap ($70 each in quanities of 100,000/year) 2GB hard drives. This adds some much-needed credibility to the notion of a “miniPod”; right now, 2GB of Flash RAM for consumers is about $445; unless the profit margin there is gigantic, I can’t see Apple being able to produce a device using Flash RAM for under $250.
Earlier this morning The Wall Street Journal wrote an article about the rumored low-cost iPods. Unfortunately a subscription is required to view the whole article, so I’ve only read the blurb on MacMinute — but it looks like they’re expecting a $200 device.
I’ll agree with that. Any more expensive (and with an appropriate feature set), and Apple will start cannibalizing their current iPods; any cheaper, and they won’t be getting the profit margins they need to continue production.
As for what it will look like: I’m sorta stuck on this one. Apple is notoriously protective of their branding, so I can’t imagine such a device would look the same as the current iPod. But get much smaller, and you’ll need to redesign the user-interface, which to this date has won much praise for usability. So I’m not sure what we’ll get.
I’ll be taking score in my next post, stay tuned 🙂