Yesterday Apple announced its new smaller, slimmer, not-much-cheaper iPod. The 4 GB iPod Mini is two-thirds the size of the original and will cost $249 — $50 cheaper than the 15 GB iPod also announced yesterday.
That’s two-thirds the physical size, less than one-third the storage space, for five-sixths the price. Not exactly the cheap techno-temptation I was hoping for. Though it does offer five times the color choices: silver, gold, green, pink, and blue.
Bah humbug! I’d like to plead with everyone in the world to stop buying iPods so that Apple is forced to slash their ridiculous prices! (And then maybe I could afford one …)
LOL… “not-much-cheaper” I like that.
It’s not that they were trying to get beneath the 15 GB. It’s that they’re trying to compete with the $199 Rios out there, that hold 1/16th the music for $50 less than the iPod mini.
I don’t like the price either, that’s been the one sticking point. But we’ll see how it goes. 16 times the storage for an extra $50, and world-class design… it may work. We’ll see.
Any changes to the other iPod models? I still think the 10 GB is the way to go for me. Once I get some money (pleaaaase tax return?), or Apple cuts the price some.
If a 15 GB is now $300, I’m hoping that means the 10 GB dropped in price.
The cost should come down as the micro drive used in the 4GB ipod is manufactured in greater quantity. High cost is the one downside to bleeding edge technology like the micro hard drives used in the new ipods.
But now that there is a killer app for them, just wait for all the other HD manuafacturers to jump on the bandwagon and drive down prices.
Of course they’ll never be “cheap” since it’s a major profit center for Apple (they make almost nothing on the iTunes music store).
Ain’t capitalism grand?