[Guest analyst, Paul Jackson] With Today’s announcement, Apple now has a range of iPods priced from $69 to $399. Apart from broadening their range and offering a very competitively price 1GB Nano, Apple’s strategy here is to grow a new demographic: the multi-iPod user.
Forget putting all your music on a single 60GB iPod and carrying it everywhere – docking it in the car or bedroom or office desk. Instead, why not buy 3 Nanos or 5 Shuffles, load them up and just leave them in the office, car, gym etc. Hey, and then you’ll still probably need that 60Gb iPod for backup storage of those photos and all that extra video content.
Add in the lucrative line of 1st and 3rd party accessories (chargers, carry cases, speaker docks) that each of these devices will need and the numbers start to add up.
“But surely, it would be a lot cheaper to use a home network or streaming service for many of these tasks” I hear you say; well yes, but who has the time / inclination to set all that stuff up when instead you can buy (relatively) cheap, lovingly designed iPods and accessorize to your hearts content!
So what does this mean for Apple and its legions of music player fans?
What it means #1. It really underlines the value of single / dual usage device model. We often get asked about when devices will ‘converge’; TVs and the home network or PVR being the current vogue. But consumers still vote with their pockets and pick best of class single application devices...or possibly dual application devices if you include the video functionality on the grown up iPods.
What it means #2. Going for the multi-iPod consumers has two distinct advantages for Apple as it:
(a) Puts the PC back at the center of the ‘iPod experience’. For many consumers syncing that huge capacity iPod is a one time only event – cramming years of ripped CDs on the device and then maybe doing updates of new music when they can be bothered. With multiple, small devices, the syncing needs to be more frequent – say changing the ‘gym’ Nano into a ‘beach’ Nano for the holidays and the PC is back in a more active management role.
(b) Gets those fervent Mac supporters to buy a couple more devices. So the announcement really amounts to a cheaper Shuffle and a lower capacity Nano – but the point is the price, this is the first iPod to come in significantly below that psychological $100 barrier and the first (non-discounted) iPod with a screen to be below $200 as far as I know. That shelf in the bathroom is just crying out for a shuffle and some waterproof speakers!
…Unfortunately, there was no sign of the much rumored and eagerly anticipated (by me anyway) RED edition!
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