kenjisan

I agree it's a little odd, and I love that they have the balls to cover it up by playing up the "life is random" angle. "We couldn't afford to put a screen on and still sell it for cheap, so we'll make it seem like not being able to pick what song's next is a feature."

I think if you look at it from the standpoint of the casual music listenener who buys NOW music complilations and singles off iTunes, they're probably really happy to listen to shuffle and be surprised by which tunes comes up next. If they really cared about their music more, they'd be buying a more expensive player, anyway.

Also, consider how useless the screen on your average discman is. You just put in an album and play it. If you don't like the current song, you skip it.

Also it makes for a good machine to go running with.

I am in your camp. I don't get it.

I just shrugged when I saw this one. My old Sony MP3 player (3 years old!) was the same size, if not smaller, and even came with a one line LCD player (physically it was also much more stylish than a white stick -- who would have guessed that the next Apple product would be a white block of plastic?). Despite what Apple may say, having even a one line display is useful when you really want to find a particular track, even if I use shuffle all the time.

As you said, the only competitive feature of this really is that it works with iTunes, which can't be underestimated, given that the reason I don't use my Sony MP3 player anymore is that I can't stand the Sony SonicStage or Real Player.

The Mac Mini, on the other hand, seems like an interesting product. Having spent many hours trying to protect my sister's and dad's computers from spyware and viruses, I can appreciate the value in having a computer that is cheap and runs a platform that is less popular for attack.

Hadn't thought of the "discman screen" angle. Still, we probably don't use that screen much since it doesn't have a whole lot of information to draw from, other than track number and song length. An mp3 player is capable of displaying a lot of information.

Yes, good running machine, but there are cheaper alternatives.

I actualy rather like it as a product. The price for the amount of memory is actually pretty good compared to other flash players I've looked at. For somethign with that few songs (to me a few hundred songs is absolutely nothing) I actually don't see all that much need for a screen. I'm actualy considering getting one, for the purposes of running and such. I am not getting this to be a replacement for my iPod at all, I'm interested in this only for the purpose of going running and other things that a hard drive based player wouldn't be good for. If you compare this to other players of about the same price range it's really not that bad, and most of those players with screens either have such a small screen it's not very useful, have no screen just like this, or are much bigger in actual size.
Basically for the purpsoes I'm looking for in a flash based player, which is to be able to load up a playlist to go running with, or to just load a bunch of songs and listen to them on random while I run/work out there really is no need for a screen, since I'm really only going to be using it for a few hours at a time anyway. I also have to admit that I generally listen to my music on random anyway.
I do agree with you that I didn't think the iPod mini would sell, but that was mostly an issue of the price, for something that was in my mind essentially the same product just not as good, for nearly the same price. The iPod Shuffle really serves a very different purpose than either of it's bigger siblings, so I don't think it needs to have all the same functionality as they do.

Re: mac mini

Maybe now's your opportunity to buy a computer solely for iLife?

Kenji I see you said your sonly mp3 player was about the same price, did it have the same amount of memory? Because in my little bit of looking around I've found most of the $100's I've seen to be about 256 or smaller, which to me just isn't quite enough for what I want it for. (When listening to things on random I tend to skip around a lot so I want at least a few hours worth of stuff to skip through)

re: iLife

As a computer for family members, the Mac Mini seems nice. It's not too powerful, but neither are their machines. The iLife package is much friendlier for photo management than the software included with digital cameras nowadays, and it browses the Web and checks email just as well as any other machine. The word processing programs are a hiccup (my dad would have to pay for Mac Office, and my sister has to use Wordperfect for work).

When I start evaluating it for myself, it starts falling apart. From iLife I just want GarageBand (and possible iDVD/iMovie), and I've pretty much been told by multiple Mac users that GarageBand is a G5 application, and the meager memory (256MB) and hard drive (40GB) means that in order to get a decent machine for any of those applications it would no longer be a $500 machine.

This is all hypothetical of course -- I just got my credit card bill from my explosion of December gadget buying, and I don't think I'll be buying anything with a memory card or hard drive in it for quite awhile.

The way I see it, the iPod Shuffle is a iPod for the masses. It does have the capability to play songs in a non-random fashion (you basically assemble your playlist and set the iPod Shuffle to the linear mode). It's great for exercise (lightweight, easy to carry, don't have to worry about dropping it or getting it knocked around). It's cheap enough that kids who want one can get one, and it's rugged enough that parents don't have to worry about them breaking them (although swallowing them is another matter altogether).

The main selling point isn't size or capacity, but the price. For $99, now everyone can have an iPod. These last two products demonstrate that rather than going for the techno-literate Apple fanbase, they've got their sights set for the broader market.

For years, the problem with the iPod is that it wasn't affordable for most people. When it debuted in 2001, the price for a 5GB iPod was $399. a few months later, they released a 10GB iPod for $499. Even today, 3 generations of iPods later, the price points for the top end iPods still stay to the $399 and $499 price points. I am convinced that the iPod mini did well more because of it's price than it's size. From a business standpoint, customers don't always have the money for the top-of-the-line model. In fact, to capture the majority of the audience that is interested in your product (particularly in America), you want to price your product as low as possible.

So, the situation Apple has to deal with is that their iPod line is very successful. But they face heavy competition from other manufacturers from all fronts. In terms of space, size, price, the other manufacturers can beat Apple. Apple has to keep introducing new products until they have the portable audio market.

Think about early Apple history with the Apple II. The first affordable computer. But what happened? Market competition increased, but the Apple II pricing stayed about the same because Apple felt they had a superior product. They didn't try to appeal to the low-end of the price spectrum, and that was how the TRS-80 and the IBM clones were ablt to take away marketshare.

Apple is doing it right this time with the iPod. They have the market lead, and they are doing everything to bring in new users. Each new price drop brings in new customers, and I believe that the $99 dollar price point will bring in new customers in droves. I expect it to do incredibly well.

The problem is that the iPod shuffle bears no resemblence to its iPod cousins; it's only an iPod in name. It has no scroll wheel, it has no screen. The only traits it shares in common are white headphones and syncing with iTunes. It's also being introduced into a completely different mp3 player market -- flash players -- and thus has to be judged on its own merits in comparison to those players. While competitors have had a hard time coming up with a sleek hard-drive-based players with scroll wheel alternatives, the CEO of Creative was correct -- the iPod shuffle is a 4-year-old product.

That said, it will probably be wildly successful. Flash mp3 players are very different from hard drive players in that you have to use them with your computer almost daily in order to keep the music on them fresh. The most important feature of the flash players is not the physical device, but the software you use on the computer, because you will be using that software very, very often. If you don't like the software, you won't like the player, so hooray for four-year-old products recast in white plastic.