financial/investor
10/13/2005, 12:40pm, EDT
Thursday, October 13th
Audacity sets Apple apart
Apple CEO Steve Jobs' bold decision to nix the iPod mini in favor of the Nano has been dubbed "audacious" by some, but others looking to the future believe that this kind of move is exactly what sets Apple apart. Apple introduced iPod mini just 19 months before revealing the Nano, and sales showed no signs of slowing down when the new product made its debut on September 7th, according to a report from BusinessWeek online. The 10-percent drop in Apple's stock following the announcement of its fourth-quarter results, despite the fact that iPod sales were up 220-percent from the previous year, seemed to suggest that Jobs' move to discontinue the Mini was the wrong one. Despite this, however, Jobs' decision to bet big in research and development -- creating products designed to keep customers excited -- as well as focusing Apple's marketing on a few carefully-designed products rather than creating dozens of forgettable ones as most large tech companies do, is the right choice for Apple, according to the report.
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The mini was selling well - the nano is selling PHENOMENALLY well. This is so typical for these stock gambling amateurs, and analysts -- as always, I am loath to remotely trust the opinion of a person working for the equivalent of minimum wage, in a cublicle, telling people with real money how to invest it. If they were any good, they wouldn't work in a cubicle, after all.
Anyway, both the recovery of the stock price, as well as the nano's sales prove them wrong. Furthermore, I predict that the video sales segemnt of the iTunes store will quickly take off, as more networks and content providers jump on board.
ZinkDifferent
And how confusing was OS/2 Release 2 in Spanish?
An mp3 player is an mp3 player. You got what you wanted and you use it to play music and you'll continue to use it to play music. Apple will support it with firmware upgrades until it decides there's no reason to anymore. So what? You don't need a firmware upgrade to keep using it. Accessory makers will keep making products for it until they decide there's no more market there. So what? It only cost you a couple hundred dollars. Do you expect it to last you a lifetime? No. That's the whole point. It will last you a few years and then you'll buy a newer model. It's not like buying a computer. It's just an mp3 player.