The latest rumor around the Mac web is the upcoming release of a
flash-based iPod.
Is this actually a good idea for Apple? It seems that other
companies are abandoning flash-based MP3 players for larger hard
drive based units. This means that the prices on flash-based units
have come down.
It seems that companies are now competing to be able to hold as
many songs as possible. Sony's Walkman MP3 player is supposed to
hold up to 13,000 songs - but that's only if you use Sony's own
ATRAC-3 plus format, which samples songs at only 48 kbps. (Apple
boasts 10,000 songs on its 40 GB player, with 128 kbps AAC
files.)
You can still buy flash-based MP3 players. BenQ offers the
Joybee
120 ($107.34 from Amazon.com), which features 256 MB of
memory and an FM tuner.
If you can buy an iPod mini for twice the price and have it hold
7-8 times as much music, why wouldn't you do that instead?
First of all, not everyone wants to spend over $200 on an MP3
player. Secondly, there are benefits to not having a hard drive in
your MP3 player - dropping one of them with the drive spinning
could ruin it.
While the current iPod does switch off the hard drive while it's
playing music, it only has 25 minutes of "skip protection." If
you're listening to a band such as Dream Theater, who has several
15 minute-or-so songs, you might find the hard drive spinning up
again in the middle of the second or third song. If you're running
or walking, this might not be the best for the player's hard
disk.
I've asked some people that I know why they haven't bought an
iPod. Most say that it's just too expensive, but if there was a
cheaper one, they'd consider it. The way they see it is that they
can get an MP3 CD player for under $100, and that holds a couple
hundred songs on one CD, which is good enough for them.
If Apple were to release a flash-based iPod, those people would
be Apple's target market. Since these people are looking at $100
MP3 CD players, Apple's flash-based model needs to be cheap enough
so that they would consider spending, say, $50-60 more on the flash
iPod than on the MP3 CD player.
A lot of people also don't want to buy an unknown brand. That's
one reason Sony gets away with charging more for its TV sets and
stereo equipment than other manufacturers. It's such a well-known
brand that people want to buy their devices even if they do cost
more. It's sort of people's way of assuring themselves they bought
a good TV set or stereo, with the though, "Well I spent more on it,
so it's going to last longer."
Apple's in an ideal position to offer a flash-based player
because of their brand image. As I've stated in the past, just like
the Honda Civic, Apple's iPod is so well-established that people
will buy just about anything that Apple offers as with the iPod
name. Apple's already got people wanting iPods - make an
entry-level model, and you now include those who don't understand
why anyone would want more than 1 GB of music into your list
of possible buyers.
Apple also has size to its advantage when marketing a
flash-based iPod. A lot of people won't really want to carry around
a comparatively large Discman. It needs to be stressed how much
smaller and more convenient the iPod is compared to a Discman.
Flash-based models can be even smaller than the current hard-disk
based iPod mini.
Why clip your music player to your belt when you can stick it in
your pocket?
While there are some people who want to carry a lot of songs on
one device - myself included - there are some who see spending over
$200 on a personal stereo as a bit ridiculous. What's needed to
bring these people into the iPod player market is something priced
in between the high-end hard drive MP3 players and the larger,
cheaper MP3 CD players.
There are also cases where size, as well as the possibility of
doing damage to the hard disk, makes them skip the iPod. A
flash-based model would address that, too.
In my opinion, there's really not much harm that introducing a
flash-based iPod would do to Apple - or those in the market for a
small, non-hard drive based MP3 player.
Editor's note: This is the last Apple
Archive column of the year. Low End Mac will be closed next
week, and new content will resume on January 3, 2005. dk
