iPod Casualties Offer New-In-Box Bargains

An anonymous reader writes "For the last few years makers from Creative to Virgin have proclaimed their latest digital audio player to be an iPod Killer, only to watch those portables flame-out in the marketplace. This doesn't mean there was anything wrong with them, in fact some were pretty decent. They just couldn't compete under all the iPod hype. It turns out that this pattern has created a huge sub-market of new-in-the-box stock, sold for pennies on the dollar to overstock vendors who then pawn them off cheap to the public. For the price of a basic iPod Shuffle you can now acquire some well-equipped units from a few years back. Examples include the 40GB Toshiba Gigabeat F40 and AlienWare's CE-IV with external speaker system."

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Re:So what you're saying is...

[panaceaa]

I'm not an absolutely huge music fan, and I actually like the less commercial radio stations on the air. (A local station here plays jazz and blues mixed in with NPR news updates.) But I hate the radio when I have people in the car (it doesn't set a nice mood), and I completely lack non-vinyl music to play in my apartment when guests come over. For those situations, it'd be great to have a music player.

So for me, as a possibly occasional iPod user, I disagree that iPods are "affordable". It's not worth $200+ for me to meet my occasional needs. And considering the absolutely huge profits Apple is making on iPods, there's a huge opportunity for a company to come along and offer a sub-$100 MP3 player with a decent computer user interface for syncing. Unfortunately I'm not aware one yet. So far I've heard that everyone but Apple has absolutely awful music syncing applications.

I Love My iPod

[arollo]

When I was a DJ on my college station a couple years back, I bought an iPod so that I didn't have to drag my records and CD's all the way down to the university on my bike. I ran my show off of my little box of rock, and damn it, the thing has taken a severe beating and keeps on ticking. You definately get your moneys worth when you buy an iPod.

The reason why I bought an iPod over any other player?

Because I didn't really care, and when I went to buy an MP3 player, the only thing I could find was an iPod. If stores will only stock iPod, there must be something to it. I dunno.

Re:It used to be even worse...

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone could make a HDD based player... and fucked up.

Which is what they'll be saying about cell phones, too. Every last cell phone I've ever owned had a retarded interface. It's *really* hard to make a non-retarded interface, right up until someone does. And then it's "obvious" how to do it, and "nothing special. Anyone could have done it."

Re:So what you're saying is...

[CleverBoy]

I'd say the hype is all in articles talking about decent players being given away at pennies on the dollar, when you've got a similar player that can't be given away, hype is your best friend.

You got that right. There was an article on SmartHouse a while back [smarthouse.com.au], when Apple's accessory licensing program was less than ideal for accessory makers. Apple had just decided to charge them 10%, up from 1.5% for each accessory they made that connected to the iPod. Apple relented and decided to only charge $4 per accessory with a dock connector. Good for the over $100 market, not as good for the under.

But at any rate, manufacturers were begrudgingly quoted saying that Apple had gotten it right, but creating a universal dock connector across all iPods. If the rest of the industry could have just decided on one connector (or even mostly one) as well, they'd have more accessories piling their way.

Bose said: "What we need is for the MP3 vendors running the Microsoft operating system to get together and deliver a common port across all MP3 devices. We also need a common docking design so that people like Bose can develop common accessories. Currently Apple is the only one with a common port as a result accessory manufacturers are designing for the iPod Apple platform"

So, now Apple, advantaged by the numbers, makes out like a bandit with a huge marketshare and universal iPod accessories. This is why iPhone is going to benefit tremendously too. I don't know of any phone that will be entering the market with so many people with existing accessories they'll be connecting to it. Even funnier... some of those accessories are their cars.

Accessory makers with 7" screen extenders without enough headroom for the extra .5 inch are kicking themselves though. :-)

At the end of the day, that's not just HYPE. I'm still angry my Motorola phones keep getting NEW adapter designs everytime I get a new phone... and they ALL SUCK. When I head to the iPhone promise land, I won't be looking back. It won't really be the hype that keeps me... but the experience of not being jerked around and wasting investments on accessories that serve no other purpose and have little resale value.

Re:It's all marketing...

[Ohreally_factor]

I hope you're not implying that I am a hypocrite. Because if you were, you'd be correct. Worse, I'm also a pack rat with all the obsessive/compulsive traits that entails.

Still, I have been paring down on the material possessions and avoiding buying new ones, no matter how tempting. I'm happily using my 2nd Gen iPod (I recently replaced the battery with a $5 one from OWC), even though I desire one of the spiffy new video iPods. I just really don't need a new one. Please don't think I'm saying that you shouldn't own a music player or that I am criticizing you for owning one.

I'm coming at this de-emphasis on material possessions from two angles: The most basic is personal. As I said, I'm a pack rat, and it's stunting my psychological growth. There comes a point when you don't own consumer goods, they own you. I'm consciously moving away from that. If you don't have this problem, good for you. Just be cautious and self aware so that it doesn't develop. A second reason is global. There is a hidden cost to all the junk we consume in resources. This cost is not sustainable long term. I'm not just referring to the resources needed for the physical components, but the environmental resources that are affected by the production.

I've made a conscious decision to earn less in order to have more free time. It turns out that I'm earning about the same, but my free time is filled up with activities that generally don't involve a lot of consumption. I don't own a a game console and I cancelled my cable a couple of years ago. I've gotten back to some hobbies that involve actually making things. I'm picking up a new hobby (welding).

As you seem like an intelligent person, I don't doubt that you also have a non-consumer life, and that you engage in creative activities outside of consumer culture. Perhaps you play a musical instrument, perhaps you're into DIY home improvement, perhaps you are an artist of some sort.

Anyway, I'm in no position to judge you personally. I am a hypocrite and I don't feel especially bad about being one. None of us are perfect. I just wanted to describe to you how I am trying to improve myself. That's all. If you can take something away from my little story, great. If not, no harm done I hope.

Re:It's all marketing...

[Puff of Logic]

Engineering is about trade offs, and marketing is about understanding value.

Your points are well-made, and I agree that there is something of a knee-jerk reaction that if something is popular, it must be somehow crap or hyped. That a product might genuinely succeed on its own merits doesn't seem to occur to some people. However, I think perhaps you have a slightly rosy view of marketing. While marketing is certainly an avenue of information dissemination for a new or improved product (in accordance with your "understanding value" idea), I think a very large portion of marketing is actually creating value in the minds of consumers, without regard as to whether that value actually exists or not. I recall from a college marketing course that the phrase "creating a need" was used frequently. One could say that creating a need for a product is somewhat like having a solution in search of a problem. If the problem (need) doesn't exist, have you actually increased overall value by creating a need in order to fulfill it?

FWIW, even though marketing irritates the crap out of me most of the time, I understand that it's necessary and is a discipline that stretches beyond simple advertisements. I just can't imagine working in an industry where people actively avoid your work, forcing you to be ever more aggressive to communicate your "message".

Re:Stealth DRM Sux

[laddy]

Rockbox makes the iPod behave like I want it to, except for the fact that now I can't charge it with my wall adapter :P