[IP] iPod's Two-Year Anniversary - The Guts of a New Machine (New York Times Magazine)
Delivered-To: dfarber+@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Mon, 01 Dec 2003 01:04:40 +0100
The Guts of a New Machine
By ROB WALKERFrom: the terminal of Geoff Goodfellow <geoff@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: iPod's Two-Year Anniversary - The Guts of a New Machine (New York
Times Magazine)
To: Dave E-mail Pamphleteer Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>
Published: November 30, 2003
Two years ago this month, Apple Computer released a small, sleek-looking
device it called the iPod. A digital music player, it weighed just 6.5
ounces and held about 1,000 songs. There were small MP3 players around at
the time, and there were players that could hold a lot of music. But if the
crucial equation is ''largest number of songs'' divided by ''smallest
physical space,'' the iPod seemed untouchable. And yet the initial reaction
was mixed: the thing cost $400, so much more than existing digital players
that it prompted one online skeptic to suggest that the name might be an
acronym for ''Idiots Price Our Devices.'' This line of complaint called to
mind the Newton, Apple's pen-based personal organizer that was ahead of its
time but carried a bloated price tag to its doom.
Since then, however, about 1.4 million iPods have been sold. (It has been
updated twice and now comes in three versions, all of which improved on the
original's songs-per-space ratio, and are priced at $300, $400 and $500, the
most expensive holding 10,000 songs.) For the months of July and August, the
iPod claimed the No. 1 spot in the MP3 player market both in terms of unit
share (31 percent) and revenue share (56 percent), by Apple's reckoning. It
is now Apple's highest-volume product. ''It's something that's as big a
brand to Apple as the Mac,'' is how Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice
president of worldwide product marketing, puts it. ''And that's a pretty big
deal.''
Of course, as anyone who knows the basic outline of Apple's history is
aware, there is no guarantee that today's innovation leader will not be
copycatted and undersold into tomorrow's niche player. Apple's recent and
highly publicized move to make the iPod and its related software, iTunes,
available to users of Windows-based computers is widely seen as a sign that
the company is trying to avoid that fate this time around. But it may happen
anyway. The history of innovation is the history of innovation being
imitated, iterated and often overtaken.
--snip--
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/30/magazine/30IPOD.html?pagewanted=all
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