+1

My current iPod is old and creaky. I’ve replaced its battery once, and so far that’s given it a good lease of life. However, there’s an old HD in there and I expect that it will eventually fail.

None of the iOS based iPods could hold my music collection in one go (and when I travel, I like to take the lot with me - handy for long car journeys). I’d like an iPod that will do that.

In the long run, I expect the next iPhone I get will have that kind of capacity, negating the use of an iPod. For those of you with an interest in video editing on an iPad, the extra memory will be a boon too.

It's Official

128GB iPad 4, identical to current models otherwise. On sale in two weeks. US prices are $799 for wifi only, $929 for 3G.

No UK prices listed yet, but my guesses might not be entirely out of whack.

Jon

Yowzers. Expensive.

+1

Yep...
http://www.macworld.co.uk/ipad-iphone/n ... id=3423159

UK prices:
£639 - Wifi
£739 - Wifi + 4G



To put it into context, the current 64Gb iPad 4 - UK prices are:
£559 - Wifi
£659 - Wifi + 4G

In both cases, the extra 64Gb of storage adds £80 to the price. Does that sound fair?

Their prices never make sense. They charge what the think the market will bear (much like any other company, to be fair). The 128GB model is a premium option that's there to make the lower ones look more reasonably priced. I suspect they don't plan to actually sell many of them, so the price kind of doesn't matter. The people that do buy them probably won't be all that worried if they're being charged 100 quid, or whatever, over the odds.

Its like.. a Ferrari costs £150,000. To most of the people buying one, it doesn't matter if they'd only cost £120,000 rather £150,000 - if you'd have £120,000 to spend on a car, you've probably got £150,000 too, so you just buy the car regardless. The number of people who would have £120,000 but don't have £150,000 is probably quite small. This is just the same on a smaller scale - anyone who could afford to spend (say) £550 on a tablet can probably just as easily afford £650, so Apple charge £650, because the higher price probably doesn't reduce demand all that much.

Yes a very large capacity iPod will appeal to a small number but the prices they could ask would probably that they would still be very profitable and appeal to audiophiles. It would not need to be super complex either.

The thing that springs to mind as possible issue is do they still make the drives that fit in the iPod classic? Those weird 1" ones? And bigger than 160GB? I suppose they could use flash, but then they're not going to be any bigger than current - 160GB hard disk vs 128GB flash is about as big as things go, at least in the consumer price range. A 256GB flash drive iPod is going to be mucho expensive, for 'just' an iPod. A 256GB USB stick is £250 on it's own, so you're looking at at least £300 for an iPod of that capacity. Are there many people who would buy a £300 iPod even with such a capacity?

Yes but with Apple's buying capacity they could get a better price than that. I think that £300 for a 256 Gb iPod while expensive would be good. Don't forget that iPods also can be used as mobile storage and so that would make them quite practical on that basis alone. Didn't Peter Jackson use iPods to move footage of LOTR to the editing suites? It would also be very fast. The total market might not be in the hundreds of thousands but it would more likely be in the thousands per quarter bracket.

I think you're thinking of George Lucas on Star Wars Ep. 1, when they were using Firewire iPods to take the rushes to the edit.

Yes that could be it. I knew someone did it. Could not remember who it was though.

I thought it was one of the Toy Story films? Or what that when someone had an unexpected red backup at home?

Toy Story 2 was nearly deleted for good, if it wasn't for a back up at one of the teams houses.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EL_g0tyaIeE

Yes but they also have much higher profit margins than USB stick makers. They get a saving on RAM compared to everyone else but they don't pass that saving on, they keep it for themselves. The margin on USB Sticks (even big ones) isn't that good, Apple's average profit margin is something like 44%.


Fair enough and it would indeed be a nice thing to have but are there enough of you to make it a viable product?


You can get 1TB USB3 portable drives that aren't much bigger than an iPod classic for less than a hundred quid. Being a bit faster isn't worth three times the price. If you want scarey fast and high capacity you'd buy a drobo mini. These days an iPod is neither fish nor foul as a portable storage device.


I doubt apple have a single product that sells in that small a quantity. Even the Apple TV sells millions a quarter. Well, maybe the existing iPod classic might fit that bracket. Which is why they haven't wasted any effort updating it in a dog's age.

My uncle has bought this cd thing for a few hundred quid that stores all his CDs in a lossless format with less space than an iPod. He won't have it that an iPod classic would do the same for less cost. When it comes to audio, all bets are off.