iLounge

21

Mini can be used as a portable hard drive fyi. And yes it’s all personal opinion.. 11GB vs everything a mini offers over the ipod including size, better build, looks, etc. It’s just stupid for people to constantly put “MINI IS A RIP OFF” in every single post here, well you know what! ipods are a rip off compared to irivers, dells, creatives, rios. :/

Posted by Widds on April 15, 2004 at 5:24 AM (PST)

22

Wrong Widds-iPods are not a rip off.  I have used other devices, and the iPod just works, it’s nicely designed, has a great interface and that I am willing to pay a little more for those conveniences.  Those who aren’t willing to cough it up, go buy a rio or dell and deal with those players.  I don’t care what you say, the iPod is far superior hands down.

That said, I also ordered a mini on 3.25 and as it was supposed to ship today, checked it last night & the order status jumped to 5.6.  Argh- after the bump I was waiting for that precious e-mail offer and when it came I took it.  The Apple rep I talked to before getting that e-mail fed me that line about the worldwide aluminum shortage and I came back with the faulty headphone jack construction maybe being the reason for the delay. Needless to say- I’m now getting 15 gb for $225 (after gov’t emp. disc.)  I am satisfied and hopefully when my bf opens his new toy ON his birthday (not 2 weeks after) he will be too. 

Posted by gemio17 on April 15, 2004 at 5:54 AM (PST)

23

I had heard that the Mini’s couldn’t be used as backup drives… I’ll have to double check that.

And I didn’t say the Mini was a rip off.  I just said that they’re overpriced, which is what most industry analysts happen to think, too, in light of what you’re getting for the money.

I do have to say, though, that the Mini is growing on me even more.  I always thought they were pretty slick, but they’re really growing on me.

But it’s not ALL personal opinion… lol…

Posted by Z on April 16, 2004 at 5:15 PM (PST)

24

Z…glad to see your post began to make sense near the end…when you state that it is “each to his own”...you didn’t mention that to a lot of people the size of the mini is the win that they are are willing to pay for! Size is why they made the thing in the first place!

Posted by Lund on April 23, 2004 at 5:14 AM (PST)

25

This is bad news. It means that Apple has unsold, depreciating inventory of 15GB iPods lying around to “spare”.

Unsold tech inventory is a curse: it depreciates at an incredible rate.

Added to this is the fact that Apple makes a higher margin on sales of 15GB iPods over 4GB Minis, and we see why their gross margins declined so badly on increasing revenues in the last quarter.

This is a classic supply squeeze - Apple often runs into problems optimizing its different product lines. This goes all the way back to the Mac LC and beyond.

Posted by Bad News on April 23, 2004 at 8:53 AM (PST)