| Home > Technology > The iPod nano: Apple's guts and glory. Who else would dump their best selling product? |
| The iPod nano: Apple's guts and glory. Who else would dump their best selling product? | | Date Created: 11 Sep, 2005, 12:04 PM |
 Yes, I want one.
The iPod nano release was another magician's trick from Steve Jobs and Apple.
While there was some chat amongst the usual rumour monger online channels about iPod mini upgrades coming, most of the attention went to the iTunes/Motorola ROKR phone. Given that it had been an open secret for many months, that Apple had made it further open by stating when a new music event would occur, it's not surprising most took the bait and assumed the entire Keynote would be about the iTunes-based phone, many believing it would be a phone designed by Apple, and manufactured by Motorola.
To some extent, it reflected the hope that Apple would design the human/machine interface because most phones suck at this aspect.
I'm sure Apple and Steve Jobs were very happy with this magician's misdirection, leaving Jobs to wow the audience (listen to the oohs from the audience when he shows it in the flesh) when he showed the iPodnano for the first time. Out of the under-used "spare pocket" in his Levi's. With a close up crotch shot, for good measure.
Now we know why the theme was "1000 songs in your pocket" which many had taken to refer to Apple's relationship to digital music supply.
What is even more magical is that Apple decided to use the nano to replace its best selling iPod, the mini.
When the mini was released, it came after many weeks of speculation, and incredibly assumptive price setting. Some expected it to be under $100, and no one dared suggest it would be $249 (it would later sell on eBay for $299 due to the lack of supply from Apple). Indeed, most were astonished Apple could price it at just under $50 less that its 15GB full size iPod. Many thought it was a joke, and anyone with any brains would clearly opt for the larger sized iPod.
But surprise, surprise - Apple had read its market, knew who it expected to buy, and despite offering fewer MB/dollar, it offered more cachet for the buck. The smaller physical size, the brushed alumunium finish in a choice of colours, and its marketing to a younger generation (not to mention its relative initial unavailability) proved more desirable that more absolute hard drive size.
Such that the mini became the best selling iPod. Buyers eschewed value for money on a pure storage basis, and put a premium on design - especially with the newly designed scroll wheel, which marked an almost-return to the 1st gen scroll wheel design.
Now Apple takes its best selling iPod and dumps it. You know Apple has done its market research (Steve looked and liked) when it takes the risk of dumping a number one product and places its faith in a new one. And it does it in the face of threats by competitors to release their iPod killers (surely now ready to take their place at urbanmyths.com), threats to Apple with patent infringement action, and Sony trying yet again to regain its Walkman ascendence (someone at Sony can't let go of the past it seems).
Now that takes guts and vision. Moreover, it says Apple does not rest on its laurels, milking its products for all their worth until a competitor outdoes it (hello Creative!), but it competes within itself to best its own products. It appears to continually ask itself, "what next?", rather than "what does the public want?"
In many ways, it takes guts to say, "we don't think the public wants this right now, but it's going to love this!" And the iPod nano will be a much loved product.
Watch the language people will use to describe their relationship with the nano. Other products from other companies who stuff all they can into their mp3 players are asking their consumers to effect an emotional relationship without knowing it: confusion, complexity, disatisfaction, disappointment.
Already, Mossberg from the Wall Street Journal, given an iPod nano for a few days, has described himself as "smitten". He's describing a relationship with a technology product. It reminds me of the lust people expressed over the Powerbook Titanium G4 four years ago, when it changed the way laptops looked. (Much like the original Powerbook 100 set the still-in-effect design standard of offering a wrist-rest area with the keyboard set back).
While Apple was minimising the laptop with the Titanium, a design effect continued with the Aluminium range which followed, the PC crowd were adding lights and bells and whistles. You could play your PC laptop's CD with the lid closed, because there were controls at the front (making the whole thing thicker) - big deal.
There were lights flickering to show hard drive action, or ethernet flow - also, big deal.
It was the Powerbook's simplicity which ruled.
You see, we're living in stressful times of our own making. So much information to absorb, store and retrieve - and that's after you've figured out whether you need it now or for future reference.
Steve Jobs at some gut level knows simplicity is what wins emotionally - not how many extra features you can pick into an object, be it hardware or software. And now more than ever, simplicity rules. Or at least, the perception of simplicity otherwise known as Apple's unspoken motto: "It just works". (Even that term was co-opted by Microsoft, but given its lack of trustworthiness, it won't stick.)
You want more features? Add them yourself - and the iPod now has a cottage industry supporting a huge array of add-ons, giving it iconic status. In other words, there are mp3s and then there are iPods - and now podcasting, as if you needed more evidence for its iconic status.
How the other mp3 makers, including Microsoft playing its Svengali-role in the background with its own DRM, to gain any kind of significant share of an expanding marketplace is a little beyond me, short of hoping Apple falls over on its own sword somehow.
The iPod nano shows they can keep wishin' and a hopin' because it's evidence Apple knows exactly what it's doing. |
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