AAPL Watch-- Things Have Been Better
The rumors that today Apple would introduce a redesigned iPod featuring no buttons, knobs or screens of any kind, instead employing newly-patented mind-reading technology for functionality; produce a force-field causing all Zune products within a 200-foot radius to immolate, rendering them as useful as they are in non-burned-to-a-crisp state; and come with videos personally damning to Microsoft founder Bill Gates, preloaded did not pan out, and for that Jobs-y Boy is paying dearly. Sure, we got a custom ring-tone maker; slashed prices on the iPhone; a 2.5 inch screen video Nano in red, silver, blue, green and black; a new name for the iPod: iPod Classic; 160 gigs (that’s 40,000 songs, 20 more than there are in existence); a touch screen; Wi-Fi; and Safari / GOOG / YHOO browser (basically: an iPhone without the Phone), but it wasn’t enough—shares are down 3.5%.
Are we asking too much? All the news was good news (except for the price cut on iPhones. That announcement was not good and by not good we mean “bad,” for those of you—Cliff Mason—who spent $599 for your iPhone on June 29 instead of $399 this weekend, and for AAPL investors, despite SJ’s spin of, “it’s so popular we want more people to afford it!” Just like houses. Little subprime humor? That’s okay, I’ll let myself out) but it wasn’t the kind of huge gains/NO RIGHT CLICK BUTTON ON YOUR MOUSE news we’ve come to expect from Senor Jobs. He did, however, change the color of his mock, swapping brown for black, and perhaps that’ll be enough to get things up by the end of the day.
Apropos of AAPL, it was also announced today that Apple will have a wireless music deal with Starbucks, which can only mean this thing is about to drop like a bag of dirt.
Apple iPod Special Event: The Live Blog [CNBC]
Apple announces new iPod nano [engadget]
Apple's new iPod Classic [engagdet]
Comments
Bess:
The shares were us 10% in the past two days and selling at an all time high, besides everyone knew that they hadn't updated the ipod since 2005, that this product announcement would regard the iPod and which features had already been incorporated in the iPhone that were not yet in the iPod. Therefore there were no suprises here.
Repeat after me...Buy the rumor sell the news....
Posted by: Random Banker | September 5, 2007 03:43 PM
the surprise was that there was no interesting news, random dumbass
Posted by: Anonymous | September 5, 2007 03:49 PM
it's kind of the consensus that today was negative for aapl.
Posted by: trader | September 5, 2007 03:50 PM
The question is who was suprised by that? Why the fuck did you think there would be some "interesting news" only 3 months after they launched the iPhone. Do you think they're magical lepricons who wave magic wonds and just produce new products? New products have to be invetned... inventing things takes time. Anyone who expected more than they got today is retarded. Infact i'm mildly pleased to be able to buy songs directly over wi-fi now.
Posted by: Random Banker | September 5, 2007 04:03 PM
Maybe its because everyone realized something squirelly is going on when the 8gb Ipod Touch holds 10hrs of video when the Nano with the same amount of storage space only holds 8hrs. The comparisons continue strangely for # of pictures and # of songs. Why exactly this is the case (8gb nano is really 7gb, shhh) is still under investigation.
Posted by: Anal_yst | September 5, 2007 04:13 PM
I hate steve jobs! (insightful, I know, just like AAPL's announcement). I really do hate steve jobs, though.
Posted by: inIT4the$ | September 5, 2007 04:30 PM
I agree with Random Banker. If you expecting some Earth shattering announcement from out of this, you need to buy a new deck of Tarot cards.
I was only expecting the announcement of a redesigned Nano and a modest price reduction on the iPhone so the news coming out was actually a little more than I expected.
On another note, 40,000 songs? Can anyone honestly say they have a catalog of 10% of that number that they would want to load on their Pod?
Posted by: Jason | September 5, 2007 04:58 PM
I'm pretty sure theres not anywhere close to 40,000 songs that I'd actually consider listening to, let alone going through the trouble of putting on my comp/ipod. Save those in the music industry who needs that (or who needs to watch that much video on a 3" screen)
Posted by: Seymour Butz | September 5, 2007 05:08 PM
People use their Ipods for data storage and file transfer. Now you can take your models with you wherever you go.
Posted by: Nerd | September 5, 2007 05:18 PM
Take your models wherever you go? My models are already portable: they're in my head. And I can think of tens of ways I'd improve them; best to start anew than be saddled with imperfections accumulated over time.
But 160 GB is a lot of pr0n. Enough for a US->Japan flight even.
Posted by: get a clue | September 5, 2007 05:59 PM
mac's have had 3+ button mouse support for years, they just haven't bundled the mice with their desktop computers until recently. you could always right click on a laptop by holding down the ctrl button before clicking. for the record, i can't stand one button mice and think that was the worst decision they ever made, but there are ways around it.
Posted by: Anonymous | September 6, 2007 10:35 AM