Analysts have moved from saying that iPods were going to suffer with
the rest of retail electronics to saying that consumers recognize that
iPods represent good value for the money.
Deutsche Bank analyst Chris Whitmore found stock outages at Amazon.com,
Target,
and
Walmart after Cyber Monday. The iPod touch is selling well in
a holiday season when retail sales are down and electronics are doing
badly.
The iPod touch
At least part of what we saw was consumers buying iPods at special
prices because Apple refuses to discount, except for quantity
purchases. If you want an iPod and that's as good a price as you'll
find, why not buy over the Black Friday weekend?
A Games Platform
Apple is busy talking up the iPod touch as a games
platform, so competitors should be watching it and the iPhone.
It's platform sales that count. Sony's PlayStation Portable (PSP) is
clearly vulnerable. The latest refresh looks like it won't attract
masses of new users. Sales of the iPod touch and iPhone 3G are likely
to reach 16 million over the previous quarter - the same as Sony is
hoping for the PSP over the 12 months ending 31 March.
Nintendo is busy dominating the Japan sales charts with the new
DSi, which it
won't launch in the US until next quarter. According to Media Create
figures quoted on kotaku.com, the DSi has sold over 660,000 in 6 weeks,
heavily outselling the new PSP.
Fortunately, Nintendo doesn't have to fail for Apple to succeed. If
the iPod touch/iPhone platform continues to attract major developers
and games like Rolando, SimCity, and Metal Gear Solid sell well, it
will become the clear number 2 handheld gaming platform. Just taking
over from the PSP as the DS alternative could add 10 million sales per
year.
A VoIP Phone
The differences between the iPod touch and the iPhone are blurring
in a way that is very useful to Apple. Now that the first VoIP apps are
available for the iPod touch, it could be as good as an iPhone for
certain groups of users. (The iPod touch also requires a headset, as it
has no built-in microphone.) If you spend most of your working time in
a building or campus with WiFi everywhere and have a wireless network
at home, it's much cheaper to use the iPod touch. You only need a cheap
cellphone and a cheap minutes/txt package for times between WiFi
networks.
Of the current VoIP options, Truphone is free and offers cheap
connections to land lines and mobiles but not yet to other VoIP services.
Basically it allows you to talk
to other Truphone users. According to
GigaOM, Fring is in trouble.
As soon as the iPod touch has the more widely used VoIP services
like Skype,
it will really start taking off as a WiFi phone.
A Camera-free Alternative to Smartphones
For organizations that don't allow cameras in the building for
security reasons, the iPod touch becomes a better option than most
smartphones, since built-in cameras are the norm. With a WiFi network
and VoIP, anyone can be contacted in the building or campus at no extra
cost, wherever they are.
Although the iPod touch lacks a camera, decent quality digital
cameras are cheap and light enough to keep around. Since the
differences in models from year to year are now much less significant,
there is less and less need to upgrade before the electronics fail. For
many, a point and shoot camera whose images could be sideloaded to an
iPod touch for viewing and emailing would provide better quality in a
more usable form than you get from a cellphone - due to a better lens,
better image sensor, and better flash.
The Medical Market
Healthcare looks as if it will be a strong market. This is why Steve
Jobs included a medical app when he launched the App Store. Bill Gates
hoped Tablet PCs would take over, but this much more portable, easily
readable device is far more likely to succeed. The iPod touch is also
cheap enough for hospitals to buy it in bulk.
Despite all the noise about how Apple should enter the netbook
market, it already has a cheap and much more portable alternative in
the iPod touch, which you can use on the move. It is also much more
profitable.
iPod touch + Mobile Phone Saves Money
In a recession, the package of cheap phone plus an iPod touch gives
users more capabilities while cutting down costs and dependence on
network operators. Students in the UK often carry two phones - one with
a cheap texting package, the other with cheap minutes. People who don't
want the iPhone but do want to access the
App Store + iTunes Store can and are buying the iPod touch.
Steve Jobs has said that Apple will not leave an iPhone price
umbrella. Apple is just removing that umbrella in a different way than
analysts and competitors expected.
The iPod touch is also a guard against the greed or poor marketing
of a monopoly iPhone network and will help drive the move towards
buying bandwidth by the month.
What really matters is iTunes, the App Store, and the hardware these
downloaded apps can be used on.
