Apple Computer Inc., boasted Tuesday that it has already cataloged 100,000 orders for its iPod mini digital music player, which will not go on sale until this Friday. Apple's retail outlets, its online store and resellers will be offering the new player at that time. The iPod mini is about the length and width of a business card, 3.6 inches high, 2 inches wide and a half inch thick. The device weighs 3.6 ounces and holds 1,000 songs on it's new generation tiny hard disk, that is only 1 inch in diameter. The battery life of about 8 hours is the same as the regular iPod and the unit can be recharged in 3 hours or quick charged to 80 percent capacity in about 1 hour. Audio support is as follows: AAC (16 to 320 Kbps), MP3 (32 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible, AIFF (Mac only) and WAV.
The new iPod mini costs $ 249. Prices for the big brother iPods range from $ 299 to $ 499. Capacity for the iPod mini is 4 gigabytes, while the cheapest normal-sized iPod stores 15 gigabytes of data.
| "iPod mini broadens the market for iPod by competing head-on with flash-based players," said Phil Schiller, head of worldwide product marketing for Cupertino, California-based Apple. "(The) iPod mini costs only about $ 50 more than a 256-megabyte flash-based player, yet it holds 16 times the music."
In January at the Macworld trade show in San Francisco, Apple's co-founder, chairman and chief executive Steve Jobs unveiled the iPod mini, along with a new version of its iLife digital lifestyle software and a new music program called Garage Band. At the time, there was some disappointment that the price was not lower, but Apple says that demand for the device has been strong nonetheless. "What we've seen anecdotally is that the iPod mini has been very attractive to the youth market, for an athletic lifestyle, and women seem really to like the iPod mini as well," said Stan Ng, head of product marketing for iPod. "It's been a great validation that iPod mini is expanding the market and iPod sales overall remain strong." |
The mini is a well designed product, check out the specs. The launch also includes a tie-in with 1200 Target stores in the US. People can buy $ 15 prepaid cards for Apple's online music store while at these discount centers, which will be featured alongside top-selling CDs. The stores will also feature display areas where consumers can play with the new iPods.
Source: Yahoo!
