I follow the apple rumor mill with great anticipation. Simply because Apple knows how to market their products. But yesterday they got it wrong. They are doing what Microsoft did with Windows Vista - they are creating too many versions of the same product. The new iPods have too many similar features and price points. Consumers now have to ask more questions to figure out which iPod is right for them. Which is a bad thing. This is a departure from Apple's normal way of differentiating their products very clearly - mainly on price and having a limited amount of models to choose from.
Here's Apple's old iPod lineup, sorted by price:
iPod Shuffle - $79
iPod Nano 2gig - $149
iPod Nano 4gig - $199
iPod Nano 8gig - $249
iPod w/ Video 30gig - $249
iPod w/ Video 80gig - $349
iPhone 4gig - $499
iPhone 8gig - $599
It's a pretty simple decision tree here. Price - a huge determinig factor - is sorted nicely. Do you need a phone? Get and iPhone. do you need a lot of storage? Get an iPod w/ Video.
Here's Apple's new lineup sorted by price:
iPod Shuffle - $79
iPod Nano 4gig - $149
iPod Nano 8gig - $199
iPod Classic 80gig - $249
iPod Touch 8gig - $299
iPod Classic 160gig - $349
iPod Touch 16gig - $399
iPhone 8gig - $399
To me, this lineup is not as clear cut. There's is definite confusion over whether you should get a Touch or a Classic. They share the same price space. Really the line up should look something like this:
iPod Shuffle - $79
iPod Nano 4gig - $149
iPod Nano 8gig - $199
iPod Nano 12/16gig - $249/$299
iPod Touch 80gig - $349
iPod Touch 160gig - $449
iPhone 8gig - $499
Yes. they should have made the touch, hard drive based. Yes this increases the cost. And yes, battery life probably would be an issue. If you wanted to you could stick in 2 models of the Touch - one that's flash based, too an 8gig at $299 and a 16 gig at $399 like they have now, but again, having too many models out there is a bad thing for marketing. Just look at anyother cell phone company. I personally know very little about the models that Nokia or Samsung make, simply because they make so many phones. If they pared down their lineup to make 3 great phones, I bet their marketing would be more effective, and they would sell more units. Simplicity rules in getting a message across.
And I think Apple probably wouldn't have pissed off so many people by dropping the iPhone only $100 bucks.
