New Apple I Pod example essay topic

Development of the i Pod: The i Pod is a portable digital music player that holds up to ten thousand songs in a small, hand-held device that is lighter and thinner than two CD cases. i Pod features a touch-sensitive navigational wheel and buttons, and an intuitive interface designed for one-handed operation. Songs are stored in several digital audio formats, delivering the highest sound quality. The i Pod was born out of the idea dreamed up by Tony Fadell, an independent contractor and hardware expert, to take an MP 3 player, build a Napster music sale service to complement it, and build a company around it. Fadell shopped the idea around to several companies and was turned away by all of them, except Apple. Apple hired Fadell in early 2001 and assigned him a team of about 30 people to develop the i Pod. Fadell predicted that the i Pod would remold Apple and that 10 years from now it would be a music business, rather than a computer business.

Introduction of the i Pod: The i Pod was introduced into the market just in time for Christmas, 2001. The first i Pod was priced at $399. Apple relied on a hard disk for storage instead of flash memory or interchangeable CD-Roms and focused on promoting the uniqueness of the small size, power, and ease of use of the device. This first i Pod had a 5 GB storage capacity-which is enough to hold over 1,000 songs-and it worked only on Macs, using i Tunes as a music organization and CD-to-i Pod conversion tool. i Tunes, digital jukebox software that let Mac users import songs from CDs by converting audio files to the MP 3 format and storing them on the computer's hard drive, was introduced in January of 2001. Along with the i Pod, Apple announced an enhanced version of i Tunes that included a 10-band equalizer with presets, as well as a cross fading feature for smoother transitions from one song to another. An Auto Sync capability facilitated the downloading of music from a Mac to the new portable media device.

Once the music was downloaded, Apple promised 10 hours of continuous play from the i Pod's rechargeable lithium battery. The device supported MP 3, with bit rates of up to 320 kb its / 's, as well as AIFF and WAV file formats. Its amplifier could deliver 20-20,000-Hz frequency response. Apple sold 125,000 i Pods by the end of December 2001. During this introduction stage, the quality level of the i Pod was established, due to the Apple / Mac brand.

The $399 price tag was higher than most of the competing players. During this phase, the device was only compatible with Mac computers, and therefore limited to selective consumers-those who owned Mac computers. The introduction phase of the i Pod only lasted from December 2001 through about March 2002. In March 2002, Apple introduced a 10-Gbyte i Pod, which was enough for 2000 songs. This new development moved the i Pod into the growth stage. Growth of the i Pod: In the summer of 2002, Apple began to develop the second-generation i Pod line, which differed only slightly from the first generation.

Apple introduced a 5-Gbyte i Pod for $299, a 10 Gbyte unit for $399 and a 20-Gbyte unit for $499. The new units had new navigational wheels-solid-state touch wheel, in place of the mechanical scroll wheel. In July, 2002, Apple introduced the first PC version of the i Pod. At the same time, Apple introduced a 20 Gbyte i Pod, and the prices were lowered for the first time.

These are all characteristics of the growth stage as the product maintained quality and added additional features to the original product. There were also added distribution channels as the product gained acceptance from the customers and so Apple targeted a larger consumer market by adding the PC compatibility feature. In April of 2003, Apple unveiled the updated third-generation i Pod and introduced the i Tunes Music Store, offering songs at $. 99/track and albums at $9.99 with a library of 200,000 songs available for PC users. The new i Pod was thinner and smaller, and it featured a bottom rather than a top-mounted Fire Wire port, and it had entirely touch-sensitive navigation buttons. This new generation had a higher song capacity and it worked on either Macs or PCs.

In May, 2003, one week after launching the i Tunes Music Store, Apple sold 1,000,000 songs and in June of 2003, Apple sold its one millionth i Pod. In January, 2004 Apple introduced the i Pod mini, a 4 GB version of the i Pod, which was priced at $199. New with this version of the i Pod was the availability to get it in four different colors. The new mini model had an increased battery life of up to 18 hours, which increased the standard play time by about 6 hours.

This version offered ear bud headphones, a CD with i Tunes 4.7. 1 for Mac and Windows, and a USB 2.0 cable. Sales continue to skyrocket for the i Pod-in January, 2004 Apple sold its two millionth i Pod and in March of the same year it sold its three millionth i Pod. In addition, the i Tunes Music Store sold its 100,000,000th downloaded song on July 11, 2004. The fourth generation i Pod was announced by Apple in July, 2004. Apple began to drop prices.

However, the drop in prices is not due to new competition. The analysts reported in October, 2004 that i Pod sales were 82% of all digital music players and that the nearest hard drive competitor was at a mere 3.7% of the overall sales. In addition, Apple has expanded the i Pod and introduced a new version for storing digital photographs and album art. It also developed a special edition i Pod with a carrying case, red Click Wheel, and U 2-engraved rear metal casing. Given these added distribution channels and special promotions, it appears that the i Pod is still in the growth stage, especially since sales of the i Pod continue to increase. During the maturity stage product features may be enhanced to differentiate the product from its competitors, pricing may be lowered because of new competition, distribution becomes more intensive and incentives may be offered to encourage preference over competing products and promotion emphasizes product differentiation.

Apple's sales milestones were achieved despite the continued increase in alternatives by Creative, Dell, and i River. The i Pod defined the category of high-capacity personal digital music players and set the standard for which all other music players are compared. Therefore, the need to differentiate the product from that of its competitors was accomplished early during the introductory and growth stages. The i Pod quickly achieved iconic status and became the world's number one digital music player-more than two million i Pods have been sold since the product's introduction in October 2001.

Both the i Pod and i Tunes have been hailed by artists, industry executives, critics and consumers for their revolutionary features. Apple has decreased the prices for the different generations of i Pods, however, I believe this is due to the fact that the technology has developed and the product has become cheaper to manufacture. As mentioned above, the sales of the i Pod have not been affected by the continued attempt by competitors to keep up. Therefore, the aspect of the maturity stage that the pricing may be lowered because of the new competition does not apply to the i Pod at this time. The fact that Apple has continued to develop the i Pod and introduce new generations, as well as new versions of the i Pod (e. g., i Pod Photo) shows that the distribution is becoming more intensive. There is some speculation that i Pod will possibly develop into some sort of ultra portable computer.

This is definitely a sign that Apple is emphasizing the product delineation of i Pod. Another aspect of the maturity stage is the fact that intense competition occurs, which will result in market saturation. This does not appear to have happened to date. Since i Pod is the "gold standard" in music media players, they have almost achieved a monopoly-the closest competitor has captured only 3.7% of music media sales, compared to i Pod's 82%. The market is not showing signs of saturation at this stage; on the contrary, i Pod is increasing its sales and also developing the new technologies mentioned above. Analysts predict that Apple will likely ship 4 million i Pods during the current quarter, up from the previous estimates of 2.7 and 3.5 million units.

When Apple introduced the new Apple i Pod mini this past summer worldwide, it reported that it had pre orders for more than 100,000 models before the official debut. The i Pod mini is so popular that Duke University gave one to each of its 1,650 incoming freshmen. Nearly every single computer and consumer electronic company has been struggling to come up with an "i Pod killer", Apple managed to design one of its own. According to Merrill Lynch analyst, Steve Milunovich, the i Pod is being adopted faster than Sony Walkmans were back in the early 1980's. He claims that after nearly 2.5 years, i Pod shipments are approximately 1 million units ahead of the Walkman's pace after being on the market for the same period of time. During the 80's-90's, Sony sold over 300 million Walkmans.

Given this information, it appears that i Pod is showing no signs of being close to the decline stage in the near future. In summary, I believe that the i Pod is still in the growth stage of its life cycle. According to Roger Kay, IDC analyst, Apple is very good at releasing its i Pod generations with incremental features which lure in new users and tempt other users to upgrade. Because of this, some i Pod users have several generations of the player, and it is probable that mini owners also could follow that course. Apple now has a full product family that capitalizes on the original i Pod's success. Looking at the entire i Pod line, the i Pod is becoming a platform in of itself within Apple, as essentially a subsidiary within Apple.

Based on the information I have read, Apple has many avenues that it could take with future development of the i Pod and similar capabilities. The indicators show that the i Pod will continue to have substantial success for a significant period of time..