Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced the much-anticipated video iPod today at an event in San Jose, CA. The news comes one day after Echostar, the nation’s second largest satellite video provider, unveiled its own portable media player, dubbed PocketDish.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Jobs said Apple “would begin selling music videos and television shows on its iTunes Music Store.”
The new video iPod, which had been widely anticipated, boasts a color screen that is larger than those on standard iPods [2.5 inches, according to Bloomberg], though the device is still small enough to fit into the palm of the hand. A model that can store 30 gigabytes of data will cost $299, while a model with double the storage space will cost $399, Apple said.
In a deal with Walt Disney Co., Apple said will offer current and past episodes from several Disney shows, including “Desperate Housewives” and “Lost,” on iTunes for $1.99 an episode.
ZDNet reports that “It will take 10 to 20 minutes to download an episode, said Jobs. Each will cost $1.99 and will be ad-free.”
Bloomberg quotes Matt Kelmon, who helps manages $750 million at Palo Alto, California-based Kelmoore Investment Co., who says “[Apple] is becoming an entertainment company, not a computer company.” Bloomberg also includes some stats on sales and pricing:
Apple has sold more than 500 million songs and has more than 10 million iTunes account holders, who have bought on average 60 songs each, Jobs said in September…The company gets about a third of its sales from the iPod and sales of music through its iTunes online store. Apple said yesterday that iPod shipments reached a record 6.45 million units, short of the 6.7 million to 8.5 million analysts anticipated and prompting a drop in the shares today.
The Nano, unveiled Sept. 7, accounted for 1 million of the devices sold last quarter. Apple yesterday described demand as “staggering” and said a shortage of unnamed parts made it difficult to say when the company will be able to build enough to fill orders.
The new video player may also help bolster the iPod’s average selling price, which has fallen in the past year after Apple introduced lower-cost players such as the $99 Shuffle and cut prices across the iPod line. The Nano has started to increase the average price already, pushing it to $188 last quarter from $179 in the third quarter. Still, that is less than $266 a year ago.
ZDNet reports that “Jobs kicked off the event by revealing a new iMac that will be similar to the current model, but thinner. It will have a built-in iSight camera with still and video capabilities and a remote control with a 10-foot range for controlling music, photos and video.”
And Bloomberg notes that the iPod “is helping to drive sales of Apple’s more- profitable Mac personal computers. Mac shipments reached a five-year high of 1.24 million units, the fourth straight quarter shipments have topped 1 million machines, Apple said yesterday.”
Broadcasting & Cable reports on Echostar’s launch of PocketDish:
The PocketDish can download content from Dish Network digital video recorders (DVRs), enabling users to watch TV shows on the go. An hour of content can be transferred to the PocketDish’s hard drive in about five minutes. The units can also download or record content from PC and Mac computers, digital cameras, and many DVD players, camcorders and VCRs.
The Pocket Dish comes in three varieties. A model that costs $599 and comes with a 7-inch LCD screen and a 40 GB hard drive. It can record both video and audio from external sources like camcorders, DVD players and VCRs. A similar version, priced at $499, comes with a 4-inch screen and a 30 GB hard drive. A third version that can record only audio from external sources costs $329 and comes with a 2.2-inch screen and 20 GB hard drive.
All three models can download content from Dish Network DVRs via a USB 2.0 connection. The units do not have an output that can transfer video content, an EchoStar spokesperson said, so there is no limit (other than hard drive size) on the type or amount of programming that can be downloaded from DVRs.
Bloomberg includes some comments on competition in the portable video space:
Apple’s video device isn’t the first to hit the market. Sony currently markets a handheld computer called the Type U in Japan that can be used to watch videos. Consumers can also watch movies (with a tiny Universal Media Disc) on the PlayStation Portable.
Intel and Microsoft, meanwhile, designed a portable media player back in 2002 that some manufacturers brought to market last year. (First it was known as Media2Go and later as the Portable Media Center.) Meanwhile, Samsung and others have come out with phones that can receive TV signals, thereby allowing commuters to watch shows on their cell phones. So far, though, portable video hasn’t been a big seller.
Mitch Shapiro at 3:17 PM|Comments(0)
Blogs We Read
