iPod Mini Review
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The iPod is considered by many to be the music industry's most perfect MP3 player. And although competition has started to catch up with Apple, the company still has a few more iTricks up its iSleeve. One of these iTricks came out recently (although from all the publicity, one would think that it's been a staple in the music entertainment industry for years, already). Meet the iPod mini. Although the name might at first be indicative of an Austin Powers spoof gone wrong, the iPod mini has been making a name in its own right, apart from its older brother, the iPod. Does this sequel of an MP3 player follow in the footsteps of its older iSibling, or is favoritism something to watch out for?
Introduction
From cassette players and CD players to MD players and digital audio jukeboxes, the world of portable audio has evolved tremendously. And it has grown to accommodate digital music formats -- like MP3, WMA, and AAC -- extremely well. MP3 CD players are nothing special anymore. Rather, the consumer's attention, and likewise the industry, has shifted to digital audio players from Apple, Dell, MPIO, Samsung, and many more companies. Through two years of constant improvements and market campaigning, Apple has succeeded in making its audio players number one. Basically everyone in the music industry has one -- and ordinary people like you and me either have one or wish we had one.
Apple went out on a limb when it first introduced its iTunes service. Judging by how popular file sharing had become, expecting people to pay to download music was unheard of. Yet Steve Jobs and Apple managed to launch the service successfully, even bringing the program/service to Windows users. Apple went out on another limb with the iPod mini, the little sister of the iPod. At $50 under a third generation 15GB iPod, and with only 4GB storage space, no one (besides Apple) expected the iPod mini to sell well. Yet in mid-February, Apple announced more than 100,000 iPod minis were pre-ordered. An immediate demand for iPod minis sparked debate all over the net as to why the iPod mini's success, which was quite a stark contrast to all the predictions of the iPod mini bombing. Even now, the iPod mini is hard to find at a local retailer.
So what has led the way to the popular demand of iPod minis? Who in their right mind would buy a US$250 4GB MP3 player when 15+ GB jukeboxes exist for nearly the same price? Described in short as "The world's smallest 1,000 song player. Five new colors. For Mac and Windows," that might exactly be its appeal. Today, Dev Hardware will review the Apple iPod mini.
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