And so it starts. According to Lehman Brothers analyst Ben Reitzes, orders for the 8GB iPod Touch are starting to experience a “small but significant” delay of 1-2 business days to get it in stock, indicating that stocks of this particular model of Touch may be running low and Apple is not replenishing them.
This is pretty much right on schedule for a September(ish) iPod refresh period; if you’ll recall, reports of iPhone shortages began to pop up right around the end of march/beginning of April, starting with 8GB model shortages, a little over two months prior to the WWDC keynote announcing the next generation of the device. That’s right about where we are now in relation to the next iPod line refresh, with the same low end model being the one to kick off the stock clearance. If this is the start, then the pattern should hold; the number of places selling out will grow, and the 16GB vesrion will start up next, followed by the 32GB model.
There is the possibility however that Apple’s Back to School promo is also having an effect on stock levels, though shortages large enough to cause delays at retail stores — especially big box electronics outlets like Best Buy — seem to indicate something a little more significant than than that is going down.
Furthermore, Reitzes suggests that Apple are going to need to restructure pricing on the iPod Touch in the wake of the new lower-priced iPhones which, even though subsidized by the carriers, still represent a significant enough price threat to the Touch to cannibalize a significant portion of its sales, carrier costs aside. Reitzes says in his report, “We believe Apple will need to reposition the iPod touch product by September now that the iPhone acquisition price is lower. We expect the iPod touch to experience significant cannibalization from lower-priced iPhones.”
Might we start to see price slashing on iPod Touch models as we approach September and remaining inventory needs to be cleared? Might be a good time for you holdouts to pick one up, assuming you’re not particularly keen on seeing what Apple’s got up its sleeve for the next iPod generations.
(via Apple Insider)
Written by Eric March on June 20th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on G2 ipod touch and Hardware Related and Rumors and ipod touch 2.0 and ipod touch shortage and uncategorized.
Those of you who thought we were done with the 3G rumours — well, you’ll just have to endure related ones a bit longer. We’re a Canadian site after all, so this is of particular interest to those of us in the Great Not-So-White North.
Seems that a Rogers Wireless retail employee received a voluminous tome of “customer scenarios” today — it’s sort of like a book of contingencies full of “If customer X asks question Y answer with Z.” In other words, a book of scripts, much like their level 1 techs read from. In it, there is evidently some “customer scenarios” regarding the iPhone 3G. I’ll let him tell it in his own words:
Tasty news.
I received a phonebook-sized book of “customer scenarios” today for training. Upon a look on the plans, it would SEEM the $30/$45 is true. All of the total MSF (monthly service fees) seemed to be a voiceplan + either the $30 or $45 dollar option.
What I mean here is that the scenarios did not explicity label “$40 voice plans” and “$30 iphone data plan” for “$70/month”. Instead, it was just “$70/month”.
Here were the prices listed for plans:
“$60, $65, $70, $75, $80, $85″.
What I gather from this is as long as you have atleast a $30 voiceplan, you then pick your poison of either $30 or $45 iphone data, and youre golden.
What’s more, Global News this evening shoehorned in a little 15-second blurb about these same rumours between longer segments — presumably based on the same “leak” below. Not that this lends any further credibility to the rumour, but when it makes the TV news, one does tend to think a little harder on it.
Further evidence of the $30 Rogers plan? Well, not evidence per se, just more grist for the rumour mill, but if I’ve learned one thing through all of the prolonged gossip sessions surrounding forthcoming Apple products, it’s that, on the whole, the greater number of rumours that tend to agree with each other pan out more often than the solitary ones. We’ll see. Despite having a cynical streak as wide as Hillary Clinton’s tales are tall, I have numerous appendages crossed in hopes that some gold turns up in all of this panning. My voice plan, with the extras I have tacked on (unlimited evenings after 6, voicemail, visual call waiting, etc.) runs me $60/mo for each phone, so if true, the data plan would tack on only an extra $30 each, which is something I can definitely live with if it means mobile 3G broadband wherever I am. I have only ever used Rogers’ data connection once (over EDGE when I got my first cell phone) only to browse their own WAP site — and it cost me $18, just to tool around for five or six minutes. Since then I haven’t even dared to touch it. This plan could change the whole game.
(via X1Zero @ iPhone In Canada forums)
Written by Eric March on June 19th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Rumors and canadian iphone and fido rogers iphone and iPhone Canada and iphone 3g and iphone in canada.
Take this with a grain of salt, but Fortune’s Scott Moritz has filed a report claiming that AT&T will subsidize the price of the hotly awaited 3G iPhone down to start at $199 with a two-year agreement, which would be a clear sign that the company is serious about starting to move some massive numbers of the device when it drops in June.
There are definitely parts of the story that I don’t buy — I don’t think Apple is going to go 8 and 16 gig on the new iPhone, let alone “8-gigabit-memory and 16-gigabit-memory,” and the pricing strategy only makes sense if the iPhone is non-exclusive to AT&T. If Apple’s selling the 3G iPhone unlocked at Apple Stores for $200 more, this makes sense. If not, this is just bizarre.
Thoughts? I really hope we see a 32-gigabyte model of the 3G iPhone - that makes it not just a nano replacement for me, but an actual iPod replacement.
FORTUNE: Techland AT&T to cut the price of Apple’s new iPhone
Thanks, Matt!
Tags: iphone, rumor, at&t, speculation
Written by Pete Mortensen on April 29th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Rumors and iPhone.
Filed under: Still Speculating, just not wildly.
My inept Photoshop skills aside, Leander’s post below and the prevalence of the OSX86 project and similar efforts really speak to a single problem within the Macintosh lineup: The Tweener. That is, the Mac that is in between the Mac Mini and the MacPro. Apparently there are a WHOLE lot of folks who are desperate for this machine. Why it doesn’t exist is a mystery. Not only is there apparently a huge market for this kind of machine, there is an even larger market for “Certified Mac” after-market parts.
It’s a wonder that being the “Salesy” part of a duo that built their first computer in a garage, Steve doesn’t seem to get that enthusiasts want a computer they can “tinker” with.
As always I am gratuitously soliciting your comments as to what you’d like to see in this machine. My specs follow after the break
(more…)
Written by Leigh McMullen on April 17th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Hardware and Macintosh and Rumors.
Filed under: Pure, Wild, Speculation
In my post regarding Apple’s apparent targeting of Adobe (if not them specifically then certainly their space) , there were such great, insightful comments that I decided to play a little game: What Would Steve Do? Taking a look at a potential Corel acquisition, how could we leverage the direct and indirect effects of that acquisition into an inferred Apple business strategy.
Now clearly, I’m not inside Steve’s head, that’s Leander’s niche, but these kinds of strategies are very much what I do for a living, so lets make some irresponsible, purely speculative, wild guesses, shall we? Of course gazing into the looking glass is no fun all by yourself, so lets make this an audience participation piece. I’ll lay out the basic framework after the break, and then we’ll pull from the comments for a follow-up piece.
(more…)
Written by Leigh McMullen on April 11th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Rumors and Software.
