[evan]

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles...out_lines.html

sure you can collect data... but any of us could have told him that. personally, I'm impressed this guy hasn't been fired for being completely worthless yet.

[Taskiss]

Originally Posted by CoachKrzyzewski http://www.appleinsider.com/articles...out_lines.html sure you can collect data... but any of us could have told him that. personally, I'm impressed this guy hasn't been fired for being completely worthless yet.

I love the sample size he uses.

[dfiler]

And can you believe that author, nor the first 76 people that commented on the story, never comment on the sample size?

Am I missing something here or are people really that stupid?

[Kickaha]

You're not missing a thing. 99.4% of all statistics are bogus, and made up on the spot.

The average person has been trained to look at the final numbers, and they have no way of judging the validity of the methodology.

[dfiler]

Agreed, but looking back through the article, it appears the sample size was larger than I thought. The graphs are a bit confusing in that regard. (I had to go retract my criticism on that other forum. )

[Fahrenheit]

Originally Posted by Kickaha You're not missing a thing. 99.4% of all statistics are bogus, and made up on the spot.

I'm pretty sure that was 75.3 actually.

[Taskiss]

Originally Posted by dfiler Agreed, but looking back through the article, it appears the sample size was larger than I thought. The graphs are a bit confusing in that regard. (I had to go retract my criticism on that other forum. )

The sample size of Apple stores I'm OK with, the sample size of Best Buy though... 18 freaking stores?!? He talks to folks in half the apple stores but only a tiny fraction of where the majority of nano's and touch's are actually being sold?

Best Buy is the largest consumer electronics store in the US with over 1400 stores. So, the "perception of the sales staff of purchases and popularity of Apple products relative to each other" using 18 freaking stores doesn't inspire confidence in his ability to generate realistic estimates with a tenth of a percentage point accuracy. Drop the decimal point, goofball!

Plus, some of the things this guy says... sheesh! He needs a Cpt. Obvious cape and mask.

Our checks also confirmed our view that an individual buying an iPhone would not purchase iPod Touch and vice versa

Um.. ah, never mind. It's too easy to slam statements like that.

[psmith2.0]

People like this guy have the "power" to affect stock prices and public perception...that's what annoys me. If it was just isolated foolishness, with no impact on the real world and all, it wouldn't be so bad.

But how many times have these knuckleheaded "analyst" types rang alarm bells (or, conversely, oversold/hyped something), based on sketchy info or, worse, a "gut hunch"...and causing some real results in the market and so forth, that are based on nothing real and true? Or meaningful?

That's what I can't stand.

And, over the years, one analyst or firm after another has been shown to be so utterly wrong and out-of-touch about this stuff (and Apple in particular). I don't know why we - or anyone else - continues to put much stock in their "findings" and assessments.

It's like watching the news. One week, "product x" is good for your heart and overall health...you should eat/drink it daily, as much as possible. Two months later, a "study" is released saying that it gives you liver cancer, loss of urinary control and shrinks your brain. It's just this constant back-and-forth, about everything. It's the reason why I no longer believe anyone, anywhere or anytime, about anything. I really don't...not news (because it isn't), not "polls" (which are bullcrap), not "scientific findings" (which are constantly disputed/contradicted and politicized), not financial/business "news" (see above), medical news and discoveries (see "scientific findings"), politics and culture, movie reviews (except my own, of course ), etc.

Everyone's completely full of it. We live in such a horseshit society...smoke and mirrors, shuffling stuff around, drawing arrows and charts, producing nothing real, making Important Stuff™ out of nothing at all, etc. Such a hollow, "nothing below the surface" culture. A real house-of-cards existence, in so many ways. That's not "being negative", either. That's just stating how it is...



I read stories like the above, and I don't even make it to the fourth sentence before I start making the standard "jacking off" gesture and rolling my eyes...that's what I think about these guys and firms, and the "work" they do.

Any questions?

[Eugene]

Wait, wait...

Cheaper products get sold in higher volumes?! Wow!!!

[psmith2.0]

Who woulda thunk? It blew my mind as well. I've been running the numbers on it all morning, just to make sure...



On a serious note, I do think the iPod touch is destined, within a year or so, to join the iPod Hi-Fi and G4 Cube in "Apple products not quite ready for prime-time".

Maybe things will change and I'll be wrong, but it just seems to me that people either want the smallness (and style) of the iPod nanos, or they'll step on up to a full-blown iPhone. I think the iPod touch is a nice product, don't get me wrong. But I don't think it'll prove to be a popular, high-selling product over time, and I can almost imagine it (unless it just gets insanely affordable) not being in Apple's line-up this time next year.

Sounds weird, I know. But that's my (non-professional) gut-feeling on it...

It just seems to occupy a weird spot. The thing that might save/sustain it is having it be a "phone-less iPhone" (for all the people who are happy with their current phone and cellular providers). But I don't know how many of those are out there, after a certain point. The iPod touch strikes me as one of those "if you want it, you're going to get it right away" type of products (like a U2 iPod), and that there's not much reason for it to stick around forever and ever (although that crazy U2pod stuck around for a good 12-18 months longer than I ever would've imagined).

I kept thinking "surely every major, serious U2 fan on the planet has one by now...who the hell is buying this, here in mid-2007?"



Who knows...the iPod touch just seems too big and full-featured to want to carry it and a cell phone around (I know I wouldn't). The iPod nano just seems like a better fit if you've already got a reasonably modern, full-featured non-iPhone phone (no one is going to carry around a Treo or some snazzy "does everything" smartphone and an equally large iPod touch, are they?).



Seems odd to do so...I would think that anyone who falls into that user group for the iPod touch probably already has one (or is about to get one, come the 25th of December)...

[Eugene]

Hmm, IMO the iPod touch and nano will slowly converge on the iPod classic's customer base. People looking for the smallest player possible will go for the nano. People looking for a big screen will go for the touch. Do I really need 160 GB worth of music and video on one player? The price of NAND flash is dropping like a rock in the meantime.

[psmith2.0]

That's true...I didn't think about that. The harddrive-based players will probably go away, leaving only the flash-based iPods and phones.

I've said all along that it gets a bit nutty, some of those expected/assumed capacity increases. At one point would anyone reasonably have/want everything on their iPod? Some people have music libraries that will never fit on an iPod, no matter what. How long will Apple keep chasing that moving, arbitrary target of larger and larger capacity traditional iPods?



I guess a 64GB flash-based iPod touch (at some point replacing the hard-drive iPods and just being called the iPod?) would serve most people.

If they had the 1GB shuffles, 8GB nanos (with video) and, say, 64GB (and maybe, eventually, 128GB?) - all flash-based - they could just call it a day?

The nano, in it's current form, is everything the 5G regular iPod was (except for capacity)...that's probably the nice, mid-range "sweet spot". With the shuffle being a "gift item" and no-frills model, and the touch being the deluxe iPod?

I can see the iPod touch sticking around indefinitely (called whatever) if the hard-drive models are eventually done away with, sure.

What's tough to imagine, two years from now, are the four distinct lines still around (unless Apple truly believes they should keep going up and up with the hard drive iPods)...who knows.

[Taskiss]

The iPod, touch and the iPhone both allow TV out, so I can see them taking over for the Apple TV in the future if they get the bandwidth. I'm thinking there will be an explosion of video stuff when a killer app comes along and makes your iPod into a tivo.

Storage then matters more than it does today.

[Kickaha]

Nice prediction, hadn't thought of that... except... hmm.

That requires a video source *in* to the device. I can see it being an uber-remote for a homebase AppleTV/DVR/etc/etc/etc, but you've got to get the signal in somehow.

Unless you're advocating grabbing shows off teh intarwebs.

Or were you thinking of the iPods as the passthrough to the TV only? Now it's tethered, and you're back to needing a remote, and... Oy.

[Taskiss]

Well, with a USB tuner "dock" you could have your cake and eat it too. Put the files on the iPod, playback or carry it around with you, record at a certain time, etc. Make a "dock+" and put a hard drive in it for unattended recordings, a "super dock" with a tuner and a base station wireless transmitter... etc.

All the pieces are available but not put in one package. Well, and the software hasn't been written to do all that either...but I imagine it's just a matter of time.

[Robo]

Originally Posted by pscates2.0 I can see the iPod touch sticking around indefinitely (called whatever) if the hard-drive models are eventually done away with, sure. What's tough to imagine, two years from now, are the four distinct lines still around (unless Apple truly believes they should keep going up and up with the hard drive iPods)...who knows.

That's how I see it. iPod touch eventually replacing the HD iPods (they're called "classics" now, for pete's sake), leaving an all-flash iPod line-up.

Remember when Apple switched from the iPod mini to the iPod nano? Nobody was expecting them to replace their bestselling iPod so soon. They actually decresed the capacity when they switched to flash. But nobody cared.

The iPod touch is, as I see it, the iPod 2. Like with the iPod nano, Apple (always ahead of the curve) switched to flash a little early (a hard drive really doesn't belong in the iPod 2), so the capacity isn't quite there yet. But it will be. Flash capacity seems to be increasing faster than hard drive capacity, so eventually it will catch up. (I can actually see Apple treating the iPod touch like the earlier iPods, and bumping the capacity every six months, instead of just once a year.) Soon, we'll have 16GB and 32GB iPod touches. And then, 32GB and 64GB ones. And when we get to 64GB and 128GB iPod touches, the 80GB and 160GB iPod classics will be phased out.

[Boomerangmacuser]

Originally Posted by Kickaha You're not missing a thing. 99.4% of all statistics are bogus, and made up on the spot. The average person has been trained to look at the final numbers, and they have no way of judging the validity of the methodology.

Wait, don't you mean 99 & 44/100 % like the Ivory soap commercials....