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Originally Posted by barky81
As I have said to someone else...you are comparing niche to mass market items. The "early adopter gadget freak" market is a niche market. You say people will be happy to shell out $600 a year on an upgraded iPhone when Apple's success has been based on getting them to shell out $100 to $300 on a new iPod while they flash their $99 RAZRs for 2 years...
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I think you have this backwards. We aren't suggesting people will upgrade their iPhone annually. However, many of the people purchasing an iPhone, either A) already own an iPod, or B) may decide to purchase an iPod for additional storage after owning the iPhone. Much like you did with the Zune.
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Originally Posted by barky81
Re: 2gig/4gig/8gig as "storage". The reason so many iPods are half-full is that iTunes costs a LOT! A thousand tracks is $1,000! Big investment....
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I doubt many, if any have filled their iPod fully with iTunes music. Most have large CD collections they have ripped and added to their device. Others have simply stolen the music from Napster, Kazza, Bittorrent, etc, but that's a different discussion.
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Originally Posted by barky81
With a subscription model, $15/month is UNLIMITED. I filled up my 30gig Zune in about 4 hours the first night I got it....if I play with it all year, and swap out hundreds of tracks every month...the total annual investment is $180...heck, throw in the $250 for the device, and it's still less than HALF.
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I agree. The question is - has Zune's DRM model fixed the issues many of us experienced with MS Plays For Sure DRM? For me it wasn't worth the hassle of constantly having to re-download "subscribed" music just to listen to it on the go.
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Originally Posted by barky81
This scenario does NOT bode well for Apple's current model...Oh and final storage observation is that you omitted VIDEO in your sizing requirements.
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Sorry, can't agree with this statement. You are underestimating the loyalty of Apple's user base. People who buy the iPhone will use it to complement their iPod, not replace it.
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Originally Posted by barky81
In summary, the Zune Subscription model is really going to disrupt Apple's current strategy.
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You mean the way Plays for Sure did? We had multiple music stores and multiple devices to chose from yet, Apple still dominates the market, despite the fact that Rhapsody, Yahoo, Napster, etc all have been offering subscriptions for over a year now. Reports are that Zune is not selling well, and it is still a product in search of a market.
Your idea about marketing to the teen crowd is a very good one. However, iPods are still cool - and in teen's eyes, all the positives you mention aren't going to convince a teen to try a Zune instead of the iPod that all the cool kids already have. As a father of a teenager, I can assure you that price doesn't matter to teenagers that own these devices and features are secondary to having the "cool" device. MS would have to give away hundreds of thousands of Zunes to high schoolers in NY and LA to start the kind of buzz necessary to attract this crowd. Pretty big indictment on our society, isn't it?