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"New 'Cheaper' Apple products"

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Computer has said it will begin selling a stripped-down Macintosh computer without monitor, keyboard or mouse for $499 (265 pounds) and new iPod digital music players costing as little as $99.

Chief Executive Steve Jobs, announcing the new products at the MacWorld exposition on Tuesday, also said that Apple had sold 4.5 million units of its blockbuster iPod in the 2004 holiday quarter.

Apple shares fell nearly 4 percent, as some suggested that the news had been priced into the stock, thanks to widespread rumours ahead of the show.

"There was so much expectation built in for the stock ... I think that the expectations were about as high as they could get for it," said Marc Pado, U.S. market strategist at Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. "I think it was a case of buy on the rumour and sell on the news."

The iPod sales figure was also slightly below some Wall Street forecasts. Banc of America Securities had predicted iPod sales of 4.6 million units in a note on Tuesday. Prudential had predicted 4.25 million units.

Apple said the new "iPod shuffle" was smaller and lighter than a pack of gum and would come in 512 megabyte and 1 gigabyte capacities. The smaller one would hold about 120 songs, Jobs said.

The new iPod falls into a category of music players that use "flash memory," like that found in digital cameras and some portable disk drives, rather than hard drives like the other iPod models.

"We'd like to go after the remaining mainstream flash market," Jobs said, noting that the flash memory-based digital player market is currently highly fragmented. "The products are all pretty much the same."

He also claimed the iPod holds a 65 percent share of the entire market for portable digital music players, up from only 31 percent a year earlier.

Apple said a number of car companies like Mercedes-Benz USA, Volvo, Nissan and Ferrari were working to integrate the iPod line into their car stereo systems.

The "Mac mini" will come in $499 and $599 models. Weighing in at less than 3 pounds and 2 inches tall, the box has digital media ports that let it connect to televisions as well as traditional PC monitors.

Jobs' announcements were awaited eagerly by the Mac faithful worldwide, though they offered no real surprises, unlike in previous years. The new iPod and the smaller Mac were telegraphed by the many online Mac rumour sites in recent weeks, some of which are being sued by Apple for those leaks.

I know it's alot to read but I dont think I can give you a link cause you have to register.

Anyways, I think this is pretty good news and a 1GB iPod would sell loads because it'll be cheap and have resonable memory.

iPod shuffle thing - crap.
miniMac - could be good, for the right person

gerrid wrote:
> I also love how the new My First Mac is tiny, but you still need a
> desk to hold your screen and keyboard. IN reality, you're just paying
> the money for the ability to run OSX on a dumbed down computer, that
> won't be able to do any of the things that Macs are good for.

1.2ghz G4 is fast! The ram is left to be desired, but it'll still run fast.
Im suprised its that cheap for what it is.

gerbil man wrote:
> Notorious Biggles wrote:
> [URL]http://www.apple.com/macmini/[/URL] to go to the apple website
> and see the beauty. Now, next time friends who buy Dells want an
> upgrade, I'm telling them to get one.
>
> So a downgrade, oh how thoughtful of you, eh "friend".

Except it would be an upgrade. If their computer was fast enough they wouldn't be looking at upgrading would they? Or are you one of those Intel fanboy types who thinks clockspeed is everything?

Also, OS X = no virus or spyware issues. Or Microsoft logos.

O

I'm not talking to you, I'm talking in general. 'You' = anyone.

gerrid wrote:
> fire_starter wrote:
> No, 4GB is still too much, well unless the price isn't too high.
>
> it's £180 and it holds 8x as many songs. It's not "too
> much" The majority of people who download music have enough to
> fill about 2GBs. THe iPod shuffle is designed to hold playlists,
> rather than your entire music collection, which makes it basically a
> really small CD player which you can't choose songs on. It's rubbish
> I don't see why you'd want one.

But I don't want one.

They make nice laptops.

I still like Apple.

I also love how the new My First Mac is tiny, but you still need a desk to hold your screen and keyboard. IN reality, you're just paying the money for the ability to run OSX on a dumbed down computer, that won't be able to do any of the things that Macs are good for.

Hahahahhaa.

You'll never see the words, Apple, cheap and quality in the same sentance together!