You young whippersnapper may not be aware of this , but grizzled old hands like myself can recall a fourth dimension when the iPod predominate supreme at Apple . Long beforethe iPhonecame along to grab all the attention , the iPod was where it was at . And when Apple catch on the speech sound with stock analyst every three months to detail its quarterly remuneration , the questions were n’t about phone activations and rollout plans and expanding upon to Europe — it was all iPod , all the clip .
Yes , April 2007 was a unsubdivided era .
I exaggerate , of course , but listening to Wednesday ’s conference call between analysts and Apple executive , I was strickle by how lilliputian aid was devoted to the iPod , arguably one of the principal driver behind Apple ’s winner in recent years . Yes , Apple recorded disc Mac cut-rate sale during the just - completed financial third - quarter and this was the first metre the company had anyhard iPhone sale figuresto written report . But still , the iPod rated just the most obligatory of mention — the opening move act to the Mac and iPhone star . The iPod ! Two quarters ago , Apple sold 21 million euphony thespian . These twenty-four hour period ? “ Oh yeah — the iPod . That ’s sell somewhat well , too . ”
More than pretty well , to be more accurate . Apple sold 9.8 million iPods during the three month terminate June 30 . While that may seem small when juxtaposed so closely to that 21 million soma from the financial first fourth , that 9.8 million aggregate is still 21 per centum more than the number of iPods Apple had sold at this prison term last year . And that sales growth come despite the fact that Apple has n’t updated its iPod offerings since last September when it overhaul the whole shebang .
Looking at thethird - quarter sale trope , I ’m struck by two thoughts .
That second point does n’t stem from any deficiency in the current iPod offerings . Rather , I bring it up only after looking at a 2007 calendar and seeing what lie ahead .
The holiday season .
To underline just how important the holiday time of year is to Apple ’s iPod fortunes , consider this string of number :
Those are Apple ’s iPod unit sales , infract out by fiscal stern . Notice how specially large the act for each of the past two first quarters are ? That ’s because it report the month of October , November , and December , when most people are doing their vacation gift shopping . Even if I was n’t indicate that Apple should be preparing to update the iPod line sometime in early fall , you may count that someone in Cupertino has already hail to that stopping point .
So let ’s mark it down — iPod update are coming preferably rather than later . That pull up stakes a few questions : What sort of updates ? Will it be to some of the survive offer , all of them , or will it introduce a new iPod model altogether ?
If you menace to give up me in the shins unless I made an educated guess , I would pick a widescreen iPod — think an iPhone , only without the phone part of the equation . peradventure , just toappease my good pal Dan Frakes , Apple could see a way to stick buttons on the thing .
But I ca n’t claim a monopoly on the rightfield to hypothesise about the iPod ’s future tense . I ’d love to hear your best guesses .
