| OCR Text |
Show iPod shuffle more like appliance, experts observe TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICE Here comes the S99 iPod Apple Computer is going mini in more ways than one Chief executive officer Steve Jobs made a big splash at the company's annual MacWorld trade show Tuesday, unveiling smaller, cheaper versions of both its iMac computer and iPod music player The stunner was Job's introduction of the tiny "iPod shuffle," which Jobs described as being lighter than a pack of gum. Several versions will hold at least 120 songs and sell for between $99 and $ 149 Apple's standard iPods, which flew out of stores to the tune of 4 5 mil lion units during the holiday season, start at $249 and store at least 1,000 songs The other new Apple entrant - the "Mac mini" - will offer versions for $499 and .5599 beginning Jan. 22 It's the first plunge for Apple into the entry level computer market long dominated by Dell and Hewlett Packard- - Until now, Apple had focused on higherend devices for sophisticated users The current Macintosh lineup goes for $799 to $1,899 They needed to address ) that market, and they've done so pretty competitively," said analyst Craig (low-end- ' " r ", "' Kempler of Independent Investments The one catch with Apple's price announcement is that it doesn't include the separately sold keyboard, monitor and mouse, which can nearly double the final price. A price analysis by The News of components on Apple's shopping Web site showed the cheapest "Mac mini" system customers can build from various components is just $67 below Apple's $799 eMac Tve gotten 10 calls in the last 20 minutes, a lot of people have been waiting for it with the rumors going on," said Mark Hirsch, a manager at the downtown Manhattan J&R Computer World. Apple's Web site and online store was all but frozen Tuesday within minutes after Job's announcement Smce iPods need computers to download music, analysts said Apple is looking to expand its iPod market to those who don't yet have a computer. Tossing out a cheap Mac will give them the hardware they need to operate a cheap iPod They're calling Mac mini" a computer, but it s really an appliance," said New York money manager Gene Walton "You really can t even call it a Macintosh." He said Apple seems to be on an strategy to hit the mass market, but such a strategy "is weak." IPod user he observed, can already get a $500 computer from Apple s iPod-drive- n |
