...on the other hand, it could be that the lowering RRPs of the iPod range are reducing their margins, and accessories are a fantastic high-margin product to balance that out with.

good lord. and i thought iBoxers were a step too far. o well. cant have everything now can we? o well. all we need is an itazer and and ieggbeater.

Apple can nudge out any players in the accessories market they want. Where are those players going to go? They'd rather have a smaller slice of a large pie, than a large slice of some other non-existent pie.

I buy the "awareness" strategy, but not primarily because it shows iPod owners that there's stuff out there for them to buy for their iPods. Rather, to me, Apple's release of an accessory is a signal to accessory makers (and potential accessory makers) that the iPod's interface is going to stabilize somewhat, so it might be safer to come out with interesting accessories. After all, Apple wouldn't come out with an accessory, especially an expensive one, that was going to be deprecated in 3 months due to a connector change. In that regard, Apple isn't Sony. ;-)

Not words: OMGOMG (if you have to use a chat abbreviation twice in non-chat circumstances, at least space the thing correctly) cant Two of us have apparently forgotten about capitalization altogether. Come on, guys & gals, we can do better than this. The fact that this is the internet doesn't (see there, a contraction) justify sloppy writing. And we're not buying gifts for you people, at least not here. If you're going to post, write something more than "I *so* want that _____________." At the very least, say it looks really cool or something. Or tell us why you want it. There ought to be some kind of grammar school prison for such atrocious style and grammar.

Anyone who thinks that Apple is trying to boost the market for someone else's third party accessories doesn't know Apple's history with Mac developers in the Jobs era. Apple has had no hesitation in moving in on the territory of third-party developers, and has done an excellent job of driving many of them away. Why would iPod accessories be any different?

omg gadget guy u sux teh maxor

M'kay . . . kinda deserve that Sockatume, don't I . . .

Thrillhouse gets a cookie. It's ridiculous to think that a company would spend hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars developing accessories to create awareness of a market to make other companies money. I don't have a degree in business and I know that's just idiotic. 1. Apple has been making iPod accessories at least since the mini (remember the socks?), so the HiFi and the Leather Case are nothing new. 2. Most likely Apple has been studying the returns companies like Belkin have been getting, and they want a piece of that pie (of course, this happened about two freakin' years ago). 3. The higher-ups in Apple have realised what bloggers and blog-readers haven't--the majority of Apple users are wealthy. Point of fact: most celebrities use Macs, if only because they're pretty (I say this as a loving Mac user). Hence a hundred-dollar leather case is actually a damn good idea, especially if their profit margin is 95% (which it probably is). Get with the program, people--not everything is a conspiracy. Especially not with a shrewd company like Apple.

That was a joke, Gadget Guy. ;)

Gadget guy, If you are going to mock our poor grammer, please correct your own. Twice you begin sentences with a conjunction.

Don't sweat it, Socka. Gadget Guy is clearly has his pony-tail pulled a bit too tight today. And he's too busy doing online grammer crits and working to outlaw dancing in his township to be bothered with humor. Its so commercialized now, it used to be about the *grammer*

and WTF! why wouldn't you want an iMixer?? maybe it will be the Rachel Ray special edition? check that, Giada De Laurentiis Special Edition 1G iPod. complete with her back cataloge of yummy itallian food. or maybe just her back cataloge - either way