Mom's iPod mini

Joe Wilcox | May 10, 2004, 08:18 AM

So my wife got an iPod mini for Mother's Day, after all. I consider her unusually lucky, as the product remains backordered.

Coincidentally, on Saturday, a new Apple Store opened about four miles from my house, at Montgomery Mall in Bethesda, Md. The new operation stocked a small supply of iPod minis for the opening; my daughter and I picked up a green one.

Consistent with colleague Michael Gartenberg's recent report, "Portable Media Devices: Beyond Music," my wife's music collection didn't come anywhere near filling the iPod mini's 1,000-song capacity. According to the report, 90 percent of consumers that maintain a music collection on their computers have fewer than 1,000 songs.

As for the new Apple Store, my daughter and I went back there on Sunday. I was surprised at how small the retail outlet is compared to other Apple stores in my area. For example, there is no theatre, such as the one found at the Tysons Corner operation in Mclean, Va. A store staffer said the new size, what he called a "30-footer," is standard for new Apple Stores.

My daughter didn't mind. We hung out well past closing, with people still shopping for new Macs. My fourth grader commented about how clean and bright the Apple Store is compared to other computer stores.

Her comments got me to thinking, not just about the Apple retail experience but the rationale about putting a computer store inside a mall. During the holidays, the same mall had Palm and Sony kiosks. The Palm operation is still there. Considering that the only other computer operations in the Montgomery or Tysons malls sell software, Apple has no real competition selling computers.