Despite some complaints that the iPod mini is too expensive at US$249, Josh Bernoff, an analyst with Forrester Research, told Reuters that hopes for a truly inexpensive iPod are unrealistic at the present. Pricing on hard-drive players is still ruled by manufacturing costs, which stops Apple and others from offering less expensive digital music players, Bernoff said. However, when a $199, 500-song player hits the market, “the floodgates will open.”