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iPod on Windows
niola writes "A story on Yahoo mentions the XPlay -- a cool software package that allows a Windows box with a FireWire port to mount the iPod as if it were a drive (gives it a letter too) so that you can upload songs to it. Looks really cool and has the ability to integrate with Windows Media Player." Will Apple sue over this? I guess it'll depend on whether or not they stand to lose money in lost Mac sales or gain money in extra iPod sales.
Why would Apple sue? It's not in any sort of violation of their copyrights, etc. Unless there's something funky in the license, people can use their hardware whenever and wherever and however they like. It's not like it's a song, it's a song player.
How different is this from connecting my Apple USB keyboard to my PC?
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
Is there a Linux program that can do the same as this Windows application?
Does it work under Wine if not?
It's not so hard. My dad got a firewire digital camera and has a Dell laptop. We went out and got an Adaptec PC card at Circuit City for something like $115, and it worked like a charm. I was surprised and impressed. Not at all what I've come to expect from the Windows world.
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
Apple has reviewed their software, and has (sorta) blessed it. It even has the same copywrite controls that the mac software has, preventing you from copying the audio tracks from the iPod.
That's NOT to say that you can't use it as a hard drive. You CAN copy stuff to and from it, in hard drive mode, but if you copied mp3's to it in hard drive mode, then you can't listen to them, and if you can listen to the music, then it's not in hard drive mode.
In fact, from their site, other then asking them to change the name from XPod, they don't seem to care, and they've known about it for a while:
December 10, 2001
Mediafour commits to demonstrating both XPlay and MacDrive in booth 4021 at Macworld Expo; exhibit runs January 8-11 at Moscone Center in San Francisco
November 30, 2001
Product name is changed to XPlay at urging of Apple
Free Mac Mini
His Web site (http://www.ephpod.com) has received over 37,000 visits to date
I bet that changes really quick
I can't imagine too many people were buying Macs because the iPod software was only written for the Mac; however I can see the huge numbers of Windows users who would love to get the iPod. With this software Apple wins two ways:
1. Windows people start buying the iPod, which increases the sales.
2. Apple doesn't have to support the moving target that is Windows, instead this other company can deal with all of the support headaches while Apple makes money hand over fist.
I'm having trouble seeing why Apple just didn't outsource this eariler, unless Jobs is trying to make the Windows users feel like the Mac users have for so many years with the "That looks really cool, too bad it's for the platform I don't run." envy.
I read the internet for the articles.
Hmmm, this reminds me of the two stories Wired did on Ipod-related piracy.
I can't tell if you're being sarcastic, but the answer is yes. Sort of. I know several people personally who wanted to get into the whole digital media thing: MP3s instead of portable CD players, digital cameras instead of film, digital camcorders and DVDs instead of plain old videotape. The combination of OS X plus iPhoto, iTunes, iMovie, and iPod won them over. About $2,000 bucks later-- counting the iMac and the camera and iPod and whatnot-- they were in business.
I've seen it happen more than once among my little circle of friends.
So does this mean cygwin users have to watch out for the rm -rf /* bug?
I would... i'll take just about any excuse to get a new mac
Does anyone know if this will come pre-installed on the floor machines at Comp USA or will I have to install it myself?
So far as I can tell, it's basically just using the iPod in FireWire target mode, where the device is basically just a harddrive.
I would guess that XPlay doesn't allow you to update the iPod playlists in the same manner that you do on the Mac, which means that anything you do only works so long as the iPod is attached to the PC.
I think most people are assuming this will work identically to the integration between iTunes and iPod, which doesn't sound likely.
* As is generally the case, my opinions do not reflect those of my employer.
The SoundBlaster Audigy series have firewire ports. They look pretty sweet all-around.
room101 -- how much can you stand before they break you?
(they always break you eventually)
If I was apple, I would not sue them. Instead, I would integrate Mac ads
into every iPod sold from now onwards, and even bundle Mac stickers, t-shirts,
and extra Macism's.
People buy into new gadgets/hobbies, when the have freebies to sart with. Imagine
if the blonde prom queen, wears her shinny Mac t-shirt to school, or if Jack cool guy
puts a funny mac sticker on his bumper sticker?
Kids would copy like hell. Besides, the thing looks good and it has alot of "cool"
factor attached to it.
Yes. Apple Stores began to see an increase in sales after the iPod was released. You an probably find more detail on Apple's site or by calling your local Apple Store. I believe 125k were sold in the first two months. Many of those were sole with new macs to former PC users.
2. Apple has been planing on releasing their own iPod software from the beginning, so from there, your hardware theory is flawed
Free Mac Mini
$115? I sure hope the camera was included in that. Generic 1394 cards can be had for under $30 (check NewEgg), and they're certainly not worth any more than that. They all use one of a couple of chipsets. Adding 1394 support to a PC is essentially a no-cost matter.
If Apple runs true-to-form, they will simply buy Xplay. Just like they bought iTunes from a third party and re-branded it. I predict that the product will be renamed "iTunes Lite for Windows", and will incorporate its own MP3 player component.
I really doubt that they have the basis for a suit here, and they know that. The interoperability layer here is not much more than a firewire disk driver.
Dog is my co-pilot.
I actually just received my 10 gig iPod today. I had ordered the 5 gig and returned it when I heard of the 10. At one point of time during the few times I called the customer representitives, I mentioned that I was debating whether to wait for Apple to perhaps release a windows version of the iPod or simply get this one.
The rep quickly told me about XPlay (which I had known about before anyway).
From what I read on some iPod websites, it's fairly common for them to refer PC customers to MediaFour and I believe they have had agreements with MediaFour in the past.
I also find it interesting that the iPod (or at least Apple media) has it's own section now.
Namely EphPod in conjunction with either MacDrive or MacOpener. The links can be found in this comment I posted for another iPod story, but it applies more to this one.
/. post for the URL. He got it to work with v1.1 within a day or two of its release.. pretty sweet.
EphPod has really come a long way in a short period of time. The listserv runs pretty strong and there is a growing group of people helping this 1 developer find bugs and suggest improvements.
There's also a guy trying to get it to work on Linux... help him out.
I have had my iPod working great since February, and it has never touched a Mac.
BTW: There's also a Windows firmware updater. Check the link to my other
Not at all difficult...the card will run you $40 or less, and Win2K & WinXP have built-in support for the more common FireWire chipsets. Hell, some computers have it built-in (not that that matters, since nobody here uses storebought computers). FireWire beats the snot out of USB for storage devices, and there are also FireWire webcams that deliver higher resolutions/framerates than USB can handle. I've used it for the past few months; it's good stuff.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
This is Yet Another Post that overestimates /.'s and geekdom-in-general's effect on anything to do with Apple. Sure /. might have the power to bring Joe Dialup's web site down simply by linking to it, but affecting Apple's bottom line actually requires people to speak with their wallet. In case you haven't noticed, Apple ain't too popular with And33 5kr1pt K1dd13 (or even Dr. Linux, or Mr. Open Source, or just about every other denomination, save the Apple faithful). So, Apple isn't losing sale one to these people... they were never customers. Sure, they might love to nip away at the fringes... people leaning a bit toward the edge. But the diehard's that might raise a flap if Apple were to sue based on this? Not even remotely.
-"I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle." - Arthur Dent
They just asked, and Mediafour did it, it wasn't a big deal.
Free Mac Mini
The iPod does not allow you to copy mp3s off of it, because they're in a hidden directory that you can't easily see, therefore you can't use it to copy music.
However, there are a ton of freeware apps that allow you to copy the mp3s off it, because they can read the hidden directory, and therefore it is Joe Shmoe's freeware app "stealing" the music, not the iPod.
Apparently, it's sufficient to outsmart the RIAA goons. Cool.
Apple generally does not litigate against third-party applications of their products. That would be silly--it would ultimately discourage software and hardware additions such as PCI cards and software which might augment the Mac OS or its hardware. A computer is a computer, and Apple learned long ago to allow other companies to play when the rewards work both for Apple and others.
Other products which have had third-party adaptations, although not necessarily with the tacit blessing from Apple that XPlay has includes:
--the original iMac (an early expansion slot was used for video cards, although Apple discouraged use of the port and discontinued it on later models)
--LinuxPPC, other operating systems
--USB floppy drives (when the iMac dispensed with them)
--The Outback (the first, but unofficial, Mac portable, which used the ROM from a Mac Plus)
--Basilisk (PC software which emulates an early Macintosh, ala Virtual PC for Macintosh)
Apple tends to keep to themselves unless someone appears to be directly violating their copyright, trademark, or intellectual property rights. Using the iPod is, well, using an iPod. Apple probably expects other companies to adapt it for their work. Saves Apple the trouble of manpower to create any software, but also releases them from supporting the iPod since a third-party (and non-Apple) product is in use, which may be a warranty violation.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
I have a coworker whose girlfriend gave him an iPod for Christmas, so he promptly went out and bought a new Titanium Powerbook.
I got the iPod and have been using it with my Dell Inspiron laptop for a while now. Very easy to use interface, and the software has improved a lot since the early preview releases. I simply drag and drop entire directories to the xplay songs directory in the iPod Drive and it copies them without a hitch. Way way faster than usb too. A few annoyances are that It doesn't copy them with the directory structure. Simply copies all the mp3s into one gigantic directory. It works through WMP well with a copy to portable device option and I believe that it supports playlists through WMP (I'm not sure since I use winamp). Another annoyance is that I believe the firmware for the system is updateable through the mac clients and xplay doesn't support that.
Some people have commented that nobody would buy a Mac jsut so they could use an iPod; that's insane. Consider, though: an iPod costs $400, and that's plenty insane right there. For only twice that much, you can buy a whole computer (500MHz G3 CRT iMac).
I just bought a CD MP3 player for $50 and it suits me just fine. If I had a bit more money lying around, I'd have gotten an iPod instead, to connect to my Mac.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
There are several reasons why Apple won't think this is the greatest news.
1) People really are buying Macs just to use the iPod. I know that the slashdot crowd doesn't fit that mold, but if you go into an Apple store and actually ask one of the salespeople, you'll hear story after story about customers that heard about the iPod, and walked out with an iBook to go with it.
2) This might raise Apple's support costs substantially. Every call to Apple's support line costs money, even if the customer doesn't really deserve the support. Does someone who buys an iPod knowing Apple doesn't support using it via Windows deserve 90 days of toll free assistance from Apple if XPlay corrupts data on the iPod? Should Apple have to support callers who are having problems with their FireWire ports on their PC? These are just examples, but keep in mind that Apple exists because these are exactly the kinds of problems PC users have all the time. What should Apple tell the users who call support with these problems?
Now, I don't think Apple should sue anyone over this software. But this isn't the excellent news most people think it is. Apple will be making less money per iPod sold because of this. The iPod's reputation of no-brainer ease of use might be tarnished.
In the end, hopefully Apple will sell more units, make more money, and get positive exposure to new customers.
-pmb
Yeah, I suppose the circle of people for whom $2000 is pocket change is pretty little.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
I did just that THIS PAST WEEKEND. Since there doesn't seem to be any STABLE iPod support for Linux yet, and since I hate Windows and since I REALLY wanted an iPod, I bought a Mac. Granted, I was _considering_ buying one anyway, but the iPod (firewire) was the final selling factor.
You know, I *HATE* Windows. It sucks in all aspects. It's a lousy development system and a lousy consumer system. The only "advantage" is that it is fully "interoperable".
I use Debian for all of my real "work".
The new iLamp^H^H^H^HMac with OSX is GREAT for my girlfriend who wants ease of use. And I can burn my own DVDs, I can install most of my favorite software and, if I absolutely HAVE TO, I can read the Micros~1 Office Documents that people send me. All this, for just over $2k. You CANNOT do that in the Wintel world for that price. And even if you could, the sofware would suck. Apple has GOOD designers for ease of use. Admit it.
Apple sues over violations of their copyright, trademark, and trade dress. As everyone here should be well aware by now if you don't actively defend them you lose them.
The ability to talk to a device of theirs isn't an issue. As to more iPods/fewer Macs who knows, I doubt Apple has a strong concern as they've supported the product and stand to make money whichever way. However it is sad when that kind of flamebait is gratuitously tacked onto a story.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
The initial preview releases of XPlay were very basic and somewhat flaky, and could do little more than copy mp3s to the iPod. You couldn't even delete anything, let alone manage any playlists.
But Mediafour have been gradually adding functionality over the last few months, and the last release (preview 5) is easily the best yet - it's the first release that actually delivers most of the functionality you'd have on a Mac, albeit with a "Windows" spin.
I suspect the biggest problem currently delaying the full release of XPlay is the dreaded "write behind" error rather than any legal wranglings by Apple.
Basically there appears to be a bug in some (but not all) IEEE 1394 chipsets commonly used in notebook PCs/firewire cards which occasionally causes the trashing of the database containing the mp3 data. The upshot used to be that your iPod was rendered useless until a reformat - wiping all data from the device and requiring you to retransfer your music (hoping another "write behind" didn't happen again in the process).
Preview 5 handles these "write behinds" by providing a facility to rebuild the database, so you don't have to re-transfer your music. It's not pretty but hey, it works 8).
But overall, the product is shaping up to be pretty good. Whilst it's not quite as easy to use as iTunes (well, it *is* PC software!), it certainly fulfills its purpose when it comes to accessing the device under Windows, and I'll definitely be buying the release version when it arrives.
Read my online journal: http://chris.carline.org
Free Mac Mini
Who said $2,000 was pocket change? I have three friends who each wanted to get into the whole digital media thing. One of them is about to have a baby, one of them just did, and one of them is just kind of a gadget freak. Then there's me, of course.
We each decided to buy (new or first) Macs for pretty much the same reasons: iPhoto, iMovie, iTunes, et cetera. For my friends the parents, it was to have an easier way to document their kids. For my gadget freak friend, it was so he could listen to MP3s while he rode his bike. (Not the safest thing maybe, but he's a grown-up, so it's not my problem.)
None of us thought $2,000 was pocket change. If we were just throwing money away, we probably would have bought some high-end PC, because depending on your point of view you do get more bang for your buck that way. But the thing we all had in common was this: none of us wanted to waste time or effort. Make it easy, we said, and we'll buy it.
For us, that $2,000 or so was a sort of investment. The proposition was basically that I gave Apple an extra $600 to promise me that managing my MP3s and movies and pictures and whatever else would be as simple and foolproof as humanly possible. So far, they've kept up their end of the bargain.
I think ordinarily Apple would have sued, but after that comment that Eisner made about Apple's 'Rip Mix n Burn' campaign, I don't think Apple has any intention of doing anything to help either of these industries.
I tell you what, if Apple doesn't attack this product, I would seriously consider getting one. Anything to help them fight the SSSCA. (I can never remember the acronym of the new version. When I pronounce it it sounds like a kid learning how to talk.)
"Derp de derp."
I suspect Apple is now making $200 per iPod.
:)
The Firefly from SmartDisk uses the same 5gb disk mechanism as the iPod and sells for $200 vs the iPod's $400
6 months ago, the Firefly was $400 and the iPod is $400. Apple must now be picking up the difference
GPL Deconstructed
Apple has given MediaFour their blessings to work on the application. Apple merely requested that they not call it XPod as they had intended, MediaFour complied and now calls it XPlay.
I have a website. It's about Macs.
> He said his dad bought the card to go with a laptop, which would definitely put it in the $100 - $150 range.
Not at all: $55 on sale, even regularly it was only $70. Of course, you can over-spend on anything if you choose the right brands (e.g. Belkin cables at most retailers: $40 for a 1394 cable? No problem!).
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
This product caught my eye at Macworld Expo SF in January (are you guys a little far behind at Slashdot submitting land?) Mostly it just scared me that they let an XP machine in Macworld Expo (the natives hate it) - but I thought it was good that if Apple wasn't gonna do it, someone would. That's what third party stuff is for, right?
Pudge. Get real. They aint gonna sue.
"Steve Jobs is still the CEO of Pixar. He has an interest in the MPAA just like Disney does. Maybe not to the same extent, but interest nevertheless."
You make a good point, but arguably Jobs had a lot to do with Mac becoming what it is today, a multimedia machine. Heck, they even want you doing video editing using Firewire on their laptops. Remember that commercial with the guy editing videos on a plane?
If this heavy handed legislation passes, Mac's entire product line could be in jeopardy. Even if Steve Jobs is completely cut from Apple, he still has quite a stake in the popularity of the machine.
I have a feeling he'd be tilted more towards Apple than the MPAA, in this case.
"Derp de derp."
No no no. Many perhaps most people who buy Macs do not think that way. These are the same people who buy new bugs and put a flower in the vase. Style over substance people. Also many of them are rabid about the software and while Virtual PC does not come with the OS it is so widely used it might as well. So many of them feel no pain and think of themselves as being superior. Jobs knows this and feeds it. Your logic is that of a geek. The people who buy Macs are, for the most part, not geeks.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
What are you talking about? Drive letters are a great example of Microsoft innovation!!
XPlay has shipped with the "iPod Restore Wizard" since about preview release 2, which means you can restore your iPod to full working order (probably) under Windows if anything goes horribly wrong.
But yes, you may need a Mac owning friend to bail you out if things go *really* pear-shaped... not ideal, but better than ending up with a $400 paperweight.
Read my online journal: http://chris.carline.org
It's actually called a tariff. That $600 tariff means that he doesn't have associate with the likes of you, who wouldn't or couldn't actually pay the $600 tariff. It's sort of like protection money; he gives Apple $600, and Apple makes sure you never bother him since you won't be using the same computing or hardware platform.
GPL Deconstructed
I'm not sure if you can run an executable within linux or windows from an iPod drive, but I know that Mac users have been able to use their iPods as emergency boot drives (Mac OS 9.x can be pretty slim if you need it to be).. It goes without saying that executables are not a problem..
Use the source Luke.[0]
[0]-You'll need to have accepted the terms of Apple's Public Source License and have registered for a free account.
All editorial writers ever do is come down from the hill after the battle is over and shoot the wounded.
From Mediafour website:
" What happened to the "XPod" name? Why did it change?
Apple Computer, a company with which Mediafour has always had an amicable relationship, expressed concern over our use of the name "XPod", due to its similarity to the "iPod" name. We chose to change the name to XPlay early on in the project."
read more, click here!
Yes Apple is aware of this, and I believe that Apple will benefit from XPlay.
I've noticed a few people complaining that you can't update your Ipod's firmware with Xplay. If your looking to update your Ipod's firmware via windows, check out Ipodtronic's updater. They also have the source code for the updater available here, maybe someone can port it to Linux.
Still, WMP manages to be reasonably obnoxious in each of these areas. It's the best of a bad lot -- but that's a very bad lot. You'd think with all the money to be made off of digital media, somebody would put a little thought into their product. The only Windows media player I've encountered -- freeware, shareware, adware, or commercial -- that doesn't drive me to distraction is a modest little CD utility called WhopSee.
Oh well, at least its motivation to spend more time working with Linux. Has anyone gotten around to writing a sound driver that works around the infamous CS4232 "pop" bug?
Our market just increased tenfold.
That just doesn't sound right. This is not bad for Apple. You know, depending on the status of FireWire for Linux, we should be seeing the nearest sda's as lovely white boxen...
My Karma was at 49, then they switched to words. All that work for nothing!
I can consider the purchase of a new computer an investment, but then I'm a contractor/consultant, so I make money with my computers. Which is a pretty good definition of an investment.
I replied to someone about this the other day on the "Apple wants your input" article. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=29971&cid=3219 401
That truly does sound like a lame move on the part of Sony et al, but there is some solace: The iPod includes a tiny little adaptor that attaches to the Firewire cable and allows you to charge it from a standard outlet. And third parties, such as Dr. Bott sell car-charger adaptors for around $25, as well as kits that allow you to play your iPod (and presumably, other music devices) through your car stereo. Cool!
There ain't no rules here; we're trying to accomplish something.
I'm going to buy one as soon as I can just to rip ALL my old CDs and maybe fit an mpg movie on there too.
Just to piss off the --AAs.
The non productive Luddite bastards.
Fuck'em where they breathe.
Send Jack Valenti to hide in a cave with Mullah Omar and Osama.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
4 years of waiting with baited breath for the articles that say "obscure hardware item X now works under Linux -- the Windows software has been succesfully reverse engineered, and now we have 25% functionality in Linux" --- and now we have taken a step back -- We are waiting with baited breath for a piece of hardware to be usable under Windows....Hell what is the chance that this will ever be usable under Linux??
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
'Nuf said. Never liked drive letters (Stupid, stupid concept.)
Even in CP/M I was using volume names on my Osborne 1. (Okay, it was an ugly kludge with the diskette volume label, but it worked the same as the RSTS/E on the PDP-11 and VMS on the 360 that I used to pay the bills.)
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Tracy buys an iPod and a Dell desktop with Windows XP. She uses XPlay to get them working together. Tracy is happy.
Tracy loves how easy and intuitive the iPod is. The Dell and Windows annoy her though by just not flowing right.
An Outlook worm emails the private pictures of her and her boyfriends vacation to Hedonism II to her entire address book, including her grandparents, bookclub, and pastor. Tracy's Dell then explodes in a glorious ball of fire.
All that's left is the iPod. The angelic iPod. Tracy has to buy a new computer. Who do _you_ think Tracy will buy a computer from?
That and it was the only thing available in our fairly small town in a hurry. I know for next time, though :)
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
While checking out the iPod in the local CompUSA the salesdroid was nice enough to give me the URL for EphPod and I splurged and bought it. After a week of being frustrated with EphPod while also *loving* the design and user interface of the iPod I headed back to CompUSA.
Mac OS X intrigued me... I'd owned a cheap Quadra back in the early 90's and couldn't stand the lack of a command prompt. OS X seemed to address a lot of the earlier issues I had with Macs, so I walked out of there with a new 933Mhz G4 and a 17" studio display.
So, yes, people are buying Macs due to the iPod. (that's what happens when you have yearly bonus money burning a hole in your pocket...)
--Rob
Clean out your slashdot account, you're fired.
Come on, not all MS products are shit. The production X-Box doesn't crash; or if it does it happens so rarely that the people who love to jump on MS whenever anything remotely bad happens to them would have been screaming about this like crazy.
You don't have to love them or their policies but you can't just make up facts because it's easier than thinking.
What did you eat today? http://www.atetoday.com/
http://www.apple.com/firewire
Apple invented FireWire in the mid-90s and shepherded it to become the established cross-platform industry standard IEEE 1394. FireWire is a high-speed serial input/output technology for connecting digital devices such as digital camcorders and cameras to desktop and portable computers. Widely adopted by digital peripheral companies such as Sony, Canon, JVC and Kodak, FireWire has become the established industry standard for both consumers and professionals.
The FireWire advantage can be summed up in three words: speed, speed, and more speed--at 400Mbps, it has more than 30 times the bandwidth of USB, which makes it the perfect choice for high-speed storage and serious video capture. Here are some other benefits:
Supports up to 63 devices using cable lengths up to 14 feet.
Hot-pluggable--you don't have to turn off a scanner or CD drive to connect or disconnect it, and you don't need to restart your computer.
FireWire cables are a snap to connect--you don't need device IDs, jumpers, DIP switches, screws, latches or terminators.
zork% mv *.asp
283 files eaten by a grue
You're actually believing what the sales people tell you in an APPLE store? Since when were the floor monkeys at CompUSA and Fry's an authoritative source on the time of day, let alone what people are buying things for? An salesman will tell you that the product his is pushing will cure cancer if it will get you to buy.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
No... not completely. The basic assumptions that were built into USB and FireWire at the beginning are still true when the conversation changes to USB 2.
USB is CPU centric. That means that all traffic over the "bus" (its not technically a bus) has to go to the CPU, this changes the signaling significantly. Because it was designed with devices such as mice in mind, which wil have small bursts of data at random times, it was also made so that no device can grab above a certain amount of the bandwidth, but devices do have to duke it out to get up to that amount. This is fine for mice, but sucks for drives and video applications. They are bandwidth choked because of protocol limitations, not bandwidth.
FireWire on the other hand is peer-to-peer, more often than not you have a CPU, but it is not a special case. In fact the protocol is setup so that you can transfer information into a computer without the processor doing much work at all (direct to memory dumps). The peer-to-peer aspect does add a little overhead, but not nearly as much as the USB 1.x legacy in USB 2. FireWire also supports dedicated streams so that a device can get gaurenteed latency and bandwidth. No contention for bandwidth, you either get it or you don't. There is some set aside for asyncronus transfer (the sort of signaling that mice do), so this is not a big issue, but it is rarely used because asynch devices are cheaper with a USB 1.x port...
So... USB 2.0 is faster according to the overview specs... but FireWire 400 is faster in real life for most of the applications that actually need that sort of speed.
Places where USB 2.0 is better: USB Speaker (except mLAN/HAVI devices... those send compressed signals), Printers (not much difference here), and possibly ethernet adaptors (cheaper?... I am reaching here).
Places where FireWire 400 is better: Hard Drives (bus powered!), Video, CamCorders, computer-to-computer links (requires major fudging in USB), high end scanners (the ones that can push a lot of information very fast), RAID systems.
Places where there is little difference: CD/CD-R/CD-RW (except bus-powered devices.. there FireWire wins hands down), USB-style web-cams (there is enough power on either bus), etc...
Well, more like people are not buying Macs JUST to use the iPod.
However it is a great sales tool to sell a Mac: Has brought in a lot of folks to look at them and been a significent factor tipping folks to get a Mac in a lot of cases.
Sometimes its been folks who wouldn't have considered a Mac before but this intrigued them and then they liked what they saw. Face it, when someone sits next to you and pulls out an iPod it becomes a great bit of viral marketing for a Mac.
Other times its been owners of older Macs (who are notoriously loath to upgrade) popping by a store to check out this wonder-device and after 15 minutes surrounded by shiny new machines deciding yeah, it's finally time to get a new model.
And finally sometimes it is just an impulse buy. The same as some folks will one day walk by a display of new TVs and say "Ya know what - I want one" and come out 20 minutes later with a couple grand 36" blahblahblah model there are folks who see an iPod, and a Mac, and say what the heck, I want a Digital Hub with the trimmings.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.