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iPod for Windows (again)
beckett writes "Yahoo is reporting that TrentSoft has released EphPod, software that allows Windows users to use all the features of the iPod. I'm suprised that it took a third party to provide support." Also note the previous story on the XPlay, a similar software package.
about the lack of Windoze support.
iPod is Apples Killer app....
Don't anthropomorphize computers, they don't like it.
considering the fact that they make a buttload of money on Mouse Hardware, it surprises me trmendously that they haven't jumped the mp3 bandwagon yet...
Then again, the XBox hardware adventure hangover still got them knocked down I guess
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
Now, of course, I am not saying that an iPod is going to make the standard typical PC using geek/nerd/gamer/etc want to rush out and buy a Mac, but combine it w/ MacOS X, competitively priced notebooks (not to mention sexy), and some of the other nice details that come w/ owning a Mac (iMovie, Office on *nix, etc), and some people just might be swayed to buy one.
So, why do you think Apple should cause one of their "hot products" to be supported by default on a competitor's hardware? If a PC user wants to use this hardware, then they can do the extra work required to get it to work w/ their hardware...or they can get a Mac.
IMHO, it is not Apple's problem.
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
Why is it that if Apple releases a product that only works with their systems without a third party application, everyone says "Oh, well of course. They sell Macs, so why shoot themselves in the foot by making it work with PC's running Windows?"
Now let's flip the situation. Someone makes an MP-3 player, printer, external hard drive, whatever, that only runs under Windows. Now everyone cries "Why don't they port it to Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, Joe's OS 0.001?"
I just want to know why it's fine for Apple to only make their hardware work with their OS, but everyone else should port to everything else?
Overrated / Underrated : Moderation
you have seen it, right?
I want 2D games back.
I think the ability to transfer GB of music / data files at 50x the speed of the other, larger capacity MP3 players is worth the money - if music is your thing. Until those other players integrate FireWire or USB2.0, they are painfully slow alternatives to the iPod.
-- Those of you who think you know it all are very annoying to those of us who do.
I mean think about it. Apple released a tightly integrated device that works quite automagically. Most things in iTunes, even when connected with USB or Firewire, happen automagically, or require only single button drag and drop use. Even though Windows has almost this level of simplicity, Windows is also controlled by Microsoft. Microsoft actively tries to screw every other vendow(and honestly, to some extents, so does Apple), which means no one knows if the software is going to work with the next patch.
By releasing a minimal, yet compelling version, and allowing other to expand it, Apple is harnessing the third party market in a perfectly reasonable way. I feel it made the same decision when it did not build in windows networking, another moving target, into MacOS 9. Thursby Software had an inexpensive working method, and handled all problems with Windows, including clueless users that do not wish to pay software.
Now some would say that Apple should be nice and create a better value for Windows users. Of course, Apple does not exist to make Windows more valuable, does it.
To predict the critics, Internet stuff is a bit different. Products like realplayer promote the brand. It is also safer because it does not deal with the low level system and hardware layer that Microsoft likes to mess with on a regular basis. Again, so does Apple.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
If I am not mistaken, Apple is primarily a computer hardware company, right? Which means that they want to sell their own computers, right? Which means that if other cool products they release work only with their computers by default, then their computers just might look a little more attractive to the potential computer buyer, right?
... all it is doing is costing them sales they would have otherwise had in other market segments.
Bzzt! Thank you for playing.
Apple isn't just shooting themselves in the foot anymore with their proprietary hardware nonsense, they've now moved on to taking a fully loaded automatic and emptying the clip into both of their feet, lathering, rinsing, and repeating the procedure until nothing is left below the knees other than a vaguely red mass of shredded flesh and shattered bone.
Case in point:
I recently purchased a large and very expensive monitor. Apple's marketing of their 22" 1600x1024 monitor was what initially sparked my interest in such a monitor, but having used SGI's 17" 1600x1024 offering, I found the notion of simply having bigger pixels at the same resolution vaguely disatisfying. So I looked around and was delighted to see Apple's 23", 1920x1200 HD capable monitor.
Only to discover that the idiots had decided to use a proprietary, nonstandard interace to their monitor, such that it will only work with an Apple computer (unless you buy an external, likely trouble-prone dongle remeniscent of what SGI's 1600SW required, and which has a reputation for adding noise to the digital (!!) signal because power is transmitted on the same cord). I called the Apple store and was informed that they wouldn't guarantee it would work with a standard DVI interface, and that if it didn't I would be left wearing the $3600 door stop.
I was ready to buy the monitor then and there. Apple lost a $3600 sale as a direct result of their proprietary mindset. And no, there was never a remote chance of my spending another $4k on an Apple G4 system just for the privelege of spending $3.6k on an expensive monitor. Bill Gates is far more likely to learn a modicum of business ethics than I am to spend $8k on Apple equipment when, for $4500, I was able to go out and buy an excellent Samsung 24" LCD monitor that does the same 1920x1200 resolution and will not only work with standard PC DVI interfaces, but will also work with analog cards, and has two video inputs as well (composit and s-video). Had there been no such monitor available I would have opted to wait, knowing that a PC capable device would only have been a question of time. I would not, ever, in a million years, have gone out and spent $6k - $8k for the privelege of having a working 23" LCD with Apple's logo (and ugly frame).
Had Apple's 23" monitor used a standard DVI interace, they would have made an immediate $3600 on a non-apple, PC user (despite the ugly frame). Instead they made $0.
The same is true of the iPod. I'm not about to go out and spend a thousand or more bucks on a platform I have no interest in simply in order to be able to use a several-hundred dollar iPod. So instead of making a few hundred bucks on a non-Apple user, they make $0, yet again.
People will only opt to use Apple computers because they like Apple, or prefer the applications available on Apple, or have a specific reason to use Apple. No one in their right mind would choose a particular platform because this or that peripheral (iPod, big LCD monitor) has been crippled to only to work with that hardware, particularly in an age where you can wait for 6 months (maximum) and have it availabel for whatever platform you prefer.
In other words, Apple's obsolete proprietary mindset isn't making them any more sales, and thus any more money
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
It's already been noted that letting third parties create the Windows hack gives them the best of both worlds -- they sell the iPods but don't have to support them.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Simple business. Apple wants to make this a very sought after product. If they only make it available for their computers then it means people will buy THEIR computers so that they can have an IPOD. It's very simple. Yes, you would think that if they made this one product available to a wider customer base that they would improve their profits, but then you have to remember that they also don't offer their operating system for x86 (and it's also written into the MacOS license agreement that it is illegal to use the operating system on a non-apple branded computer) architecture. If Mac would offer support for the operating system and have an x86 version of the operating system as well as a powerpc version (g3, g4, 680xx) as well as sell both types of hardware I think they could become more dominant in the industry, but they are very tied to their hardware.
The bottom line? Apple doesn't want non-mac support for the IPOD because their profits are so heavily tied to people buying THEIR computers. It wouldn't surprise me if somewhere in the IPOD license agreement it says you can only use it with a computer using the Macintosh Operating System.
[Something witty and intelligent should have appeared here.]
{Traicovn}
First off.... For the past 10 years or so I've been Windows/Intel-type bound. But now I own the flat-panel iMac and you'll have to pry it from my cold dead fingers many times over before I'll let you take it away. I love the OS and the machine looks neat to boot.
One thing that I find rather annoying is when people complain that Apple products don't work with their PC's such as there being no Windows iPod software and Apple using non-standard connections for things like their flat screens.
First, the iPod. If Apple released software for the iPod to connect to the PC then they'd have to support it. The people in their building are Mac coders and know Mac stuff inside and out. Do they know Windows? I dunno. But probably not all that well. It costs to support an additional operating system. With the internet being as it is they probably could have released the iPod with no software and software would have arisen to use it on the Mac and the PC. Of course that would've been dumb so why not support your own platform. Let the other guys worry about their platform or let somebody else do it for free. They may lose some money because nobody will buy their non-existent $19.95 program that let's you use the iPod on the PC but Joe Schmoe just made it for them and they're selling $400-$500 iPods like hotcakes.
Now this is a little off-topic but I've seen a few people complain about it in this newspost. People are ill at Apple because the flat screens that Apple sells for it's hardware won't plug into most PC's without a dongle or something. Well so what? My TV doesn't plug into my iMac without a dongle and a little piece of hardware. My old PC monitor won't work with my iMac either unless I put Bob's string of dongles between my iMac and the monitor. My toaster won't plug into my iMac either and probably never will (although I'm sure somebody will do it soon so they can link me to it to irk me!). Apple sells hardware and makes software for Apple computers. It's their deal. That's what they do. If Radio Shack Bob want's to back some special inbetween hardware to let people use apple hardware with pc hardware then let 'em at it. If that programmer wants to create the software interface to use the hardware on the PC then yippee for them. Don't rag on Apple because their toast fits in their toaster and nobody elses without some modifications.
Yeah... it was probably a bad rant. I'm sure I'll be shown the errors of my ways in less than 30 minutes or my money back...
You have been spending too much time on slashdot. The technological competence here is extremely high compared your average computer user. If you require a reminder as to how clueless the average user is with technology, try phoning up the support line for a cellphone service or ISP. Try going through their automated help menus. (press 1 if you have problems with e-mail, press 2 if ...) The questions and answers are so obvious you'd think that a person would have to be incredibly stupid to need to call that line. Then realise that the majority of issues are solved by the responses provided in these menu systems.
A different "stink" is the lack of Macdrive support for other OSses. Whereas Apps and special hardware are their own deal, the lack of support for mac disk formats is another. In the best interest of Apple buyers, and people sharing data with them, it is _needed_ to buy third party stuff like MacOpener for windows from dataviz.
Awwww, poor baby. Cry me a river.
Your OS of choice doesn't support the Mac filesystem. That is Apple's fault how, exactly? Macs have been able to read and write PC disks (floppy, Zip, CD, etc-- even HDs, in some cases) for YEARS, out of the box. Apple saw it was an important capability to have, so they added it into the OS. Microsoft wants to lock your ass into their platform for life to serve their own interests, whereas Apple needs to be somewhat compatible with the Windows world to make things easier on their users.
The iPod is an *Apple* device designed for use with *Apple* computers. If you're using some third party hack to make it work with Windows, tough shit if you don't like something about it. If you want to use it in the most hassle-free way possible, buy a Mac. Otherwise, shut up and pick from the tens of MP3 players that are Windows-only or fully cross-platform. Nobody put a gun to your head and made you buy the iPod.
And by the way, how does it feel to want/have a cool device that is better supported on some other OS than your OS of choice? Mac users have been on the outside looking in for as long as Windows has ruled the market. Now the shoe is on the other foot and some of you Windows people can see what we've endured for so long. It's not nice when a company tells you that your money is not worth their time or effort, is it?
~Philly
When you want to plug an iPod into a windows PC, it's not just the iPod that needs support.
Most likely the PC needs a FireWire port. That's gotta be installed in a PCI slot and configured with drivers. Does Apple want to support that? No.
Then there's gotta be software that syncs with the iPod that's gotta work without causing any Windows conflicts. Does Apple want to support those? No.
It's much more of a headache than it's worth.
Whereas Apps and special hardware are their own deal, the lack of support for mac disk formats is another.
So you're complaining about Apple because no one else supports their filesystems?
Regardless, OS X is one of the most interoperable OSen out there (Linux wins easily, but OS X is right up there). Plus, if it doesn't support your filesystem, learn IOKit, and write a driver. Then Mac users can burn/write to disk/format hard drives/fileshare in whatever filesystem you like (ISO9660, FAT32, WevDAV, SMB, Appletalk, etc. just to name a few).
Just a thought.
--Dan