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iPod's Two-Year Anniversary
the terminal of Geoff Goodfellow writes "Two years ago this month, Apple Computer released a small, sleek-looking device it called the iPod. This Sunday's New York Times Magazine has a long article on it: The Guts of a New Machine."
I know everybody is going to come on here and praise the ipod, but if I recall correctly, most slashdotters (even the mac zealots) bashed the ipod when it was launched. Slashdotters not infalliable? That's unpossible! ;-)
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
When iPod harddrive spins up, it's usually in the end of the song. That means that the risk of it spinning up in the middle of a song with you jumping around like crazy is pretty small.
My iPod has fell a couple of times to the floor while playing, and nothing happened. I heard from my cousin that some Apple salesmen even threw an iPod against a wall... or was it floor to demonstrate it. But if you're unlucky with the harddrive spinning at that time, it's propably not going to take that. Anyways, don't try this at home!
I demand the Cone of Silence!
I think Apple's current roadmap and processor line is pretty impressive, especially now that it's backed by someone who actually can produce: IBM.
I do agree though that it's time for Apple to wow us again. I think it's time for Apple to give us a TIVO iPod with Color LCD. I can't fathom where there's innovation elsewhere that the mass public and not just Apple users want to see...
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Hey, there's a clever idea: make the removable faceplate of a car's stereo the thing itself: the mobile MP3 player.
Two birds, one stone!
1) The battery. Ignoring the "dirty little secret" brouhaha (what, you thought batteries did *not* have a finite lifespan?), the plain fact is that specialized, proprietary batteries are annoying. Your priorities may be different (hey, them's the breaks, to me and to Apple) but I'd happily settle for a reasonably shorter battery life and even a slightly thicker waist in the iPod if in exchange it would take rechargeable AA or AAA batteries.
:)
;))
Device-specific batteries have advantages sometimes (allow sleeker shapes etc), but AA (and nearly as much, AAA) batteries are available everywhere in alkaline form, and easily gettable (in Western countries) in lithium variety. Better yet, both rechargeable AA/AAAs and the chargers that charge them (can I say 'charge' a few more times?) have gotten considerably better in the last few years. This is one reason I like my Nikon 990 camera over the later ones in the same series. I can carry extra batteries for cheap
2) No ogg vorbis support. This may not apply to you, but 99% the compressed music I have is in the form of oggs, ripped for convenience from my CD collection. If the iPod adds a firmware upgrade which allows ogg decoding (I've heard mixed reports on the feasability of this wrt current iPods, but a chip upgrade in a later series could do it even if the pessimists are right), I'd probably get over my disdain for the battery and shell out for one.
Obviously, this is just a rant, since Apple is unlikely to give the iPod AA/AAA batteries, and makes more money selling ITMS music in AAC than they'd probably make by adding Ogg Vorbus Support as a bullet point on the features list. However, these two factors, singly and apart, do make other players more attractive. (Like the Rio Karma; same battery lameness, but Hey, plays ogg
Now, when will low-end MP3 players at Target add ogg to *their* bullet list of features, though? (Part of) all I want is to listen to some books while driving, without changing CDs (or buying an overkill CD-changing car stereo).
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
the one thing apple does diffrent then the rest of the it world is that they sellan experience, not a machine, not a os but an experience. in many ways they are closer to disney or macdonalds then ibm and dell...
this is why they gloss over stuff like hardware specs when they try to sell something and give the gui and user experience har hard beating to make sure its perfect.
in many ways apple products are perfect for the general user that wants a pc thats as easy to use as your average tv, stereo or video/dvd recorder...
sure they stuffed a BSD kernel under the hood but that just means that they can scoop the cream of the open source world, hook the power users that was looking at linux or one of the BSD users and still get people to buy theyre propriatary hardware...
no, give me linux and a joe blow mainboard.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
I have a 10Gig iPod now for a year and a half and I use it exztensivly during my runs (up to 2 1/2 hours long). No problems, works fine.
Occasionally it locks up but that is only very briefly.
Love it.
M.
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
The iPod competitors so far have lacked the interface and/or small size to be navigable with one hand. It will be interesting to see what Apple comes up with next. Can drive sizes keep going up and be useful? Do we need a 200 GB iPod?
Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?
That's completely true.... I just got a G5 last weekend after owning my iPod for about 4 months. I convinced my boss to buy it for me (we are an all-mac company and I am the I.T. Manager) and traded him my old PC for it (who he is giving to his father-in-law).
All in all, the iPod i bought really made me salivate for a computer that matched its elegance, logical design and stable, worry-free performance. Bye bye, Windows-flavoured PC... (I love *NIX but I've never had the time or interest to spend days and days configuring my computer to do even simple tasks like recognize and use all of my hardware, thus I've just casually ran Windows at home for years).
JUMP JUMP JUMP JUMP JUMP JUMP JUMP JUMP IRRIGATE
Odd...after looking at the site you posted and combing their forums, it appears you are incorrect. Vorbis won most of the listening tests, especially at lower bitrates (which is more common on a portable device).
Also, note that the reason Vorbis came about was that the people who own the patents on mp3 were starting to become real asses and it looked like the future of mp3 encoders and possibly players on linux was in danger. In addition, mp3pro is considered the next generation audio standard (although there are many unnecessary competitors) and even it has been shown to be inferior to Vorbis.
And again, Vorbis is, and always shall be, free.
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
I simply had to make a blog entry commemorating all the wonderful remarks. (A disproportionately large amount of the "bashing" actually came from people who are, or were, or at least claimed to be, fans of Apple.) I wonder how many of the people named therein have since gotten iPods?