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Birth of the iPod
b00le writes "There's a little story over at Wired about the genesis of the iPod from the point of view of Ben Knauss, a former senior manager at PortalPlayer, the company Apple Computer approached to help develop its player.
There's some nice gossip about The Steve's involvement in the project, the extreme secrecy and so on, but for me, the kicker comes at the end: 'Knauss stayed on until near the end of the iPod's development, but quit shortly before it was released because he had no confidence it would be a success. "It was probably a mistake, but then you have to go with what you think at the time," he said.'
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Although he is kicking himself right now, you can't really blame the guy. Even the most successfull people in our society do things that they regret in hindsight. Warren Beatty, Donald Trump, Bill Gates, etc...
It's strange that after so many years of making great computer hardware Apple's niche is almost redefined for them via a glorified walkman. No, that's not flamebait, but merely an oversimplification. Still, this is part of Steve's overall 'digital hub' theory, so the Macs still fit in, it just feels like they're getting a bit more out of focus compared to the extranious hardware.
CB
free ipod and free gmail!
Although Jobs' influence seems to have helped the iPod become the force it is, I find it odd that he would be so influential on the sonic quality - being that he is partially deaf. I am partially fat (oh, who am I kidding - "totally fat"), so I should not be a contact for bicycle seat design.
Business is relentlessly cynical. I would guess that the iPod was constantly ridiculed during development, and that there were numerous attempts (all driven by office politics, no doubt) to cancel the project.
Nothing will work. Nothing will make money. Nobody wants to buy it. Nobody cares. Everything sucks. It's so hard to make money (announced in a $3 million conference room) It'll never work. What makes you think people will buy it? What makes you think you're qualified to work here? Blah blah blah.
It's so predictable any more it's almost comedy. It is truly amazing that anything new is developed at all. Try taking a new product to a bank for a loan to manufacture it. I can hear the whining already. Every single word is predictable. After a while it becomes truly redundant and very difficult to listen to.
Oh, what wonders have been lost to society for office politics and lack of capital.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
No offense taken.
Size is important (gentlemen, start your double entendres); The iPod is physically small enough to put in your pants pocket comfortably. It doesn't sound like it's that much smaller than a Nomad Zen or Dell DJ or Archos Jukebox, but the in-person difference is astounding. Those other players would only fit in a pair of those ridiculously baggy jeans that hang below your ass.
The UI on the player is great. Read some of the review about what it takes just to play a signle song on, for example, the DJ. Assorted menu navigation plus three or four clicks on the choose button, which is located, IIRC, obscurely on the side. Now, it can take a lot of menu navigaion to play a PARTICULAR song on the ipod, but one can start the music playing by basically mashing the center button until they hear it.
iTunes: This is what brings it all together. It's what helps a lot of computer non-lits use the whole package quickly and easily. I wouldn't have a problem using a device that mounted and transferred as another drive, but a lot of people do. And iTunes treats the iPod as a synced device. Anything that has changed playlist or song-wise is instantly updated (over firewire, no less), making the whole process simple and easy.
But don't get on at me for how it would effect the ipod's battery life, the ipod *could* be a little bigger to take a bigger battery and then we could all be happy.
I think the battery life issue is exactly the problem. You assert that everyone would be happy with a bigger iPod, but I don't know what you base that on. I know the iPods diminutive stature was one of the biggest selling points for me. And I think that the phenomenal sales of the iPod mini (despite its seemingly lackluster price per gig value) shows that the size does matter (wang jokes aside).
Furthermore, I like not having to charge my headphones.
Also, let's not forget that the bluetooth transmitter and receiver would take up additional space in the iPod and headphones, respectively
This would also be much more likely to lock me into Apple's headphones, rather than buying a generic, better-quality set of headphones I can connect via a standard jack
Others have talked about the compression issue, I won't rehash it here.
The biggest thing though is that the headphone connecter and earbuds probably cost all of $2 for Apple. A BlueTooth setup would be significantly more
I know that there is a geek tendency to use cool tecnologies just because they're there, but I don't think this is a good application of BlueTooth. Someone on Slashdot said a few days ago that Slashdotters tend to overestimate the public's appetite for their pet technologies. I think this is very valid. I just don't think there would be a market for this, given the tradeoffs.
However, I could be wrong. Market an iPod-BlueTooth headphones set as an accessory, and we'll see. There's certainly a market for iPod accessories out there, if you're right about the desire to own such a thing, you could rake in the big bucks. However, I think the continued absence of just such a peripheral indicates that there's no real demand.
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one " -Albert Einstein