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A Brief History of the iPod
antdude writes "MacSlash mentioned MLAgazine's article on a brief history of the iPod. It all started on October 23, 2001 with the release of one of the most important products from Apple in its history."
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I also talked with a Mac-enthusiatic buddy of mine, and he hated it. I don't know why, but he thought it would bring down Apple another notch on the finance scale. Guess he was wrong. Along with some that said "no wireless. Lame."
I find it the most indispensable tool in my life. Backup, file transport, music and calendar. With a huge harddrive.
Guaranteed: At least a dozen times prior to Apple releasing the iPod, large technology company middle managers refused to approve designs for competing devices, claiming with absolute certainty that no market existed for portable digital music players.
As those ass-molded-to-chair managers know, it's always easier to be a skeptic. The numbers of jobs and revenue lost to those WRONG decisions must be staggering.
Slashdot has never been revolutionary. It's never really on the cutting edge of anything. Most of the editor's comments end up being incendiary or show that they are profoundly out of touch with reality.
I think, therefore I am an Atheist.
interesting how many ipod-clones are coming out
Sorry, it not imitation but, form being dictated by function. All hard drive based portable music players use similar hard drives.
When other companies paint theirs white and put U2 in their commercials, then its imitation.
Yes, I know. I'm splitting hairs.
I think I think, therefore I think I am.
ibm os/2 (w3 or w4? can't recall) had this as an OS built-in while mac was still at system 7.2, which had no speech recog
I don't know that that's correct. The first Mac I remember using speech on was the Quadra 660 AV which debuted in 1993 with System 7.1. How does that compare to OS/2?
there were laptops before the powerbook was launched - what about the powerbook did you think was innovative?
The PowerBook was the first portable computer you could actually use on your lap. Look at the position of the keyboard on a PowerBook and compare it to the position of the keyboard on any other existing laptop. Apple was the first company to do that: to move the keyboard back so you could have a place to rest your palms. Now all laptops are designed that way. That's a pretty good working definition of "innovative," huh? Being the first one to come up with something that is now universal?
other media wrappers existed prior to quicktime
Like which ones, exactly? (And no, your characterization of QuickTime as a "wrapper" is not correct. It's an extensible media file format plus a vast API.)
"the mac" - it had innovative features for a pc, but it was still, essentially, just another sequential release for a pc company.
I don't even understand that. The Mac was the first widely available computer with a mouse-driven graphical user interface. The Mac changed everything.
I write in my journal
iPod and iPod photo: 1.8 inch hard disks
iPod mini: 1.0 inch hard disks
Notebooks: 2.5 inch hard disks
Thought you were right on? Think again.
And no easy way to have an encrypted home directory, or make encrypted disk images (oh I know how to do it with a loopback file system, but most people don't)
:)
And much less application support (don't show me 500 aim clones that Linux has, OS X can run those through X11 and fink anways, show me the Office or Photoshop or Quicken apps)
And a nighmare getting periferals configured and working
Oh and generally really crappy battery life, with (as much as I like Linux) the worlds worst power management features and tools.
Look, I love using Linux and it is the only OS on my desktops (except for one headless windows box for the sporatic DLL or ISAPI I have to write). However, after owning a few top of the line Dell notebooks and Thinkpads, I will never go back to x86 based laptops now that I have a powerbook. Having everything from power management, wireless, long battery life, and application compatibility just working is such a nice way to live
Finkployd
Look, I understand that opinions are neither right nor wrong and that everybody's entitled to one ...but come on, man. Have you ever actually seen an iPod? An iPod is simple and elegant. A Rio Carbon looks like a prop from a bad 1970s-era science fiction TV show.
...but sometimes you just have to take a step back and re-evaluate. You know?
Opinions are neither right nor wrong
I write in my journal
Yeah, but that's a good thing these days.
And the control wheel is frickin genius. It's perfect for the one dimensional navigation of the iPod. The Intellivision was a cheap mushy disc totally unsuited to the two dimensional control of a game system.
--- Ban humanity.
Agreed. For a tech-oriented site, slashdot is very quick to decry most techonological advances.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
I really hate to having to guess (from the url) the year of an old post. Please, show the year in the post date. It's just 4 chars, man! Am I missing something ?
It's been a long, long time since I've been enticed by any piece of consumer electronics.
I'm not a gadget freak anymore, really.
But dammit! Apple have created an object of sheer desirability in the iPod - and especially in the iPod mini.
Despite my (iBod) nickname, It's been many years since I've owned an Apple product (the last was the ill-fated Newton).
I think Apple really understand which buttons to press to get hip, design-aware customers longing for their products (not that I include myself in that demograph). When they've got the trendsetters, the rest will follow.
Credit and kudos where it's due. Apple have a killer product that is even making iPod buyers switch from PCs to Macs, allegedly.
IMHO there will be no 'iPod killer' because nobody understands the intended market for these devices better than Apple.
No self-respecting kid will thank you for getting him/her a 'no-name' MP3 player this Christmas instead of an iPod.
No, the market has clearly shown that people, like crows, covet shiny things. It has nothing to do with "style", or "class".
It's not like they were even thinking about making an mp3 player until someone pitched the idea to them.
Apple have no vision beyond making already established ideas better. They're no better than Microsoft in terms of innovation. Microsoft tends to let other people release products, analyse why they suceed/fail and then improve them in some way.
Apple do the same, but tend to focus on simplicity and the visual design. They like the "cool" factor that makes their products appeal to designers and the in-crowd.
In fact, OSX follows this concept. They've taken already written software (kernel, X windows etc), improved it and grafted a slick interface on the front.
What is the most important: Features or looks?
If features the iPod is the wrong choice!
If looks, I suggest you to take a picture of it and use it as backgroundpicture, or buy a defect iPod which you can get much cheaper.
Think about it. If the design is so important that the eletronics or features isn't the most important, you will get the biggest "bang for your bugs" with a defect iPod or a picture.
Err.... I own an iPod, I think it's great, and I realise that it's made Apple a lot of money, but is sticking a nice GUI and interface on a mini HDD and packaging it nicely really anywhere close to as "important" as, say, the first personal computer? No? What about the first GUI for a consumer OS? No again? Or, if we're going to talk in terms of cash cows, how about the iMac, which actually saved Apple? If the company was on its last financial legs before the iPod's debut, I could see calling it one of their most important releases, but making a profitable company more profitable by taking exiting ideas and technology and simply doing them better than anyone else, while significant, can't be compared to innovations that changed the world forever à la MacOS or Apple I.
In conclusion, profitable =/= important
I can easy follow your idea, and I think you got my point too=)
People with iPod's indicate, that they are 100% for design, and not features or eletronics and sound quality. The PCM2705 from TI that is in the iPod is a NOT a high end DAC! In fact, a low cost DAC =(
That's because the Slashdot crowd seems to be fairly pragmatic.
/. crowd mostly thinks in terms of "what can you do for me NOW," and as a result, you get a lot of people saying "Gee, [innovation] won't lead to anything useful with the next year or two, so it's not important to me." The sad part is, they're right most of the time. Don't believe me? Go grab an issue of Popular Science or Popular Mechanics from the mid-1980s.
Most technological advances that make the news here are in-development technologies that may or may not bear fruit in five to ten years. And if anything, the experience of the last 50 years should have taught us that no matter how many times flying cars and nuclear fusion are predicted to be 10 years off, they seem to be perpetually 10 years off.
I think the
p
In Korea, long hair is for old people!
You're actually kinda right.
Despite being a mac user, I'm sorta annoying to be flooded by the numerous fans who post so much it decreases the signal/noise ratio in the forums.
But then again, it's no different when there's a GPL/OpenSource/Linux related article. All of the fans of open source come out in one giant clusterfuck to either applaud a decision, mention "of course it'd be better open source" without actually thinking about the implications, and all the "down with BSD/MIT/etc, all hail RMS and the GPL" type posts.
Really, there's no way to solve this cuz there's too many cheerleaders of insert-favorite-tech-here.
I've seen and used an iPod and while I think it's pretty cool it's still overrated and overpriced like most Apple products. Apple is 50% tech and 50% hype.
Certainly Apple didn't just rip it off the Xerox guys
Actually they didn't get ripped off, at all. Xerox got paid. Repeating that urban legend makes the rest of your post about Raskin and Jobs suspect.
regard to the IPod being not an inovation. MP3 players have been around for ages.
Invention is not required for innovation. Yes there were small players before the iPod, and larger capacity players before the iPod, but there weren't any other players that had a large capacity in a compact form factor. There was nothing else like the iPod at the time of its introduction. Nothing. That, and the industry has followed Apple in making small size-high capacity players, most with hard drives. How is that *not* the definition of innovation?
Apple just have great marketing. That's all there is to it.
Snob. The iPod is a phenomenon because Apple made a product with the best combination of features and it took a very long time before anyone could touch them. And its *still* arguably a superior product because of its interface and software integration. Apple's compeditors seem to think they'll have an "iPod killer" on their hands if they take a billeted list its features and one up them. But just because your player has a couple more hours of batter life and costs $40 less doesn't automatically mean you have a better product on your hands. The iPod succeeded because it had a great mix of features, and to beat it your player will have to do the same.