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Inside Hardware Design - Competing Against the iPod
ihatewinXP writes "FastCompany.com has a behind the scenes article detailing Rio's (and others) attempts to differentiate hardware and compete in the digital music market against the iPod juggernaught. From the article: "We decided that we had to be radically different from Apple. Where Apple was sort of the ivory tower, we were going to be the dark rebel. Where Apple was very geometric, we were going to be smooth and curvy. Apple was so enamored with absolute pure, minimalist design that some designers may argue that ergonomics were compromised.""
The computer world is so full of people trying to be Apple that it's almost like anytime you do anything else, you instantly look like one in a million.
You'll know they've got it wrong when...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Apple was so enamored with absolute pure, minimalist design that some designers may argue that ergonomics were compromised.
I'm sure the head of the iPod department will really give two shits about ergonomics when he goes for his daily swim in his pool filled with crisp $100 bills...
Okay guys, we're waiting. Get busy already.
Already getting slow...
Try the coralized link
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Like Archos' players are powered by dilithium crystals! The one company (besides Apple) that does do something technologically novel in their MP3 players, although it's not to my taste, is Neuros.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Wow!
I've gotten so used to articles on the web having 12 pages with 15 sentences on each page so that page was like a breath of fresh air.
I wish all articles were like that.
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
Apple was so enamored with absolute pure, minimalist design that some designers may argue that ergonomics were compromised.
I thought the exact same thing the first time I saw those earbud headphones. They look like a couple primitive shapes stuck together. Come to find out, they're the most comfortable earbud headphones I've had, even without the foam.
I hate to be an Apple apologist, but I can't think of anywhere they've sacrificed ergonimics for design. I think they just eschew curves and stuff that look ergonomic, but don't actually make the thing easier to use.
c-hack.com |
Worked quite well for Microsoft back in 1995. By the way, did you see the article about Microsoft and Toshiba cementing their HD DVD relationship?
Being a big player means being able to totally fsck-up the next generation of technology and still being able to walk away from it because your other enterprises are so wildly profitable you can afford the losses.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
We decided that we had to be radically different from Apple.
Because, hey, iPods aren't really selling that well.
Where Apple was sort of the ivory tower, we were going to be the dark rebel.
Why would anyone say those so soon after everyone saw Gandalf defeat Sauron?
The problem is you can have the best product in all fronts vs. your competor and still loose out. Why? Becuase people just don't care about technology espectilly for things like iPods. iPods and other MP3 players are more of Status Symboles then entertainment. Why do people perfer a Catalic vs. a Toyota, The toyota is much more reliable and often has better gas milage, but the Catalic is considered nicers for our lifestyles ideas of luxery. The same with iPods. Sure other Mp3 players are just as good but it will not impress other people. Having an other companies copy of an iPod although it may be completely different, still feels like a cheap ripoff. Technology is more about emotions then most techs think. You need to make the person feel good about the product more then make them know that they have a good product.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I swear I already saw this article. Maybe it was a different website but I don't think so.
Archos CEO, from the article:
"I do not share the opinion that Apple's design for the iPod is any good."
"And if you look inside the iPod's technology, it's quite common and unimpressive. It isn't anything special."
What on earth is he smoking?If you're not using firefox, you're not surfing the web, you're suffering it.
---
Don't be a player hater... it doesn't suit you. :x
- Toby
I can pimp up apple iPod with all sort of bling-bling. There is not enough bling available for any other mp3 player.
http://www.apple.com/ipod/accessories.html
If you are virgin here is help
pimp-up is kind of upgrade
bling-bling is accessories
How many people in love with their iPods have tried other MP3 players? I'm curious because there doesn't seem to be anything particulary ground-breaking about them - they play music and have a nice clean shiny white plastic case. The premium you pay for an iPod versus another player helps to pay for the marketing that makes it cool, and that seems to be the primary difference right there.
air and light and time and space
I want a portable music player that plays Ogg Vorbis as easily as it plays MP3 and WMA. I have a iRiver instead of an iPod for precisely that reason. And I don't feel like trying to re-rip my CD collection or convert between lossy formats. When will Apple support .ogg on the iPod, or will they? Any player that doesn't is a non-playing paperweight as far as my ability to listen to my own music is concerned.
It must be Windows. It needs half a gig of RAM and a hardware-accelerated graphics card just to run Solitaire.
Personally, I would like to see real competition with the iPod. I love mine and wouldn't give it up for the world, but there are plenty of things I would like to see included but Apple really does not have any motivation to do so.
First off, I would like to see an AM/FM tuner included. If they really want to make that something special, they could include a TV/weather band tuner as well.
Also, I would like to be able to replace the battery myself without having to pay a crapload of money for them to do it or risk damaging my iPod if I do it myself.
One of my biggest complaints, and I think just about everyone with an iPod would agree with me on this one, is that if you are into the whole minimalist thing, the iPod looks beautiful right out of the box. However, use it even once and the shiny chromed back is already getting scratched up and if you do not do something to protect the screen, within a year the screen is almost unreadable.
All that being said, real competition would be the motivator for Apple to make the iPod even better and cheaper. And at $300 or so a pop, they had better do something or risk losing their corner on the market.
The tricky bit in designing a device to compete with the ipod is going to be user interface. Not just the interface on the device itself, but the software used in transferring files to the device from the computer. Apple has done a superb job on both ends and it will be tough to do as well or better.
This I think is what makes building an ipod competing device so much more difficult than a walkman knockoff cd or tape player. With the cd or tape player, the interface is just a matter of a few buttons. Designing a quality mp3 player is a whole different challenge.
you're a Bloom County fan.
"We decided we had to be radically different from Apple"
Because, hey, contrarian thinking just for the sake of being different (or possibly out of spite) always works.
The Nitrus????? huh? has anyone else heard of that before? No good having a great product if no one knows about it. And then there's sony:In March, we introduced nine flash-based players to the Network Walkman lineup, which includes last year's 20-gigabyte HD3.
Nine flash-based players? How are you going to get a strong message out about nine different players?
Drag n' Drop DVD Recommendations
Honestly, its iTunes that makes iPOd so great. The complete package is what I think is successful, not Itunes or the Ipod as separately.
Have you tried music match. UGH, its just terrible and slow. I had to use this originally with my Ipod, and it couldn't even sync properly. Musicmatch had to re-copy the entire library to do an update.
Tranlsation:
The engineers at Sony would love to make a good open product. However, we keep getting slapped around like a red-headed stepchild by the lawyers and the content (Movies/Music) division of the company. As a result we'll keep throwing out sucky DRM'ed products that never take off because of that. But, we'll keep doing it. No matter how much it hurts us.
She says: " At Sony, we believe What customers really want is choice"
But what she doesn't say is "...too bad we don't give them any".
Or do you think Sony has convinced themselves consumers want lots of DRM and a proprietary (ATRAC) music format? When you work at Sony, do you start believing the crap you spout? Or do you keep some sort of perspective and understand you're only spouting the company line.
Its fascinating.
2nd sounds pretty good, till you realise Apple has about 80% market share, so second place is what, 10% market share?
Drag n' Drop DVD Recommendations
Not gunna do it. It's the marketing power of Apple. And to a lesser extent, the software (both firmware and iTunes). Good competitive hardware's been around for quite a while.
The Sony guy blabbing on about their customer focus and listening to the customer and all that shit, when the main reason they didn't have a competitive player 5 years ago is that they insisted that everything had to be stored in that same crap format they used in the minidisc player. What was it called? Atrac or something like that? And when they did bring out a player, they called it an MP3 player but what it really was was a player that played their proprietary format, and software that converted MP3s to their format.
That's really customer focused. Boy oh boy. I can hear the teeming millions saying "what I want from an MP3 player more than anything else is the inability to play MP3s".
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
I second you. Neuros makes such a brilliant piece of hardware. OK, maybe is not that stylish as an iPod, but it damn works. And it's 100% opensource, as firmware and interface specs.
"Unlike Apple, however, we are not going to spend our money trying to convince people that we are good. We are going to spend our money telling people what we offer. At Creative, more is better. Our products are packed with more features -- an FM tuner and voice recorder, for example -- and we're able to deliver this at a lower price. That's where we can win." If people don't know about the product (and the majority of the world does not thanks to their lackluster marketing) how are they going to demonstrate those wonderful features? Walk before you can run...
Apple's main point of sale is Job's salesmanship. Don't get me wrong - they have great products. But great products don't sell themselves (Which RIO is explicitly trying to do). The iPod is the shit because Job's wants you to believe it is. You can't beat that with a sack of wet noodles (aka better products).
www.olin.edu
while Apple means quality we mean crap. Seriously I've owned 3 Rio devices and they all sucked, crapped out, and ended up in the trash. My iPod is still going strong 2 years later though...
I've worked with apple, and they do use "user experience" as a phrase, A hell of alot, actually, As do most designers, it's the phrase du jour to mean a more encompassing view of design as more than just product design, graphic design, software design, etc. Now the rest of the phrases, you're right on.
If iPod is good enough to world leaders like George W. Bush and Queen Elizabeth II, it might be good enough for me too!
We have to draw a line between usability and ergonomics. Note the definition of ergonomics: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=ergonomic .
While poor ergonomics will ultimately detract from the item's use, it only focuses on the fatigue or discomfort.
The iPod may be very easy to use, but if some ergonomics expert (which I am certainly not!) says it lacks ergonomic design, it may be lacking in the comfort / endurance department. I'd certainly agree that ergonomics has become associated with "curveyness", but being ergonomic doesn't necessarily mean it's usable.
Where Apple was very geometric, we were going to be smooth and curvy.
In what country are smooth curves not understood in terms of geometry?
A computer without Microsoft is like ice cream without ketchup.
Every one of the interview subjects sounded like a mouthful of sour grapes. Why is it so hard to admit that you got your ass kicked, and are noew attempting to do something to come back?
Every single one of them had some dig at the iPod, and then a marketing spiel about their own POS product that's in the clearance bin at Sam's. Tell us something NEW and we'll consider your product.
It won't be long before iPods are unfashionable and uncool. Then you can try and sell something better. An mp3 + divx player that ran on linux and let you plug standard USB keyboards and mice in sounds good to me.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
Everyone accuses Apple of being obsessed with looks, but it's always other companies and critics of Apple who focus on that. And ironically, that's only part of the picture. Apple really does understand design is a way that other tech companies just don't... and design goes way beyond looks. If that's all Apple had, they would be a lost cause. But as evidenced by the products Apple produces and the interviews with him I've read, Jobs really understands that design is how something works--looks being a side-effect of that.
I'll admit that I didn't RTFA, but it sounds like the same story yet again. Until these companies figure out that it's the combination of the iPod and iTunes and the iTunes Store that have all been designed to work seamlessly together and in a way that makes sense to people, competitors won't stand a fighting chance. It's not the looks. It's not the price. It's not the file format. It's the way it was designed with the user in mind. That's what Apple does best.
I'm a fan of Apple's products so I couldn't give a rip either way, but it's amazing to me that so many companies just can't figure this basic concept out.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
interesting.
The person at Sony said what customers really want is choice. Actually, most customers don't want choice, or at least they don't want to begiven choices that just get in their way.
What most customers really want is something that will do the job and get out of the way. For most the journey is not destination.
Steve Jobs understands this. Most Linux sellers don't.
They both provide an OS (or an iPod) and while the former says "Here is OS X and Aqua and iTunes and you can hook it up to your iPod and stuff and it just works." the later say "Look at all the configurations you can run this under, you have a __choice!__. But of course that implies you are smart and knowledgeable enough to make a choice."
At which point most people run screaming for an exit because they want anything but choice.
They just to do something and not be bothered with all the geeky stuff. They want to know nothing about how it works under the skin. They just want to enjoy it.
Apple is able to 'get away with "foisting their decisions on the world"' because they select components that do their work and then 'hide'.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
The iPod is the shit because Job's wants you to believe it is
That's a load of bull. I bet the vast majority of iPod owners don't even know who Steve Jobs is. When is the last time you saw Steve in a commercial for the iPod? A print ad? The iPod is not about tech, or being convinced that iPod tech is better than anyone elses, it's about market/mind share. iPod developed this all on it's own with a boost from the Apple community at large (large, very dedicated) in the early days. But these folks bought iPods because it was designed for THEM. No one told them it was better, it just was.
How many people in love with their iPods have tried other MP3 players? I'm curious because there doesn't seem to be anything particulary ground-breaking about them - they play music and have a nice clean shiny white plastic case. The premium you pay for an iPod versus another player helps to pay for the marketing that makes it cool, and that seems to be the primary difference right there.
How many people who keep saying "it can't possibly be a superior product, trendy people like it, therefore it's GOT to be 100% marketing" have actually tried it?
Tried it and it's competitors? The whole "try": Getting tracks on it, using it, charging it?
I have a first gen iPod, I had an iPod before the iPod became popular (yeah, yeah, people always say shit like that, but keep in mind it means I have the BIG iPod now, without the cool dock and extra games), and I didn't want it because it was marketed in a shiny way: I wanted it because I hated my MP3 player and this one was offering me a better way to have music on the go.
You can't take the sky from me...
Give me the following:
1. 100gig drive
2. Easily swappable batteries (each with a pretty impressive life themselves)
3. If you are going to bill it as a photo viewer, provide a decent size screen with a protective eacily replaceable cover
4. Good menu system, a nice jog wheel like on the Canon 20D would be great for scrolling. But have a switch that "locks" the control functionality so it's not getting pressed in your pocket while walking
5. Allow for the drive to be an "external" drive and plug in via USB and store any file...not just the one's it plays or displays.
6. Durability...people don't want cheap flimsy feeling products, not when they drop a few hundred $$$
7. Brush metal baby....spend the extra few $ for thin layer of brushed titanium or aluminum, etc. Perhaps with a slip on rubber sports grip.
8. B&W LCD is so passe.... *lol* and if you're going to do a monochrome display, tint it so it's easy to see.
9. Ergonomics is nice....but weird rounded easy to hold products SUCK!!! Cause very few people are running around holding these things. Rather they carry them in purses, on belts, etc. Thus flat and easily storabe is what is HOT
10. Intelligent...
Give me a unit that a) can be plugged into the computer and download the album covers for display from CDDB. Give me a unit that can can be plugged into pictbridge cameras, etc. And "download" all the images to be stored on the unit. Providing a portable "large" photo warehouse.
Yup...you just got my $700
You can either change the iPod, or you can change yourself...
"We decided that we had to be radically different from Apple. Where Apple was sort of the ivory tower, we were going to be the dark rebel. Where Apple was very geometric, we were going to be smooth and curvy." ...so, if Apple's iPod is successful, then we will suck.
I would disagree a bit, in that when new iPod models are announced they do tend to make use of newer storage technologies recently introduced. So while opening up an iPod now might not be anything special, they do tend to keep at the edge of the curve on storage. I would also argue that part of what really is special is a mix of not much being there button-wise (which takes some thought to reduce the control set). The iPod shuffle isn't that special either but almost no-one else was brave enough to reduce the control and display set that far... looking back it's often easy to call a choice that was innovative at the time simple and obvious later on. I think there was one model of MP3 player before the shuffle with no screen but that didn't exactly take off - so Apple gets some credit I think for being brave enough to follow the path of a failure and make it work for them.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
...is seamless integration with iTunes.
Otherwise, no sale.
In the course of every project, it will become necessary to shoot the scientists and begin production.
Like all technology, when you first use it, its like "wow amazing". The ipod was like this. As time has past and the newness has worn off, the ipod is one easy to use reliable player. I use it almost daily and it just works...
Once a product is established as a category leader, its ergonomics become the default expectation. Even if those ergonomics aren't particularly good, you have to beat them by a lot to get people to switch, or even to consider you as an alternative.
The iPod became the category leader in portable digital music because its (ergonomics in your pocket + iTunes client + iTunes store) were better than anything else at the time. There are now a lot of people who think (iPod + iTunes) are the way things are supposed to work, and minor ergonomic refinements aren't going to motivate them to explore alternatives.
Need I point out the parallel with MS Windows? It became dominant because its (tolerable ergonomics + lower cost of entry + backward compatibility) meant that a lot of people saw Windows first, as the way WIMP interfaces are supposed to work. Macs have always had better ergonomics, but not enough better to get people to switch on that alone.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
So basically we looked at the IPod and said how could we make a better MP3 player. We decided why bother, so many have tried and failed. So we put our name on it and sold it as our own. And to differentiate we sell "tatoos" to give it cool colors.
The comment has already been made. Let's move it along people. Nothing to see here.
iDontGetIt
Apple was so enamored with absolute pure, minimalist design that some designers may argue that ergonomics were compromised.
That's nice. And those designers would be wrong.
The crisp $100 bills are for lighting your cigar. The shiny nickels and dimes are for throwing at street urchins. The ones are for tipping the valet (tip: fold them over to double your largesse). The twenties are for doing lines of coke with the senator off the ass of a call girl.
Remember etiquette! We are not savage beasts!
Apple was so enamored with absolute pure, minimalist design that some designers may argue that ergonomics were compromised.
How in the world can anyone claim this?
I can perform the following actions with one hand holding the iPod and my thumb controlling it:
And that's compromising ergonomics? The iPod probably makes the fewest ergonomic assumptions than any other product I own/have owned.
Well, alright, it assumes you are a homo sapien with at least one opposable thumb on one hand. But even with that assumption anyone belonging to the homo genus can use the iPod.
The Luddites were ahead of their time.
I've had other MP3 devices, like watch players. Also tried PDA MP3 playing and a few friends devices like rios.
I have the earlier 5GB iPod and frankly nothing else is as pleasant to use. I actually didn't like the control system of the later ones with the controls moved to the top, but now they are back around the wheel they are doing good. I just bought a Mini for my GF and she loves it - because it's so, so easy to use. The feature that can pitch-shift audio books is worth the whole price alone, if you ever want to listen to podcasts or speeches or seminar recordings.
A lot of people seem to think that people buy into the iPod because of marketing. But I think that's secondary, and the real success of the iPod lies in amazing word of mouth from actual users who really do end up becoming semi-evangelists because when something works decently well it sticks out like a sore thumb in a world of consumer electronics that are half-crap. When I tell people I'm still using an MP3 player I bought years and years ago without a drawer full of others strewn along the way, people go "wow!". When people can get off the upgrade mill and get something that's more reliable and friendly it makes them very happy.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Hopefully, the market replies with a collective, international "You're Number 1" gesture, like the Norwegian government, to all non-open formats.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
God, how braindead can those guys be? It doesn't fucking matter how technologically superior their competing product is, because NOBODY KNOWS ABOUT IT. Apple has put up publicity everywhere they could to promote the iPod. Everyone knows about it. But ask anyone about the Rio Karma or the Dell DJ or whatever, and you'll get blank looks. And for good reason, how the fuck are they supposed to know about it, even less care about maybe buying it instead of an iPod?
I say scrap the R&D dept. and actually do some goddamn publicity for your products instead. Maybe then you can hope to eat some of Apple's near-100% share of the market.
is all about culture....
.....
to ipod or not to ipod
uhmm... (chicks dig ipods so..)
i think i'll ipod
- - - - - .
"The Carbon is the second-best-selling midsized player, behind only the iPod mini."
"Early reviews of Sony's newest set of flash-based players say it's a strong contender to take on the iPod shuffle."
"The Gmini 400, launched last September, has outsold the Apple iPod in the 20-GB category in Europe."
"It comes second only to Apple in total market share for MP3 players."
Amazing, they are all beating or close to beating apple it in various ways, or at least that's what the quotes imply. I suspect that apple still ships a ton of players and makes more bucks doing so.
I headed over to one site to find it supports lots of WMA music, which no doubt comes with loads of DRM attached. And it reminded me.
Apple's ipod succeeds because of iTunes, and access to a large library of music that has reasonable DRM for most users. Yahoo is busy shipping Yahoo Messenger with their offering. The subscription WMA offerings were so painful when I tried them ages ago, though I'm sure they are better now.
The Ipod
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
From TFA, there are two big ways to beat Apple
1) "Outcool the Competition" means bring innovative technology to the table. A recent trip to Japan for a friend brought me in touch with a Whole Bunch of technology toys - all that were also MP3 players - that I would rather have than an iPod. The coolest was a digital camera, but others included cell phone, watch, and a pair of funky sun-glasses with LEDs that flashed to your toons.
2) Apple is Apple's worst enemy. Exploit Apple's failures in that they build a clique of zealots that promote isolation and self-reinforcing evangelism. "Fit in and stand out" was an old Apple mantra that Apple continually ignored - so make damn sure to embrace various formats and convenient ways bridge technology. I would buy an integrate car MP3/portable MP3 technology in a heart beat, yet I have not seen one.
/\/\icro/\/\uncher
as much as I'm jealous over my brothers iRiver, I still baught an iPod photo 60gig. why? because I have such a massive music collection, I wanted the Rolls-Royce of music players. and as much as the iPod lacks so many features, the thing that sells me over is the clickwheel + ability to play my mp3s. I don't know why any other company hasn't made a touch-sensitive wheel on theirs (im sure Apple has some legal lock in on that) but seriously, for a hand held music player, that clickwheel is the best interface i've seen yet.
I'm listening to Dave Brubeck on my iPod Shuttle right now and what I like about it is that is was $100.
:-) As for getting 'bling' to protect their iPods, there is an aisle in their store dedicated to it. If you were too cheap to buy one, to quite a friend of mine, "Suffer Bee-atch."
(What screen?
Apple's already making the iPod in Asia (so production costs can't get cheaper) and charging what their market will allow. I don't anticipate ever seeing an iPod down at Costco or Wall*Mart for $19,95. Sorry but there it is.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Seriously, this article reminds me of this episode of the Simpsons:
Lisa: Hey, I _am_ above average! So what if Alison's ahead of me? There's no shame in being second.
[imagines]
Announcer: And now, Avis Rent-A-Car is proud to present the second best band in America. Will you welcome Garfunkel, Messina, Oates, and Lisa singing their number two hit, "Born to Runner-up".
[Audience boos]
Lisa: Why would they come to our concert just to boo us
I had a flash based mp3 player from a small name manufacturer. I chose it after trying a variety of small flash based players and deciding they were all pretty much the same to me. I had it for a couple years, and it was working just fine thanks.
Then, this winter, a friend gave me an iPod Shuffle. I thought it was an unnecessarily expensive gift, since I already had an extremely similar player, but I figured that since he'd gone to the trouble of getting me one, I'd use it and give my old player to a young family member.
The first thing I noticed was that the iPod is remarkably easy to use. I hadn't really considered integration with iTunes to be a priority, but damn if that doesn't make it much easier to use! I also found the iPod controls much easier to use, even though the old player had been pretty well designed.
The second thing I noticed is that the sound from the iPod is more "clean" while my old player was a bit more "bright". This is inherent to the player, not to the headphones: I kept my old headphones (Sony noise canceling) and have never tried the Apple white earbuds.
The iPod Shuffle is also very, very light. It weighs essentially nothing. I have had to train myself strictly to exclusively put it in a particular pocket when it's detached from the headphones I use, because otherwise I can lose it in my own pockets. (I once spent 20 minutes searching my apartment for it and it turned out to be in my pocket.)
My old player never elicited any comment. The iPod Shuffle, despite being nearly functionally identical, very frequently gets comments from people around me. Store clerks often notice it as I press pause and remove my headphones while aproaching the register, and often say "Oooooh what's THAT?" with a big grin. People frequently ask me what it is, what model of iPod, how many songs it stores, and where they can get one. So, I guess that visually, it's a hit... but Apple should rethink their advertising if so many interested young people haven't noticed it until I walk in with one.
Overall, I find myself enjoying my iPod Shuffle much more than my old mp3 player, and if I find myself with some extra money on my hands in the next year or so, I might even buy an iPod Shuffle and send it to the kid who got my old mp3 player.
Ask my mother which video connection she wants from her DVD player, "coax", "RCA" or "S-video" and she will tell you "the one that works with my TV".
Consumers want choice, but they don't care about incremental technical gain if it comes at the price of simplicity.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
you don't have to be an ergonomics expert to know that usability is encompassed by the field of ergonomics. have you heard of cognative ergonomics? a branch of ergonomics that deals with usability issues.
no, i'm no ergonomics expert either, but i did study it in college.
If you look back just a year ago, there were relatively few MP3 players on the market. Today there are literally hundreds. So much competition is going to drive the price way down. The iPod may be one of the best players on the market, but when you can buy a similar-sized device with more memory and features for 1/5 the price, Apple won't be compete. Unlike Apple's OS, I don't think people will be willing to pay even twice as much a portable music player. Just think about all the products where the brand originally added value, but they eventually became commodities - PCs, walkmans, cd players, etc. MP3 players will soon join that crown and the iPod will fade away.
Linux users are the computing equivalent of car enthusiasts. They want the spoiler, the tricked out stereo, the racing stypes, the hand-tuned carburator (sp), the custom muffler, the racing tires, the bling rims, etc, etc, etc - car enthusiasts crack open a parts catalogue and drool.
Most people only give a shit about their vehicle when it breaks. Most people want to just turn the key and GO. They don't want to have to worry about engine timing or oil pressure or RPMs or torque or rather their car parts are metric or imperial because absolutely NONE of this has ANYTHING to do with running down to the store to get groceries.
The failing of linux is that you've got a bunch of hotrod enthusiasts trying to sell The Last Of The V8 Interceptors to people who really just want a commuter coupe - and these hotrodders just can't see that the rest of the world gets absolutely NO pleasure from fucking with things that should Just Work Already.
No, if I get passed by a Corvette that is anything newer than a mid-60's model, I point and laugh.
Corvettes are really not as well made as their price point suggests. In fact, most people do not buy a Corvette because they have actively researched the performance of the vehicle- they buy them for the prestige of the name.
I'm not saying the guy in the Honda is any better, if anything they both deserve a bit of scorn.
The consumer gets raped when you look at the price of a Corvette vs. what you get for it, though, so they deserve to be laughed at. Repeatedly.
Let's face it, the iPod is pretty much entrenched as the de-facto standard for mp3/DAPs.
It doesn't matter why, or how, or if it sucks, or if it's cool. The fact is, it's #1, and it's got a ridiculous amount of momentum. I mean, they're making car adapters for the freaking thing. They make stereos with iPod adapters that cost more than the iPod itself.
It's hard to beat that kind of momentum.
In general, you can go high or you can go low. With the iPod, you can't really go low, because of the shuffle. I mean, how can you beat the shuffle? It's cheap, it works, and it's got the iPod brand.
Go high? How? What kind of ridiculous stuff could you put on a DAP that would make it more expensive than an iPod? How could you sell enough of them to make any money?
The fact is, the iPod may be dominant enough that all the other players get killed off...except at the low end, where one-feature USB players might squeak out a living as giveaways. Nobody's making the kind of money that Apple is in the mp3 player market. That trend will likely continue.
From a business point of view, well, the other player manufacturers can see their trends, and they're trending downwards. Would you rather get out now while you're making money, or wait until you start losing money?
Where does that leave the midrange players? Niche verticals?
One thing is they have to change the game, or they'll get squished. Apple has successfully straddled every price point from $100 to $450. There's not a lot of room left for pricing. There's not a lot of room left for features, either.
Maybe the subscription stuff will work out. But one FairPlay subscription license from Apple would kill that whole market dead. Maybe that's what they're waiting for?
One interesting side-effect of on-line music stores is that it makes pricing transparent. For example, a FairPlay DRM'd song is worth $1. A subscription-DRM song costs, well, pennies or less, depending on your plan. A non-DRM'd song costs about $2 (buy the CD). A radio version is free. A Sirius/XM is free. Makes it hard to sue for damages, doesn't it?
we all wore taught the motto.. but some reason we all forget it.
K.I.S.S.
Yeah
I have a Creative Zen and I like it. I was thinking about a iPod, but the price was too high to compare... sure Apple has all that nice bling-bling but i dont really need that, I just wanted a mp3-player...
Ipod has become too much a cool thing, people don't know alternatives, but that's 'cos of marketing... good for Apple, bad for others. I'm pro-choice...
but I have a mp3-player, so I really don't give... my money to Apple. I'll spend my money on beer and bigger hard drives... for porn.
Hmm... thats a new business idea, a photo-iPod showing only porn... now to the patent office.
Ergonomics means designing equipment, or modifying a workplace to fit the workers (or users) rather than the other way around. This includes things like:
- Comfortable work environments (chairs, desks, etc);
- Intuitive UI design for electronic and mechanical equipment (fax machines, even things like placing a light switch by all doors rather than on an opposite wall);
- Uses of products to increase efficiency. Basically letting the workplace equipment do tedious work, freeing the worker to move on to more important things (like a printer that hole punches or staples automatically).
A little bit of personal research above and beyond the stupid buzzwords people use would give a good idea as to why Apple's iPod is, in fact, much more ergonomic than most players.I really challenge anyone to give a list of reasons why some other player is superior that consists of items beyond "it's comfortable to hold in your hand." Anyone who thinks that ergonomics means how something feels in their hand really needs to think why THAT is their central criterion.
New slang when you notice the stripes, the dirt in your fries.
...not hooking up with a girl who apparently pays more attention to someone's high-tech jewelry than his personality, looks, etc. PS: just a tip, next time maybe take out your headphones before you start cruising for the girls. That way, you can hear what they're saying without having to endure the agony of admitting you don't own an IPod.
Until these guys realize that hardware design is only part of the iPod's success story, they aren't going to dent Apple's market share one bit.
The iPod became a success for 4 basic reasons:
1) The iPod design is minimal and intuitive. The controls are instantly accessible, perfectly placed (neutral for left/right handed use), simple and easy to use. Design that's refined for the average end user's needs - the everyday listener. And it helps that it doesn't look like a toy.
2) The software that drives the iPod is likewise simple, easy to use, understand, and powerful. You can quickly and easily find the one song you want to hear out of thousands that might be stored on the iPod.
3) It's tightly integrated with iTunes, hands down the best jukebox software on any platform. The now-familiar refrain: easy to use, understand, and makes the job of managing a library of potentially thousands of songs trivial.
4) The iTunes Music store. It simply extended the already proven iTunes software UI by bringing downloadable songs/albums into the mix with just one click.
In this case, the portable player manufacturer's seem to just sit back and whine about iPod's market share relative to their competing player. They are ignoring the enormous role software design and integration has played (iPod/iTunes/Music Store) and the advantage that Apple has by providing everything under one roof - and not just a player.
Regardless of whether they have a point or not, I gave up reading after the first contradictory couple sentences: "If there's anything anyone in this field is chasing, it's Apple's quality and simplicity. Pick up an iPod, and you get it, you feel it, you sense it. But let's not forget that these things are made in China. It's nothing different from what everybody else is doing." HUH??? To paraphrase: Everyone is chasing apple, which is doing the same as everyone else?
Ohhh! Pay Dirt! A pair of half-eaten choco-pants!
When the iPod came out years ago, I said to myself "Oh, it's just a HD-based MP3 player which uses a small HD. That will keep them ahead of the competition for about a month." Last week I walked into CompUSA to replace my aging Rio (64mb). I looked at all their MP3 players and walked out with an iPod mini. What happened?? The players on the shelf with the iPod were totally out classed and out priced. Why isn't anyone competing with the iPod? Is it really that hard?
learn from Syndrome. Seriously, check out these quotes from the CEO of Archos :
I do not share the opinion that Apple's design for the iPod is any good. That's because I define great design in terms of fantastic machinery. And if you look inside the iPod's technology, it's quite common and unimpressive. It isn't anything special.
Nothing special? Is that why you say "Apple may have won a battle when it comes to music, but it remains to be seen whether it will win the war against Microsoft." Because you've already given up on that market. But see... you're just too GOOD for that "When Apple hit it big in 2003, we were no longer interested in the music-only category." But if you weren't even interested, then why did you call it a battle?
Yeah... who needs profit when you "continuously ride the wave of technology, so that means we tend to go away from the low end of the mass market." Goodness, who wants to be at the low end of the market... puhlease!
To paraphrase Mirage "Making a "simple" product is not weakness. And disregarding it is not strength!"
Bill Gates spews similar FUD against the iPod... it's too bad he can't allow himself to watch that movie, he could learn something Steve already knows.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
Companies don't have to beat the iPod's featureset, that's quite easy -- especially since Apple has purposefully crippled the iPods to leave features out for possible future upgrades -- all iPods are capable of voice recording, FM Radio, video display (missing on the Shuffle), etc. but these features have been disabled by Apple, and some are easily regainable by installing Linux. Apple's specs are often lower than the competition's, and Apple's prices are almost certainly higher, but the one thing Apple has is MINDSHARE. Companies have to compete against Apple's AWESOME marketing, promotional and product placement. And there is not likely any winning against Apple in that respect. Their PR is so good that Apple has become the "default" option for most MP3 player customers, the "safe" option. And for every dying battery lawsuit, there are 100 astroturfers raving about how great the batteries are and how poor the competition's batteries are in comparison. And most people are either too stupid, too busy, or too uncaring to do any research for themselves; they are willing to take a salesman's word at face value.
In short, the other guys will never win. Apple is the new Microsoft. The King is dead, long live the King!
I don't like to equate the thought of "more features = better advanced". The ability to keep feature and control growth under control is itself a technical feature, and thus a technological innovation. No one was really trying to do "simple" or good software integration before Apple, thus the technical innovation.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Somebody's got a patent on a portable MP3 player that stores it's music in a hard drive. So everybody has to stop producing them immediately and either get licensed or give their production plans and techniques to the patent holder with no questions asked! ...
Wait, that's just stupid, no? *one finger salute* DLO!
You're practically describing an iPod with #4. And most products do #5.
Tinting a display does not make it easier to see. To see a display well, you want maximum contrast under all conditions. That means no filter (tint) absorbing part of the light spectrum.
I personally would not pay $700 for this device you describe. It'd have to be $500, tops for me.
I am a graphic designer by trade. I own an iPod and am reasonably happy with it. Up until recently I owned a mac running OSX but recently chose to install an alternative operating system. Why? I was sickof Aqua and of it's connotations as a design aesthetic.
From a designers perspective, homogonous environments trap the intuition, simply looking at the same interface 12 hours a day, with all its semiotic baggage ionises an approach to thinking about screenspace, to the ends that the work I do becomes permeated with a similar 'sheen' other designers using the platform will inevitably, and subtly become infected with. Apple products, from software to hardware, comfort the user by reducing visual complexity. One cannot argue that this works, and that there's a market for it. However their approach, of making appliances and not contexts for user-defined, unique experiences, is wearing thin amongst Apple users, at least in the design industry.
I hear more and more Mac users I work with saying they are getting sick of Aqua and the Chrome DE, that the Benetton metro-sexualism of the iPod fad is making them ill, that the general ubiquity of the device is killing their interest in the device as a cultural signifier. It is no longer a transgressive vector, merely a commodity default produced by the self-imposed supersaturation of their own iconographic marketing. Ironically, Apple has produced the context for consumer mutiny. Ever eaten too much marzapan?
Apple market their products not in the aesthetic space, but in the cultural space. But what is the culture they append to and propogate? Benevolent Arianism, and it's starting to wear thin. They are a step away from the solipsistic cult of elegance that saw the end of the Deco and Seccessionist periods. To stay edgy they better embrace the hate and start sinning.
I've got a Rio Nitrus. Rio doesn't spend a whole lot on marketing, using word of mouth primarily. The Nitrus is great, holding close to thrity albums, depending on bitrate, and plays MP3 as well as WMV formats. The syncing software is quite good, IMHO. The device's form factor is far superior to any iPod, being smaller, sleeker, and less intrusive, which more than makes up for the smaller capacity.
As of yet, we're still having trouble getting phones and PDAs right. The OS most phones uses just plain stinks. It's clunky, slow, ugly, and doesn't grow with the user. It's also very poorly documented; most phone documentation I've seen only makes passing references to the interface to the phone, instead giving you the minimum effort action to achieve each bulleted "feature".
I'd sign up for something like the Treo if it actually did many things well. But, it's such a comprimise device. It's a mediocre PDA, a mediocre MP3 player, has medicre battery life compared to specialized devices, and there are better phones out there for that price.
For now, I'll carry separate devices that do a job well, rather than comprimising for a combo device.
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
I thought the Dell dj was just a Creative Zen with a different faceplate.
When it comes to my iPod, I confess I did probably buy it largely because of all the "buzz" surrounding it. I KEPT it because it was technically superior.
... Anything from microphones to turn it into a digital tape recorder to adapters so it stores images straight off my digital camera, to various "boom box" type amplifier speakers it docks into and charges while it plays through them. (And don't forget, Alpine even offers a line of car stereos that interface directly with an iPod, so the car stereo front panel mimics the iPod's own screens.)
Most manufacturers of MP3 players seemed to either be focusing on building one as cheaply as possible (and I have zero interest in some cheaply made doodad with buttons the size of the ones on a digital watch), or loaded with features and gimicks at the expense of usability.
Since the iPod has now been through a full 4 generations, some of the competition has had a lot of time to try to play catch-up. I'll admit that if I bought a new player today, I might have to take a closer look at some of the competition's newer offerings. But still, there's always something to be said for owning a device that's the "defacto standard". With an iPod, I have LOADS of options for accessories
1) When the IPod came out it was the only MP3 player that had that much capacity in that form factor. Others were close, but didn't quite match it.
2) The Ipod is really nicely finished. It's solid and sturdy. It feels well engineered like a BMW when you compare it to a chevy.
3) ITunes integration. Sure each company had their own way to manage MP3's, but none is so well integrated as the Ipod and itunes. It's simple and elegant.
4) Branding. But branding is something that can only come from the existence of the previous points. Yes, they made it cool, but they were able to make it cool because they made the actual product well.
I've owned an IPod for a couple of years now and I just got my wife a brand new IPod Photo for her birthday (her 15GB IPod was out of room). Every so often I look at the other players out there and none of them really do it for me.
When I look at a Rio Karma, for example, it looks like a cheap piece of plastic. It looks like, if I dropped it, it would fly apart into a million pieces. So when I see something like that I hardly ever get to considering the quality of other aspects like ITunes integration, etc.
Apple's IPod is successful because it's really good. Yes you pay a premium for it, but in the end, I get a quality product that works well and yes, looks good. The only thing they botched was the battery bit, but when you think about where they'd put a battery door you realize how much it impinges on the finish of the design.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
"We also do our own trend watching. Honesty of materials was one trend that factored into the design. People want to know that the cold feel of metal in your hand is the real thing, so we chose to go with anodized aluminum, which gave us the strength and rigidity we needed."
-Dell
Oh boy, now that I've read that, I'm jonesing for a bulletproof, Cast-Iron MP3 player. You know, for those times when I'm walking down the street, listening to music, and I see a stray nail that needs pounding.
"That way, we can at least be a strong number two."
-Sim Wong Hoo, Creative Technology Ltd.
I KNOW I'm not the only Slashdotter who was tittering about that line.
Pew!!
hi. you're an idiot.
actually, YES, the ipod is popular-- in part-- because it's simple and elegant, WITH NO SUPERFLUOUS OR TROUBLESOME FRILLS.
obviously, when a person is CHOOSING to BUY an accessory, it's not superfluous at all. to them.
you apparently haven't realized what people mean when they say "simple with no frills."
try reading the other posts.
Most people never even heard of an mp3 player before Apple started making them. From the article:
"That was crucial because Rio doesn't advertise. The Carbon had to be its own salesman."
Apple sells because people see ads for it on tv. Word of mouth can't start until you get some critical mass using your product.
Vote for Pedro
I want a portable music player that plays Ogg Vorbis as easily as it plays MP3
I just bought an iAudio X5 digital audio player especially for the OGG and FLAC (lossless compression) support. The sound quality beats the iPods easily. It's even better sounding than the iRiver H320. The tiny 1.8" LCD screen for watching videos is so small that it's only a novelty feature, not really all that useful, but still kinda cute, but I bought mine to play music, not watch videos. Oh, and it has a pretty decent FM radio built in too.
Built-in clip instead of the stupid lanyard.
The iPod shuffle controls are pretty good, much better than the stupid click wheel. But I'd like a couple of extra buttons because triple-tap to jump to the start of the playlist is annoying.
Disk mode: plays any mp3/mp4/ogg/... files you drop into it, don't worry about integrating it with the player any better than that. Or if you create a player module for WMP or iTunes, do it through copying files around.
Voice synth: tap a button to speak the name of the currently playing song, or speak the next song name when you skip. If I hit NEXT again while you're speaking, jump right away...
USB host mode: plug a flash drive in, and navigate through my music and copy songs to the flash drive. Or from it.
Don't worry about DRM support, save the license fees and assume the user isn't stupid or a crook. Apple's got DRM and music players sewn up, so don't fight them on their own turf.
Remember the volume settings for every song, so when I punch up Sibelius or ease back on Chumbawamba you'll do that for me next time. Even if next time is three months later... it takes less than 100 bytes to store the artist/album/track and level for each song. You're going to have gigabytes to play with, so keep track of songs even if I've deleted them from the flash disk.
Keep track of the play count, last played, and whether I played through to the end for every song. In the same file. And make it a text file or XML so I can sync with it using any computer. In fact, make it comments in an m3u file.
Make the whole thing about the size and shape of a Maglite Solitaire, including making the case out of anodized aluminum. We're talking industrial chic: make it look tough enough that when you drop it at a rave and it's had 150 people stamping on it for 3 hours it's still working.
Trying to position yourself as the Rebel Alliance against the PhD professors in the White Tower won't help you if you can't create products that make customers happy.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
No, I'd have to say ergonomics is a subset of usability, not the other way around.
Think of it this way: intuitive design could be considered an aspect of usability. A device with non-intuitive design may not be difficult to figure out, but may be victim to slower use because its main operation is not completely natural. Even if the device does not present its user with mental or physical fatigue or discomort, it still may have poor usability.
If usability were encompassed by the field of ergonomics, the solution implied by the definition of ergonomics would be to change the design to reduce fatigue or discomfort (wether mental, physical, or otherwise). However, neither of those things were the problem, and the device will still have deficient functionality.
I also say that whenever this subject comes up (all the time, that is)
The way I see it there are a number of "decoys" that will keep the iPod's competition focused on the wrong things for who knows how long:
A well-informed attempt to knock over the iPod should make sure to nail the hardware/software integration. Organising songs over again on your player, picking out songs for variety and charging are all routine tasks that aren't fun and shouldn't have to be considered. Choosing songs in lots of ways (by Album, Genre, Playlist, Composer etc.) is fun and so is rating them! And this interaction could probably be taken further than what the iPod currently offers. But I like Apple's effort so let's hope none of the contributors to the FA reads this ;-)
There's no 'on' position on the Slacker switch!
The first image that was displayed on the very first macintosh at Apple was one of Scrooge McDuck.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
The clickwheel is too sensitive an input device, it needs too much clearance. The same thing goes for those stupid touchpad controls. The iPod Shuffle has a much better controller than the iPod, or the deives with the little literal joysticks and things.
I keep hearing people talk about how they want a music player with an FM "tuner", as if calling it a "tuner" will somehow make it more special or techno-sounding than it really is...a crappy FM "radio".
The people you are criticising aren't being pretentious, they are just far more knowledgable in this area than you are. Tuner is not being used as a euphemism for a radio. The tuner module is a component of a radio (or TV), the major components being the power supply, user interface (which in the old days often involved strings and pulleys), tuner, and the amplifier. For many years, in quality stereos, the tuner was often a seperate box but even a cheap shit $10 radio had a tuner though it may not have been explicitly called that if it wasn't a separate standardized module. It wasn't always called a tuner. A portable audio player already has an audio amplifier, power supply, and a user interface so it just needs the tuner part. Even more importantly, if you ask for a radio you might get it; some idiot will design a unit with a radio in the same box and a switch to select output the headphones connect to. Or at least you will get a device that adds radio functionality but nothing else. In a decent product, the tuner would be able to feed the audio output mixer directly or feed into the ADC so that you can record radio shows. In a spiffier product, you would be able to do the same with TV broadcasts/cable. When combined with a digital product, a "tuner" is typically a little metal box containing the RF components from the noise generating digital components. Also consider that many devices such as TVs, VCRs, DVD recorders, and PVRs contain "tuners", in some cases (such as picture-in-picture TVs) more than one.
unless it's been deemed lame by you know who.
It may well have been not to your taste, but the mouse had a very definite ergonomic theory behind one, and one that a lot of people liked once they actually wrapped their brains around it. The mouse was designed so that you could do anything you wanted with it with just your fingertips, without putting your entire hand on it. You were supposed to rest your hand on the desk and use your fingertips to move the mouse and click and so forth. Required a lot less wrist movement, which significantly improved the ergonomics for the people who both figured this out and found it comfortable.
A very large subset of the people who bought them didn't figure it out, and of the people who did, not all found it comfortable. And then there were the people who thought it looked dumb, which, frankly, it diiiiid, oh my yes. And then there were those of us who never gave it a fair shake because we liked three-button mice.
All in all, it was a bomb, but absolutely not because of ergonomics; it was designed to be a breakthrough as far as ergonomics were concerned, and tests showed it was. It didn't catch on because of aesthetics, and old habits.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
Most consumers dont know or dont care, they use whatever they have/download. WMA is the default if you rip a cd, AAC for itunes. You can get 3rd party rippers (i use audiocrusher, and rip to 256mb MP3s, good mix of quality, compression, and compatability), but you have to download and install the encoders yourself for legal reasons. Only geeks do that. But really, the consumer doesn't care about quality, or mp3 never woulda taken off. Check any p2p network, rough estimate, 85% of the files will be 128mb MP3s, 10% WMVs at whatever the default bitrate of WMP is(96?). The remaining 5% will be mp3s, mostly at 192mb with a few VBR abd 320mb files, probably less than a percent. Ogg will never take off because its not a default for anything (except audiocrusher since its the only encoder they could legally bundle), and most people havn't even heard of it.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
probably not in the slightest, as i likely wouldn't even notice any other brands (or the absence of any other brands) while reaching for my favorite one.
the same, i think, goes for other "stuff we like", including cars (if you like a marque you tend to stick with it), music (who listens intentionally to stuff they don't care for?) and...
ipods. the damned things work so simply and beautifully, everything else (so far) is a far lesser ketchup.
As a forward, I'm writing this on my iBook...no Apple hate here. I like the iPods, but at the time I bought my player the Zen Touch was the more economical solution.
It's really too bad that Creative hasn't gotten much credit or exposure for their Creative Zen Touch. It's just as minimal as Apple (well, okay, almost), and I actually prefer the scrollpad instead of the wheel. It gets insane battery life (24h on 128k, and I get about 18 with my ape ripped mp3s), and is just as easy to use (I've played around quite a bit with my girlfriend's iPod mini).
The only problem is that once I show it to people, they just claim its a ripoff of the iPod. You probably won't find an easier naviigation system than touchpads, and I think that all the other mp3 player makers are scared of being seen as an iPod copycat. Where do you think the laptop market would be today if everyone shied away from touchpads because they weren't the first to come up with them?
People don't want choices. People want to understand. Directly.
Worth repeating, once again:
Photoshop on the Mac is a very different beast than it is on the PC.
Systemwide Colorsync, a sane interface for use on multiple monitors, Colorsync on multiple monitors without strange random gamma errors, better object linking, etc, etc.
Photoshop on the PC has all the same menu options, but by comparison it absolutely stinks. There's nothing quite like firing up your shiny new second monitor that you think is going to double your productivity to find that a) pictures look completely different on it, and b) you have to stretch the MDI window for PC photoshop across both of those screens to use them, thus occluding huge portions of desktop space.
I'm going to have to disagree. Granted there are some Linux users who are obsessed with fine tuning the intricate details of their box in order to crank the greatest "performance" out of it. These are the young, sometimes obnoxious fanboys. You'll hear from them more often than you'll hear from the person whose choice of Linux is largely a pragmatic and a political one.