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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.""
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.
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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.
2nd sounds pretty good, till you realise Apple has about 80% market share, so second place is what, 10% market share?
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Ipod is to DAPs what Google is to search. In popular culture its tough to separate the two.
I freelance in the film industry. a couple of weeks ago I was going to this reception for an independent film premiere here in NY. there was a rush at the door, a bottleneck as invitations were checked. I was there with a friend of mine who does OK with the ladies, but has a Rio (notice I said BUT, as in it is not a good thing to socially own a Rio DAP). Earbuds are in... so he bumps into a rather attractive girl who turns and looks receptive. She notices him so he takes out his rio to turn down the volume. She's like, "What's that? Your Ipod?" He responds, "No, It's a Rio, it's just like an Ipod..."
It doesn't matter what he said after that. Her face slackened, any interest she might have had was gone. It was such a crushing blow that I went and got myself an Ipod the next day.
Never underestimate the power of popular culture. The IPOD will not be unseated. The WALKMAN was never unseated as the premiere mobile music player in the 80s and that's despite the million clones that came thereafter. Sony lost footing because they couldn't anticipate portable CD players. Any DAP company needs to invest in the next gen device, the next evolution in the movement of personal music.
Don't throw rocks at the throne. Build your own throne; people will come and worship.
un burrito me trampeó.
My iPod 3G has a similarly terrible interface. No buttons: just sensitive zones of a touch pad. I wish I had a dollar for every time I hit "next track" when I meant to hit "pause." The center "button" is just as bad: with zero tactile feedback it's impossible to know whether you've actually pressed it -- and with zero UI feedback it's impossible to know whether the iPod is "thinking" (spinning up the HD) or just waiting for a button press.
Apple switched to the click wheel because people have learned to press buttons to get things done. Even Apple's mice have real physical buttons on them, albeit just one per mouse.
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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...
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
"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.
Apple also spends an enormous amount of time, effort, and money on making sure the choice(s) they provide to consumers are the best ones available.
I realized the other day that if you name a foreign car brand, I think I can name their entire line. Or in some cases, the only difference in the line are some numbers. But name a U.S. car brand, and I don't think I can name the entire line.
Apple does this too. There's only a few choices. And they're all good choices, just different. I remember the huge number of Mac choices being horrible under Gil Amelio.
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.
They want to feel like they made a choice. That way they made the decision. If there is only one manufacturer of a product, they feel like they had no choice but to buy that one product. If there are 5 to choose from, even if they buy the same product, they've still made a "choice" and are happier about buying it.
Think about it, if you're at the grocery store and you want to buy ketchup, you're probably going to buy your favorite brand, but wouldn't you feel a little weird if that was the only brand of ketchup anyone carried?
What?