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Behind The Development Of The iPod nano
bonch writes "A Time Magazine article on the behind-the-scenes development of the iPod nano reveals that development work began just nine months ago, when the iPod mini was still a top-seller. Every internal component was redesigned and packed into every millimeter of the space inside. Famed Apple designer Jonathan Ives spent months on the tiniest of details, like the laser-etching of the logo and the roughness of the clickwheel compared to the smoothness of the rest of the exterior. 'I know you're not going to consciously find these details particularly appealing," says Ives, 'but I think it's the fact that we've worried about all of them that makes the product so precious.'"
At any rate, my bet is that Apple didn't run their prototypes over with cars. Or did they??
ob gollum quote.
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
Worth every penny of the $10 it adds to the price.
"It's still not slim enough, give me the BFH.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Anybody know who has these in Canada? Been waiting on one for some time now... they look totally awesome.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
What is the next BIG thing?
"'I know you're not going to consciously find these details particularly appealing," says Ives, 'but I think it's the fact that we've worried about all of them that makes the product so precious.'"
Then why do they matter? As long as my product works, and works well, and I notice the quality, shouldn't that be enough? Why should the product cost more money simply because someone labored over it to add features I will never notice? I don't buy a product because the developer decided to make it "precious" by worring about it too much. Just a thought.
WASTE - The Secure P2P
I know you're not going to consciously find these details particularly appealing," says Ives, 'but I think it's the fact that we've worried about all of them that makes the product so precious.'
"At which point in the interview, Ives, began sandpapering his own fingerprints from his fingers in order to leave no smudges on The Precious."
for less than $30 you can buy a 256MB flash card, MP3 player, FM radio, and voice recorder.
That's about the same size.
So, my question is, why bother? I'd much rather have something that gives me extra features and plugs into my laptop and work PC or Mac and lets me transfer files and do all that, and runs off of rechargeable AA batteries.
But that's just me.
Now, if someone wanted to do a case mod of the iPod nano and get it to run Linux or BSD, now we're talking!
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
The name is Jonathan Ive, without an "s". Sheesh. It's even spelled correctly in the article. ::sigh::
they certainly had some crappy ideas on design. :-)
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
Sorry I've been waiting all to long to get this off my chest. There are so many flippin mp3 players out there, Most as good as, if not better then the damn ipod for better prices. Want a flash based one? How about one that takes compact flash disks (NEX IIe, 50 bucks) hard drive based? Hell even creative is better, nothing gets my blood boiling quicker, then to hear some jackass who knows shit about tech talk about how bad he wants an ipod. You are paying 50+ Bucks just because its fucking white and is called an IPOD. GOD DAMNIT
In addition to Libraries of Congress and football fields, today we add two need units of measurement: "pencil width" and "bucks in quarters". Alas, Google has yet to enter the new units into the search engine as this search produced no useful results. But just you wait! Apple has always been a trendsetter. Soon all the models will be listing their measurements in terms of pencils and weight in terms of bucks in quarters!
EvilCON - Made Famous by
What's the battery life on these things like, anyway?
it's Jonathan Ive, not Ives.
*** For a better tommorow, change your life today ***
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PS: I know I'm a karma whore.
The great thing about the Nano (from an Apple perspective anyway) is that it hits the price vs. features sweet spot that fills the last gap - anyone who didn't have an iPod before, because the big'uns are too expensive or the Shuffle is too... well, the non-geek is pretty incredulous when told "no, it doesn't have a screen". The Mini's, while selling well, really did overlap the iPod's market, because they were practically the same size - essentially trading price for capacity. That leaves the two on pretty equal standing, whereas the Nano changes the dynamic altogether. The price AND size/weight vs capacity will draw in that previously alienated market who want a fully functional player but not their entire library in their pocket. Bravo Apple!
Rex is 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Style, functionality, the interface's ease of use. Oh, and peer pressure. Those are reasons enough!
I didn't know Jonathan Ive had changed his surname's spelling!
Circumcision is child abuse.
1.) Apparently it will be precious. That's better than efficient or sturdy. Cute it up, bitches.(Seriously, the damn thing looks like it could snap in half way too easily.)
2.) It will be a ridiculous amount of money compared to Non-iPod rivals in the industry. Keep an eye out, Creative at the very least will whip out something similar. My Zen Xtra 40GB cost a full $200 less than a 4GB iPod. Why should this be any different?
TLoM: Nerds + DDR + Rednecks for the win!
That interview just underlines apple's focus isn't on The Next Big Thing, or technological progress, it's something much more attractive to consumers - elegant design.
They've been very lucky, releasing highly polished articles at just the time when consumers, spoiled by choice, are beginning to use quality of a design as a differentiator betweem almost equal rival products.
Sometimes they're monomaniacal obsession with elegance causes them to make decisions that seem idiotic from our technical viewpoint (you can't get to the battery on an iPod because they wanted it to look "perfect" with no nasty access doors...) but the public doesn't care.
Design is the new black.
Ipods have been around awhile now and this is the first one I'm tempted to get. I've never read much on how accessible they are in linux. Can they just be accessed as a regular harddrive? I noticed in rhythmbox it had an ipod tab, does that functionality have any limitations? Can I slap a live distro on it and boot from it? I'd like to hear from people's experiences outside of using itunes.
The Mini was a top seller right up until Apple replaced it with the nano.
I'm pretty impressed with that move, myself. Discontinuing a very successful product just because you have a better one takes more guts than most companies have.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Attention to detail has been Apple's hallmark on hardware for quite some time now. Anyone who owns a Powerbook, for example will have noticed the ports on the right hand side are arranged in size order, and there are USB ports on both sides. They're just little touches, but they mean a lot in everyday usage. Apple brought the iPod to the mp3 player market, and its design & interface have managed to win out over technically superior players time and time again. The nano is neccessary for Apple to stay one step ahead on having this cool factor that other vendors strive for.
Business Voyeur
FTFA "West rips through All Falls Down and Gold Digger, but he barely gets a head bob out of those people. When he raps, "If you aint no punk, holla 'We want prenup!,'" not a single, solitary soul hollas back."
I thought that was funny... What were they thinking inviting Kanye West to this?!
/.Likes Kanye's Gold Digger Song
//.Would have holla'd "We want Prenup!"
///.Aren't these slashdots cool?
For those of you who don't have time to RTFA, here's the executive summary: - iPod Nano Is Pretty! - Screen shows extra line. - Apple engineers shit maple sugar candy.
Already there are several comments about how "Brand X" player is cheaper, or "Brand Y" player has more features, or "Brand Z" has more capacity. What nobody will accept is that no other player has the same _combination_. Anyone can make a big player cheaply. Or a small player with 128MB of flash. Only this has the capacity, size, and usability combination. If you don't value that, that's fine, but many people are willing to pay for quality.
I drive a Corolla, my Grandma has a Jaguar S-Type (I think thats the model). They are roughly the same size, they serve exactly the same purpose. Now granted the Jag has better performance, but you are paying a lot for image. Then again people complain about fancy cars, so you can't please everyone no matter what.
You apparently missed yesterdays post to the contrary.
This makes you wonder what the world would be like if Microsoft played fairly.
I think it might be for the better, but Apple seems to have a little bit of a monopolistic practice in their sleeves also (not letting any other mp3 devices play with iTunes, and iPods only working on iTunes).
I really don't get why everyone is saying the nano is too pricey. A 4GB flashdrive goes for $250-300 on Froogle (I'm sure there's some geekier place to check, but whatever). So basically with the nano you pay for the flash memory, and get the music part free. I also see a lot of complaining that the nano is worse than the mini because it doesn't have the same GB/$ ratio. I know it's unnerdy and wrong, but I would rather have the nano, which I can wear on a lanyard, and the durability of the flash over the hard drive. I'm seriously thinking of selling my 3G 20GB and picking one of these up.
Does your 256MB flash card hold 4 GB of data?
If not, it's hardly a replacement, is it?
The puck mouse was designed to address a real issue/problem. With a normal mouse, you need to rest your wrist on the table, and then to move the mouse, you have to move your whole wrist sideways/forwards/round in circles...you get the picture. It's slow, cumbersome, and causes all sorts of prolonged use problems.
Now enter the puck mouse. You still rest your wrist on the table, but you can move the whole mouse with ONLY your fingers! Very fast, light, easy, and sensible.
Now, I'm not going to deny it sucks the first time to use a puck mouse. In fact I'm one of the people who threw them away when they started coming with the Macs for the labs at university. But one week I was forced to use one - and guess what, your body starts to remember/know which way around the mouse is after about...ohhh...an hour of use.
When you think about it, this is no where near the learning curve of a Dvorak keyboard, which is everyone's darling at the moment. So - enough of the lame puck mouse bashing. Go get one on ebay for like 10c. Your wrist will love you, and you too will have the chance to marvel at possible the most underrated and misunderstood computer inventions of the past decade.
Ok - off my chest now...peace :)
Slow start as prices are at least $50 too high - follow the link to appleinsider.
...Because it implies an all-new generation of technology, when the truth is that most of its internals are silicon that Apple just hasn't used for its iPods but has been used extensively elsewhere, as Ars Technica noted in their review posted here yesterday. This isn't a bad thing, of course, it's just kind of lazy journalism, IMO.
From the review: "Most of the other components are run of the mill as far as iPods go. The heart of the iPod, the PortalPlayer chip, was upgraded to a slightly newer model (the PP5021C-TDF), the audio codec is the same Wolfson Microprocessor (WM8975G) found in the current generation iPods, a new power management unit by Phillips (CF50607), a batch of 32MB of Samsung SDRAM (534-K9WAG08U1M) replaces the old Hynix chips, and the LCD is of unknown manufacturer but it's a 16-bit color, 176x132 1.5" model."
For the same price as the 2GB iPod Nano, you could get a portable external USB enclosure with a built-in media player AND an 80GB 2.5" hard drive to slap in it. People willing to spend more could even go up to 320GB.
I just bought an MG-25 and I love it.
"Supported Formats: MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, DivX, XviD, MP3, OGG Vorbis, WMA"
I think Apple should cut down on thier laser-etching quality control and try to give people a little more bang for their buck. Why get all caught up in the look of a case that's just going to get scratched to hell after a month anyways?
And I hope that 4GB nano is worth half its weight in gold because that's how much it costs!
Indeed. That's one thing I've always maintained. Thank GOD for Microsoft. Say what you want about them, but they protected us from an Apple monopoly which would have been ten times worse than a Microsoft monopoly. At Microsoft was smart enough to embrace the idea of commodity hardware. If Apple had won, imagine the pain and suffering we would have gone through having only one supplier for both hardware and software. You can bet we would have lived with $10K computers for years in a stagnating market. It would have been an ugly battle until Apple was finally broken apart.
Microsoft arrogance is nothing compared to Apple arrogance.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Style, functionality, the interface's ease of use. Oh, and peer pressure. Those are reasons enough!
...
Never underestimate the power of peer pressure.
That's why most iPod users keep using the original earbuds even tho they're really pathetic and you can get a $5 pair that works better for hearing
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He's already calling the Nano his precious. Obviously the dual personality displayed by Gollum/Smeagol is beginning as well. "Tricksy little Ballmerses stoles our interfaces!!"
Have you seen the size of these things? I have handled one at the local compUSA store and (to put it politely) you are out of your mind to think that its the same size as a 256MB flash card, MP3 player, FM radio, and voice recorder. These things make the iPod mini look big and clumsy. and it makes my mp3 player (with its radio and 1.25GB) look like a dinosaur
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
I drive a Corolla, my Grandma has a Jaguar S-Type (I think thats the model). They are roughly the same size, they serve exactly the same purpose. Now granted the Jag has better performance, but you are paying a lot for image. Then again people complain about fancy cars, so you can't please everyone no matter what.
...
Heck, I've got you beat. My chauffeur drives a massive biodiesel bus, and takes me from my house to my work while bypassing all the lusers in their teeny cars
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The iPod yocto
With a name like that, it will FLY off the shelves.
DYWYPI?
I've heard complaints that the nano is a step backwards in capacity. However, a recent survey showed that the average MP3 player has about 300 songs on it, while the average iPod has 500. So for most people 4 gigs is enough.
Maybe that survey was reported here. I don't remember, one of the side effects of reading too many web sites in a day.
It's funny that the iPod nano finally has the size, feature set, and price point that Slashdotters were bemoaning the original iPod for lacking when it launched (when it was predicted to be a failure), and now that they've got it, well, nothing's changed of course.
It's just a flash player with the ipod design. Why are there so many slashdot articles about it. Flash players of all kinds have been out for a good while, apple is a few years too late.
Also, did this Kayne get his name from the "Brett Favre's Book Of Names Spelled One Way And Pronounced Another"? Khanyea, indeed.
Now enter the puck mouse. You still rest your wrist on the table, but you can move the whole mouse with ONLY your fingers! Very fast, light, easy, and sensible.
I'm using a "slow, cumbersome" normal mouse right now, with my wrist wresting on my desk, and I'm moving the cursor everywhere with ONLY my fingers. Up your pointer sensitivity.
The road to hell is paved with Cat 5 cable.
well, the 1GB was something like $35, but I was too cheap, and the 4GB was around $50.
... that works wonders ...
Still a lot cheaper than the iPod nano, all in all.
Now, if you want to attract girls, get a Nintendo DS and Nintendogs on it
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... it also gets the market who wants a flash-based player so it doesn't skip when running: the nano is my first ipod and I basically ordered it 5 minutes after reading the 'how can we destroy it' article here on /.
I do plan to eventually get a 60gig one at some point, but right now the nano just hits the sweet spot for me in terms of durability, price, size and capacity.
-- the cake is a lie
They will almost certainly port Linux to the nano, as they have to all generations of its big brother.
(%i1) factor(777353);
(%o1) 777353
Here's a clue Mr "I design inside an aesthetic bubble", in the real world things people touch with their hands gets DIRTY. If you make it from something that doesn't wipe clean, it stays dirty forever.
yeah, i saw the picture of it in Steve's hand, and I own an MP3 player that's a flash card, FM radio and voice recorder and it's pretty much the same size. And that's even for the 1GB flash card version.
It's just flatter, taller, and wider than my player.
Now, back in my Army days, it would be cool cause it would fit into my inner mag pocket, but so would my player which would fit in my pen holder pocket.
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PS: I know I'm a karma whore.
At +2, Informative, you're a cheap one at that.
mods please refrain from modding parent up further so my joke can stay relevant.
Normally my chauffer drives a huge train. I own my car, and have free parking and barely pay anything for insurance. I still take the train into the city for school. But nothing beats your own car/truck/etc for things like grocery shopping.
Not wanting to have a horribily disfigured iPod in four weeks I returned mine today.
Cheers yo,
Billy
bamph
If you can find a 4 gb for 50 Ill shit on it before I eat it.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Everyone on slashdot has always whined about microsoft's monopoly. Now you all, and I'm speaking to all you who bought an ipod, bought right into another monopoly. Where's the logic? Its the same business model! Hell it may be worse! At least you can use firefox instead of IE, but you sure as hell can't get your songs from anywhere else, can you? (I'm talking about conveniently, which is what 95% of ipod owners would use, not some hack-and-slash conversion that the other 5% have the knowledge to do).
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm an ergonomics scientist and appreciated the puck mouse for the very reasons you cite. The extra width offered by the circular design is very good for the hand. Were a traditionally-shaped mouse this wide at the point of finger contact, however, the mouse would be too large to use with the wrist anchored to the table (an ergonomics must). In short, the "puck" design achieved long-term health goals that almost no other mouse has duplicated.
I should confess that I don't continue to use this mouse (both because I wanted more functionality and because I also occasionally had trouble orienting it successfully without looking at it). But to criticize it (as many do) as poor design is to not understand design.
You're absolutely right -- the 2gb nano was actually cheaper than a respectable 2gb USB stick (Iomega IIRC).
I think these prices were plucked out of the air.
OK, this is going to be a bit of a rant. The basic problem is, I don't get why people love the click wheel. Yeah, it looks cool and minimalist, but people are always raving about the iPod's user interface, and the click wheel just doesn't seem to be all that good in that department.
Let me explain. I own an iPod Mini, and I like it. It looks cool, the battery life is quite good, and overall the user interface is well-designed. But, I primarily use this thing while I'm on the go (surprise). As such, I am usually doing something else while listening to music -- something that requires 95% of my attention. Namely, driving. I love that the iPod lets me have a bunch of songs in the car; previously I was keeping 10 or 15 CDs in the glove box, and I was always too lazy to change them out, so I wound up listening to the same music over and over and over.
Enter the iPod. Now everything is great. I got a $5 cable from Radio Shack and wired the thing into my car stereo's aux input. I keep the thing in a pocket that's very convenient to reach even while I'm driving; in fact, I barely have to move my hand.
So what's the problem? The problem is that the click wheel has no tactile feedback at all. It's just a big round thing, and pressing on it in different places does different things, but there is no way for your finger to tell where one place ends and the other begins. Would you want a keyboard that is perfectly flat and smooth across the top so that your fingers can't tell where one key stops and another starts? That's what the click wheel is like.
The reason this bugs me is that 99.9% of the time, I put the thing on shuffle, and I often want to skip a particular song when it comes up (if I'm not in the mood for it). So I reach for the iPod and press the track skip button, or at least I try. Because this requires me to push the right quarter of the wheel, I often get it wrong and punch the play/pause button or the menu button instead. Pushing play/pause results in silence. This is particularly irritating because many of the songs on the iPod start with a fade-in or a quiet part, and it's hard when I'm in the car and there's ambient noise to tell if the iPod has stopped playing because I've hit the wrong button or if the song is just quiet. So I pretty much have to grab the iPod and pull it up into my field of view or wait 30 seconds. Or crank up the volume nearly all the way to hear the difference and hope I don't damage my hearing. (Well, my car stereo isn't that powerful, but you get the idea.)
So, overall, I think the iPod does have a fairly good user interface, but I'd really much rather have the wheel and the buttons separate. The click wheel as it is makes the thing unnecessarily hard to use, and the only payoff you get in return is the "gee whiz" factor.
Slow start as prices are at least $50 too high
A fuel shortage-induced recession, flood-exacerbated inflation, and no Firewire-syncing means that this user will wait for rev 2.0 which (better) include FW-syncing.
Know what I mean?
blog
um... clearly you know NOTHING about human factors. using only your fingers to move the mouse is extremely bad! what you want is to move your entire arm, with your wrist and fingers in a neutral position.
furthermore, the puck's round design does not allow you to figure out how which way is up without either looking at the mouse, or testing the mouse by moving it.
by all accounts, the puck is a horrible design and you have simply gotten used to it. ask anyone in human factors.
Expect a phone call in 3 years.
the obligatory Don Heretzfeldt reference:
o urnal.com/images/mail_1_9_02.gif
http://www.netherworld.com/~mgabrys/sanfranciscoj
But nothing beats your own car/truck/etc for things like grocery shopping.
... I'll tell Bill G to put that money back in his pocket ...
Like home delivery of the groceries ordered by your fridge?
Dang, there goes the 21st century wired house concept
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The CRC wzs veru useful indeed, but I think I'd rather try and do without that than without my Merck Index. Never would have made it through college witout. Most. Useful. Chemist's. Book. Ever.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
* Mini: "This thing is barely smaller than a regular iPod, costs almost the same, and still has a hard drive so I can't go jogging with it."
* Shuffle: "Great, so you shrunk it down and removed the harddrive, but no screen? How am I supposed to use this thing?"
* Nano: "Ah, perfect. Small enough to fit just about anywhere. Full screen and standard interface. And no harddrive!"
I wouldn't be surprised that Apple knew of the complaints they would get with the Mini and Shuffle even before their launches, but decided that those were the best that could be implemented at the manufacturing costs they were willing to have. It was all just stepping stones to get to the goal they had preset: Small, fully functional, flash. In short, Nano.
TigerDirect - works fine.
Your mileage may vary.
I was only looking for 64MB, 128MB, 256MB, 512MB, 1GB ones, and recall the prices when I did the search, no idea if it has a different price now.
Even got a Wireless 11b/g basestation with 4 ports for $20.
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Dude, that kicks ass. I haven't used any of my iPods in linux because I didn't get one until after I had bought a Mac and relinquished my linux boxen to server roles, but it's cool to know that the functionality is there. In fact, I just sold an old 3g iPod to a friend of mine, I'll have to tell him to try that route since he's a linux guy. Awesome.
My experience with the Nano hasn't been quite so good. I drove out to the local Apple Store several hours after they got their first shipment and came home with a 4G Nano in black. I opened it in the store, it powered up, but didn't have any songs pre-loaded, so I stuck it in my pocket and drove home.
When I got home, I was surprised to discover two things:
1. Just riding for an hour in my pocket with my cell phone scratched up the gorgeous clear plastic front.
2. The unit failed to power up reliably once I got home. I was able to hard-reset it a few times to gain limited functionality, and then it died completely.
I drove back to the store the following day, the techs there prounced it dead (after waiting for 45 minutes, grrr...) but they were out of the 4G black model. Not happy to settle for white or two gigs, I just got a refund.
I may, or may not, try again in the future. It sure is one sexy little toy, and it might still function after being run over by a car, but a screen that scratches so easily is completely unacceptable.
-p.
The only problem I see for the Nano is that it's reduced size would make it less suitable to powering external gadgets like this. I think the Nano is stunning, but I'm happy I got my 6GB Mini for the brief time they were available.
One of these days I'm moving to Theory - everything works there
...just longing for the good ol' days before we crested 200K
Several: Iiiiiiiiiiiiive.
Bedevere: Oooohooohooooo!
Launcelot: No no, aauuuugggh, at the back of the throat: aauuuugghhh.
Bedevere: No, no, no, oooooooooooh in surprise and alarm.
Launcelot: Oh, you mean a sort of AAAUUUGGHH?
Oooh! OH NO! It's the legendry black beast of AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUGH!!
Which MP3 player do you have? So far you have been sprouting numbers pulled (by the smell of 'em) directly from your anus, and spreading them around like they're facts or something. Please back up your comments with something approaching reality...
no need for you to have all that DRM-less media laying around anymore
e.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
to your MP3 player so we can compare.
- sigs are for wimps.
Best I could see there was a 512MB for $49.99- and it was USB, not Compact flash.
Can you provide a link? A 4GB, or even a 256MB CF drive with all of that extra functionality would go great in my IPAQ- regardless of the fact that it's a device on it's own.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
They forgot the part about the ipod thing being built around another hokey DRM scheme. 100 songs. That's a real WTF'er if I've ever read one.
I'm thinking by Jan 2006, I should be able to pick up a silver Mini (silver being least popular color) for $130, is this realistic?
While not all-inclusive, let's just kill as much of it as we can right now (meaning I don't remember the rest and don't care to look them up)... Man, imagine a Beowulf cluster of these. I, for one, welcome our new iPod nano overlords. In Soviet Russia, iPod nanos you. OR In Soviet Russia, nano iPods you. 1) Nanoize the iPod. 2) ??? 3) Profit!!! And so on and so on...
"God is dead." - Nietzsche
"Nietzsche is dead." - God
They have lots of those.
Be careful for four weeks?
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Let's try again
____________________________
While not all-inclusive, let's just kill as much of it as we can right now (meaning I don't remember the rest and don't care to look them up)...
Man, imagine a Beowulf cluster of these.
I, for one, welcome our new iPod nano overlords.
In Soviet Russia, iPod nanos you.
OR
In Soviet Russia, nano iPods you.
1) Nanoize the iPod.
2) ???
3) Profit!!!
And so on and so on...
"God is dead." - Nietzsche
"Nietzsche is dead." - God
"Mouse arm" comes from the scapula winging out too far and being held in that position on a normal mouse, without the wrist resting on the desk.
Mouse arm leads to full arm numbness and tingling and is harder to treat surgically than is Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.
The question of which issue you're more sensitive to has a lot to do with the way your body is made and the kind of work you do. If you type more, you're going to want to move the mouse with your whole arm. If you mouse more, you just can't hold your wrist off the desk all the time.
In the end, the best way to deal with it is usually to buy three mice based on different ergonomic philosophies, get used to each, then rotate them through the day. Never more than an hour on one model.
*Any* position is only relatively ergonomic. It's like sunscreen... the SPF indicates how much longer you can stay in the sun without damage. Putting it on does not mean you can stay in the sun all day.
Billy
PS You insult others while calling them a troll? How old are you?
bamph
Protective Skins for the Nano. Found this while browsing some ipod forum looking for something to protect my new nano. BTW, you haven't seen such rabid fan boyism till you read an ipod forum. Say on negative thing(battery life on the nano is not 14 hours) and you'll have 30 guys/kids flaming you and the funny thing is half of them don't even have a nano.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
I just finished cutting 1/4" closed cell foam to fit inside an Altoids or Penguin mint box. 1/4" actoss the whole bottom, and two 1/4" x 1/4" stripes along the sides. Drill one hole at the appropriate place for the headphone, smooth with Dremel. I used a sharpie to re-blacken the scratched paint around the earphone hole.
I put a couple of felt pads on the inside of the lid to protect the face and provide downward pressure (make sure not to have anyything interacting with the click wheel).
As Emeril would say, "BAM!" iPod Nano case. Looks cool, contains caffeine (when used in a Penguin case). The black and white Pengiun box also works well with my black Pod, and will stand out enough to keep track of it in a room.
... if there was a way to do it on a PC.
It would also be nicer if it was integrated directly into iTunes so when you select "downsample to aac128 before downloading to ipod" it would also do this automagically
-- the cake is a lie
That would be mighty convenient, but sadly it isn't a practical reality yet. Teleportation would be even cooler. Until then, I'll stick with my car, but someday...
that's newsworthy?
You all must be Bush Republicans. Flaming Apple for a fantasy monolopy is like Bush and the Republicans blaiming the Democrats for every problem while ignoring all their own screw ups. Yeah, "If Gore was elected then Osama Bin Laden would be grazing his camel in the White House Rose Garden."
In the real world, no WMDs and a bunch of lame brains in FEMA who happened to have the right room mate in college and worked for the Bush campaign in 2000. When a real emergency hit they couldn't find their own asses with both hands in a well lit room.
Meanwhle, in the real computing world Microsoft can't build a secure system under any circumstances. They fund SCO to try and sink Linux. They use their monolopy power for the Microsoft tax on all the computers sold through large retail and online venders.
But Apple and a made up monolopy is the real threat. Only if your head so far up your ass you can see daylight. Whoever modded this up to 2 should be kicked off Slashdot for life. And be restricted to only AOL on the internet.
tiger Direct? Is that an operating system?
well, you can rip as one track in itunes, and add chapters: http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050 81423571277&query=gapless
though i agree, that one should be able to select the play options during import or any time after.
That article mentions the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey... good comparison. If you scaled it, it's pretty close:
nano dimensions: 3.5 x 1.6 x 0.27
monolith ratio: 9 x 4 x 1
scaled 0.4x: 3.6 x 1.6 x 0.4
So, it's a slightly (3%) taller and 2/3rds the thickness of a monolith.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
Oh $DIETY, not another "frog designed the Trinitron and the Mac and last did something big during the reign of Louis XIII" past glories rehash. Just because your company's name is all lower case foes NOT make you cool. No amount of Pro/E wanking will do it either.
There's a reason Apple took their industrial design in house, you know.
[yeah, I have an axe to grind -- frog wasn't exactly stellar when they did a megabuck design for a company I used to work for.]
Yeah, real mouse here, moved with fingertips.
If I moved my whole arm I might actually develop some muscles in it and lose geek cred.
p.s. I thought that Apple-style mouse interaction was all about fast, long distance movement, hence big menus at the screen edge for the mouse to slam into. Fingertip style is good at short distance and precise, so Apple promoting fingertip mouse movement seems contradictory.
I quit!
Engineer One: Let's make it smaller
Engineer Two: Okay
The puck is so low profile that you don't have this problem - and with the sensitivity right up, you can move the pointer right across the screen with TINY movements of your fingers. You have to try it to apprecite the difference.
For the record, I don't use one and haven't for many years now. But I do think it's such a shame that many people - especially those here who are for the most part proponents of clever and considered design - dismiss it outright without considering why it is like it is.
Heh. Maybe I should have a new warcry - Viva Amiga, and the Puck!
It would be nice if they spent the extra 10 cents to make the black models back case plated with nickle then blackened. Ive's laser etch would stand out even more, it would be very nice indeed. Black earphones would be good too. For the complaints about the laser etch, the serial number is etched by the laser, the additional logo etch is essentially a freebie as is personalization from a cost perspective. The etch on the click wheel provides important tactical feedback, not just something to look at.
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
So in a world of Apple, we have 80% Apple, 10% Creative, and 10% other.
To go with this, we'd also have:
Spare, clean OSes that don't try to do everything and be mediocre
(Compare to the MP3 players that have FM tuners, replaceable batteries, and voice recorders)
Good software on said OSes
(Compare to iTunes to all the other jukeboxes)
Price competition forcing the #2 manufacturer to actually LOSE money to compete
(Compare the fact that because Apple is cutting prices to maintain dominance, Creative is losing money to 'keep up')
So if Apple had captured the OS market, we'd be seeing:
Well designed OSes (like the iPods)
Fast adoption of new technology (The iPod was the first with the 1.8" hd when everyone else was using 3.5" and 2.5" drive, the first to use CF drives when everyone else was using flash, and now the first to use flash when everyone else has adopted CF. The iPod was also first to use a fast serial connection.)
Computers people LOVE to use (like the iPods)
Wait... all those things are true NOW in Apple computers.
So the only difference is, with 80% dominance, is that 80% of the populace would be:
Happy
Using a well designed OS
Using new technology
Instead of only 5% of the population.
GPL Deconstructed
Death to fuckhead mods!
Its odd that no one has brought up the potential limits in flash based memory. Apparently, writing and rewriting data over time will eventually cause it to fail. Additionally, should the device be unplugged from its data connection while transferring files it may corrupt the device to a non usable state.
Maybe an Apple user basher that isn't a tiny dicked little virgin asshat. Add that to your little list.
I have not posted in eons. But parent comment takes the cake and I had to respond. Funny how trollish comments get rated as Insightful. The statement is a complete slander. The only complaint raised is "commodity hardware".
Do you have any other points on which you can compare Apple and Microsoft.
Do you think if Apple was a monopoly, Steve Jobs would have given up his reality distortion and would be a corporate suit? Forget the products, have you seen the passion with which the man introduces the products. If Apple was 80%, and Microsoft 20%, would anyone have come to watch Bill Gates introduce Windows Vista? The point being...despite market share Steve would have had passion for usability, and bill for unethical practices.
Do you think if Apple was a monopoly, the prices would be 10,000 per machine? Would not have Linux have much better opportunity in such times? After all, Linux is trying to fight a $300 operating system and could be winning with some more effort. With a $5000 operating system, and another $5000 for hardware, Linux would make sure Apple could not remain a monopoly.
Do you think if Apple was a monopoly, it would not innovate? With limited R&D funds, Apple is able to develop such cool technology. Give them twice the money, give them their lost 10 years and they would have had an operating system of circa 2010 NOW. Why? Because for all the market leadership Microsoft has, they do not have imagination. They know how to copy, not how to be creative.
I can go on, but I wonder. Why is the parent comment insightful?
You really never have held a managerial position, or considered this at all.
Just because this is superior is no reason to replace a hugely successful product. Most, heck pretty much all, companies would say "Sure, go ahead, WORK on the next gen one, and we'll look to think about releasing it when the current hot model starts to loose some sales fizz".
Most companies would never do this. Why would you? Why would you invest all the money to tool up and build these things on mass while you've got a product you spent heaps of money on out there recouping its development costs and reaping a tidy profit? Why would you? You wait until you can see you can make more money with the new product.
Now... this is where Apple is being different... they are looking at the iPod Nano and thinking "You know what, this is going to be even bigger than the iPod and the Mini, probably combined. It's just too sweet a thing to wait on... let's go for it, let's release it now"
I'm no Mac fanboy by any stretch, don't own any Apple hardware at all, but I can see this as a pretty bold move... and one that will pay handsomly.
Bring out this before the competition has really had a chance to combat the mini... that's pretty darn smart.
(Also, it still doesn't have Vorbis or FLAC support.)
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
No question about it. As "passionate" as Steve is, he's not known for cut-rate pricing. Apple has always charged a premium. What makes you think it'd be different in an Apple monopolized world?
Would not have Linux have much better opportunity in such times? After all, Linux is trying to fight a $300 operating system and could be winning with some more effort. With a $5000 operating system, and another $5000 for hardware, Linux would make sure Apple could not remain a monopoly.
No question about it, but the timeline here is the 90s. It would be a golden opportunity for someone else, but remember the primary achilles heel of any alternate operating system -- Applications. Developers don't want to spend money to develop for minority machines, and minority machines can't gain traction without applications. But in our $10K/machine alternate reality, that'd be a big incentive to break the monopoly.
Do you think if Apple was a monopoly, it would not innovate?
Do you not remember the absolute pathetic failure that was Copland? Prior to OS/X, Apple had a terrible recent track record of innovation (albeit with a few bright spots). And that was in a time of fighting for survival! If Apple was fat and raking in the money with the same ol' crap, would they innovate?
How much did, say, Quark Xpress innovate and develop once they reached their market dominance? Many people *despise* the arrogance of Quark. That's what happens when you get fat, and I highly doubt Apple would be any different, especially with the natural arrogance of their corporate culture (you can't deny that).
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Steve Jobs fails to mention that Apple doesn't do all the engineering work for the iPod nano. The firmware for the clickwheel is done by the manufacturer of the cap sensor. And yes, the work is done on a PC. The development tools don't run on a Macintosh.
remember that little pocket on your jean at your right hand side?
Thanks Steve, it just works(tm)!
DRM, lack of WMA compatiblity, ITMS files can't play on other players, "this here no name plastic player from China is cheaper and plays Ogg and... yadda yadda yadda".
OK, sit down, shut up and pay attention.
The overwhelming majority of people who buy iPods and KEEP buying iPods don't care a fat rat's ass about ANY OF THAT. Not one little bit do they care.
They want something that simply works. They don't care about ITMS DRM. They DO care about the fact that they can get music they want right now for a modest sum. They know they'll get a quality file.
They buy iPods because the interface is simple and it works well.
They buy iPods because they are small, sturdy and hold an amzing amount of music.
The overwhelming majority of the buying public is who Apple is targetting the iPod line to.
Not you smelly Linux hippies with your handmade machines and having to config it. And then you have to write some shell scripts. Update your RPMs. You have to partition your drives. And patch your kernel. Compile your binaries. Check your version dependencies. Probably do that once or twice.
Just to install an MP3 player.(and after all that, you STILL don't have more friends!)
You are not the consumer Apple cares about.
You have never been the consumer Apple cares abou.
You will never be the consumer Apple cares about.
Get over yourself and welcome your new, Jonathan Ive designed overlords!
Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
An alternative has to satisfy the same requirements as the original consideration. That's what makes it an alternative, douche.
Or maybe they just know that the iPod has become a cultural icon, lead by Apple fanboys, followed by people who just love the newest and latest thing. And to capitalize on the market, they can release a 'newer', 'better' iPod every few months?
Granted the iPod Nano is really the only iPod that has ever peaked my interest. I may end up getting it, but I'd like to avoid using iTunes.
You should be asking what's the next little thing.
Honestly, the only thing that is holding me back from buying a full sized iPod is the horrible white color anymore. I've been looking and I just can't find anything of the same quality for a better price (sadly; what kind of free market is this?) The black nano looks fantastic to me, but I definitely have no use for something that won't hold my entire collection. And no, the U2 doesn't count, because it had the horrible red wheel and I just can't stand U2 in any way. Likewise, colored cases don't count either. So is there any chance? Maybe if the black nano sells better than the white?
I have more than 4,000 songs on my iPod. Maybe 40 of them were bought from the iTunes Music Store. What is so difficult about dragging any MP3 file to the iTunes icon? Or inserting a CD and clicking the "import" button? I'd venture to guess that only a very small percentage of the songs on iPods were purchased from Apple.
See this and stop being a dumb ass, dubmb ass.
Yeah, and quite frankly I can't figure that attitude out.
:)
Up here in Canuckistan, virtually every other mp3 player, for the same capacity, costs as much OR MORE than an ipod.
Back in 2003 I got a 40gb RCA Lyra for around $450CDN. The same ipod at the time was nearly $700. So yeah, huge price difference. But these days? My next player is going to be an ipod, mostly because they're CHEAPER than nearly every other player. Add in the positive feedback I hear from owners, and I'm sold.
No, it won't play 85 file formats that I don't even own. No, it doesn't have an FM radio - I bought an mp3 player specifically so that I WOULDN'T have to listen to the radio. No, it doesn't have a microphone (? what the hell is this complaint about anyway ?).
Apple makes em high capacity, cheap, and solid state. Pick any 2. Just not high capacity and solid state, yet
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
I ran, the day it came out on the Apple store, to Future Shop to return the Shuffle that I still had 15 days of money-back guarantee for, and gave it back. I was hollering and yelling, and generally making the clerks very uncomfortable with my excessive ranting. They gave me the money back, and as I was about to walk away, they ask,
:-)
Clerk: "Sir, we need to know what the defect was. Uh... What was the actual symptom?"
Me: "... The defect? It shuffles music and has no screen. Later."
I proceeded to order it on-line and it just arrived today with my custom etching that says, "zomg?"
Life is good again.
Nobody's gay for Mole-Man.
Just bought the 4gig NANO, plugged it into my pc and it froze. The apple kids might be out there chuckling about how that's what I get for plugging a nice little nano into a big bad PC. At least it's not bluescreening I hear one of them saying. The screen is actually frozen on the time and date screen by the way. I'm a pc user who was strongly considering making the switch and paying a little more for a more stable platform. And by strongly considering I mean I was fooling around with the apple store website every day, pricing the system I might get, adding a bit of memory here, adding some disk space there until I had exceeded my intital budget by a fun weekend in Vegas. I may speak for myself but I don't believe that any other former potential customers would be too pleased with their first, and last, apple product crashing on them. How do I hit CTRL + ALT + DEL on a Nano? Or do I just chuck it into that slick industrial swedish trash can that's also more style than substance?
Magic Wands. Vice Grips were an Italian speed wrench, and Beer was breakfast.
photosMy Photostream
Ive said "consciously find these details". That's fairly precise. He's hoping you will unconsciously or subconsciously find these details appealing.
The idea is that these details somehow convinced you to buy an iPod; it is irrelevant if you are skilled enough to notice these details consciously, and actually not all that conducive to using the product.
It's as if, in a well prepared dish, you were able to consciously pick out the individual flavors of each ingredient, when the idea is that each ingredient has been carefully blended and combined to form a whole.
Or if you want a more visual example, as if you could perceive each individual color in a fine painting; if you are looking at individual shades and pigments, then you aren't looking at the picture itself.
The iPod has lots of tiny little details that, in of themselves, should not be noticed except in the context of the whole device; like how the music stops if the headphones are unplugged, how the design of the case is carefully rounded so nothing gets snagged or caught in your pocket, how the scrollwheel is textured so you can feel for it in your pocket without sight.
That said, there are STILL little details they can do to improve the device; enhance the texture of the scroll wheel so you can easily tell left/right and up down. Perhaps this is possible by etching the icons for menu, left, right, and play/pause. Or they can engrave those icons, slightly, on the case itself so you can feel them without touching the scroll wheel.
GPL Deconstructed
I heard you can't store photos from one of the review sites . Is this true ?
Just a thought.
You could call it your iWoody
"Our interests are to see if we can't scale it up to something more exciting," he said.
I have the Windows version with the scroll wheel and I assume the wear and tear on a scroll wheel could cause premature breakage so Apple replaced it in subsequent versions. I bought my unit refurbished (with what appeared to be a brand new case) from Apple and would buy and second and third if I could. My scroll wheel has worked fine for the last two years, so I guess I've had good luck.
I completely agree that the physical feedback from the scroll wheel feels natural. I prefer it to the click wheel in that your touches aren't always interpreted correctly.
Well the rest of the world was jogging an exercising even with regular iPods - never mind the Mini. Do you know how much force those microdrives can take and keep going? Quite a lot.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
how is the nano 10^-9 of anything?
Has a matter of fact I do have large hands, and I don't roll my wrist around to use my mouse.
And you know what they say about a man with large hands: he has large feet.
And you know what they say about a man with large feet...
He wears big shoes.
No need for you to have any DRM media rather since of course you can just use MP3's with the thing, or plain AAC files...
I'm afraid it's only your Wazoo that seems to have anything stuck up it. The rest of us are free to do as we like.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You say Apple's culture innovates because of external pressure rather than internal motivation, but that's hard to see, given the passion for forward-thinking, human-oriented design shared by the company's management and senior engineers. It's a passion you can't fake in interviews, a passion evident in the strict tolerances and attention to detail in every Apple product I can name (yes, even the hockey puck mouse). It's a passion curiously lacking, on the whole, in companies like Dell and Microsoft. And you honestly believe Apple as top dog would have stagnated as much as Microsoft?
Even throughout the 90s, despite Steve's absence at the top, Apple led the industry with RISC, keyboard placement on laptops, trackpads, UI improvements, audio I/O, onboard networking, CD-ROM, digital photography. Hell, even the Newton... the list goes on. These aren't just "a few bright spots" produced by a company fighting for its survival--it's a pattern of evidence that innovation (can I call it innovation?) at Apple was alive and well even without nurture from management.
I don't see Apple's corporate culture, or Steve Jobs himself, as arrogant in the least. They care about the consumer more than anyone else in the computer industry, as long as said consumer has good taste and a passion for design. They do not, however, give the consumer what he wants, because what the consumer wants per se is often something that sucks (that is why design is a profession, not a hobby). I suppose I can see why some people chafe at that--the stupid philistines.
Personally I'm waiting for the iPod Yacto.^ Details are a bit sketchy at this time but some expected features include:
* Incredibly small design! Only 1 cm x 1 cm!
* Connect the iPod Yacto directly into your brain for optimal performance!
* Store music directly in your brain!
* Features new DRM technology to further limit what you can do with your purchased music!
* New patented One-Blink (tm) interface (no one needs more than one blink!)
* Battery life now 3 times as long, bringing the total battery life to 9 hours!
* And much, much more!
^ Requires iTunes: Working Edition. Quicktime 8.0 will be installed without your permission.
find . -name "noobs" -print | xargs rm -rf && echo "pwnd."
Let them buy Milli Vanilli.
All that attention to detail and they still couldn't include the patent free ogg vorbis format. Apple truly sucks big corporate balls for eschewing this most important of standards. All you apple fanboys are salivating your way to a locked down DRM hell by continuing to buy these products. I just bought a new iRiver T10. Its not as cool as the nano, but the sound quality is great and it supports ogg...enough said.
Tell me where I can get this sweet $30 package.
"Apple today updated its Xserve RAID storage system, a 3U high-availability, rack storage system to deliver 7 terabytes (TB) of storage capacity at a price of US$1.86 per GB." There you go, Apple wins again.
These numbers are completely made up. At these rates, flash memory is cheaper than using hard drives. There is absolutely no way that could be normally possible.
Apple technician: "Steve, the iPod is known to have worse sound quality than the cheaper Creative, Archos, Karma, or iRiver".
SteveJ: "he has a point there Ives, and those muffling white earpieces won't help for long when all our customers get mugged"
Ives: "but I've spent months laser-etching the logo"
SteveJ: "that's true, and we can get Marketing to make a big point of this to the clueless drones who buy our shit, they will forget about the inadequacies of the product, form over function and all that"
AppleTech: "what about adding Ogg and WMA support, and allowing bi-directional transfer of files?"
Ives: "I've spent months on the roughness of the clickwheel compared to the smoothness of the rest of the exterior"
SteveJ: "ship it!"
#include <sig.h>
Mine arrived 48 hours ago. I've already got a 40G non-Photo iPod, and I love it, but don't use it that often as it's still a little big to stick in a pocket, and a little vulnerable on a belt clip.
:-(
This little baby, however, is just great. Not just gorgeous, fortunately, but also slim and light enough to pop in a shirt breast pocket and and genuinely forget it's there until I think "I want some music".... and then it's got enough capacity to have a wide choice of moods. If I travel, I'll take the iPod. Day-to-day, I'll carry the Nano.
The photo functionality is kinda nice in the same way that carrying a couple of tiny photos in the wallet is nice, but it's not particularly useful since postage stamp sized images just can't show much visible detail, even on the Nano's rather good screen. But the form factor and music capabilities, IMHO, hit the sweet spot, and the price is highish but not unreasonable, especially for such a desirable device.
Of course, my main fear is that I'll mislay it one day and then realise it's in the pocket of the shirt I've just put in the washing machine. Flash-based memory usually survives such treatment, but I doubt the iPod's controls, screen and interfaces would...
Crap. the more I think about it, the more certain I am that it'll happen. Now I'm getting too scared to carry it!
-- What goes up must come down. Ask any SysAdmin.
The Ipod family is a proof that design matters. Now if I only could convince my boss that we should write our software the same way. It isn't like industrial designers are paid less than software developers, right?
did any one hear that one of the Lord Of The Rings final edits was place onto an Ipod so they could transport it to Peter Jackson. the guy who was carrying it was getting scared because a guy was following him and he thought that if he was mugged for his Ipod then he would have lost the whole final production film and it would have been leaked onto the internet
Interesting, Oh no wait the other thing, Tedious
"get one on ebay for like 10c. Your wrist will love you, ..."
:-/
My wrist already loves me...
Call tech support or visit the store. A lemon is a lemon, whether made by dell or apple...
I think, therefore I am...I think.
Has Time always run arselicking all-but-paid-for advertising for companies? It was only a couple of months ago that they ran an adulatory XBox360 extravaganza which read more or less like a Microsoft press release. Lots of pictures, nod-nod-yes-indeed interviews with developers - no critical views, no interviews with competitors, pretty photos... What happened to journalism?
"Every internal component was redesigned and packed into every millimeter of the space inside."
Wow, this thing is so small that it's only one-dimensional!
because 10k computers would be out gunned by $1-$2k BETTER amigas that rocked in full color and sound unlike the shit PCs of the day. Anyone today can make a D2A converter, even back then it was trivial to make a D2A converter , to embed that to reading ram via DMA and piping it out... trivial. Seriously, not many transistors, just a good design.
AtariST wasnt an option, it was crap tho 'wierd'.
So today, wheres our uber cool 3d interfaces based on OPenGL or DirectX ?
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Yes, and I suppose you're perfectly happy to bend over for Bill Gates for all the same reasons, aren't you?
Oh that's right: If Gates does it, it's evil. If Apple does it, it's HIP and NOW and HAPPENING and the general public accepts it wholeheartedly.
Right. Got it now.
To perform a hard reset on an iPod, I believe you need to hold down the center button and the play/pause button for 5 (maybe 10?) seconds.
Detailed design nonwithstanding, it's pretty simple why they went with a solid-state durable iPod: people drop them. Mine made it to drop #2, but thanks to careful wrapping in a xSkin it looked factory-new. When I sent it to Apple. Under warranty. They sent a new one, straight from Taiwan, according to the shipping label. 10 days from initial complaint to reloading a brand new iPod. Despite a corner being basically dented in.
That's excellent customer service. However, had I dropped it and the screen had cracked, would have been sol.
Nano=fewer in-warrantee breakages.
And screen protection? Scissors+some clear packaging plastic+scotch tape. Screen was unscratched 5 months of pocket use. Simple.
gollum jokes? What about Mork jokes?
*snicker*
''smelly Linux hippies"
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
just saw a 1GB advertised for $49.99 on TigerDirect this morning.
as I said, your mileage may vary.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Well, if we can't get teleportation, then jetpacks would be cool, especially if we use them to fly up to our zeppelins.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
i found it on TigerDirect - think it's www.tigerdirect.com, originally from a /. header link.
Look under flash cards or MP3 and then select on the left side combinations or something like that.
Today they had a 1GB combo for $49.99.
But since I have one, am holding out till Xmas when I'll get another one for my son.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
You equate Apple with Steve Jobs, but during most of Apple's history they have been two very distinct things. Remember that Steve Jobs got kicked out of Apple for being too much like Steve Jobs back in the 80's.
In fact, Apple today is not really the Apple of the 90's anymore. They are NeXT with the Apple name. Apple paid NeXT to take over, and Steve Jobs came with the deal.
Had Apple been the market leader in the 90's, they would never have taken over NeXT, they would have had a generic corporate culture, and they would have been just as bad as MS.
What saved Apple was near-bankrupcy and a tiny market. They'd have never gone for NeXT if that wasn't the case.
Apple, refusing to stand still, has released its trimmest full-featured iPod yet. The iPod Nano plays music, displays photos, is cleverly designed and is VERY small.
Daily News http://newsblaze.com
but they'll still have to ditch lots of icky green cases
it would face pressure from its owners to extract monopoly profits.
IF there were a mixed market with three, four or ten big players, none of whom had a market share larger than 40% in any one year, then Apple (but also the competition) would probably be streets ahead in technology terms.
However would that be better socially? The monopoly of Microsoft in the operating system world has brought a standardisation that has allowed a focus on hardware improvement and cost reduction. Consistency between organisations allows for trivially easy file-transfer.
Some smelly Linux hippie sez:
/. all you want. Steve Jobs doesn't care. He doesn't have to. He owns the DMP market in North America and iTunes Music Store pwn3d the "new" Napster from before day 1.
"If Apple does it, it's HIP and NOW and HAPPENING and the general public accepts it wholeheartedly."
Yes, smelly Linux hippie! The general public HAS accepted it wholeheartedly. They demonstrate this by buying iPods and not the cheap plastic crap from China. They demonstrate this by buying additional iPods.
Over 75% of all DMPs sold have the Apple logo laser engraved on the back.
To reiterate:
You are not the consumer Apple cares about.
You have never been the consumer Apple cares about.
You will never be the consumer Apple cares about.
Gripe on
Get over yourself and welcome your new, Jonathan Ive designed overlords!
Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
can't you afford more ? you have small hands you need small player to play M jackson beatit on.
Actually, no.
l ?articleID=169400638
It is my understanding that Apple has had serious sourcing/price problems with microdrives, who have only ONE vendor (Hitachi), and rather than pay inflated prices for microdrives they redesigned the iPod mini to a flash player so they could use competing vendors, like Samsung. That's what's REALLY behind this great "design" innovation. I'm told theat they were originally going to do a new iPod mini with a larger color screen.
Found an article on this: http://www.eetimes.com/news/semi/showArticle.jhtm
The nano is nice, but the iPod mini was more durable and had a better price/capacity ratio. But apparently Apple isn't getting good enough margin on them anymore.
(Disclaimer: I have yet to use the nano, but I have seen it in person and I've heard many reports about it's scratch-tastic faceplate.)
Also, your point about Linux picking up in percentage stake hold because of $10,000 machines does not really fit too well because I do not see how a $5,000 computer, maybe as fast as a modern machine (because of a lack of competition) would be better just because it is running on Linux? I would much rather have a less than $1,000 beast of a computer running Linux, than a good computer that costs $5,000.
People did not see MS as a non-innovator prior to it being labeled a monopoly. Plug-n-play? Did not see that anywhere else. Simple networking (just turning on your computer and plugging it into a network) and it finds everything for you? Most things are still playing catch up on that. Not to mention they made the step of making Virtual PC for Mac's. I don't see a Virtual Mac piece of software. C#? A lot of people like to scream Java copy, but that is really only syntactally; there are tons of features in C# that do not, or did not, exist in Java (including a well done form of templates using Generics... Java implementation for backwards compatibility is just horrible). Java was not really anything new, except it was better advertised. WinFS, with all of its delays, seems to be getting done right, which means it is not rushed and it will be innovative.
Long story short, both companies have some great innovations behind them, and ahead of them. I LOVE my iPod nano, but I also enjoy a lot of MS products.