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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.'"
Worth every penny of the $10 it adds to the price.
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
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
The user interface is one of the top reasons people buy iPods - almost every review of every MP3 player compares the interface to the iPod and almost every other brand falls short - the iPod truly is the standard against which all else is compared.
In industrial design, as with programming, the best solution is difficult/expensive to attain but is elegant and almost mind-bogglingly simple. A perfect example: the iPod click-wheel and the way it works with the iPod OS.
Rex is 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
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.
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."
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.
I don't really think pencil-width and quarters fall into the same category as LoCs. Football fields don't either for the American public. It provides an easier to experience metric than 1.1 centimeters and 4.3 ounces. I could conceivably take out 8 quarters and a pencil and get an instant idea of how thick and heavy the iPod is.
The LoC measurement is silly because I have as much reference to what a LoC is in data as I do to what they're comparing it to. They might as well say "Dat der thingamajig is HUUUUUGE!"
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'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.
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.
You're just better off with a smaller player that you load up with a weeks worth of listening at a time. Unless of course everything you own fits, then stuff it and go.
* 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.
You can bet we would have lived with $10K computers for years in a stagnating market..
I don't get it. How could you possibly have a monopoly and the most expensive product on the market?
I can't even imagine a world where consumers want expensive computers so badly, no retailer would risk offending Apple by selling cheaper non-Apple PCs. It defies logic.
I find it misleading to claim Microsoft has "protected" us from an Apple monopoly, as Microsoft has never been a hardware company, and the entire idea of "commodity hardware" is derived solely from the availability of PC clones and not under Microsoft's control. IBM, not Microsoft, had a stranglehold on the PC market until Compaq reverse engineered the PC BIOS and produced a clone. Had IBM's lawsuit been successful, we probably would have lived with $10K computers for years in a stagnating market, Microsoft or no. It would have been an ugly battle until IBM was finally broken apart. Or until Apple grudgingly accepted low-cost Apple clones and took over the market. See how fun pure speculation can be?
As a counterpoint, you can imagine a world in which Microsoft did not have a virtual monopoly on office productivity applications and indeed on the entire chain down to the operating system, and had been forced to play nice with others. Perhaps the lock-in precluded some incredible innovation of the software side which our counterparts in the alternate universe simply could not imagine living without. Oh, I'm speculating again. It must be contagious.
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
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?
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!
You don't have to give a shit about sports to have heard the phrase "fifty-yard line" at some point in your life. A football field is 100 yards long.
"If Steve could charge 10K for the 'honor' of owning one of his machines, he'd do it in a heartbeat."
Bullshit. Explain the Mac mini, then.
You want arrogance? Arrogance is Microsoft's and Dell's satisfaction that their products are "good enough" for you and me, and expecting users to conform to their awkward designs. On the other hand you have Apple, whose eagerness to make its hardware and software accessible to everyone--i.e. intuitive "for the rest of us"--is the most meaningful sort of humility.
And if this eagerness, nay, devotion leads the Mac to be more expensive than your average "good enough" PC, which I'll allow it very well may, then you're mistaken to characterize it as the result of some obsession with class or status symbolism.
That's if you ask me, which I guess you didn't.
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.
I own a retail store, and you sir, are a shit.
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
So essentially you're willing to do the work yourself. Your player only has basic functionality, but you can extend that functionality through manpower.
The iPod can do a large number of useful things on its own. For example, iTunes can automatically fill unused space with random songs of high ranking. The iPod can automatically play songs with higher ranking more frequently. While you're listening to a song, you can change its rating. Once its hooked up to the computer again, that rating will automatically be uploaded back to iTunes such that your library will slowly get a better idea of what you like to listen to. iTunes automatically downloads songs into appropriate folders, and the iPod automatically organizes music by id3 tags such that you don't need to worry about putting things into separate folders.
I'm certain you can duplicate all of that functionality manually. I'm also certain that you can change all of your OS settings through a text editor. Now you might be willing to sacrifice functionality for cost, but I'd dare say that the majority of people prefer it the other way.
Also, the iPod's physical interace runs circles around the NEX IIe's button. You need to put in effort to make NEX IIe's button work efficiently. On the iPod, even if you stuck all of the songs in a single list, you'd be able to get to it relatively quickly.
I don't understand why you get so mad, it just boils down to personal preference anyway. You are willing to sacrifice cost for functionality, almost everyone else wants it the other way around. What's the big deal?