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Is Apple Trying to Take Over iPod Accessories?
An anonymous reader writes "With more and more iPod accessories being released by Apple all the time many users are speculating that Apple is trying to shoulder the after-market iPod companies aside. However, at least one user doesn't see it that way, and thinks that Apple's move may actually help the after-market companies. From the article: 'Even if it wanted to, Apple knows that it couldn't simply make the iPod accessory market participants magically go away. If Apple did try to steal their lunch, all it would succeed in doing would be to drive those companies straight into the arms of the iPod's competitors, most of whom are desperate to see any kind of an accessory market form around their players. And that's the last thing Apple wants to have happen.'"
... I'd want in too for profits on a $99 iPod case!
linky
I pity the foo that isn't metasyntactic
To your average iPod buyer, no amount of accessories will make another player as attractive as the iPod.
If other companies are too slow to release new ipod accessories and apple beats them to it, well thats just too freakin bad for those other companies now isnt it?
Dont blame apple for keeping on top of the game, blame those smaller companies for slacking.
Menya zovut Shnur
What kind of stupid question is that? Of course they want to own the market that sells $1 leather sleeves for $30-$100! Why should some Chinese company profit with $100 iHomes when Apple can profit with $150 iHomes.
Apple overprices their iPod accessories. To create an accessory market.
Kind of like giving their competitor^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hhelper companies some advertising dollars, only without actually doing so.
AC's modded -6. I don't see you, I don't mod you, anything you say is lost. Don't like it? Don't be a coward.
Believe it or not, a company exists to make money. With the cachet of the Apple brand already driving the sales of the ipod, why not increase the booty a bit by getting in on the extras?
Curb CO2 emissions: Kill yourself today!
That's right... You guys are misunderstanding this. Apple are saints. They're only trying to help other companies by releasing competing products!
My 3D Texturing Skinning work (under construction)
Is Apple Trying to Take Over iPod Accessories?
You mean, has Apple realized that people are willing to pay obscene amounts of money on cheap accessories for the gadget of the decade, and would Apple like a cut of that delicious, delicious profit by making some of those cheap accessories too? I believe the answer is "yes".
Next up on Slashdot: Is Microsoft trying to compete eith Open Source?
I dont feel that there is any issue with Apple releasing their accessories. In fact, the "Apple" Branded accessories I have purchased for the NANO are much better quality than third parties. An example is the armband which is a leather that feels much softer and gentler on the skin. Third party accessories for the same item are half the price, but normally elastic and plastic.
It all comes down to quality of product, and I would much rather have something confortable and that lasts longer and looks nicer for a little more..
One exception is the new itrip nano.. that thing rocks.
Just because it might be a bad move doesn't mean they wouldn't do it.
"If Apple did try to steal their lunch, all it would succeed in doing would be to drive those companies straight into the arms of the iPod's competitors, most of whom are desperate to see any kind of an accessory market form around their players. "
I think the summary has it backwards. The accessory market won't develop unless the product has good marketshare already. If Apple drives the iPod accessory companies to make accessories for the iPod's competitors, it will in effect drive them out of business.
Look at it this way: if there was good profit to be made making accessories for other music players, there would be companies meeting that demand already.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
They're trying to better define the market. They want to put their accessories at the very top end of the market, and shake everyone down from there.
It's like getting your key blanks from the dealer rather than at the corner store. They don't want to take away the market, but they certainly do want to own the 75% margin end of it.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
If you break or lose your original headphones, Apple doesn't sell replacements as far as I can tell. Maybe they're afraid people will buy them to look like they're listening to an iPod??
I guess Apple will just have to boil the frog, then.
Elbow out the accessory companies one company or accessory at a time, until they lose the critical mass they need to stay in the business. And do it slowly so that won't mount a unified reponse against Apple, such as a multi-complainant antitrust suit.
If you thought those were expensive, check out what Coach has to offer!
Life is not for the lazy.
It may be a case of Apple simply not being impressed with the 3rd party products currently offered. If quality accessories will help sell your product, and the after market isn't releasing high enough quality, Apple may well want to 'show them how it is done'. Basically Apple spends its marketing and development dollars to prove that a quality accessory can make money and that should encourage the after market companies to improve their wares.
Or maybe Steve is really on one of his kicks to control everything. What do I know?
if I remember correctly, many decades back Harley Devidson motorbikes did the same thing by creating the black fashionable leather garments for its fans, as they already had a *cult* following, this just helped them in strengthening it further.
i think apple is also following the same footsteps..
everyone downmodding this post will be prosecuted for reading my post without first buying a license!!!
I already did. Actually, I got some white cord and two gobs of putty. I cut the cord into two pieces, put white putty on the ends, jammed it into my ears, and let the white cord ends trail into my jacket pocket.
All of the "oh how kewl" iPod cachet with none of the cost.
the few apple branded ipod accessories on the market are much more expensive and generally not of any better quality than competitor accessories.
they are just making a few bucks extra off of the people who would rather buy apple accessories (like my dad, who cannot be convinced otherwise that a griffin accessory is just as good or probably better for much less)
-- lol pwned
Is it anti Apple week? Seems to me the news outlets have been overhyping Apple and when Apple didn't live up to it (and never claimed to do so), they decided they should attack Apple so they look better.
I mean I don't hear anyone going "Sony are releasing PSP extras! That should be banned!" or "Nintendo released a DS carry case! They're trying to push others out of the DS add ons market!".
Seems the old "attack opponents character so we look better even if we're as black as that pot over there.
I like muppets.
"I mean I don't hear anyone going "Sony are releasing PSP extras! That should be banned!" "
:)
Nobody says that since the above sentence shows ignorance of how to use singular nouns in sentences. It should read "Sony is releasing PSP extras!"
Singulars is not plurals and plural are not singular.
Apples for Nerds. Stuff that apples.
/. has become extremely high. I mean, where's the news about how Dell tries to sell accessories? It's not news, and neither is this.
For crying out loud, I'm as much of a fan of Apple as anyone. OK, not anyone, but I do like my Powerbook quite a bit. But really, the ratio of Apple to non-Apple news on
Old people fall. Young people spring. Rich people summer and winter.
Is Apple Trying to Take Over iPod Accessories?
Yes. That was easy. What's next? I'm on a roll.
err sorry to say this, but when my iPod headphones broke, I just ordered some new ones for *FREE* from apple! just go to here and if your ipod is in warranty or/and applecare you can get new headphones for free without sending your old ones back!
Duh, everyone's been saying this for over a year now. It's pretty obvious Apple wants the $1 billion iPod...I mean wouldn't you? ;)
I don't think Apple should/would want to become the exclusive producer and seller of iPod stuff. There will always be the $.99US iPod skins (with $19.99US shipping, of course!) and straps and such. That said, Apple would likely want to gain additional revenue by offering its own bits and bytes of accessories. Apple will surely pick up some sales of iPod accessories if they are sold co-located with iPods - because many folks reason that the accessory will be "more compatible" if made by the same company as the product for which the accessory is built.
It would be quite self-defeating for Apple to squish the aftermarket accessories makers - they are making the iPod product intrinsically more interesting by offering things that will help one with one's iPod, and even make them more visually individual.
A Passionate Independent Musician
So how do you find a good product. Certainly an Apple branded product will be a good risk. It will probably be of reasonable quality, and not neccesarily out of line on price. For instance, a $100 Apple case might compare favorable with a $215 Prada case.
Now, with me, I have my favorite companies. Most cases for my apple products are Marware. Mostly I like to by Lacie for peripherals. Others will have fovorites. But for those that do not wish to look for quality, or just want the Apple brand, the option exists.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
You guys are misunderstanding this. Apple are saints. They're only trying to help other companies by releasing competing products!
Sarcasm aside for a minute: Didn't we go through all of this when Apple included Dashboard in OS X 10.4, basically killing Konfabulator on OS X? Or when Apple started selling Final Cut Pro and Apeture? Or GarageBand, Pages and Keynote... you get the idea.
Apple has helped encourage a burgeoning accessories market with the iPod, and just because they're playing the game themselves doesn't mean they're trying to kill everyone else.
I mean, even taking the iPod Hi-Fi into account: that's an expensive box, a quality set of speakers that costs over $300 and will NOT appeal to everyone. Most iPod users will be quite happy with a set of portable-size speakers that cost $100 or less, and the rest have to take into account the cost-versus-quality of the iPod Hi-Fi.
Apple has been selling its own accessories since it started selling iPods, and the accessory companies, quite frankly, have more to fear from the likes of Belkin than they do from Apple.
Of course there are crappy 3rd party products. There are also vastly superior 3rd party products sold to supplement the stuff that Apple puts out.
You can also lose out by buying Apple. A $99 case for an Ipod? Does is massage your ass when you wear it? A $30 armband for the shuffle that only cost $2 to make?
"It all comes down to quality of product, and I would much rather have something confortable and that lasts longer and looks nicer for a little more.. "
Again, don't buy shitty 3rd party products.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
Thanks!
It would be stupid for Apple not to get in on the money. If all the other companies can make big bucks on ipod gear why not sell it on the ipod site with the ipod? They might even put deals together later with ipods and gear for one price in a package.
By dropping the dock and now dropping power cords Apple has allowed accesory makers to step in and make better docks and power cords for use with the pod.
they don't release a product and then not include an essential part: e.g. a USB cable. 3G iPod + $30 for a proprietary USB cable with the dock connector. Too bad they decided afterwards to include a USB cable.
Step 1) Create high demand, but easily scratchable MP3 player.
Step 2) Sell cases to prevent scratches to said easily scratchable MP3 player.
Step 3) Profit!!!
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
Apple is going to aim for the high end, high margin end of the accessories market, just as they have with everything else they sell. There will be plenty of room for 3rd party manufacturers of bargain-priced accessories, as well as premium-priced accessories targeted toward "niche" markets that are too small for Apple to bother with.
>"Even if it wanted to, Apple knows that it couldn't simply make the iPod accessory market participants magically go away"
Sure they could. Remember the Newton?
There was a robust and growing medical devices and applications market for the Newton. As far as medical applications were concerned, Apple *owned* the market. The AT&T EO was newly dead, and PenPoint 32-bit object-oriented handwriting recognition - oriented OS was being sold off to Taiwanese concerns.
Apple killed it, this industry segment of software add-on developers and VARs, in one blow - by discontinuing the Newton.
Yeah, yeah, I know about the historical context - they were desperate for cash, and brought Jobs back to take this, and other cost cutting measures, and accept Microsoft's bailout offer.
But sure, look at history. Apple could very easily make the iPod accessory market go away. By discontinuing the iPod.
(Personally, I prefer Diamond's products anyway. Apple is too proprietary)
For what it's worth.
-dcm
"the armband which is a leather that feels much softer and gentler on the skin. "
Clearly, you are one of those people who *don't* work out with an iPod.
... prove people think too much about things.
Why doesn't Apple try to add needed accessories instead of copycatting current offerings.
#1 on my list, a 5g microphone!
Anyone remember when Apple jacked their licensing fees for port access late last year and pissed off manufacturers? Just in case you dont: http://www.macnn.com/articles/05/10/11/made.for.ip od.licensing/
I haven't read anything that spoke towards manufacturers backing out b/c the licensing hike tho but I suppose economic theory implies some products getting squeezed out.
Is apple trying to squeeze out the market by marketing first-party schwag and jacking its fees?
I think a more compelling argument might be that they're just trying to squeeze every dime out of the ipod as corporately possible before the ipod loses its buzz. Between that and the fact that the silly boom box is yawn inducing (as opposed to being the killer accessory for the killer app) I'm not sold on apple's upcoming knick-knack dominance.
BOSTON SUCKS!
This makes 2 stories in one day about "iPod accessories". Who gives a crap?! I long for the day when /. posted the latest kernel releases and useful, cool nerd stuff rather than this.
I'm not a fan of iPods because I consider their lack of a removable battary to be an intentional design flaw for the express purpose of making the ipods 'expire'.
That being said. One best features of the ipod is the external interface. Yes, the UI is good, and the case looks cool, but I can't think of any other digital audio players that offer complete access to the unit to external components. This is a crucial feature.
If anyone wants to make an 'ipod killer', the first thing they need to do is make sure that their player has an external interface. The second thing they need to do is make the specs to that interface open, and encourage their competitors to use the same interface.
It's too late for one company to bring Apple down with this feature, as all the accessories are already being made for ipod. There isn't enough of a market for any one other audio player to encourage third party manufacturers to make the wide range of accessories that ipod has. If four or five of the biggest players banded to gether for a industry standard interface, they could probably get the accessories made, and THAT would give them a reasonable chance in the market.
that's apple though, and they've never been afraid to make older equipment obsolete. when a new os would come out, it often wouldn't run on much older hardware. but that's not bad. windows has tried to make things backwards compatible for ever, and we're still stuck with 8.3 filename restrictions (though, they have hacked together a solution to make them appear longer).
without being tethered to backwards compatibility, i think you can probably get a lot functionality out of newer equipment/versions.
Sorry, but I do have this FM transmitter, and it's from GRIFFIN, and it does have interface integration, does have equalizer adaption, and such.
Is the Griffin FM transmitter made by Apple? Or maybe I missed something here.
Sorry, but the EU market is not as big as the US one in terms of accessories...
Pumbaa! I don't wonder; I know.
Anyone with half a brain knows that two high-end ( to use a nice term ) products don't mark a 'taking over' of the iPod accessory market. Apple looked at a bunch of can't-fail high-markup accessories, and picked the two that had the highest likely return on investment. End of story.
This explains why the iPod is so easily scratched--they want people to buy aftermarket cases. (Seriously, I bought an iPod yesterday. The back already has several long scratches on it.)
I thought Rockbox was the coolest accessory anyway, and Apple sure can't take over that! ;-)
Shockingly bad plural errors such as `Sony are` are worth mentioning. (For Jerk, that's "is worth mentioning".
Although Apple would love to make all of the money the 3rd parties are getting now, I'm confident that they don't have any interest in expanding their current offering to include even half of what is available now. I think they will keep Apple-branded accessories to a minimum and, in general, focus on higher-end accessories with style.
Later,
-Slashdot Junky
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Landfill Mining Co.
Managing the (Un)natural Resources of Tomorrow
Chinese companies make Apple products anyway. My iPod mini says: "Designed by Apple in California Assembled in China"
Will lengthening this post allow me get past some sort of secret filter to post sooner? Maybe it will! After all, I am a cowboy that needs to slow down, in order to give others an opportunity to post. As if the system can't handle the volume of posts by ACs (unregistered ACs, that is) unless hour waits are mandated inbetween.
Except when they're not...
Apple's advertising is tightly coupled to Apple's sales. Apple begins an ad blitz for the iPod that has essentially no content but plenty of playing off of hipness, Apple sells tons of the things.
So while I'm sure that there are people who went out and made a carefully reasoned decision to get the best product, it isn't much of a stretch to say that the bulk of iPod owners purchased the product because it had a hip image.
It's not as if the iPod is the only product for which this happens, or that Apple is particularly evil and sneaky. Just about all luxury companies are in the business of attaching image to their products. Porsche does the whole thing on a much grander scale.
I'm not saying that you, personally, were somehow suckered. But it's absurd to say that buzz-generating ad campaigns don't work.
And this is doubly true for technical stuff, where most consumers don't have a clue what any of the specs mean. People's heuristics for judging product quality have quirks, and those quirks have been heavily exploited. For example, people tend to feel that heavier products are higher quality. As a result, you can stuff a steel plate into the base of your product and people will perceive the thing as being higher quality.
Most people have no idea what Firewire or DRM or Vorbis or anything in that vein means. But they know that the iPod is shiny and more hip than a CD player. Hence, the iPod sells.
I'm sure that some consumers actually went out and ran a number of MP3 players through their paces. But to claim that the bulk of iPod sales isn't driven by a hip image is just silly. It's a luxury item with a fancy exterior.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
A $3 RCA-to-3.5mm-stereo-headphone adapter cable, a Phillips-head screw driver, and ten minutes.
Unscrew the car stereo from its mounting brackets, slide it forward, plug the cable into the AUX ports in the back (and if it doesn't HAVE any, it's WAAAY past time to upgrade! 8track tapes died a LOOOONG time ago! heheh), slide it back, and tighten the screws back down.
Plug anything with a headphone-jack on it into the headphone-plug end of the cable, set your stereo to AUX, and enjoy anything your $Other_Device can play.
CD player, MiniDisk, MP3 player, or even the audio from your kids' GBA can be pumped out to the enjoyment/consternation of everyone.
I bought a cheesy AM/FM stereo, made sure it had an AUX set of RCA jacks, bought a $3 cable, and can now either listen to the radio, or plug in my MP3 player & listen to anything I've got saved on the 1Gig SD card.
Fuck spending $100 on a "broadcast via FM" adapter that requires the use of the cig lighter plug (my cellphone charger owns that, damn it!), or $50 on one of those "cassette adapter" things, or spending a couple of hundred on a specialized adapter for a specific stereo...
ANY stereo with an RCA AUX port, an RCA-3.5mm adapter cable, ten minutes, and you can do the damned job yourself.
Do you have any basis for this statement at all?
For what little it's worth, I'm that sucker. I feel dirty as hell for it but I'm also honest enough to admit it's true.
The iPod just [got] it right.
Having messed with various alternatives, I tried the old mono version. Rather than clunky jog switches and too many buttons, that touch wheel was the perfect way to navigate. Rather than present me with a million config options (and, I'll admit, I'm usually a total whore for them) it gave me a few way out of the way on the options menu then gave me nothing but my music - purity of function. Rather than looking like a clunky box or some overstyled piece of flimsy plastic, it was a pure, smooth, gently curved. That styling was so perfect it literally became something to be fetishized - it was so utterly right in every way that it climbed in to my lifestyle.
iTunes then did much the same and created a nice and easy interface to the PC part.
That's what Apple achieved. They stopped designing like tech companies. Most tech companies either create function over style *cough*early*cough*creative*cough*zens*cough* or try so hard to compensate that they end up creating style over function and you get a piece of plastic junk... that feels like plastic junk. Apple, by managing to perfectly merge style and function created something that just did everything exactly right. In doing so, they hooked their customers utterly.
Ironically, if anything, the new video iPods are a step in the wrong direction. They've missed the one thing it desperately needs (nested folders for playlists), they've implemented a few new functions badly (What on earth is up with the way you can list a video as a TV show but then it doesn't turn up?) and they've degraded a bunch of old features (The wheel is now too small for big fingers and way too easy to hit the wrong thing. The corners are now angular, losing that symbiotic feel it had when resting in your hand. They took off the top port for no better reason than it let them charge more for the proprietary dock - screwing their customers so they could chase bigger profits).
And the horrible thing? They've made such a junky of me I still stick with them. Even with their weird (mistaken/money grabbing?) choices of late, I'm still totally hooked.
Now the accessories... I haven't bought a single one for the new Video iPod. My old dock that I got for free with the old 40gb works well enough. I'd love a new one with a remote but $70 for a basic dock and remote - $100 if I want to power it - is daylight robbery and it's just too plain offensive to pay. I'd replace my old iTrip but I'm not in to paying $10 extra now Apple have forced the dock connector on them - a design that now stops me from charging it while I use it. About the only accessory I'll end up buying, given Apple's blatant gouging, are the TV out cable (that I'll buy for half the price elsewhere, knowing I can just swap two of the cables and have it work fine), a tape deck adaptor (which I can also buy as a third party add-on given Apple haven't yet removed the headphone jack in search of profits) and headphones (same reason).
So, you see, I'll suck up $100 extra for the unit because it's undeniably better than anyone else's. I'm not going to pay $10 extra per accessory (or $30 in many cases) because Apple wants to milk its customers at any chance it gets, even on generic accessories that are no better than you can get elsewhere.
In short: I'm not getting any better accessories from Apple as they price gouge so horrifically that I don't buy them anyway.
Sure, they charge extra for the basic unit but I'd prefer to pay $399 to do it absolutely right than $299 to not quite do so - $100 doesn't make up for a constant nagging sensation with something I have on me every day. But, if unit to unit was the same, Apple certainly wouldn't win me over just because they have more overpriced accessories that honestly aren't much (if any) more functional.
If units cost $29 and you can sell 1,000 at $40, or 10,000 at $30, which is the right choice?
Sell 10,000 at $30 with a $1 profit and you can make $10,000 and pat yourself on the back for selling more than your competitors.
Sell 1,000 at $40 with a $11 profit and you can make $11,000. Sure, you have less customers but you made more money.
My guess is Apple has such a massive market with the core iPods that they're happy to run the numbers that way - sell less overall but at an outrageous profit and they still make more money than if they simply sold more at a so-competitive-they-don't-make-much price.
I can't fault them as a business. They're doing great business.
But that does mean I'm going to be one of the 9,000 who don't buy their overpriced generic products and it also means I'm that much less likely to stay loyal should someone invent the iPod killer.
Their business, their choice, I guess.
Will Apple stories still be posted on Slashdot when they are recognised as a fashon company, rather than a tech company. That seems to be the way they are going to me......
In addition to these comments: http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=179394&
> [lack of user replaceable rechargeable batteries] is certainly a problem for a very large portion of the population.
What percentage is a "very large portion", 33%? I think 33% would be a very generous definition for 'very large portion of the population'. I'll bet the percentage of the [audio player buying] population that needs user replaceable rechargeable batteries is more like 1% -- and it would be an outright lie to call that "a very large portion".
How is the parent comment insightful? Because 4 moderators on Slashdot (an exceedingly small sample of the market) agreed that they should be able to change the batteries themselves. What a complete waste.
Would we all give up cheap cars and cheap light-bulbs just so they would last forever? No. Any other answer is bullshit. Non-replaceable batteries lowers cost.
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
why, because they sell a leather case for an MP3 player? Or because they sell a speaker system ( let's face it, the boom box is not so much a boom box as an amplifier and set of speakers ) for that same player ?
Which of Apple's products has nothing to do with technology ? Granted, their products do place an emphasis on style, which in some usages can be a synonym for fashion. Still, they're about fashionable technology. In this case fashion is an adjective to describe the technology product, not a noun that signifies the type of company it is.
Did HP become a fashion company when they made printable iPod skins? Is Dell a fashion company because they sell... OK, what the hell. Dell sells a "Women in Business Liberator Executive Black Fashion Notebook", maybe Dell is now a fashion company. ( Seriously, they sell what now? I expected to find something silly, but that's a PURSE !! )
In all seriousness, I think you just are looking for a way to dislike Apple, or you're trolling, or both.
Honestly, WTF, Dell sells a friggin' women's handbag, and you're dissing Apple as a fashion company, why exactly? Because people actually like Apple's designs and hold them up as good examples ? You prefer your tech products to be clunky, unesthetic, and hard to use, so only l33t ubergeeks can master them ? You're going to penalize Apple for selling iPod accessories with a high markup ? Perhaps you should explain your thinking, unless it embarasses you to do so.
I don't know what your primary language is, but in English there is no semantic difference between portion and percentage. The later is merely used to describe portions (fractions) in terms of parts per hundred.
Analogies are always imperfect, but let me clarify:
First, we have cheap cars because they are made with fallible parts and acceptable imprecision. They could be made with much more expensive parts that don't fail. Common, consumer autos are built today with managed obsolescence. This is indisputable.
Second, we have cheap light bulbs because it's easier to make cheap filaments inside cheap glass bulbs, rather than use exotic elements for filaments that last 10s of years and transparent non-brittle bulbs to replace the glass. The cheap to manufacture, cheap to produce products have won in the marketplace.
> The non-replacable battery can not have lowered the manufacturing price by more than $0.05-$0.10.
This may be an obvious cost to you -- but here's some more costs you forgot: More contacts, leads, mounts, and plugs means more points of failure. Also battery doors (cheap plastic, or invisible polished steel latches) provide more points of failure. More points of failure increase the cost of the product to the manufacturer and the retailer (in both insurance, service and replacement, and yield volumes), that cost is passed on to the user in higher prices. So while ten cents (times however many iPods manufactured) may seem like a small amount to you, the cost in components, manufacturing, and service for every replacement door, hinge, battery, battery lead, battery contact, etc. would all need to add up to less than your hypothetical production cost for even including it in the design.
Anyway, the market does move fast. I praise every soul who has a kept their first generation iPod to the point of battery failure, despite that today -- for less money -- you could get a Nano with nearly the same storage for a fraction of the cost, size and weight, while enjoying new features.
I also praise every soul who has kept driving their '62 Lincoln, even though they could have a much safer and more reliable car today for a similar fraction (or portion or percentage) of their income.
> Given that we see devices that cost less than $10 on a regular bases that can somehow afford to put in a replacable battary AND sell with a margin that is obviously less than $10, we can conclude that Apple did this on purpose.
Of course they did it on purpose. That's the whole point. This fact was never disputed. No battery door is a feature, a feature you don't like, that is expressed to the owners of iPods in unit cost and product usability/simplicity. The only point to which I take exception is that this feature is somehow hurting iPod sales: that there is some vast untapped market that consists of you and the 4 mods that upped you all clamoring for that iPod that includes a battery door!
Thanks for taking the time to reply, although it seems you missed the point. Cheers.
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
Anything to do with Apple seems to get a disspropotionate amount of coverage on Slashdot these days, and when articles about Levis making a pair or jeans with an iPod pocket , or Apple making a leather case make it on here, I wonder why the fuck I am reading this tech site.
Fact is that as Apple grows, their computer side of their buisness becomes smaller relative to the rest of the company. In the eyes of Joe Public, they are a fashonable brand (or do you not have any non techie friends?). Dell and other companies are not recognised by the general public as being stylish, and are not associated with being a fashon item. (Maybe it's different where you live but thats how it is here in the UK). There is a guy from one of the other departments at my work who has got the standard issue Dell laptop, and put an Apple sticker over the Dell blob. Does that make the styling on his Dell any different? No, but it does make it look like he has a trendy brandname computer - which is probably what he wanted to achieve.
And for your information, I dont think that computers need to be ugly, or hard to use. I also dont believe you need to buy Apple to overcome either of these.
Stop being so over defensive of everything Apple, when the comment was more about the relevance of some of Slashdots articles, and the attention they recieve.
So... is your issue with Apple, or with Slashdot's selection of stories ? Because I'm right there with you on the selection of stories. The real problem with the Levi Jeans article you reference ( which I don't think I'd seen ) is that it's in, what, the Hardware section, why ? Stick it in the Apple section, then it's still a stupid story, but funny and amusing, and even slightly interesting as a sign of how much the iPod has taken over.
On the other hand, there's a frickin' Apple section of the website, so it's weird to complain about there being a lot of Apple stories. If we'd all stop reading them, feeding them our pageviews, you know they'd just go away... but here you are, not just reading the story you're complaining about, but posting on it'd discussion thread and driving even more pageviews to it. Odd.
This article in particular isn't so much about Apple making a leather case ( note, I do think it's important that it's an iPod case, so thus directly related to an actual tech product the company makes ) as much as it is about Apple entering an accessories market that ( until now ) it has for the most part left to third parties. Regardless of how you and I feel about it ( I think the article is stupid, obviously ), this is tangentally related to the business of several tech companies ( as you may well consider Belkin and a lot of the other iPod accessory maker's business to be gadget/tech related ), and thus fits in with other Slashdot articles a lot better than a lot of the crap they post here.
Fact is that as Apple grows, their computer side of their buisness becomes smaller relative to the rest of the company.
So, then they're a music player company... still not a fashion company...
Dell and other companies are not recognised by the general public as being stylish, and are not associated with being a fashon item.
certainly the case for Dell at least!
There is a guy from one of the other departments at my work who has got the standard issue Dell laptop, and put an Apple sticker over the Dell blob. Does that make the styling on his Dell any different? No, but it does make it look like he has a trendy brandname computer - which is probably what he wanted to achieve.
No, it makes him either (a) a seriously lame poser, or (b) an example of someone who just completely misses the point of owning a piece of hardware.
And for your information, I dont think that computers need to be ugly, or hard to use. I also dont believe you need to buy Apple to overcome either of these.
So... is IBM a fashion company because the ThinkPad is a pretty nice lookin' laptop ? Is AlienWare a fashion company because they sell stylish, overpriced hardware ? I'm still trying to get at why you'd claim Apple is a fashion company... and I'm not arguing with any of your statements above.
Stop being so over defensive of everything Apple, when the comment was more about the relevance of some of Slashdots articles, and the attention they recieve.
Who is being defensive here ? I'm smacking you around for posting a hard-to-defend, off-the-cuff remark about a computer manufacturer being more a fashion company than a technology company, and you're defending your remark by complaining about Slashdot's story selection and a loser at your company who uses a Dell but wants people to think it's an Apple... neither of which have much bearing on your remark. I'm a little disappointed, I was hoping for a more insightful conversation about the perception of Apple hardware value versus the reality... I mean, I kind of understand where you're coming from on this topic even, but simply given the fact that they're making a few iPod accessories doesn't make
Jesus help me. I can't believe I'm going to reply to your flaggrantly inflammatory follow-up. (I'll reply in kind!)
> It seems YOU missed the point. You are comparing keeping a $2 light bulb for two years to keeping a $200+ audio player for 2 years. This is a 2 orders of magnatude price difference.
In either case they are a fraction of 1% of my yearly income. If a $2 lightbulb is disposable, then so is an iPod. I didn't miss "the point". I ignored it. But let's go with it -- let's go with your fallacious argument that the "order of magnitude" you keep harping about is even relevant. Let's say you keep your totally worthless, non-user upgradeable iPod for 2 years (only 2!) and that you spent $300 on it (so you could hold a couple hundred hours of audio). The cost of an iPod (even the horribly busted planned obsolescence model) costs you 41 goddamn cents a day. That isn't disposable?! I waste more than that on sugarless beverages, and probaby get much less enjoyment (keep in mind, I didn't spend $300 on my iPod).
Let's continue on to the next vagary!
> Amost every person I know considers product that cost $2 and are disposable within a couple of years to be an acceptable value. I know very few people that consider products that cost $200 and are disposable within a couple of years to be acceptable.
Holy shit, you know some weird people then. 41 cents a day! Is it fair to say that most people don't scrimp and save and penny-pinch? In my experience that's the case (e.g. average Americans have debt and have barely any savings). "Almost every person you know" is budgetting down to that last dime. Depressing.
> Very few people I have talked to, even realize that their ipods will 'expire'. Using your car analogy, and the fact that you consider a 2 order of magnatude price difference to be comparable, you should be applauding all those people who still actaully drive their 2004 Toyota Corolla. Given the absurdity of your light bulb ipod analogy, let move on to your car ipod analogy.
You're still disputing that people prefer cheap, fallible cars to very expensive ultra-reliable cars? Keep it up! Only a tiny, tiny portion of Americans believe when they buy a car that they will keep it for their lifetimes. It seems on average that they migrate every 5 years.
> You praise people that kept thier '62 Lincoln. Well, the '62 Lincoln didn't have the hood welded shut, and you are talking about keeping an item that take dramatically more physical abuse for 43 years. Yes 43 years! I wouldn't complain if the ipod lasted 43 years. I wouldn't complain if it lasted 10 years. It would not be considered unusal for the ipod to fail in 2 years though. Again, you are using an absurd analogy.
Again, hyperbole. All you need to replace an iPod's battery is a sharp plastic wedge and a small screwdriver. Then again, I don't even change my own oil anymore. In fact, I happily let my mechanic replace my car bettery while the car was in for service. I'm happy to pay for such services because my car costs significantly more to own and operate than 41 cents a day.
> [ad hominem blah blah] Trying to imply that a two pin header and a battary door would add even $10 to the cost, or would cause a significant loss of reliablity, you are as far off as you were with comparing a light bulb and car to an ipod.
I'm not implying that at all. All I stated is that the 'hidden costs' of engineering, manufacturing and servicing additionally complex components are real additional costs. I didn't quantify them. I only stated that for your supposition to be true the trade off would have to be beneficial -- would an iPod be better (simpler, more usable, more convenient, more desirable, less expensive, etc.) if the additional costs for your feature (engineering, manufacture, servicing, replacement) were included? I see no tennable position that increasing product complexity lowers the cost
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.