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SanDisk Baits Apple And Woos Rockbox

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the i-like-apes dept.

An anonymous reader writes "CNET reports that SanDisk is courting open source developers to port Rockbox to its popular MP3 players. SanDisk is currently the world's second most popular MP3 player manufacturer after Apple. Rockbox is an open source OS for most major MP3 players. The article also talks about SanDisk's subversive new anti-iPod advertising campaign which calls iPod owners 'iChimps' and uses a 'street graffiti style' to create the illusion of a 'counter-culture uprising against the iPod'. The writer says, 'SanDisk is the first company to market its player as an ideological rather than technological alternative to the iPod. To do so is to fight Apple on their own terms.'"

4 of 374 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Clever Campaign. by Distinguished+Hero · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Differentiating by making iPod users seem like sheep [idont.com] is a pretty effective idea.... perhaps!
    The funny thing is that anyone who changes their mind based on this stupid marketing campaign really is a sheep.

    --
    Uttering logically derived and empirically supported truths to the disciples of the orthodox establishment.
  2. Re:Clever Campaign. by ePhil_One · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Apple got it's dominant position largely through a clever (and cool, and the early) advertising campaign.

    Apple got its dominate position by creating a effective and user freindly UI to a useful and stylish bit of hardware. If the underlying UI & Hardware weren't up to the task, the ipod would have fallen flat when the first generation of users didn't like them. I owned a pre-ipod player, it had a painful UI, so despite its slick hardware, I hardly ever used it and bad mouthed it to freinds.

    --
    You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
  3. Re:Might as well cut out the middle man by McNally · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Oh goody, a corporate-manufactured "cultural backslash" to a corporate-manufactured "cultural movement".
    I vaguely remember the days when culture had something to do with people, not just competing marketing departments...
    Or maybe you just think you do..
  4. Re:Might as well cut out the middle man by GlassHeart · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I vaguely remember the days when culture had something to do with people, not just competing marketing departments...

    Would this be the days when a diamond was forever, or the days when an apple a day kept the doctor away? Corporate manipulation of popular culture, despite your low user ID, probably predates you.