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Will the iPod Ever Die?
Azhar writes "Will we always prefer the iPod's glossy slim design over all the others? Or at one point of time will the iPod revolution actually fade? Lets have a look at what could happen and why."
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Granted, there have been some fantastic inventions in the history of man. Like the wheel, that's still going pretty strong and with a massive distribution even now. Will the iPod follow in its footsteps? Unlikely that it's not going to 'ever die'. So yes, it will. Might take five years, might take twenty; but yes it will die.
Will the automobile ever die, will toasters ever die, will stupid pointless articles written just to make ad money ever die? Stupid, stupid article.
The article is just some blogger listing a bunch of reasons why the iPod is better than the Zune. Maybe if it were someone who's an authority on the subject it might be worth reading but after wasting my time I got the distinct impression that it's probably just a mac fan. Now that doesn't make his argument incorrect but it's not really worth a discussion.
July, 1983 - The Sony Walkman has dominated the portable cassette player market so far. It began the ultimate revolution in how we listen to our music......
Back to the present, the Walkman ceased to dominate the industry 15 years ago or more. The iPod will someday share it's fate. TFA is a lame blog article written by some fanboy who thinks he is creative, insightful, and discerning.
You know Taco, if it is a slow news day, it's better to leave the front page alone than to post "stories" like this just for the sake of filling space.
Slashdot - the place where you can look like a genius by restating the obvious
There have been other companies we thought we never see a decline. For a recent example, look at the problems that Sony is facing with the PS3.
If Apple forsakes their loyal customers, and abuses said loyalty, they will lose their biggest cheerleaders.
The iPod is a revolutionary device, although maybe not techinically, it has entered the conciousness of the public and it will be extremely hard for anyone to even try and match it's market dominance. The one thing Microsoft could have done with the Zune was to make sharing music unrestricted, but once again red tape has stopped it and the DRM will limit the function that could have made the Zune the better choice (along with Apple cutting the price, a move Microsoft didn't expect). I think the only thing to match the iPod now will be a device that is a mix of genres, much like the phone that is rumoured to be in development from Apple, if they can successfully merge the best features of an iPod (plus storage) with the good functions of a phone and make it stylish (not a hard job for Apple right now) then they may just have a chance of beating one of the devices of the decade. For other companies, it will be very hard to beat the iPod in the long run, and the only front I think they will have is pricing - which will only hurt their bottom line, as people will pay a premium to have the iPod. Congratulations to Apple on their market domination with this one, it's well deserved.
Business Voyeur
The Osborne 1 computer died. The IBM Stretch 7030 computer died. The Sony Walkman died. The Studebaker died... and so did the Oldsmobile and the Plymouth. Eleven of the twelve corporations in the original Dow Jones Index died. Elvis Presley died. The Soviet Union died. The United Society of Believers (Shakers) died. The Roman Empire died. Kepler's supernova died.
The iPod will die. So will Windows. So will the Toyota Prius. So will Toyota. So will GE, the sole surviving original Dow Jones Index company. So will the United States of America. So will life on earth. So will the sun. Even Jack LaLanne will eventually die (oh, wait...)
And your point is?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Most products are designed with a certain lifespan in mind. Companies realized that while people will moan and grumble they will still go and fork out for that new washing machine because they need it. That's why TVs and microwaves from the 80's still work, but more recent ones will only have lifespans of 3-4 years.
The moment companies start to design products without a limited lifespan the sky will *actually* fall.
Promote Charity on Myspace, Show Your Colours!
That's very funny, because as someone who was actually alive over 20 years ago, I can tell you that people said the very same thing back then.
Notice the pattern:
In the 2000s, everything built in the 1980s lasted forever; things made in the 2000s break after a few years.
In the 1980s, everything built in the 1960s lasted forever; things made in the 1980s break after a few years.
In the 1960s, everything built in the 1940s lasted forever; things made in the 1960s break after a few years.
In the 1940s, everything built in the 1920s lasted forever; things made in the 1940s break after a few years.
In the 1920s, everything built in the 19th century lasted forever; things made in the 1920s break after a few years.
And yes, I've done research on this. My grandparents are over 90 and swear that everything made since the Great Depression is crap and never lasts. I've found early newspaper op-ed pieces from the 1910s that claim the very same thing, just pushing back the date a little.
(The secret, of course, is that the things made in year X that only last a few years are long since discarded, and we only remember the things that last any decent length of time)
Repeated post from a while back. I can't believe people still believe the "stuff made today is shit, while everything made in the past lasted forever" meme.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
I'm trying to figure out why the DRM is an issue. My iPod has exactly 0 DRM encumbered songs on it. How did I escape the wrath of Apple? Maybe it is because I don't use the iTunes Music Store. It's not a requirement for an iPod, but a choice.
If you don't like the iPod because it's too popular and has white ear-buds, just say so. Don't try to spread mis-information for some pathetic anti-iPod agenda.
There are a lot of legitimate criticisms of the iPod, but the DRM one I don't particularly understand. Okay, so the iPod supports DRM. It doesn't require it. There is nothing about owning an iPod which requires you to purchase music from the iTMS. You can own an iPod and just ignore the iTMS completely, and use it just like you would an iRiver or a Creative or whatever.
The whole "I hate the iPod because I don't want to pay $0.99 a song" is silly. Nothing about the iPod requires that you buy your music that way. In fact, I'd argue that if you want to get your music from a CD, the iPod is probably still the best player, because iTunes is the easiest ripping/syncing/library-management software around -- naturally that's debatable, of course.
Your points about the lack of a microphone and a line input are well taken, because they're actual capabilities of other devices which the iPod does not have. But the DRM thing is a rather silly point and it gets brought up a lot. If you're buying another player as a sort of "protest vote" against DRM, that's your choice, but it's not really a limitation of the device. Apple isn't Sony, and you can use an iPod just fine without ever paying a cent into the iTMS or buying a single DRMed song.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
This isn't a new observation, but it's the first time that I'm writing about it. Probably because I'm sensing the end of my time here at Slashdot. I have not journaled worth mentioning, and not commented worth mentioning - but I was an avid reader and meta-moderator (and yes, I read many of the articles I meta-modded and their responses, to make sure that I would get non obvious situations right).
The news business, even in it's blog form is a tough business indeed. When the mother of all blogs (i.e Slashdot itself) needs to go trolling for clicks with a front page link to a teenage fanboy's blog related to iPods, it's a sad day indeed.
This article is neither "news for nerds", nor "stuff that matters".
But it's a predictable click gatherer - and it's been promoted to the front page by the Cmdr himself, not a junior apprentice editor.
The Cmdr hasn't lost his marbles - quite the opposite, he has a business to run - and this business is desperately competing with the shrill upstarts with editorial models solely around popularity, rather than quality.
The unwashed masses supply more clicks than even moderately intelligent and critical thinkers.
Populism at work, because populism pays. So now we have editorial control trying to emulate populism. Not the first and not the last time that will happen.
I understand that, but I see a fatal disconnect with Slashdot doing it. Slashdot doesn't do populism best. Slashdot's strength is (was) in quality control (editorial control , followed by discussion with moderation and meta moderation).
However, when the first input (editorial control) to the process isn't even remotely attempting quality control, all other quality control processes are becoming rather irrelevant.
Or to put it more bluntly, if the whole story is a troll, the comments, moderations and meta-moderations can't untroll it.
So I think Slashdot is losing it's way in this battle and like all good things will slowly fade away.
Reminds me a bit of apple in the early to mid 90s. They tried to emulate the populists of their day in their industry, when that's not what they did best.
Why am I mentioning apple?
Because against all odds, apple found its way again and came back - and found that their original essence could get them back into their highly respected and quite nicely profitable niche and they even could become the number one popular choice in another field.
Here's to hoping that Slashdot can do the same, because I miss Slashdot without its original essence.
Other brands offer batteries that can be replaced by the user!
On the contrary: the most expensive iPod, the 80 GB 20 hour model, costs $350. The battery replacement service is $65 or free if your iPod is within warranty period (one year).
Most other manufacturers of comparably sized digital music players have only a 90 day warranty period and a $30-$50 cost for battery replacement. For $15 more per battery replacement (a rare occurrence), I could get my preferred product.
I do indeed rock.
There are a lot of legitimate criticisms of the iPod, but the DRM one I don't particularly understand. Okay, so the iPod supports DRM. It doesn't require it.
DRM probably has driven some key aspects of the design of iPod. For example, the fact that the iPod doesn't present its contents as a file system, like many other MP3 players do, is probably due to DRM. The fact that it's hard to get music off the device is also driven by DRM concerns. Likewise, the fact that the iPod does not support syncing to multiple machines well is probably influenced by DRM. Lack of iTunes support for third party MP3 players, and lack of third party support for iPod is another consequence.