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Ultimate iPhone Review — Will It Blend?
I've been enjoying the Will it Blend videos forever. There's something about a labcoat clad crazy man putting things like marbles and soda cans into a blender and after reducing them to powder, warning you not to breathe in the particles. Well today they ask the ultimate question of the latest over-hyped internet sensation
Will the iPhone Blend? Fans of these videos can probably guess the answer... and this story made my morning. I've been waiting for an excuse to link these forever. If you haven't seen these, you're in for a real treat.
It does blend. Quite well actually, better than the Ipod in fact. By the way, you really don't want to BREATHE that stuff.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
As well as being fun, its an amazing ad for the company, everything they but into their blenders ends up as toxic dust!!!
I don't think I've seen anything stop it from blending.
I've been breathing that stuff for a while and nothing has ha *THUD*
(he wouldn't just type thud, would he?)
(maybe he was dictating)
(oh shut up)
My kids and I spent nearly an hour looking at all of these last night. Sam kept exclaiming "That's totally awesome!" Even four year-old Emma enjoyed the blending of the Barbies.
I assume the whole thing is a viral marketing deal for the brand of blender, but it's so beautifully done. My wife and I decided that it was pretty obviously marketing towards men. Women might enjoy chopping up a rake or two, but men's eyes grow wide and they get a funny grin whenever you start tossing in glow sticks, marbles, iPhones, and other fun things.
The other thing of note is that he probably should have been wearing a respirator for some of these tricks. The marbles in particular were very nasty. Breathing in small amounts of glass smoke is incredibly bad for your lungs. That's why they banned asbestos, after all.
I've never seen these videos before. This is one of the coolest thing I've seen in a while.
At least it's entertaining, even if it is blatant advertising. Seeing an iPhone turned into black dust is strangely satisfying.
That's the entire point. It's supposed to be an advertisement. But it's a lot better than most of the adverts you see on tv these days.
Insert Sig Here
It's not "like an advertisement", it's nothing BUT an advertisement. And it's sure nice to see a company advertising it's products in a funny, entertaining way that also nicely shows off the products' capabilities, without fluff.
I've seen a couple of these. Pretty good.
Now... They need to do a Nintendo DS or a PSP. I'd love to see them do one of the bigger consoles, a la smashmy____.com, but I don't think they'll fit.
Insert Sig Here
Assuming this is real, he wasn't just joking at the end.
Of course it's an advertisement! But hardly a "waste" of a good product -- links on digg, slashdot, and all the mac sites to boot for under a grand is the cheapest ad campaign ever.
If you're looking for wasteful advertising, try the Olympics.
Looks like the server has been blended as well. :)
I checked eBay... Nothing!
The one with the crowbar is incredibly frustrating... It would have been quite fun to at least see them try!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg1ckCkm8YI
Just in case the server 'blends'...
I will work to elevate you, just enough to bring you down
Sure the innovative and groundbreaking iPhone will change the face of blending forever. Never before could you blend a full featured implementation of Apple's award winning Safari browser.
Three Squirrels
-----
Übergeek Necktie T-Shirt
Funny Shirts @ ProStoner.com
Bearded Dragon
The real spoiler is in the slow motion bit. Listen closely & you can distinctly hear the iphone death cry 'Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan'.
iPhone. The Shatner of cell phones.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
OK, mister grouchy-pants.
... that I have never before seen anything so awesome in my entire life.
Moon landing? Berlin Wall? Not even close.
Totally... frickin'... sweet.
Misery loves company. Online misery loves unsuspecting random strangers.
at 1500 watts that means it's over 10amps, probably closer to 13 and more powerful than your vaccum and many wood routers.
What amazes me is how long the iphone screen seemed to stay lit in there!
I don't have an iPhone, but I guess it uses a Li ion-Polymer battery. Otherwise, I would expect to see an explosion.
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
Apple introduces blendins as web application model to compete with mashups.
Of course it blends (everything blends in these vidoes), but I was impressed by how long the iPhone display remained active in the slow-motion review.
Life is like a web application. Sometime you need cookies just to get by.
Also, it's like an advertisement.
I'm amazed by how many people can't recognize a blatant advertisement when it's staring them in the face. It's not "like" an advertisement, it *is* an advertisement.
This guy's the limit!
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
Do you know I watched this on my Windows Mobile phone and seems to have broken it the video just keeps looping over and over I'm not certain but I think the "happy" midi tune plays every now and again
[tree hugger]
Is it really fun to see all the work and natural ressources necessary to build such a gadget being wasted for the amusement of the beavis and buttheads of the world?
[/tree hugger]
It's amazing/disturbing what people will do in video responses on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W13Wj34Lpt3
I felt a great disturbance in the intertubes, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.
After recently purchasing a $85 blender that bit the dust on a box of frozen strawberries, this is just the kind of advertising I appreciate right now.
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
Many moons ago I worked at a sawmill, the wood chipper would get blocked on a regular basis and required a crowbar to unblock it. I was not the first person to try and blend the crowbar. These (accidental) experiments demonstrated that crowbars don't blend easily, but you can slice the end off one if you have several tons of flywheel behind the blade.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
It's pretty sad you'd say that, actually. When I was a kid, we'd actually do things like this (physically... with our hands). Now, kids just watch them on YouTube because parents are afraid of... well... everything apparently ("glass smoke"? Are you serious?).
I don't respond to AC's.
Yeah, maybe a shameless plug, but it is the best iPhone review I have seen so far.
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
Absoloutely nobody
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I think they got sick of me saying "You realize you can never, ever do this, right?"
They're used to disclaimers at this point. It began with the plasma in the microwave video, I believe. Both my wife and I have master's degrees in science, so my kids are pretty much doomed to that sort of odd curiosity about things. My four year-old is quite good at scientifically scooping out the guts of slugs and snails, for example.
As someone who work at an ad agency, let me say, I would be freaking thrilled to come up with an idea half this good. Not only do these clips entertain the viewers, they also highlight what's excellent about the product being sold. Compare that to something like the Subservient Chicken, which is entertaining but really says nothing about Burger King's product.
I hope Blendtec sticks with whatever agency/marketing intern came up with this concept. It's solid gold.
Mod my comments down. It'll be fun.
Ok that was way to enjoyable to watch an iPhone be blended. I was actually trying to stifle a laugh at my desk. This is the first I have seen a Will it Blend video so now I have to go find the rest of them. :)
"We found the Holy Grail"
it blends
"Cure for cancer"
blend it
"Kids, in this cage is the last living mouse lemur on Earth."
where's that outlet?
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
It's like... you know? like how there are some like kids in California who like use words like, 'like' to like fill gaps in like their sentences? I think that's like the sense in which the GP is like, saying like that it is like... 'like an advertisement'.
P.S. The use of the word 'like' by 13yr old teens is the pinnacle of obfuscation.
boratv("I LIIIKE!! Ver' nice!");
Cheers!
Atheist: Buddhist in a Prius
only when someone sets me on fire.
I'm surprised that BlendTec hasn't come out with the iBlend.
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifzdez7FRbk
Anon for lack of karma whoring - took 2 seconds on google ''"will it blend" crowbar''
had to post it AC huh? couldn't actually post it with your username? What do you fear sir? That your asstarded comment might be linked to you in some way in the future?
ZOMG! We did it! We managed to fucking slashdot YouTube... parts of the HTML are still loading, but no video. Way to go Slashdot!
P.S. Other video's are still loading okay. Presumably they're on a different server. But it's still quite an achievement.
..Linux powered open source phones? State of the art hardware and the combined creativity of all hackers and twiddlers of the world. That would BE the killer application! Anyone?
(Spoiler for Time Bandits. If you haven't seen the movie yet, shame on you.)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=v60-qRvmzKA
Good god, that's one expensive smoothie! Have to admit, though, it put up a pretty good fight in those first few whacks!
-50 DKP for lame post!
And judging by his feedback it's not the first time this particular phone has been on eBay...
Do you post that every time someone says "like"? That didn't make any sense. Nobody misused "like".
I can appreciate the novelty of grinding up old junk like golf clubs, marbles, etc. But trashing a new piece of electronics for the novelty value? Not so much. There are sites out there like Smashmyxbox where pranksters would go to the effort to buy the latest and greatest novelty and then smash it in front of fans waiting in line. I could respect it more if it were an act of social commentary but it's basically a frat prank video intending nothing more than a Nelson Ha-ha! The laughter I hear from the cameraman on the video is no different from the laughs directed at people in serious pain. The youtube video I'm thinking of in particular is the kid trying to do a trampoline basketball dunk. He wasn't trying to do something intentionally dumbass like riding a skateboard down a handrail or get a fluorescent bulb smashed across his bare back, he just bounced too high, got his foot caught in the rim, and felt it wrench as his whole body went the other way. I wouldn't be surprised if he broke something there. But instead of a genuine gasp of horror and a dropped camera, we get giggles and a tight focus on a boy screaming in pain. Holy fuck, isn't this fun?!?!
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
mouse?
Fun? I was, actually, rather revolted... It always saddens me, when things break irreparably. I once felt depressed for a week after accidentally dropping an old hard-drive on the floor — it worked before, but broke due to my sloppiness...
To do this sort of thing on purpose, with a shiny, new (and beautiful!) piece of high-tech electronics is a sin. To enjoy watching it is perverse, in my humble opinion...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
- I think that voids the warranty.
- I don't think Apple will replace the battery on that one.
- So now they are stuck with a 2 year AT&T plan and don't even have an iPhone.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
I really like the idea of shredding a highly reactive Lithium Polymer battery in a container secured by your own hand. I can't wait for the "Will shotgun cartridges blend ?" video ! P.
No. This was an original exclusive. Someone said "This is like an advertisement" and someone else ragged on them becasue "It WAS an advertisement" and I was just amused at the pedantry.
Cheers!
Atheist: Buddhist in a Prius
http://www.willitblend.com/videos.aspx?type=safe&v ideo=iphone
:-)
it is something you can do safely at home
(hint: look at the url)
They could ask for a refund or replacement claiming the screen scratches too easily.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
/. does its own version of "will it blend" with servers. Will they melt when pummeled with traffic from around the world? In this case, yes.
...and people on eBay are idiots!
Service is probably better than my current with this iPhone. Just add water and poof....wet dust.
Well that's your problem, you have to take them out of the box first!
I looked thru the site but has anything NOT blended? Those are some tough blenders, I did see one clip with a crowbar, but I didn't want to watch all the videos.
digg - Slashdot's news today, Yesterday!
YES. Thank you. This is the type of commercial I'll watch again and again. If they make it short enough, I might not even bitch about it if I am forced to watch it in a movie theater.... Well.. maybe I shouldn't get carried away!
I had a sucky sig.
I showed this video to a friend of mine yesterday. I told him the basic premise of the website and what to expect when he got there. This friend of mine is a bit of a faithful Apple fan, to be sure.
The phrase "Someone should be shot for that" came up during the resulting discussion. Great times!
Demanding constant attention will only lead to attention.
If you're looking for wasteful advertising, try the Olympics. ... or any other 'professional' sporting event.
Unless you get your frozen strawberries packed in metal or something, any reasonable blender ought to be able to handle the box too.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Maybe it was his iPhone they blended.
(And yeah, I'm sure it's a great Phone, but one tires of such things after seeing several hundred blurbs about it on slashdot and elsewhere...)
If ever there was a practice that deserved it's own brand new circle in hell, it's playing commercials before movies. I specifically go to movies late just to skip the commercials.
He writes "guaranteed not DOA".
We're all hypocrites. We all have hidden parts, it's the contrast between them that make us more a hypocrite than others
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item =170129995323
"It is just a phone!"
Hey, I was even nice enough not to mention all the crap you have to put up with if you buy one...
an interesting iPhone story!
I can't wait for the video where they drop in a (possibly disassembled) blender from one of their competitors.
What do you mean they cut the power? How can they cut the power, man? They're animals!
finely divided glass dust is NOT something that you want to inhale.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicosis
Not to mention the fact that the blender jar and blades are now contaminated with the remnants of the iPhone, rendering the blender unfit for food preparation. I know I wouldn't be too happy if my kid ruined an expensive blender, even if they were doing something cool in the process.
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
Crapple is a shitty company.
Preferably the Holy Bible, or the Koran or Dianetics. But if they blend a Koran I guess we will be seeing a follow up episode, "Will Tom's decapitated head blend for the glory of Allah". If he blends a Bible then I guess the pope will just get pissed off and bitch about it. If he blends Dianetics he will get his ass sued by the "Church" of $cientology.
Maybe he would be better off blending the latest Harry Potter book when it comes out, but then he might piss off Dumbledore and Tom would get turned into a blender, doomed to spend the rest of eternity blending things that shouldn't be blended.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
Doing this once and publishing video of it results in a massive savings in resources compared to each person who wants to see this happen having to do it themselves. Think how many wasted iPhones and non-food-safe toxified blenders would be created if even one in ten thousand people who watched this video had instead simply heard about it and decided to try it themselves.
Remember, "homemaker style" consumer class equipment pales in comparison to professional equipment.
Even at that, $400 for a blender puts it into pro-sumer class.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
its only a matter of time.
I say crack up the video camera and give the lonely l'il feller the "ride of a lifetime!"
(Keep the goop on ice and maybe we can figure out what MAKES a lemur.)
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I wouldn't buy it used, though .... mmmm lithium residue!
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever
There is a difference between neurotically smothering your kids, and recognizing that there can be hazards involved in certain activities, and taking precautions where warranted. You will notice that NOWHERE in my post did I say that crazy blender experiments shouldn't be done (too much potential for fun), but common sense would dictate not snorting the resulting powdered remains, and using a blender that you don't intend to use for preparing food.
I did a lot of crazy shit when I was a kid or teenager, including activities that today would draw the immediate attention of the BATF, DEA, DHS, and FCC. Because my parents didn't share my curiosity about science/engineering, I did a lot of stuff on my own or with friends of a similar age. It is only by dumb luck that we didn't get seriously hurt with some of our "projects".
Now that I have a kid of my own (whose favorite TV show is "Mythbusters", BTW), one of my favorite activities is to show him various science experiments and demonstrations, some of which would horrify those of the "soccer mom" stereotype (like the time we fired off a bunch of old automotive airbags and the noise brought out the cops, or set an old microwave on fire by nuking various non-food items). But I ALWAYS make a point of demonstrating proper safety precautions, including drawing the line at demonstrations that cannot be done safely in a suburban backyard. Those are either not done, or they wait until we can find a suitable place to do them.
Sure, most of the kids of past generations survived their own experimentation unscathed. But how many didn't? How many kids would have gone on to a great career, but poisoned/maimed/electrocuted/blew themselves up simply because they were ignorant of the hazards involved with whatever they were playing around with?
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
Coincidentally this is also part of Apple's battery replacement procedure.
I agree, but at the same time it might be more luck than genius. I'd be curious what the same ad agency would come up with for a more mundane product. "Does it stack onto a Burger King Chicken Sandwich?" doesn't have quite the same appeal.
Then I guess you've never seen the awesomest picture of all time.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
While I'm sure folks appreciate your safety message, please don't try to practice chemistry at the same time. Both glass and asbestos are silicates, and are indeed chemically related.
Right back at you. There are two kinds of asbestos- one is cancerous, the other is not. And glass particles do not cause silicosis, silica does...
Garnet, Talc, Mica, and Quartz are all silicates too. Saying "glass and asbestos are chemically related" is about as relevant as comparing water to hydrogen peroxide, asshat.
Please help metamoderate.
Lots of people complain about the fawning praise lavished on the iPhone by a credible press. Tom Dickson is the only person I have seen yet who was shrewd enough to co-opt this for his own gain. It's like he established a hype resonance field--taking all the iPhone puffery, squaring it, and making it his own. I'm guessing he didn't wait all night to score those two iPhones. He probably picked a couple up off eBay for two grand; that he's willing to blow half that on a 10-second video clip testifies to how much more he's getting in return.
Tom Dickson Jr., I salute you.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
I reckon that my tungsten carbide tooling for my lathe and mill would give it something to think about!
Toxic dust? Surely that's the magic smoke!
Andrew Yeomans
That's funny, I just saw a comic about this on Monday. Who would have though this would be such an obvious thing to do? (OK the WIB version is funnier...)
* Please do not read my signature.
I'm in between insightful sigs right now...
And if you DO get them packed in metal, just use a Blendtec blender. Yes, It Blends!
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
I'm in between insightful sigs right now...
I'm sure Steve Jobs will cry himself to sleep tonight because of your incisive critique.
For the record, I have spent perhaps 2 hours tops using an Apple Computer. So I'm no expert. However I have been quite impressed by what I have seen of OSX.
It is important to remember the target markets of Apple: New or fairly inexperienced computer users, and certain specialist markets (like video editing).
1. interfaces are oversimplified and prevent real work from being done in many cases pertinent to me.
The interfaces are simplified, but often the powerful features are there, you just need to look harder (not in all cases of course). Hiding certain powerful tools helps new users immensely as it prevents them from accidentally Messing things up. The more powerful stuff is more hidden. For example the calculator has a very nice scientific mode, and apparently even has an RPN mode. Yes, the stock calculator program supports RPN! That is surprising. Often power stuff can be used by holding down one of the keyboard modifying keys (shift, option, etc.) while clicking. Other times there are keyboard shortcuts. It may not be easy to discover some of these, but they are often there. After all, open the terminal app, and you have a full BSD system (unless you chose not to install it). I will admit the not being able to discover some of the advanced things easily is not great.
Oversimplified interfaces ensure that people never learn about computers, and is analagous to using a calculator in a third grade arithmetic class. the interfaces should rather focus on being well-designed, capable, and efficient with a good balance of learning curve and power, not entirely focus on being "simple". this way, work will get done efficiently, the population will know a little about computers instead of none, and so on.
The target market has generally has little computer knowledge, and often little to no interest in learning very much. Lets face it, most people who use the computer to browse the web (go to very specific sites and/or watch YouTube videos), email, and basic word processing don't have much need to understand RAM, File systems, etc. Understanding that there is a limit to the storage space of the computer is useful, but that is about it. Also note that simple is often efficient (although of course not optimally efficient, and not always efficient).
3. oversimplified and unintuitive hardware. cd-rom drives that don't have an eject button at the OBVIOUS location, where you put the freaking cd in. cases without power buttons.
I will agree with this point completely. The CD-drive thing especially. I know the Macbooks have obvious power buttons, as does Mac Pro. The Mac mini has a clearly marked power button on the back. However, I have never been able to find a power button on the iMac.
4. badly-designed hardware. slot-loading cd drives that scratch disks, don't eject disks, and have no easy way to manually take them out in emergency. batteries that cannot be replaced by the user, on iphone and many ipods.
I have little to no experience with the hardware being bad. I will say that the batteries not being removable appears to have everything to do with Steve Jobs sense of aesthetics. A battery cover would look terrible in his opinion, and besides it could get lost.
5. badly-designed hardware as a marketing tactic to get people to spend more on tech support (batteries, being the biggest culprit).
I'm strongly doubting this. Originally Apple did not have a battery replacement program. This appeared to be because Steve Jobs honestly believed most users would choose to buy a new iPod model for its new features, etc. before the battery wore out. Further I think they already were selling OEM batteries to third party repair shops, who could then replace the battery. Apple appears to be fully co-operative with third party repair shops, but of course, makes no guarantees on behalf of those shops. Also remember that for the cost of replacing the battery
Stylish sheet to fix many problems in Slashdot's D3: https://gist.github.com/801524
If they meant it like "people in California," then the proper transcription would be: "it's, like, an advertisement." They also plainly did not mean it in that sense, because people don't write like they talk. They'd sound completely illiterate if they did.
I personally prefer the MPHG meme, NO CARRIER is auuuld. I think it's better form, however, to leave the follow-up discussion to child posts.
Me lost me cookie at the disco.
watched only one video of the will it blend series a month or so ago.. I would need to ask the question why blend? alright I get the reason if someone opened it up but blending .. nope!
well if the come up with a hammer and put up the videos will they be called 'will it break?'
but yes there you go .. not watching another one of those will it blend videos..
Ugh... did I really just something from that marketing course on slashdot? And it involved a man in a chicken suit!
The fact that a fish swims in water does not make it an expert in fluid dynamics. GogglesPisano (199483)
I've been in your place before, though for us it was a $40 blender that bit it in just a few months of smoothies. Blendtec blenders really are all they're cracked up to be, vitamix's are almost as good but equally expensive. But my best blender is a harvest gold hamilton beach blender I bought at a thrift store for three dollars. it took a while to find one with the seals still in good shape, but I swear that thing would blend concrete. It put up with a ton of abuse and lasted three years or so. Before I got my kitchen aid mixer (not the cheap one you usually see in the stores, but a somewhat more expensive prosumer model) I had an early 50s mixer that also rocked. Nothing like good solid american made steel motors. But speaking of that Kitchen aid, I did once (foolishly) get a wooden spoon stuck in the paddle, and "Yes, it blends....er.. mixes" It was in about ten pieces by the time i could reach the switch, at lowish speed.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item =330142582706
DRM 'manages access' in the same way that a prison 'manages freedom'
And of course... the apple fanboys have marked your post as flamebait.
I never understand why people on slashdot suck apple's dick. Apple is just as evil as Microsoft!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092494/
See? All better.
Experience teaches only the teachable. -AH
You Tube has not just democratized film production, but also increased the value of advertisements. With high quality viral advertising like this, I actually feel that the video deserves my attention. With television ads, I often feel that they invade my attention and are unworthy of it.
You forgot to mention the people, TONS of machinery & electronics, decorations, plastics for packaging, sewage, cleaning agents and two fueled jet planes! I believe they normally remove all those things before demolishing buildings.
Apropos for 95 years ago, perhaps.
> It is important to remember the target markets of Apple: New or fairly
> inexperienced computer users, and certain specialist markets (like video
> editing).
inexperienced computer users need to learn a little. not much, just a little. using apple computers are like saying inexperienced english speakers should always read at kindergarten-level. rather, they should challenge themselves a little, it will help the population become a little smarter. linux is gaining popularity in asia and africa because it's cheap (i.e. free), and guess what? they'll get smarter. and they'll get their work done faster on their more powerful OS.
"video editing" as a market for apples? geez, come on. you do video editing on a freaking mac ?! i would prefer windows or linux any day [video software availability set aside]. i mean, sheesh, i couldn't think of doing video editing on a system that doesn't have a right mouse button or which has cases that aren't easily expandable to have 5 or 10 DVD drives. (and don't tell me i can put a mouse in that has N>1 buttons on a mac. tell me instead why that isn't the default choice and why i have to always purchase additional stuff to get what i want on macs.) and please tell me why there is an eject button on the keyboard, which is perfectly ambiguous in the case where you have multiple drives to read from. no thanks, i don't think this is my type of video editing system.
> because Steve Jobs honestly believed most users would choose to buy a new iPod model for its new features, etc. before the battery wore out
heh! so he did have a sneaky strategy! usually you'd buy a new battery and snap it in yourself. i said apple had a sneaky tactic to make you buy their battery and tech support. but no, it was even more sneaky! they now want you to buy a whole NEW DEVICE!
if i had designed the iPod shuffle for instance, i'd have it accept a STANDARD microSD card and replaceable li-ion battery, and provide a 2 GB card already installed into the device when retailed. and guess what, in 10 years i could probably use the same thing with a new microSD card that has 200 GB instead of 2 GB and not have to chuck the whole device. do you realize that a crapload of iPhones are going to be in LANDFILLS in probably 5 years from now? that's a real waste!
> Well, the iPod is intended to be used only with iTunes.
"used only with" is a stupid way to design hardware, especially a music player. hardware should be as transparent to the user as possible, i.e. drag files into the thing on any of 3 OSes instead of ever having to install software. the installing of music library management software should be OPTIONAL by default, and otherwise, it should act like a thumbdrive, playing any mp3 or ogg it finds on the device. that's the most transparent way it can be, and it's the way a lot of non-apple music players are.
What? This is Unix. You can do whatever you want. Please provide examples detailing where the UI prevented "real work from being done."
2. oversimplified interfaces ensure that people never learn about computersGAH! I hate this argument. It's so fucking stupid. What you're basically saying is that you want to force people to use unusable stuff just so that they are forced to learn. This is insane. Nobody does that! It's like asking for cars to have no electronics because due to all the electronics, people don't have to learn about how an engine works.
Look, if you have a choice between something that is hard to use and something that is easy to use, picking the hard item is not smart. It's stupid.
3. oversimplified and unintuitive hardware.Where by "unintuitive" you mean "not matching what I've learned while using another system." So not only do you want to use the hard-to-use system because it forces you to learn, you also want every other system to behave like the hard-to-use system.
4. badly-designed hardware. slot-loading cd drives that scratch disks, don't eject disks, and have no easy way to manually take them out in emergency. batteries that cannot be replaced by the user, on iphone and many ipods.Never heard about the slot-loading drives scratching disks. The batteries are somewhat annoying, but you can replace iPod batteries on your own, and frankly, I've never wanted to replace a battery in a cell phone or an iPod, so I don't really care. You get something in return, too: Better design.
5. badly-designed hardware as a marketing tactic to get people to spend more on tech support (batteries, being the biggest culprit).What? Is this conspiracy theory day?
6. proprietary hardware. the "apple display connector". non-standard usb cables on some keyboards. non-standard earphone jacks on the iPod instead of simply having standard mini USB connector and standard 1/8" jack connector separately so any cable from your closet can be used to transfer data.Apple goes with proprietary if they think they can significantly improve upon the open solution. They've done it less and less often recently.
7. bad looks. i hate white hardware. okay, this is just my opinion, though.Few Apple hardware is white anymore.
8. non-intuitive software. for one, the easiest way one can think of using an mp3 player on windows is to shove it into a USB drive, have the drive pop open as any thumb drive would, drag mp3's into it, and eject it. but nooooooo you have to either install iTunes or get some hack that updates the iPod DB. sheesh.Uh. What. Manually dragging your MP3 files on a MP3 player that is mounted by Windows is more intuitive than just plugging it in and letting it sync automatically? Using Windows to manage your portable music player is more intuitive than using your music management application? I think you should consider the possibility that your definition of "intuitive" does not match most other people's definition of "intuitive." I would guess that using your hard-to-use system has kind of destroyed your calibration in that area.
Do you realize how insane that sounds? Computers are tools. They should be usable by normal people without them having to learn anything about what makes them tick. You don't have to know about how electric motors work to drill a hole in a wall. You don't have to learn about physics to ride a bike. You don't have to know how to produce a sausage in order to buy one. You don't have to know how an engine works to drive a car. You don't have to know about the brothers wright to fly a plane.
The burden is on the software engineer to make his applications usable and save. If he fails, it's never the user's fault.
Your elitist arrogance is inappropriate. I hope you don't design UI for a living.
i think you didn't quite see my point. my point is, computers should be designed to get tasks done efficiently rather than focusing on being simple. if that getting things done efficiently involves a slightly steeper learning curve, so be it. people need to deal with that.
also, i believe that computers should be adaptable to the user. windows is reasonably good at this and linux is very good at this. macs, on the other hand, ask the user to adapt to the ways of the OS, something i think is very backward.
Computers can be efficient as well as simple. And since most users aren't experts at most tasks they perform on a computer, simple takes precedence because in those cases, simple is efficient.
also, i believe that computers should be adaptable to the user. windows is reasonably good at this and linux is very good at this. macs, on the other hand, ask the user to adapt to the ways of the OS, something i think is very backward.This is an utterly absurd statement to make. I personally use several Linux distros (mostly Ubuntu nowadays), Mac OS X, Windows XP and Windows Vista. The Windows flavours are currently the least malleable. Linux and Mac OS X are both just flavours of Unix. You can open a shell and hack away. On the Mac, all applications are basically folders. Open them, and you can change them. The UI on Mac apps is generally specified in user-editable files. You can hack, change and configure everything on a Mac. You can even replace the Finder with another file manager, similar to Linux. Windows simply can't compete.
My guess is that you have more experience with Windows and Linux, thus don't know how to configure Macs, and thus think that they can't be configured. You are, however, wrong.
you can also change the file manager and everything on windows.
not that i like windows, i'm personally a linux fan. but i'd take windows any day over mac os.
just try to launch two separate instances of photoshop on a mac, for instance, without copying the executable to waste space. you hit the icon a second time and it just switches to your first instance instead of launching a new instance. just one of many annoyances.
It's just kool-aid.
The people in charge of marketing at burger king should have been fired years ago. When they came up with that stupid king, someone should have been shot.
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
First, as you say, you can do that by simply copying the app. Second, why in the world would you want to do that? You can open more than one file in one instance of Photoshop, you know. In fact, the fact that you can't switch to an application by double-clicking it in Windows is one of Windows' most annoying things.
In WoW terms, he disenchanted it and got some arcane dust?
> Simply put, you have no idea what you are talking about. When someone who works in
... this is *exactly* why i say installing iTunes should be optional. if a device only does its generic job (i.e. store data and play music), it *should* do it in the most generic way possible (i.e. read as a standard thumbdrive AND play any mp3 it finds on that thumbdrive). it's not hard to have a device just simply read its directory and play mp3's on it. the fact that the songs must be dragged into iTunes before the device is pointless for those that do not care about using iTunes's library management (which are, of course, the many people who either have other library software, don't like iTunes, or don't like using library software, or use a non-supported OS). all of these people have to download 3rd party hacks to get the iPod to play its mp3's, and this is not only bad support on the part of Apple, but prevents such people from using the device for a good couple of months after it's first released.
> television broadcasting is salivating over my lowly iMac due to its video editing
> tools, and wishing her company would cough up the money to buy Mac Pros, your
> argument is simply not believable.
okay, and then there are people i know in the movie industry who use mainly unix.
> No one I know actually buys a battery for any mobile device - they just buy a
> brand-new device anyways. By the time batteries begin to fail, keys are not working,
> or the device's technology is obsolete.
the fact that technology becomes obsolete so fast is a very "mac" idea. many other brands of devices are designed to have parts upgraded on and on for at least 2 or 3 generations of the device, making it both cheaper for the consumer and less wasteful as a whole. compactflash mp3 players from 5 years ago can just have a new 16GB card stuck in now and still be a wonderful cutting-edge player for their size. a microSD player from now could probably have a 100GB card stuck in them 6 years from now and also be a wonderful player at that time. the cost of a battery and a memory card replacement is much less than a new player when it just gets released. the average iPod fan, on the other hand, just has to keep buying full new iPods every 2-3 years if they want the latest. same with mac laptops and other mac hardware.
> You still haven't explained why installing iTunes "should" be optional. Is it just
> because you say so? Again, if you don't like doing a thing a particular way, you
> don't have to do it.
"if you don't like doing a thing a particular way"
if you bought an external hard drive, i'm sure you'd expect to be able to plug it in and use it right away, on any PC -- windows, mac, or linux. most of them work exactly this way. if you had to install software to use it, you'd probably be pretty pissed, especially if you intend to have portability. same with the iPod... i should be able to plug it in on one PC, drag some mp3's onto it (without installing iTunes), unload it onto another PC, drag some from somewhere else, and so on. i mean, most sony and other mp3 players already work this way.