Except it's not called Final. It's called Final Fantasy, which has a totally different meaning than the word Final, in the same sense that a fireteam has a totally different meaning than the word fire.
Final Fantasy was an RPG created by a nearly insolvent Square; the Final Fantasy series is a set of RPGs created by Square, now Square Enix, centered around fantastic and magical adventures in a techno-mystic world.
Well, in that case, we can argue nothing done in the MP3 player market is "innovative" or "interesting".
Except for the case that engineering had to be done (which you refuse to call "innovative") to make them ever smaller, ever lighter, power efficient, and powerful.
Yes, except Apple sold 1 billion; in three years, that's about 300 million a year. Or $105,000,000 a year in music. $105 million a year is not bad; not great, but not bad. They'll probably hit 2 billion in two years, next, which increases their take to $175 million a year.
The other thing you don't take into account is that the iTMS is a distribution model, not an advertising model. The RIAA solved the advertising model already (with it's pitfalls too), while the iTMS has solved the distribution model.
Under the RIAA the artist would get pennies to the dollar via traditional retail mechanisms(they still do, if they sign up with the RIAA); under the iTMS the self same artists now get $0.65 to the dollar.
Hook that up to an effective marketing machine and an artist, instead of getting 3%, can get upwards of half the take.
All it takes is one genius to hook up blogs, podcasts, live performances, and the iTMS together into a cost effective marketing machine. Or something like that.
However, if the iPod does not represent "innovative engineering", then nothing in the MP3 player market counts. At the time as I read about the iPod it was positively brilliant to use an index for the meta data, now it's di rigeur. The same with the use of a 32mb as a store for the index and 21 minutes of music.
In hindsight it seems obvious (heck, when I first heard about it I wondered why no one else was doing it), but now everyone does it.
That's good engineering, at the least, while everyone else showed poor engineering.
I actually did buy a G1 iPod, then a G1+ iPod with touch-scroll wheel, so I think I qualify for the crowd that went "OMG". I have sense bought a shuffle and iPod with video:)
I could immediately tell it was a better product, and I'll just copy my prior responses here. You mention that there are many decent players, but that wasn't true in the year 2001, when we had the Rio PMP (too little storage) or the Creative Nomad (too bulky) vs the iPod (small AND dense):
On why Apple has stayed on top: 1) Designing a better Jukebox in 2000; true, they got the basics from C&Gs SoundJam, but they have added strong features to it over the years, to the point that now everyone takes for granted the things Apple added. Being free helps too. In order to get Sony SonicStage you have to buy a Sony MP3 player. In order to get Creative Lab's MediaSource you have to buy a Zen or MuVo.
A) Smart Playlist support (database driven)
B) Integrated ripping, cataloging, and indexing
c) Live search
D) External MP3 synchronization (as far back as Creative Nomad Jukebox in 2000)
E) Free (compared to MusicMatch or Xing or Creative or Sony)
2) Designing a better MP3 player in 2001; they didn't do it first, but they did do it better.
A) Denser: the Nomad was physically larger, the smaller Rio PMP held much less
B) Faster: the Nomad and Rio uploaded at USB1 speed, or 1mb/s, while the iPod could hit 16mb/s
C) Simpler: the comparable Nomad had 11 buttons and required two hands; the iPod only had 5 buttons and could be used with one hand
D) Faster: the use of the iTunes index meant you could keep the entire music index in memory (it had 32mb!) instead of crawling through the harddrive
E) Simpler: the use of iTunes meant synchronization was simple: Plug in and 10 minutes later all 5gb was full, while on a Nomad it would take a couple hours
Since then they have done four things to stay in the lead:
A) Made iPods cheaper (Compare $499 for 5gb in 2001 vs $299 for 30gb in 2006) B) Made iPods more powerful (Compare MP3 in 2001 vs AAC, video, and pictures in 2006) C) Made iPods smaller (Compare the G1 vs G5 iPods; half the thickness) D) Added new models (nano and shuffle, mini, color) E) Continued improving the iTunes experience, as listed above
All the others added these features after Apple; if they had done so before, perhaps they would be number one instead? Creative added their Zen Micro after the iPod mini. They added the Zen after the iPod, with several laptop HD based MP3 players in the interim (still too big!). The Vision:M is still bigger than an iPod with Video, despite similar specs.
On what kind of engineering Apple did that Microsoft can follow: For the first gen iPod it was three things: 1) Inclusion of Firewire (which they developed) to upload data at 12mb/s (as opposed to 1mb/s for USB) 2) Use of an iTunes generated index file to speed up the UI by reducing the need to read the HD for metadata 3) Use of 32mb integrated RAM to store and buffer the index and songs, again to speed up the UI and reduce the need to read the HD except in short bursts
Since the first gen iPod they've continued to improve the iPod: 1) Moved from a physical scroll wheel to a touch wheel to reduce the number of moving parts 2) Integrated the control buttons into the scroll wheel to simplify the design and physical construction 3) Continued redesigning the circuit board to keep shrinking the device to it's current size (compare the circuit board of the Vision:M to the iPod with Video; the iPod's is less than half the size) 4) Design and use of the dock connector to allow for only a single port with multiple, flexible, uses (TV out, Line out, Firewire and USB connections, and power)
If there is a message to Microsoft, it isn't the conspicuious use of technology for technology's
Just because it isn't "public knowledge" (IE, Apple doesn't hype it) doesn't mean it isn't happening.
For the first gen iPod it was three things: 1) Inclusion of Firewire (which they developed) to upload data at 12mb/s (as opposed to 1mb/s for USB) 2) Use of an iTunes generated index file to speed up the UI by reducing the need to read the HD for metadata 3) Use of 32mb integrated RAM to store and buffer the index and songs, again to speed up the UI and reduce the need to read the HD except in short bursts
Since the first gen iPod they've continued to improve the iPod: 1) Moved from a physical scroll wheel to a touch wheel to reduce the number of moving parts 2) Integrated the control buttons into the scroll wheel to simplify the design and physical construction 3) Continued redesigning the circuit board to keep shrinking the device to it's current size (compare the circuit board of the Vision:M to the iPod with Video; the iPod's is less than half the size) 4) Design and use of the dock connector to allow for only a single port with multiple, flexible, uses (TV out, Line out, Firewire and USB connections, and power)
If there is a message to Microsoft, it isn't the conspicuious use of technology for technology's sake, but the intelligent utilization of technology transparently to improve the consumer's experience.
How long has Microsoft sat on AJAX before Google Maps (and others) picked it up to do something cool, shortly followed by Microsoft itself?
How long had everyone sat on Toshiba's 1.8" HD before Apple's iPod picked it up to make the iPod, followed shortly by Creative Labs? Similarly, how long had everyone sat on microdrives before Apple's iPod mini picked it up to make the iPod mini, shortly followed by Creative Labs?
Engineering is great; judicious utilization of that engineering is even better.
They don't have to switch to Windows to gain Windows apps, though.
The ability to virtualize and run Vista inside OS X, the adoption of WINE, or some hybridization between the two would allow a Vista compatibility mode without giving up OS X.
They would gain viruses, malware, and spyware if they switched to Vista.
By adopting WINE, they get none of those things By virtualizing, they can contain those things inside a sandbox.
Actually, Dell's discontinued DJ was made by Creative. From another post, my rebuttal as to why the iPod is successful:
1) Designing a better Jukebox in 2000; true, they got the basics from C&Gs SoundJam, but they have added strong features to it over the years, to the point that now everyone takes for granted the things Apple added. Being free helps too. In order to get Sony SonicStage you have to buy a Sony MP3 player. In order to get Creative Lab's MediaSource you have to buy a Zen or MuVo.
A) Smart Playlist support (database driven)
B) Integrated ripping, cataloging, and indexing
c) Live search
D) External MP3 synchronization (as far back as Creative Nomad Jukebox in 2000)
E) Free (compared to MusicMatch or Xing or Creative or Sony)
2) Designing a better MP3 player in 2001; they didn't do it first, but they did do it better.
A) Denser: the Nomad was physically larger, the smaller Rio PMP held much less
B) Faster: the Nomad and Rio uploaded at USB1 speed, or 1mb/s, while the iPod could hit 16mb/s
C) Simpler: the comparable Nomad had 11 buttons and required two hands; the iPod only had 5 buttons and could be used with one hand
D) Faster: the use of the iTunes index meant you could keep the entire music index in memory (it had 32mb!) instead of crawling through the harddrive
E) Simpler: the use of iTunes meant synchronization was simple: Plug in and 10 minutes later all 5gb was full, while on a Nomad it would take a couple hours
Since then they have done four things to stay in the lead:
A) Made iPods cheaper (Compare $499 for 5gb in 2001 vs $299 for 30gb in 2006) B) Made iPods more powerful (Compare MP3 in 2001 vs AAC, video, and pictures in 2006) C) Made iPods smaller (Compare the G1 vs G5 iPods; half the thickness) D) Added new models (nano and shuffle, mini, color) E) Continued improving the iTunes experience, as listed above
All the others added these features after Apple; if they had done so before, perhaps they would be number one instead? Creative added their Zen Micro after the iPod mini. They added the Zen after the iPod, with several laptop HD based MP3 players in the interim (still too big!). The Vision:M is still bigger than an iPod with Video, despite similar specs.
1) Designing a better Jukebox in 2000; true, they got the basics from C&Gs SoundJam, but they have added strong features to it over the years, to the point that now everyone takes for granted the things Apple added. Being free helps too. In order to get Sony SonicStage you have to buy a Sony MP3 player. In order to get Creative Lab's MediaSource you have to buy a Zen or MuVo.
A) Smart Playlist support (database driven)
B) Integrated ripping, cataloging, and indexing
c) Live search
D) External MP3 synchronization (as far back as Creative Nomad Jukebox in 2000)
E) Free (compared to MusicMatch or Xing or Creative or Sony)
2) Designing a better MP3 player in 2001; they didn't do it first, but they did do it better.
A) Denser: the Nomad was physically larger, the smaller Rio PMP held much less
B) Faster: the Nomad and Rio uploaded at USB1 speed, or 1mb/s, while the iPod could hit 16mb/s
C) Simpler: the comparable Nomad had 11 buttons and required two hands; the iPod only had 5 buttons and could be used with one hand
D) Faster: the use of the iTunes index meant you could keep the entire music index in memory (it had 32mb!) instead of crawling through the harddrive
E) Simpler: the use of iTunes meant synchronization was simple: Plug in and 10 minutes later all 5gb was full, while on a Nomad it would take a couple hours
Since then they have done four things to stay in the lead:
A) Made iPods cheaper (Compare $499 for 5gb in 2001 vs $299 for 30gb in 2006) B) Made iPods more powerful (Compare MP3 in 2001 vs AAC, video, and pictures in 2006) C) Made iPods smaller (Compare the G1 vs G5 iPods; half the thickness) D) Added new models (nano and shuffle, mini, color) E) Continued improving the iTunes experience, as listed above
All the others added these features after Apple; if they had done so before, perhaps they would be number one instead? Creative added their Zen Micro after the iPod mini. They added the Zen after the iPod, with several laptop HD based MP3 players in the interim (still too big!). The Vision:M is still bigger than an iPod with Video, despite similar specs.
iPods are not "locked" into a manufacturer's format. AAC is the logical successor to MP3. MP3 is "MPEG-1 layer 3", while AAC is "MPEG4 advanced audio codec". BlueRay and HD-DVD utilize MPEG4 as well. iTunes rips music into AAC format, which is not locked at all, any more than an MP3 is at least. At the very least, AAC is more open than WMA, by virtue of being an ISO MPEG standard.
Well, then, what more does Apple need to do? As soon as they release OS X with Universal Binaries, ANYONE can go out and buy a boxed copy, right?
Except of course it won't have "generic" specs, but require a Mac to run. People want Apple to publish some generic specs so they could build their own. They also want Apple to 'unlock' the releases so they can install it on systems other than Macs.
How is that fundamentally different than opening up the iTMS to play on any and all MP3 players? $0.99 tracks give little profit margin compared to an iPod.
Similarly a $129 box of OS X gives little profit margin compared to a $1299 iMac. If they opened up OS X, they'd need to sell a little more than 3 copies (or otherwise increase their marketshare from 5% to 18% overnight) to stay profitable.
Assuming a 28% margin on a $1299 iMac, they ear $360 per iMac. Assuming 80% margin on software, that box of OS X makes them only $100.
Do you really think that they could catapult to 18% by opening the OS (just to break even) and then go up to 25% (to make it a more profitable endeavor than NOT opening up the OS)?
What wacky BIOS? Apple uses EFI. There's nothing wacky about Apple's implementation, I think it's a stock implementation of EFI.
The problem is that Windows XP is now three years old, at least, and was never intended to work on an EFI machine. You have to hack it.
Conversely, and symmetrically, OS X was never 'intended' to work on a BIOS machine (yes, the developer kits and the old NextStep OS supported BIOS), and therefore you have to hack it.
Of course the people who have hacked OS X don't have the distribution rights to actually give away those hacks. What they need to do is write code to emulate EFI inside a virtual machine, and everything would be good. It's how Windows has been run on the Mac for years now.
No, I took issue with this statement: " I really don't see anything wrong with bootlegging a product that the publisher refuses to publish. Same way I WOULD have repurchased the Star Wars Trilogy on DVD to replace my aging VHS print..... but instead I have bootleg a DVD set because George Lucas won't sell them."
Which is, "I think it's okay to steal something if someone won't sell it to me.
Since there is no boxed copy of OS X for Intel, the only way to acquire it is to bootleg it, unless you've bought an iMac or MacBook Pro.
What do you mean? If I download a GPL program, modify it, sell it, but don't redistribute the source, I've just violated the GPL, in the same way that someone buys an iMac, modifies OS X, and installs it on a Dell has violated the Apple license.
Either you agree licenses have power, or they don't. The only thing to argue about is whether the license is valid, whether it is enforceable, and whether it is reasonable.
Ideally business transactions are an equitable trade. Your checkbook is worth their product if a transaction is made.
If the product is better than the price you've paid, you've got a bargain. If the product is cheaper than the price they sell for, they've got a profit.
Okay, across the market of PCs and Macs, how many:
How many use AGP: 100% How many Mac compatible video cards are there? How many use PCI: 100% How many offer Mac compatible drivers for the PCI cards? How many use USB: 100% How many offer Mac compatible drivers for their USB devices?
Just about everything sold on the PC market is physically and electrically compatible with a Mac, right now. As I mentioned earlier, though, it's the lack of drivers that stops people from using PC components in Mac hardware. When Apple switches 100% to Intel, then 100% of the computers on the market will use the same CPUs, chipsets, video cards, memory slots, etc, and STILL there will not be 100% driver compatibility with OS X.
What? So now it's okay to steal something if someone won't give it to you?
If you won't give me your credit card info, I'll just take it from you instead! In case you don't get it, you are the publisher of your credit card info, and since you refuse to publish that info, I'll just bootleg it instead.
It would be easier to read your post if you used paragraphs.
Apple has two hurdles to overcome before they can successfully sell OS X for generic Intel hardware:
1) Convince manufacturers to write drivers for OS X. If 3/4 of he hardware out there RIGHT NOW lack OS X drivers for PPC, why would they magically have OS X drivers for Intel? So that means OS X won't be able to access your scanner, your TV tuner, your sound card, your mpeg accelerated video card, etc.
2) Create a reference platform of supported devices, after they convince manufacturers to provide drivers in step 1.
Without step 1, number 2 ends up being, more or less, an iMac or MacBook Pro. Which is more or less what they have right now, except that they haven't yet released OS X for Intel.
If this was true, then implementing a paper trail won't hurt the Democrats, but actually hurt him because he won't be able to manipulate the system as much.
So what's the problem in creating a paper trail for the next election?
Which is exactly why Apple built into iTunes the ability to burn unprotected CDs of the files you purchased from the iTMS.
Just like Microsoft has given you the ability to export your XBox game into raw files so you can convert it to a Gamecube compatible game, right? No, they don't? How about Sony? Can't you convert your old Playstation games into XBox games now that you have an XBox 360? No? Apple has given you all the tools necessary to support other players, if you so choose to switch from an iPod to, say, a Zen, which is a lot more than Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, heck just about any other vendor locked solution.
You are of course free to believe whatever you wish.
However Apple has not stopped other players from selling music for the iPod. The majority, at 93%, of music sold is compatible by the iPod without Apple licensing Fairplay. Until online music approaches a significant portion of all music sold, Apple can't truly be said to have a monopoly, nor be in a position to abuse the monopoly.
Apple's case against Real is very much like Lexmark's case against ink repackagers, and has nothing to do with monopoly. It is an act of vendor lock in, much the same way Sony sued Connectix when they released a Playstation emulator, or Microsoft and Sony would protect their respective XBox and PS2 platforms, even though neither truly has a monopoly.
Slashdot Mirror
Except it's not called Final. It's called Final Fantasy, which has a totally different meaning than the word Final, in the same sense that a fireteam has a totally different meaning than the word fire.
Final Fantasy was an RPG created by a nearly insolvent Square; the Final Fantasy series is a set of RPGs created by Square, now Square Enix, centered around fantastic and magical adventures in a techno-mystic world.
Well, in that case, we can argue nothing done in the MP3 player market is "innovative" or "interesting".
Except for the case that engineering had to be done (which you refuse to call "innovative") to make them ever smaller, ever lighter, power efficient, and powerful.
Yes, except Apple sold 1 billion; in three years, that's about 300 million a year. Or $105,000,000 a year in music. $105 million a year is not bad; not great, but not bad. They'll probably hit 2 billion in two years, next, which increases their take to $175 million a year.
The other thing you don't take into account is that the iTMS is a distribution model, not an advertising model. The RIAA solved the advertising model already (with it's pitfalls too), while the iTMS has solved the distribution model.
Under the RIAA the artist would get pennies to the dollar via traditional retail mechanisms(they still do, if they sign up with the RIAA); under the iTMS the self same artists now get $0.65 to the dollar.
Hook that up to an effective marketing machine and an artist, instead of getting 3%, can get upwards of half the take.
All it takes is one genius to hook up blogs, podcasts, live performances, and the iTMS together into a cost effective marketing machine. Or something like that.
It sounds like your zipfiles were more effective means of DRM than iTMSs Fairplay.
At least Fairplay has been tested a billion times over now.
However, if the iPod does not represent "innovative engineering", then nothing in the MP3 player market counts. At the time as I read about the iPod it was positively brilliant to use an index for the meta data, now it's di rigeur. The same with the use of a 32mb as a store for the index and 21 minutes of music.
In hindsight it seems obvious (heck, when I first heard about it I wondered why no one else was doing it), but now everyone does it.
That's good engineering, at the least, while everyone else showed poor engineering.
I actually did buy a G1 iPod, then a G1+ iPod with touch-scroll wheel, so I think I qualify for the crowd that went "OMG". I have sense bought a shuffle and iPod with video :)
I could immediately tell it was a better product, and I'll just copy my prior responses here. You mention that there are many decent players, but that wasn't true in the year 2001, when we had the Rio PMP (too little storage) or the Creative Nomad (too bulky) vs the iPod (small AND dense):
On why Apple has stayed on top:
1) Designing a better Jukebox in 2000; true, they got the basics from C&Gs SoundJam, but they have added strong features to it over the years, to the point that now everyone takes for granted the things Apple added. Being free helps too. In order to get Sony SonicStage you have to buy a Sony MP3 player. In order to get Creative Lab's MediaSource you have to buy a Zen or MuVo.
A) Smart Playlist support (database driven)
B) Integrated ripping, cataloging, and indexing
c) Live search
D) External MP3 synchronization (as far back as Creative Nomad Jukebox in 2000)
E) Free (compared to MusicMatch or Xing or Creative or Sony)
2) Designing a better MP3 player in 2001; they didn't do it first, but they did do it better.
A) Denser: the Nomad was physically larger, the smaller Rio PMP held much less
B) Faster: the Nomad and Rio uploaded at USB1 speed, or 1mb/s, while the iPod could hit 16mb/s
C) Simpler: the comparable Nomad had 11 buttons and required two hands; the iPod only had 5 buttons and could be used with one hand
D) Faster: the use of the iTunes index meant you could keep the entire music index in memory (it had 32mb!) instead of crawling through the harddrive
E) Simpler: the use of iTunes meant synchronization was simple: Plug in and 10 minutes later all 5gb was full, while on a Nomad it would take a couple hours
Since then they have done four things to stay in the lead:
A) Made iPods cheaper (Compare $499 for 5gb in 2001 vs $299 for 30gb in 2006)
B) Made iPods more powerful (Compare MP3 in 2001 vs AAC, video, and pictures in 2006)
C) Made iPods smaller (Compare the G1 vs G5 iPods; half the thickness)
D) Added new models (nano and shuffle, mini, color)
E) Continued improving the iTunes experience, as listed above
All the others added these features after Apple; if they had done so before, perhaps they would be number one instead? Creative added their Zen Micro after the iPod mini. They added the Zen after the iPod, with several laptop HD based MP3 players in the interim (still too big!). The Vision:M is still bigger than an iPod with Video, despite similar specs.
On what kind of engineering Apple did that Microsoft can follow:
For the first gen iPod it was three things:
1) Inclusion of Firewire (which they developed) to upload data at 12mb/s (as opposed to 1mb/s for USB)
2) Use of an iTunes generated index file to speed up the UI by reducing the need to read the HD for metadata
3) Use of 32mb integrated RAM to store and buffer the index and songs, again to speed up the UI and reduce the need to read the HD except in short bursts
Since the first gen iPod they've continued to improve the iPod:
1) Moved from a physical scroll wheel to a touch wheel to reduce the number of moving parts
2) Integrated the control buttons into the scroll wheel to simplify the design and physical construction
3) Continued redesigning the circuit board to keep shrinking the device to it's current size (compare the circuit board of the Vision:M to the iPod with Video; the iPod's is less than half the size)
4) Design and use of the dock connector to allow for only a single port with multiple, flexible, uses (TV out, Line out, Firewire and USB connections, and power)
If there is a message to Microsoft, it isn't the conspicuious use of technology for technology's
Just because it isn't "public knowledge" (IE, Apple doesn't hype it) doesn't mean it isn't happening.
For the first gen iPod it was three things:
1) Inclusion of Firewire (which they developed) to upload data at 12mb/s (as opposed to 1mb/s for USB)
2) Use of an iTunes generated index file to speed up the UI by reducing the need to read the HD for metadata
3) Use of 32mb integrated RAM to store and buffer the index and songs, again to speed up the UI and reduce the need to read the HD except in short bursts
Since the first gen iPod they've continued to improve the iPod:
1) Moved from a physical scroll wheel to a touch wheel to reduce the number of moving parts
2) Integrated the control buttons into the scroll wheel to simplify the design and physical construction
3) Continued redesigning the circuit board to keep shrinking the device to it's current size (compare the circuit board of the Vision:M to the iPod with Video; the iPod's is less than half the size)
4) Design and use of the dock connector to allow for only a single port with multiple, flexible, uses (TV out, Line out, Firewire and USB connections, and power)
If there is a message to Microsoft, it isn't the conspicuious use of technology for technology's sake, but the intelligent utilization of technology transparently to improve the consumer's experience.
How long has Microsoft sat on AJAX before Google Maps (and others) picked it up to do something cool, shortly followed by Microsoft itself?
How long had everyone sat on Toshiba's 1.8" HD before Apple's iPod picked it up to make the iPod, followed shortly by Creative Labs?
Similarly, how long had everyone sat on microdrives before Apple's iPod mini picked it up to make the iPod mini, shortly followed by Creative Labs?
Engineering is great; judicious utilization of that engineering is even better.
They don't have to switch to Windows to gain Windows apps, though.
The ability to virtualize and run Vista inside OS X, the adoption of WINE, or some hybridization between the two would allow a Vista compatibility mode without giving up OS X.
They would gain viruses, malware, and spyware if they switched to Vista.
By adopting WINE, they get none of those things
By virtualizing, they can contain those things inside a sandbox.
You made an assertion.
Now prove it.
I make a counter assertion; detailed in some of my responses later in this thread. What's your proof?
Actually, Dell's discontinued DJ was made by Creative. From another post, my rebuttal as to why the iPod is successful:
1) Designing a better Jukebox in 2000; true, they got the basics from C&Gs SoundJam, but they have added strong features to it over the years, to the point that now everyone takes for granted the things Apple added. Being free helps too. In order to get Sony SonicStage you have to buy a Sony MP3 player. In order to get Creative Lab's MediaSource you have to buy a Zen or MuVo.
A) Smart Playlist support (database driven)
B) Integrated ripping, cataloging, and indexing
c) Live search
D) External MP3 synchronization (as far back as Creative Nomad Jukebox in 2000)
E) Free (compared to MusicMatch or Xing or Creative or Sony)
2) Designing a better MP3 player in 2001; they didn't do it first, but they did do it better.
A) Denser: the Nomad was physically larger, the smaller Rio PMP held much less
B) Faster: the Nomad and Rio uploaded at USB1 speed, or 1mb/s, while the iPod could hit 16mb/s
C) Simpler: the comparable Nomad had 11 buttons and required two hands; the iPod only had 5 buttons and could be used with one hand
D) Faster: the use of the iTunes index meant you could keep the entire music index in memory (it had 32mb!) instead of crawling through the harddrive
E) Simpler: the use of iTunes meant synchronization was simple: Plug in and 10 minutes later all 5gb was full, while on a Nomad it would take a couple hours
Since then they have done four things to stay in the lead:
A) Made iPods cheaper (Compare $499 for 5gb in 2001 vs $299 for 30gb in 2006)
B) Made iPods more powerful (Compare MP3 in 2001 vs AAC, video, and pictures in 2006)
C) Made iPods smaller (Compare the G1 vs G5 iPods; half the thickness)
D) Added new models (nano and shuffle, mini, color)
E) Continued improving the iTunes experience, as listed above
All the others added these features after Apple; if they had done so before, perhaps they would be number one instead? Creative added their Zen Micro after the iPod mini. They added the Zen after the iPod, with several laptop HD based MP3 players in the interim (still too big!). The Vision:M is still bigger than an iPod with Video, despite similar specs.
1) Designing a better Jukebox in 2000; true, they got the basics from C&Gs SoundJam, but they have added strong features to it over the years, to the point that now everyone takes for granted the things Apple added. Being free helps too. In order to get Sony SonicStage you have to buy a Sony MP3 player. In order to get Creative Lab's MediaSource you have to buy a Zen or MuVo.
A) Smart Playlist support (database driven)
B) Integrated ripping, cataloging, and indexing
c) Live search
D) External MP3 synchronization (as far back as Creative Nomad Jukebox in 2000)
E) Free (compared to MusicMatch or Xing or Creative or Sony)
2) Designing a better MP3 player in 2001; they didn't do it first, but they did do it better.
A) Denser: the Nomad was physically larger, the smaller Rio PMP held much less
B) Faster: the Nomad and Rio uploaded at USB1 speed, or 1mb/s, while the iPod could hit 16mb/s
C) Simpler: the comparable Nomad had 11 buttons and required two hands; the iPod only had 5 buttons and could be used with one hand
D) Faster: the use of the iTunes index meant you could keep the entire music index in memory (it had 32mb!) instead of crawling through the harddrive
E) Simpler: the use of iTunes meant synchronization was simple: Plug in and 10 minutes later all 5gb was full, while on a Nomad it would take a couple hours
Since then they have done four things to stay in the lead:
A) Made iPods cheaper (Compare $499 for 5gb in 2001 vs $299 for 30gb in 2006)
B) Made iPods more powerful (Compare MP3 in 2001 vs AAC, video, and pictures in 2006)
C) Made iPods smaller (Compare the G1 vs G5 iPods; half the thickness)
D) Added new models (nano and shuffle, mini, color)
E) Continued improving the iTunes experience, as listed above
All the others added these features after Apple; if they had done so before, perhaps they would be number one instead? Creative added their Zen Micro after the iPod mini. They added the Zen after the iPod, with several laptop HD based MP3 players in the interim (still too big!). The Vision:M is still bigger than an iPod with Video, despite similar specs.
iPods are not "locked" into a manufacturer's format. AAC is the logical successor to MP3. MP3 is "MPEG-1 layer 3", while AAC is "MPEG4 advanced audio codec". BlueRay and HD-DVD utilize MPEG4 as well. iTunes rips music into AAC format, which is not locked at all, any more than an MP3 is at least. At the very least, AAC is more open than WMA, by virtue of being an ISO MPEG standard.
Well, then, what more does Apple need to do? As soon as they release OS X with Universal Binaries, ANYONE can go out and buy a boxed copy, right?
Except of course it won't have "generic" specs, but require a Mac to run. People want Apple to publish some generic specs so they could build their own. They also want Apple to 'unlock' the releases so they can install it on systems other than Macs.
How is that fundamentally different than opening up the iTMS to play on any and all MP3 players? $0.99 tracks give little profit margin compared to an iPod.
Similarly a $129 box of OS X gives little profit margin compared to a $1299 iMac. If they opened up OS X, they'd need to sell a little more than 3 copies (or otherwise increase their marketshare from 5% to 18% overnight) to stay profitable.
Assuming a 28% margin on a $1299 iMac, they ear $360 per iMac. Assuming 80% margin on software, that box of OS X makes them only $100.
Do you really think that they could catapult to 18% by opening the OS (just to break even) and then go up to 25% (to make it a more profitable endeavor than NOT opening up the OS)?
What wacky BIOS? Apple uses EFI. There's nothing wacky about Apple's implementation, I think it's a stock implementation of EFI.
The problem is that Windows XP is now three years old, at least, and was never intended to work on an EFI machine. You have to hack it.
Conversely, and symmetrically, OS X was never 'intended' to work on a BIOS machine (yes, the developer kits and the old NextStep OS supported BIOS), and therefore you have to hack it.
Of course the people who have hacked OS X don't have the distribution rights to actually give away those hacks. What they need to do is write code to emulate EFI inside a virtual machine, and everything would be good. It's how Windows has been run on the Mac for years now.
Why is it Apple's job to do Microsoft's work for them?
Besides which, why aren't you storming Redmond for not supporting iMacs?
No, I took issue with this statement:
" I really don't see anything wrong with bootlegging a product that the publisher refuses to publish. Same way I WOULD have repurchased the Star Wars Trilogy on DVD to replace my aging VHS print..... but instead I have bootleg a DVD set because George Lucas won't sell them."
Which is, "I think it's okay to steal something if someone won't sell it to me.
Since there is no boxed copy of OS X for Intel, the only way to acquire it is to bootleg it, unless you've bought an iMac or MacBook Pro.
What do you mean? If I download a GPL program, modify it, sell it, but don't redistribute the source, I've just violated the GPL, in the same way that someone buys an iMac, modifies OS X, and installs it on a Dell has violated the Apple license.
Either you agree licenses have power, or they don't. The only thing to argue about is whether the license is valid, whether it is enforceable, and whether it is reasonable.
Ideally business transactions are an equitable trade. Your checkbook is worth their product if a transaction is made.
If the product is better than the price you've paid, you've got a bargain.
If the product is cheaper than the price they sell for, they've got a profit.
Both win.
Okay, across the market of PCs and Macs, how many:
How many use AGP: 100%
How many Mac compatible video cards are there?
How many use PCI: 100%
How many offer Mac compatible drivers for the PCI cards?
How many use USB: 100%
How many offer Mac compatible drivers for their USB devices?
Just about everything sold on the PC market is physically and electrically compatible with a Mac, right now. As I mentioned earlier, though, it's the lack of drivers that stops people from using PC components in Mac hardware. When Apple switches 100% to Intel, then 100% of the computers on the market will use the same CPUs, chipsets, video cards, memory slots, etc, and STILL there will not be 100% driver compatibility with OS X.
What? So now it's okay to steal something if someone won't give it to you?
If you won't give me your credit card info, I'll just take it from you instead! In case you don't get it, you are the publisher of your credit card info, and since you refuse to publish that info, I'll just bootleg it instead.
It would be easier to read your post if you used paragraphs.
Apple has two hurdles to overcome before they can successfully sell OS X for generic Intel hardware:
1) Convince manufacturers to write drivers for OS X. If 3/4 of he hardware out there RIGHT NOW lack OS X drivers for PPC, why would they magically have OS X drivers for Intel? So that means OS X won't be able to access your scanner, your TV tuner, your sound card, your mpeg accelerated video card, etc.
2) Create a reference platform of supported devices, after they convince manufacturers to provide drivers in step 1.
Without step 1, number 2 ends up being, more or less, an iMac or MacBook Pro. Which is more or less what they have right now, except that they haven't yet released OS X for Intel.
If this was true, then implementing a paper trail won't hurt the Democrats, but actually hurt him because he won't be able to manipulate the system as much.
So what's the problem in creating a paper trail for the next election?
What, a guy can't make a mistake, change his mind, and try and fix things?
Work with him, Democrats! Work with him! It's better for everyone that the system is fair, because eventually it will be you that gets screwed over.
Which is exactly why Apple built into iTunes the ability to burn unprotected CDs of the files you purchased from the iTMS.
Just like Microsoft has given you the ability to export your XBox game into raw files so you can convert it to a Gamecube compatible game, right? No, they don't? How about Sony? Can't you convert your old Playstation games into XBox games now that you have an XBox 360? No? Apple has given you all the tools necessary to support other players, if you so choose to switch from an iPod to, say, a Zen, which is a lot more than Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, heck just about any other vendor locked solution.
You are of course free to believe whatever you wish.
However Apple has not stopped other players from selling music for the iPod. The majority, at 93%, of music sold is compatible by the iPod without Apple licensing Fairplay. Until online music approaches a significant portion of all music sold, Apple can't truly be said to have a monopoly, nor be in a position to abuse the monopoly.
Apple's case against Real is very much like Lexmark's case against ink repackagers, and has nothing to do with monopoly. It is an act of vendor lock in, much the same way Sony sued Connectix when they released a Playstation emulator, or Microsoft and Sony would protect their respective XBox and PS2 platforms, even though neither truly has a monopoly.