Yes, the iPod is a niche product. And I'll go a step further and say it's a shrinking niche. As mp3 players have hit the mainstream ("mainstream" being defined here as "common $15 stocking stuffer commodity"), more and more people are coming to realize that you don't need some jacked up proprietary interface to talk to them.
True story: I was sitting right here putting music on my Cowon X5, my roommate walked in and saw me drag a bunch of files into the folder, unmount it and unplug it, and said "wow, what kind of iPod is that?" No shit, this happened last month. Guess who's not buying another iPod ever again?
When iPod owners are jealous because I can just plug my mp3 player in and put files in the folder and go and they can't, Apple's in deep shit.
You are certainly not. I'm a big fan. I dig the whole "earth tones" thing, and I think it gives the Ubuntu desktop a very distinctive look. You know right away when you're sitting down at an Ubuntu desktop as opposed to any other Gnome desktop. Which is, I think, the intent.
Since 1997, Microsoft has dodged some $528 million in taxes. Tell me again how you are not mandated to fund closed-source development. And look me in the eye when you do it.
Not at big box stores, of course, because they know which side their bread is buttered on. Go to a local shop and ask for one. It's not as hard as you might think.
It's pretty common among local brick-and-mortar places where I live too (Minneapolis, ftr). They won't put them on the floor of course, but typically all you have to do is ask. For my own part, I'm a Linux desktop distributor, and although I don't sell machines with Windows preinstalled, I'll certainly sell it bare with a Windows CD (or, needless to say, without) if asked.
As a Staples retail employee I can tell you that that would not "cost extremely little to implement." There would definitely have to be a charge, to offset the time an employee would have to be away from the sales floor while wiping a computer hard drive.
1. I don't know if the GP was referring to brick-and-mortar big box stores like Staples. I wouldn't think it would sell terribly well there, for one thing. But Dell or something, certainly. 2. You know, they do sell hard drives that already come like that. Probably even in the same aisle of the store.
I don't get this obsession with twitter on this site. I've always thought that one of the greatest things about internet forums (fora?) is that we argue ideas, not people. (Yes, you did provide a refutation of the argument at hand, I'm not specifically talking about you here, just the whole anti-twitter brigade in general).
What is it that pisses people off so damn much? Is it the whole sockpuppet/mod-gaming thing? I agree, that sucks and it kind of shows him as an obsessive lame-o, but so what? If I think someone's wrong (anyone) I argue the point. If my argument is stronger than theirs I get modded up and they get modded down. Isn't that how this is supposed to work? Why not just do that, then?
(This is not a rhetorical post, I'd love it if someone could explain this to me, because it's always kind of been a mystery to me.)
What are you 12 years old? It sounds like you think you're the clever one. The world isn't black and white, it's shades of grey and sometimes you have to compromise and work with people and organizations you don't like to make progress.
Yep, that's the working model of our culture, all right. And it is full of fail. "Working within the system" doesn't do it. I have this argument with a particular friend of mine almost weekly, and he's a well-meaning guy as I'm sure you are, but he's wrong and so are you.
For God's sake open a newspaper, it's all over the front page. That bit about the "economic meltdown?" Or the "climate crisis," the "energy crisis," and on and on and on? It's because people decided it would be easier to just cut a deal. Our practicality, our comprimises, our working with people and organizations we don't like, has completely fucked us.
(For those of you reading this at home, this is my shiny new 2009 counter-meme meme. Every time some mouth-breather pops up with a comment like "uh huh, but you can't run yur windows programs, yuk yuk!" I'm going to reply with the above sentence. I'm going to continue this until all these people STFU. You can play along! It's fun!)
Okay, but we're not talking about a minute difference in some benchmarks. We're talking about the difference between usable and painful. Yeah it matters. Ask anyone who bought a Vista laptop with under 2Gb RAM.
App compatibility can still be a major bullet point there
This is the most repeated and probably least relevant argument I hear on this subject. First, they're netbooks. I really don't think anyone's running AutoCAD or anything on these things.
Second (it is my new year's resolution to repeat this every time this subject comes up until people shut up about it), it is an amazing but true fact that you cannot put a Playstation game in a Wii. Yet they sell both Playstations and Wiis, and people don't have any trouble grasping the concept, nor do they have any trouble understanding that you can't load Mac software on a Windows machine. In fact, I can't think of a tech product besides Linux that has this absurd expectation thrust upon it. Can't we just let this tired old argument die?
Also, so far Windows consistently did better than Linux on laptops when it comes to Suspend To RAM/HDD, and power saving measures in general.
"Better?" I guess I'm unclear here what you're referring to. Can you elaborate?
Why are they ridiculous? It's pretty obvious that selling N>0 units for $5 is far preferrable from selling 0 units for $100.
Sure, but it's also pretty obvious that that this sort of scheme is exactly the opposite of the way Microsoft has always priced out Windows.
once N grows sufficiently - which is very soon - selling at $5 will be enough to make some profit anyway
I think you're wrong here, or at least overoptimistic. $5 is a loss leader, unless you're planning on making 10 million sales this year. Now, they've done pretty much this exact thing with the Xbox and done pretty well at it so far, but they are nowhere near turning a profit on it yet.
I don't see that happening with Windows, nor (I think this is the bigger issue) do I see them making this sort of concession with OEMs. Microsoft's whole strategy over the last ten or fifteen years can be summed up as "don't let the OEMs forget who the boss is," and they've attempted to keep this strategy up even now that they are demonstrably not the boss anymore. It must have absolutely killed them to have to offer XP again after they said point-blank it wouldn't happen. I just can't buy into your idea, it goes against everything we've seen out of them in the last decade.
Slashdot Mirror
Nope, that was '06.
How stupid.
Yes, the iPod is a niche product. And I'll go a step further and say it's a shrinking niche. As mp3 players have hit the mainstream ("mainstream" being defined here as "common $15 stocking stuffer commodity"), more and more people are coming to realize that you don't need some jacked up proprietary interface to talk to them.
True story: I was sitting right here putting music on my Cowon X5, my roommate walked in and saw me drag a bunch of files into the folder, unmount it and unplug it, and said "wow, what kind of iPod is that?" No shit, this happened last month. Guess who's not buying another iPod ever again?
When iPod owners are jealous because I can just plug my mp3 player in and put files in the folder and go and they can't, Apple's in deep shit.
If you weren't at 5 already, I'd mod you up. And I cannot believe I just said that.
Bipartisanship? On my Slashdot? It's more likely than you think...
You are certainly not. I'm a big fan. I dig the whole "earth tones" thing, and I think it gives the Ubuntu desktop a very distinctive look. You know right away when you're sitting down at an Ubuntu desktop as opposed to any other Gnome desktop. Which is, I think, the intent.
Every time Microsoft gets a sweetheart tax deal you are funding closed-source development.
Since 1997, Microsoft has dodged some $528 million in taxes. Tell me again how you are not mandated to fund closed-source development. And look me in the eye when you do it.
Undoing an accidental mod by commenting. Nothing to see here, move along.
Boy, your baseless speculation sure sounds a lot more authoritative than the summary's baseless speculation! /sarcasm
-1 Flamebait? That's ironic.
$ dict knit ...Needlework created by interlacing yarn in a series of connecting loops...
$ dict nit ...egg or young of an insect parasitic on mammals especially a sucking louse; often attached to a hair or item of clothing
(Not trying to be an asshole, just trying to help.)
Genocide: I do not think that word means what you think it means.
Not at big box stores, of course, because they know which side their bread is buttered on. Go to a local shop and ask for one. It's not as hard as you might think.
Buy a damn soldering iron, you lazy shit. I do it.
It's pretty common among local brick-and-mortar places where I live too (Minneapolis, ftr). They won't put them on the floor of course, but typically all you have to do is ask. For my own part, I'm a Linux desktop distributor, and although I don't sell machines with Windows preinstalled, I'll certainly sell it bare with a Windows CD (or, needless to say, without) if asked.
As a Staples retail employee I can tell you that that would not "cost extremely little to implement." There would definitely have to be a charge, to offset the time an employee would have to be away from the sales floor while wiping a computer hard drive.
1. I don't know if the GP was referring to brick-and-mortar big box stores like Staples. I wouldn't think it would sell terribly well there, for one thing. But Dell or something, certainly.
2. You know, they do sell hard drives that already come like that. Probably even in the same aisle of the store.
I don't get this obsession with twitter on this site. I've always thought that one of the greatest things about internet forums (fora?) is that we argue ideas, not people. (Yes, you did provide a refutation of the argument at hand, I'm not specifically talking about you here, just the whole anti-twitter brigade in general).
What is it that pisses people off so damn much? Is it the whole sockpuppet/mod-gaming thing? I agree, that sucks and it kind of shows him as an obsessive lame-o, but so what? If I think someone's wrong (anyone) I argue the point. If my argument is stronger than theirs I get modded up and they get modded down. Isn't that how this is supposed to work? Why not just do that, then?
(This is not a rhetorical post, I'd love it if someone could explain this to me, because it's always kind of been a mystery to me.)
-risen (is a real boy, not a sockpuppet)
Compromise is a major portion of how governments actually run.
And look how well that's worked for us.
Also, I assume that you paid or are paying your taxes again
I think you think you're replying to the GP here. I am not he.
What are you 12 years old? It sounds like you think you're the clever one. The world isn't black and white, it's shades of grey and sometimes you have to compromise and work with people and organizations you don't like to make progress.
Yep, that's the working model of our culture, all right. And it is full of fail. "Working within the system" doesn't do it. I have this argument with a particular friend of mine almost weekly, and he's a well-meaning guy as I'm sure you are, but he's wrong and so are you.
For God's sake open a newspaper, it's all over the front page. That bit about the "economic meltdown?" Or the "climate crisis," the "energy crisis," and on and on and on? It's because people decided it would be easier to just cut a deal. Our practicality, our comprimises, our working with people and organizations we don't like, has completely fucked us.
You can't put Playstation games in a Wii.
(For those of you reading this at home, this is my shiny new 2009 counter-meme meme. Every time some mouth-breather pops up with a comment like "uh huh, but you can't run yur windows programs, yuk yuk!" I'm going to reply with the above sentence. I'm going to continue this until all these people STFU. You can play along! It's fun!)
How would you like to be attributed in my quotefile?
LMAO. Are you telling me the Windows clipboard is more functional than Klipper?
Only in the most marginal sense could Apple be said to compete with Microsoft. Apple competes with HP and Dell.
Performance is not the only thing that matters.
Okay, but we're not talking about a minute difference in some benchmarks. We're talking about the difference between usable and painful. Yeah it matters. Ask anyone who bought a Vista laptop with under 2Gb RAM.
App compatibility can still be a major bullet point there
This is the most repeated and probably least relevant argument I hear on this subject. First, they're netbooks. I really don't think anyone's running AutoCAD or anything on these things.
Second (it is my new year's resolution to repeat this every time this subject comes up until people shut up about it), it is an amazing but true fact that you cannot put a Playstation game in a Wii. Yet they sell both Playstations and Wiis, and people don't have any trouble grasping the concept, nor do they have any trouble understanding that you can't load Mac software on a Windows machine. In fact, I can't think of a tech product besides Linux that has this absurd expectation thrust upon it. Can't we just let this tired old argument die?
Also, so far Windows consistently did better than Linux on laptops when it comes to Suspend To RAM/HDD, and power saving measures in general.
"Better?" I guess I'm unclear here what you're referring to. Can you elaborate?
Why are they ridiculous? It's pretty obvious that selling N>0 units for $5 is far preferrable from selling 0 units for $100.
Sure, but it's also pretty obvious that that this sort of scheme is exactly the opposite of the way Microsoft has always priced out Windows.
once N grows sufficiently - which is very soon - selling at $5 will be enough to make some profit anyway
I think you're wrong here, or at least overoptimistic. $5 is a loss leader, unless you're planning on making 10 million sales this year. Now, they've done pretty much this exact thing with the Xbox and done pretty well at it so far, but they are nowhere near turning a profit on it yet.
I don't see that happening with Windows, nor (I think this is the bigger issue) do I see them making this sort of concession with OEMs. Microsoft's whole strategy over the last ten or fifteen years can be summed up as "don't let the OEMs forget who the boss is," and they've attempted to keep this strategy up even now that they are demonstrably not the boss anymore. It must have absolutely killed them to have to offer XP again after they said point-blank it wouldn't happen. I just can't buy into your idea, it goes against everything we've seen out of them in the last decade.
Ancient, ancient, tired troll. Go to bed, troll.
You can't put a Playstation game in a Wii. And yet they sell both Playstations and Wiis. It's fucking amazing.