At 75% market share, I'd say the iPod remains pretty unkilled.
Grandpa Joe's old tin lunchbox is tougher, more spacious, and will last longer than some prissy little Booq computer bag, but that's not going to change what most of us carry to work on the train.
Market research, kids. The car-elite took a collective dump on the Volkswagen Beetle for decades but it still outsold and outlasted dozens of other makes & models.
Time to put the spec sheets down and ask why people buy short-lived flowers, overpriced lattes, clunky American trucks, and boring Ikea chairs. Why they stuff themselves into uncomfortable jeans, line up for overpriced movies, and sign up for service in the armed forces. Why most of us don't care who Darth Bane is, or who's directing the new X-Men movie, or what color they're painting the Transformers. Until the iPod killers get the market, the market's probably going to keep on getting iPods.
First, lets look at the "why". Why run the article? Well, obviously it lured me in and exposed me to a few ads (none of which got clicked on). Oddly enough, right below the headline was a link to a separate article featuring showcased iPod accessories offered by sponsors. That's confusing and speaks volumes all at the same time. I don't need to expand on that.
Now lets look at Eliot Van Buskirk's "points".
1. Six-plus hours of battery life is not always enough. That's true, and it's also true that I average 10-11 hours of usage from my iPod, so his six hour figure doesn't really seem to matter. Either way, if I'm traveling somewhere for six hours I'll have my iBook handy, and I can connect a firewire cable and charge my iPod while I listen to it. Try that on the Dell Jukebox he compares the iPod battery to. Barring that, I'll plug into the 12v or 120v power plug they supply on long duration flights. Eliot, have you travelled over 10 hours with a portable music player? I have, on a bus no less. With an iPod.
2. Jogging with a hard drive-based player is not cool. Any serious runner will tell you that jogging with a pronounced bounce is not cool either. The sort of level stride you need to maintain won't even jar a typical CD player. Regardless, I've mountain biked rigid-fork over rocky trails with my iPod. It's called 25 minute skip protection buffer. Eliot, do you run with a portable music player? I do. With an iPod.
3. The iPod is expensive. No. The iPod is my car's 100 CD changer, my home stereo, my portable music player, my PDA, my portable hard drive, and my notebooks' backup volume. All for well under $500. Most other jukeboxes are just that, your Jukebox. You'll need a pocketful of $150 keychain drives, and a $300 portable firewire hard drive, and a $199 Palm Zire 21 to match just some of the iPod's secondary functionality. Eliot, do you get disproportionately high utility out of your investment in a music player? I do. With an iPod.
4. You want to make high-quality digital recordings. The iPod offers a record feature that's three weeks old. There will be a line in tool, that's almost a dead certainty. Regardless, anyone who wants to do high end recording had better question why they're using their computer accessory instead of their actual computer. Considering you'll need to unplug the recording deck, hook it up to speakers, find the most recent track through the pocket interface, and hit play for every single take, the real functionality of a pocket drive in a recording session seems pretty low. Eliot, do you record yourself playing music? I do. With a real computer and multitrack software. Then I let others hear it. With an iPod.
5. You want a choice in online music stores. Do I? Apple is drawing in a documented 80% market share among this supposed wide selection of alternatives. Either way, Apple offers a device (that plays open-standard content) to Windows and Mac users. Choice. The author's other pet players shut out the segment of the market that's been buying the most music per capita. Mac users. Eliot, do you enjoy your entire music collection on the road, at any workstation, or in any tech environment? I do. With an iPod.
My Point, And I Do Have One: C|Net, please hire some journalists. Armchair hobbyists with opinions are a dime a dozen. I don't appreciate being drawn to a site under the false premise that there's a real article there, only to be exposed to yet another rant by some self proclaimed expert. I'm all for thought out arguments exposing flaws in the iPod (there are flaws) but this kind of stuff is laughable, and won't keep companies like Apple on their toes, or push their competitors to innovate into the vacuum either.
Question: How much of the news content you were exposed to today was mere editorializing? Of that, how much was credible and watertight against simple counterpoints?
Question: C|Net advertisers. How hone
At the Apple music event Steve Jobs said about half of all iPod buyers were windows users. BUt they can't track it anymore because they ship a dual platform edition now.
So, I can't even feel as smug when iSee an iPod anymore, for all I know they have a Dell.
Well, all the arguments for convenience aside, I run my iPod through a big stinkin' stereo and the added sound fidelity I get from the AAC, with more data allocated to 'busier' chunks of sound the way JPEG prioritizes textured data over flat colors, is a real, tangible bonus.
Gimme AAC any day, regardless of platform or music source (for the record I buy my CDs off Amazon or at the store because I'm a liner notes junkie an dmost of the stuff I like is old enough to find at the used CD shops).
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At 75% market share, I'd say the iPod remains pretty unkilled.
Grandpa Joe's old tin lunchbox is tougher, more spacious, and will last longer than some prissy little Booq computer bag, but that's not going to change what most of us carry to work on the train.
Market research, kids. The car-elite took a collective dump on the Volkswagen Beetle for decades but it still outsold and outlasted dozens of other makes & models.
Time to put the spec sheets down and ask why people buy short-lived flowers, overpriced lattes, clunky American trucks, and boring Ikea chairs. Why they stuff themselves into uncomfortable jeans, line up for overpriced movies, and sign up for service in the armed forces. Why most of us don't care who Darth Bane is, or who's directing the new X-Men movie, or what color they're painting the Transformers. Until the iPod killers get the market, the market's probably going to keep on getting iPods.
First, lets look at the "why". Why run the article? Well, obviously it lured me in and exposed me to a few ads (none of which got clicked on). Oddly enough, right below the headline was a link to a separate article featuring showcased iPod accessories offered by sponsors. That's confusing and speaks volumes all at the same time. I don't need to expand on that. Now lets look at Eliot Van Buskirk's "points". 1. Six-plus hours of battery life is not always enough. That's true, and it's also true that I average 10-11 hours of usage from my iPod, so his six hour figure doesn't really seem to matter. Either way, if I'm traveling somewhere for six hours I'll have my iBook handy, and I can connect a firewire cable and charge my iPod while I listen to it. Try that on the Dell Jukebox he compares the iPod battery to. Barring that, I'll plug into the 12v or 120v power plug they supply on long duration flights. Eliot, have you travelled over 10 hours with a portable music player? I have, on a bus no less. With an iPod. 2. Jogging with a hard drive-based player is not cool. Any serious runner will tell you that jogging with a pronounced bounce is not cool either. The sort of level stride you need to maintain won't even jar a typical CD player. Regardless, I've mountain biked rigid-fork over rocky trails with my iPod. It's called 25 minute skip protection buffer. Eliot, do you run with a portable music player? I do. With an iPod. 3. The iPod is expensive. No. The iPod is my car's 100 CD changer, my home stereo, my portable music player, my PDA, my portable hard drive, and my notebooks' backup volume. All for well under $500. Most other jukeboxes are just that, your Jukebox. You'll need a pocketful of $150 keychain drives, and a $300 portable firewire hard drive, and a $199 Palm Zire 21 to match just some of the iPod's secondary functionality. Eliot, do you get disproportionately high utility out of your investment in a music player? I do. With an iPod. 4. You want to make high-quality digital recordings. The iPod offers a record feature that's three weeks old. There will be a line in tool, that's almost a dead certainty. Regardless, anyone who wants to do high end recording had better question why they're using their computer accessory instead of their actual computer. Considering you'll need to unplug the recording deck, hook it up to speakers, find the most recent track through the pocket interface, and hit play for every single take, the real functionality of a pocket drive in a recording session seems pretty low. Eliot, do you record yourself playing music? I do. With a real computer and multitrack software. Then I let others hear it. With an iPod. 5. You want a choice in online music stores. Do I? Apple is drawing in a documented 80% market share among this supposed wide selection of alternatives. Either way, Apple offers a device (that plays open-standard content) to Windows and Mac users. Choice. The author's other pet players shut out the segment of the market that's been buying the most music per capita. Mac users. Eliot, do you enjoy your entire music collection on the road, at any workstation, or in any tech environment? I do. With an iPod. My Point, And I Do Have One: C|Net, please hire some journalists. Armchair hobbyists with opinions are a dime a dozen. I don't appreciate being drawn to a site under the false premise that there's a real article there, only to be exposed to yet another rant by some self proclaimed expert. I'm all for thought out arguments exposing flaws in the iPod (there are flaws) but this kind of stuff is laughable, and won't keep companies like Apple on their toes, or push their competitors to innovate into the vacuum either. Question: How much of the news content you were exposed to today was mere editorializing? Of that, how much was credible and watertight against simple counterpoints? Question: C|Net advertisers. How hone
At the Apple music event Steve Jobs said about half of all iPod buyers were windows users. BUt they can't track it anymore because they ship a dual platform edition now. So, I can't even feel as smug when iSee an iPod anymore, for all I know they have a Dell.
Well, all the arguments for convenience aside, I run my iPod through a big stinkin' stereo and the added sound fidelity I get from the AAC, with more data allocated to 'busier' chunks of sound the way JPEG prioritizes textured data over flat colors, is a real, tangible bonus.
Gimme AAC any day, regardless of platform or music source (for the record I buy my CDs off Amazon or at the store because I'm a liner notes junkie an dmost of the stuff I like is old enough to find at the used CD shops).
Just threw this together a few minutes ago.