Perhaps we (the customers) need to ask ourselves "What does Napster et. al. provide, that Apple does not?".
I'm not sure, but one possible answer may be "nothing"! And you know why? Because if if the WMA pack ever had some advantage to the customer (and it's not choice - I'll get to that later) they could use their HUGE marketing muscle to make people aware of the good point. But they don't!
Napster, and Real too, offer more or less the same RIAA music (but no audio books or iMix-like buying tips, right?) And if you read the fine print, turns out that iTunes has less DRM restrictions than all the competition in this sense.
That's for choice music-wise, then there's the players, hundreds of WMA-ready music players and some even support PlaysForSure. But they seem awfully alike. Around 80% are flash-based and even seem to use the same chipset = same features. The remaining are harddrive-based with an interface synthesised from an iPod-knockoff and their cheaper flash cousins. As we know, this segment is always compared to the iPod these days.
Conclusion: all online music stores are alike save for the format, you make a choice more by which player you like.
Unless the lapdogs in congress bring down the axe, MS' lackeys really need to get their act together and show exactly how they are different and just not worse.
Jane Doe (or John, of course) goes for a player, not a store. People like players by design, interface and performance- not store names or file format acronyms.
When you buy an iPod an then realise that you can't buy music from Microsoft (common problem!), you will quickly find out about ITMS and what's more, not get disappointed with it.
Symantec do mention the "Opener" rootkit, much convenient since it is about the only known OSX-targeted malware right now and hardly even qualifies in the "threat" they're trying to picture. If I were to buy Norton Antivirus for Macintosh, can I expect it to, perhaps, look for that rootkit process and put up an alert box? Mmm...that's my $99.95 worth of sercurity!
No Symantec is really riding their cart down the FUD tunnel, as they've done the last ten years with Mac AV products. From TFA:
"The iPod, PowerBooks and mini Macs are cool products," Turner said. "The by-product is that people are buying these products for form over function. They say it looks pretty and then buy it but don't secure it.
Out of curiosity, how does this differ to the Dell business model of "price over function" security-wise?
Though the technology would need some additional improvements, it might be interesting to apply it to tracking shots in old movies (like Casablanca) and in addition to reconstructing the sets one could also replay a scene from a slighly different angle.
And significantly easing development of the Casablanca FPS game!
It also looks like the 20th Anniversary Macintosh that Apple shipped (as in, sold to customers in a store) around 1997. What's your point?
And, of the three (iMac G5, Intel Polaris concept computer, 20th anniversary mac) the Intel is without doubt the ugliest. What was intel's point with that? Making an ugly concept computer?
I'm sure you never saw the advantage of ADB over PS/2...underrating is a common problem with Apple technologies.
However widespread != necessarily better, let's see... ADB was chainable for one, you could use either port for keyboard and mouse, or connect the mouse thru keyboard. More importantly it had a flexible data transfer standard including peripheral ID allowing gamepads, barcode wands, digitizers and whatnot to connect in the same manner. So, basically its an underpowered precursor to USB which unfortunately took another ten years to become standard. It was also licenseable though only Sun took it on.
But most importantly: ADB was designed by The Woz!;)
Now, I agree on the other points...Apple seems to do almost as much wrong as they do right, and it's just natural to care less about misses than hits right?!
Re:The iPod hardware is too weak for anything usef
on
Piezo-Acoustic iPod Hack
·
· Score: 2, Funny
That free iPod in your sig, is it free as in beer or free as in running Linux?
Actually there are no computers on the market to compete with this because while they may have X+(machine epsilon) features they all are wintel. And none are that cute either.
On another note, if the parent is not TROLL, I don't know what is...
Not only is it diminuitive, great value (probably because of the lack of screen, but the 1GB Shuffle is £10 cheaper than a 512MB Sony, and £30 cheaper than a 1GB Creative in the UK). but it is actually pretty damn good
I have come to believe that life on this earth is not a random occurence driven by simple statistical probability. Instead, I find it more likely that the universe was created with intelligence.
And this intelligence must be magnificient indeed no?
Then surely, the designing intelligence cannot have occured randomly by simple statistical probability really? No, it must have been created with intelligence.
And this intelligence-creating intelligence has to be even greater in it's power, right? Well it has to have been created by intelligent design, I'm sure. And being so great, of course it has been intelligently designed...
Lather, rinse, repeat. You can really feel the probability rising!
I feel that I would be remiss if I did not point this out. Go read the 2 letters, they are on historical record. Research the lives and backgrounds of the founding fathers. You'll be surprised at how high a percentage of them were religious.
Shocking thought: there may actually be religious people who do not wish to force their belief onto others. There may in fact even be religious followers who can understand and appreciate science. And maybe, just maybe, the founding fathers of the USA swung that way.
Science tries constantly to nail things down to definitions, religion will always be whatever anybody wants it to be. Good or bad.
Don't get me wrong here - the notion that some all-seeing, all-knowing invisible superhero created life so that it could be fawned over is even more absurd. But just because we can't figure out how it started doesn't mean we should accept "it just happened by accident". Did VCRs also spontaneously arise out of the primordial soup? A VCR is a far far simpler device than a self-reproducing automaton...
Taking into account that we are intelligent life (while far-fetched;-) sitting here discussing this, the conditioned probability of life arising one way or another is 100% so we are not really in position to judge the likelihood of it.
BTW, VCRs did indeed rise spontaneously out of the primordial soup, as part of the eventual human civilisation. Took a few years, though.
It's a bit like a customer has radically different demands prior to buying a product than after using it for a while.
One way to put this is that most people are "lousy shoppers", they just don't know what to look for when buying a product. I guess Apple was lucky with having a certain breed of gadgetheads (who may occasionally know better which features really count) adopt the iPod and spread the word.
Apple has been long known to cut back on "shiny but useless", but people in general have also been known to go for those. The iPod's success (not that it's not a great product) is still a mystery to me.
Until you have a product with a MAJOR advantage over the iPod, it's not going to make a dent. We've seen dozens and dozens of players that have this extra feature and that one, maybe a little less money, but nothing huge.
I couldn't agree more, and the reason might be either 1. that the iPods are basicaly optimal considering features and design or 2. that the issue is not features or design (all players play mp3 music which is what people want most anyway)
What is clear, is that Apple stands out in their attitude to their product, and has since the very birth of the iPod.
Dell and Creative push heavily on their Microsoft support, but are customers really asking for this? Other major players (ehm, is major really the word I'm looking for?) like iRiver always tell you that you get an iPod + this much more (you are actually not getting a lot of functionality like the scroll wheel, volume equalizing, ratings and calendar syncing but that does not seem to matter really)
Competitors all know to the third decimal the tech specs of the iPod but haven't noticed that Apple rarely push the specs. Rather, they tell you that you can listen to music, sync automatically, buy a lot of popular music through their store and choose 5 fab colors. What the don't tell you either is that this actually works. Which is a big deal!
I know specs is everything to some people and frankly they're probably iRiver's customer base at the moment. To beat Apple, come up with something that is not another "iPod Killer" and will pose an actual threat to the iPod for a change.
Where Apple *is* extremely vulnerable is the iPod photo and the high-end - sales numbers are confirming that the iPod photo is a dud, and Apple's refusal to embrace video sounds an awful lot like their initial resistance to CD burners.
That's why I agree with this too! The whole video thing may be the next deal, and we all know Apple are slow in this field. Personally I'm convinced they've got something up their sleeve, like a Quicktime Video Shop, that is what's taking them so long.
The bottom line: Apple (or anyone else) hasn't "defined" the portable video player yet. That may be because it's a bad idea in the first place, lack of (legal) content, or that there simply are technical issues. But it's a much weaker spot than the iPod mini's battery life or lack of color display.
I install Firefox everywhere I can and rename all shortcuts to "Internet Browser" cause no one knows what the hell a firefox is.
The word Internet needs to be in the default text of any shortcuts created by the installer
Well...though that may intimidate techies who definitely know what a FIrefox is (they even know about the movie:D )
Why not......go all the way and have a "dummy mode" in the installer which turns off all fuck-me-up features (they're few, but they're there) such as installing plugins. Which, also, puts shortcuts everywhere with heavy-hinted names, and maybe moves IE to a safe (for our dummy user) place far away. This mode does not even have to be default because if you don't know what Firefox is, you are not installing it yourself anyway.
This install scenario will soon be the predominant what with all tech-savvy guys'n'gals running around "fixing" computers for friends and relatives...
Obviously you dont have a lot of experience teaching computer-idiot people how to do basic things...
They dont know what "IE" is. They dont know what "Firefox" is. And the worst part is they dont care.
No they don't! On the plus side, though, they aren't going to tell someone "I don't use Firefox, I have IE as can be clearly seen on my desktop" because of point 3 above;)
...and even if the marriage never takes place, the casual relation of the two companies is most likely to grow. All spelling trouble for microsoft while making a lot of penguins happy on the way.
You may hear the fans starting and the bois walking in, but I have a lot of confidence in Apple's design skills. Their products are heavy in pricing, but there are more down-to-earth reasons for the success of the iPod besides a delicious trademark;)
This might also mean, however, that the rumor is less-than-accurate, that the device does have a (perhaps one-line) display?
As for the competition, do note that this player would support the iTunes music store. While not a big point for you ogg-ists over here, this is the deal to some.
Then I ask, to what purpose do your peers download these songs before buying from iTunes et, al? ITMS and all its copycat following does provide 30-second clips, no?
In the days of the compact disc (-2003) it was understandable that you needed a download to decide your purchase, and it still is - for music that's not carried by online vendors. Am I missing something here, or are these guys perhaps trying out the merchandise indefinitely?
Borissimo indeed. And you know what would at least making it slightly more interesting? For once getting the facts right!!!
In many ways, the story sounds eerily familiar. As was the case in computers, Apple has sprinted ahead in the music market with an innovative product, elegant design and tight links between its hardware and software. Plodding along after it is a vast army, organized by Microsoft, of rivals that may be less skillful than Apple but offer a broader array of options and cheaper prices.
Sound familiar in what way? Apple's never had more than, like, 20% marketshare for the Mac. I believe the Apple II did a lot better but making it with vaccum cleaners won't guarantee success in the jet plane business...
OK, honestly, we all know the Mac was too good. That was its one and only weakness. Now analysts all over tell us the iPod is the best music player. Which obviously makes it a sitting duck for inferior products (aka. "iPod killers") See? Not to bad, eh? Geez, I really should become one of them clever columnists.
It sure worked for me by making the decision easier. Well, I AM a mac-head but not entirely blindfolded. There was either a Mini or the smallest (15GB, no?) iPod which is a pretty easy choice compared to all makes and sizes and colors and navigation features of the "killers". And I still didn't bother with DRM because it's WMA anyway. Any "average Jane" buying a music player will have to take into account that the DRM has to work too. Now M$ intends to make this easier with the PlaysForSure thing, too bad they've been claming "WMA" as one solid sure-shot standard for some years now, only to contradict themselves with this PFS thingie. That's not good market communication at all!
I guess without a computer the iPod is a bit inconvenient;)
However, isn't really the analogy to changing disc in your MiniDisc player to select another album on your iPod? One might think that's easier than switching minidiscs... The iPod mini carries 1000 songs ? 100 minidiscs. If you are taking 10 minidiscs along you're packed, and that also seems to me less convenient than carrying just the iPod.
Now, syncing your iPod to the computer would be analogous to recording another miniDisc which is done in...real time? Or if you got the PC link you can transfer songs by USB which is still less than a tenth of the speed of FireWire. AND you'd have to change discs a lot of time for the same amount of songs.
Am I missing some important convenience feature of MiniDiscs??? Or is it just 128 MB MP3 'sticks' - not iPods - that are getting old real fast?
Though, you are probably right about the 'US thing'. Here in Sweden iPods aren't all that common. A lot of people got the small 128/256 players, although this seems to be changing. Until the game is over, let's cut down on the wishful "iPod killing" please.
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps we (the customers) need to ask ourselves "What does Napster et. al. provide, that Apple does not?".
I'm not sure, but one possible answer may be "nothing"! And you know why? Because if if the WMA pack ever had some advantage to the customer (and it's not choice - I'll get to that later) they could use their HUGE marketing muscle to make people aware of the good point. But they don't!
Napster, and Real too, offer more or less the same RIAA music (but no audio books or iMix-like buying tips, right?) And if you read the fine print, turns out that iTunes has less DRM restrictions than all the competition in this sense.
That's for choice music-wise, then there's the players, hundreds of WMA-ready music players and some even support PlaysForSure. But they seem awfully alike. Around 80% are flash-based and even seem to use the same chipset = same features. The remaining are harddrive-based with an interface synthesised from an iPod-knockoff and their cheaper flash cousins. As we know, this segment is always compared to the iPod these days.
Conclusion: all online music stores are alike save for the format, you make a choice more by which player you like.
Unless the lapdogs in congress bring down the axe, MS' lackeys really need to get their act together and show exactly how they are different and just not worse.
Jane Doe (or John, of course) goes for a player, not a store. People like players by design, interface and performance- not store names or file format acronyms.
When you buy an iPod an then realise that you can't buy music from Microsoft (common problem!), you will quickly find out about ITMS and what's more, not get disappointed with it.
If I were to buy Norton Antivirus for Macintosh, can I expect it to, perhaps, look for that rootkit process and put up an alert box? Mmm...that's my $99.95 worth of sercurity!
No Symantec is really riding their cart down the FUD tunnel, as they've done the last ten years with Mac AV products.
From TFA: Out of curiosity, how does this differ to the Dell business model of "price over function" security-wise?
What was intel's point with that? Making an ugly concept computer?
I'm sure you never saw the advantage of ADB over PS/2...underrating is a common problem with Apple technologies.
;)
However widespread != necessarily better, let's see...
ADB was chainable for one, you could use either port for keyboard and mouse, or connect the mouse thru keyboard.
More importantly it had a flexible data transfer standard including peripheral ID allowing gamepads, barcode wands, digitizers and whatnot to connect in the same manner.
So, basically its an underpowered precursor to USB which unfortunately took another ten years to become standard. It was also licenseable though only Sun took it on.
But most importantly: ADB was designed by The Woz!
Now, I agree on the other points...Apple seems to do almost as much wrong as they do right, and it's just natural to care less about misses than hits right?!
That free iPod in your sig, is it free as in beer or free as in running Linux?
Actually there are no computers on the market to compete with this because while they may have X+(machine epsilon) features they all are wintel. And none are that cute either.
On another note, if the parent is not TROLL, I don't know what is...
Then surely, the designing intelligence cannot have occured randomly by simple statistical probability really? No, it must have been created with intelligence.
And this intelligence-creating intelligence has to be even greater in it's power, right? Well it has to have been created by intelligent design, I'm sure. And being so great, of course it has been intelligently designed...
Lather, rinse, repeat. You can really feel the probability rising!
Actually, with contraceptives and all, the ones in most desperate need of sterilization are not atheists...
Science tries constantly to nail things down to definitions, religion will always be whatever anybody wants it to be. Good or bad.
Taking into account that we are intelligent life (while far-fetched
BTW, VCRs did indeed rise spontaneously out of the primordial soup, as part of the eventual human civilisation. Took a few years, though.
One way to put this is that most people are "lousy shoppers", they just don't know what to look for when buying a product. I guess Apple was lucky with having a certain breed of gadgetheads (who may occasionally know better which features really count) adopt the iPod and spread the word.
Apple has been long known to cut back on "shiny but useless", but people in general have also been known to go for those. The iPod's success (not that it's not a great product) is still a mystery to me.
What is clear, is that Apple stands out in their attitude to their product, and has since the very birth of the iPod.
Dell and Creative push heavily on their Microsoft support, but are customers really asking for this? Other major players (ehm, is major really the word I'm looking for?) like iRiver always tell you that you get an iPod + this much more (you are actually not getting a lot of functionality like the scroll wheel, volume equalizing, ratings and calendar syncing but that does not seem to matter really)
Competitors all know to the third decimal the tech specs of the iPod but haven't noticed that Apple rarely push the specs. Rather, they tell you that you can listen to music, sync automatically, buy a lot of popular music through their store and choose 5 fab colors. What the don't tell you either is that this actually works. Which is a big deal!
I know specs is everything to some people and frankly they're probably iRiver's customer base at the moment. To beat Apple, come up with something that is not another "iPod Killer" and will pose an actual threat to the iPod for a change.
That's why I agree with this too! The whole video thing may be the next deal, and we all know Apple are slow in this field. Personally I'm convinced they've got something up their sleeve, like a Quicktime Video Shop, that is what's taking them so long.The bottom line: Apple (or anyone else) hasn't "defined" the portable video player yet. That may be because it's a bad idea in the first place, lack of (legal) content, or that there simply are technical issues. But it's a much weaker spot than the iPod mini's battery life or lack of color display.
Go get 'em if you can!
Why not...
This mode does not even have to be default because if you don't know what Firefox is, you are not installing it yourself anyway.
This install scenario will soon be the predominant what with all tech-savvy guys'n'gals running around "fixing" computers for friends and relatives...
On the plus side, though, they aren't going to tell someone "I don't use Firefox, I have IE as can be clearly seen on my desktop" because of point 3 above
...and even if the marriage never takes place, the casual relation of the two companies is most likely to grow. All spelling trouble for microsoft while making a lot of penguins happy on the way.
You may hear the fans starting and the bois walking in, but I have a lot of confidence in Apple's design skills. Their products are heavy in pricing, but there are more down-to-earth reasons for the success of the iPod besides a delicious trademark ;)
This might also mean, however, that the rumor is less-than-accurate, that the device does have a (perhaps one-line) display?
As for the competition, do note that this player would support the iTunes music store. While not a big point for you ogg-ists over here, this is the deal to some.
Then I ask, to what purpose do your peers download these songs before buying from iTunes et, al? ITMS and all its copycat following does provide 30-second clips, no? In the days of the compact disc (-2003) it was understandable that you needed a download to decide your purchase, and it still is - for music that's not carried by online vendors. Am I missing something here, or are these guys perhaps trying out the merchandise indefinitely?
Borissimo indeed. And you know what would at least making it slightly more interesting? For once getting the facts right!!!
In many ways, the story sounds eerily familiar. As was the case in computers, Apple has sprinted ahead in the music market with an innovative product, elegant design and tight links between its hardware and software. Plodding along after it is a vast army, organized by Microsoft, of rivals that may be less skillful than Apple but offer a broader array of options and cheaper prices.
Sound familiar in what way? Apple's never had more than, like, 20% marketshare for the Mac. I believe the Apple II did a lot better but making it with vaccum cleaners won't guarantee success in the jet plane business...
OK, honestly, we all know the Mac was too good. That was its one and only weakness. Now analysts all over tell us the iPod is the best music player. Which obviously makes it a sitting duck for inferior products (aka. "iPod killers") See? Not to bad, eh? Geez, I really should become one of them clever columnists.
I think you are totally right!
It sure worked for me by making the decision easier. Well, I AM a mac-head but not entirely blindfolded. There was either a Mini or the smallest (15GB, no?) iPod which is a pretty easy choice compared to all makes and sizes and colors and navigation features of the "killers". And I still didn't bother with DRM because it's WMA anyway.
Any "average Jane" buying a music player will have to take into account that the DRM has to work too. Now M$ intends to make this easier with the PlaysForSure thing, too bad they've been claming "WMA" as one solid sure-shot standard for some years now, only to contradict themselves with this PFS thingie. That's not good market communication at all!
Hmm Apple must really be feeling the heat.
My suggested response: bundle all iPods with matching propeller caps for added tech value.
I guess without a computer the iPod is a bit inconvenient ;)
However, isn't really the analogy to changing disc in your MiniDisc player to select another album on your iPod? One might think that's easier than switching minidiscs... The iPod mini carries 1000 songs ? 100 minidiscs. If you are taking 10 minidiscs along you're packed, and that also seems to me less convenient than carrying just the iPod.
Now, syncing your iPod to the computer would be analogous to recording another miniDisc which is done in...real time? Or if you got the PC link you can transfer songs by USB which is still less than a tenth of the speed of FireWire. AND you'd have to change discs a lot of time for the same amount of songs.
Am I missing some important convenience feature of MiniDiscs??? Or is it just 128 MB MP3 'sticks' - not iPods - that are getting old real fast? Though, you are probably right about the 'US thing'. Here in Sweden iPods aren't all that common. A lot of people got the small 128/256 players, although this seems to be changing. Until the game is over, let's cut down on the wishful "iPod killing" please.
Software Piracy Due to Expensive Software, says I