You're completely wrong. By your logic, my taxes shouldn't pay for roads because I don't drive. The road system doesn't sound like "well, there's no other way to get this done so we'll have to bite the bullet and have the government handle it"... if the road system were private whoever owned it would be the richest person on Earth.
Basically the government spends money on what it wants to, and it's too bad if you don't like it. I want WiFi, you want roads. You can't always get what you want...
First off, it's hard to imagine roads being handles privately, at least by more than one company. And even with one company, it's hard to imagine. There's already a WiFi market.
Two, your attitude is pathetic and obnoxious. If everybody had your attitude we'd be living under a monarchy. Government should be run by principles, not apathy. It may be true that abuse is unavoidable, but people like you who just throw up their hands and let the government do everything is part of the reason our government costs so much. By the time you wake up, you'll be paying 75% of your income to the various levels of government. Enjoy the "free" WiFi.
that's how rural electrification happened. a similar movement is taking place to have municipal internet, not necessarily wifi in all instances though. why should something so basic a need for modern communications as high-speed internet be restricted only to the high-profit regions of the country? we wouldn't stand for that with the postal system or telephone service, would we?
You explain to me how wireless internet is a basic human need that can't be provided without government intervention and I'll agree with you. The government wasn't originally supposed to be a device for the realization of everybody's individual notion of an ideal society. Hell, I think everybody should have a car. That's far more useful than WiFi, especially for poor people. Why not have the government buy each citizen a car?
There's a cost to every government action, and it's not just money. Maybe we should spend our collective resources on bigger issues than yuppies downloading stock reports in Starbucks on their laptops.
Thanks for the refs, pyrrhonist. I'll check them out. I shouldn't have been so flip, especially about prog rock, which I'm admittedly not that up on (I'm just a fan of the old bands like the Who, Yes and Floyd). I was just trying to point out that it's impossible to say good stuff only comes from one place. I probably completely abused the term progressive rock.
I disagree. I think, by definition, a troll is out to hook anybody. A nasty but directed response to said troll may have been dumb of me (as you correctly pointed out) but it is more properly classified as a flame. Eventually, somebody will be compared to a Nazi, but I can't remember the word for that.
I'm not arguing anything but the physical means of transmission. I like your idea, but no reason why not do it over the ample satellite bandwidth. Using the Internet to handle wide area broadcasting to mobile users (i.e. the target audience of satellite radio) is like swatting a fly with a field howitzer.
FWIW, the only decent music comes out of the UK: Eric Clapton, Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, etc, etc.
Whatever. If you like classical, it's Europe. If you like jazz, it's America. Prog rock, UK. Hard rock, America. Etc. If you like crap, take your pick. Next time you feel compelled to say something as stupid as "the only decent music comes out of the UK" I suggest you make use of the "Post Anonymously" button. That's what it's there for.
No, it's not that far out, but it's not neccesary. The criteria for having the government do something should definitely not be "well, it's not far out for them to do it, so why not?" but rather "well, there's no other way to get this done so we'll have to bite the bullet and have the government handle it." The fact that so many people think the first is good enough is probably why the government costs the average person over half their income now, as opposed to less than a tenth in 1920.
emember that when the government does anything, they pay for it via forced confiscation of people's income. That's a perfectly reasonable (or at least unavoidable) thing to do for many things, and I'm not inherently anti-government. But if you remember that fact, it makes it a bit hard to suggest we have local governments indulge us with something like free wireless when it can already be done in the private sector. Buy your own net access, and quit suggesting your neighbor be forced to chip in against her will for your luxury.
File this under "Just Because We Can Doesn't Mean We Should." For on-demand streaming, great. But using a packet-switched, short-range wireless IP network to do broadcast audio is one of the worst ideas I've ever heard of. A good way to broadcast radio would be to put a single transmitter really high up where millions of people could have line-of-sight reception of the same transmission. If only we had a way to put an antenna up so high that we could all see it...
Why should it happen? Do you think the government should provide internet access to everybody? (Read: should we all be forced to pool our money and buy each other internet access?) The government is so efficient and competent at everything else, why not, huh?
I'm pretty sure it was literally the coldest place in the universe, barring another intelligent life form out there doing similar physics experiments at the same moment. It requires more than just vacuum and something like evaporative cooling. I can't say with certainty, but I doubt there's anything "naturally" occurring in the universe that would have the cooling power of a laser cooling apparatus.
Yes, it's called the ground state. And wavefunctions don't have angular momentum, the atoms do, regardless of how cold they are (AKAIK).
I'm not sure the concept of ground state as you're thinking of it applies here. You can have a BEC without the wavefuction being a stationary state. I don't see why the ground state couldn't be a state with angular momentum (aside from spin) but I'm not sure. In any case, a wavefunction certainly can have angular momentum (i.e. nonzero expectation value for the L = r cross v operator).
I haven't RTFA, but I don't think you should be so quick to dismiss these guys. As you implied, you don't really have the background to do so. (Nor do I, for the record.) I think it's the case that just because the wavefunctions of the atoms in the BEC become one, that doesn't mean there is some sort of single, minimal allowed wavefunction. I don't see why you couldn't have a BEC where the atoms' wavefunction had angular momentum.
Mod parent up; he's absolutely correct. The fact that the "vacuum" of space isn't even cold enough for BEC just shows how amazing the accomplishment is. Apparently when Ketterle was first doing the BEC experiments, Building 26 at MIT was host to the coldest place in the universe. Pretty remarkable if you think about it.
From the latin, meaning to the man, or arguments pertaining to emotion or personal attacks, not the substance of the conversation. Shit, I'm back in your playground. Oh well.
I have no recourse if they decide to alter the deal. If you think you're going to be just spending $5/mo from now till you die, I think you're insane. They WILL turn the screws, and you CAN'T stop them. It's impossible for me to understand why you think otherwise.
I'll try for the impossible: with subscription, if they change the deal you just cancel. Simple as that. By definition, you were just paying for the temporary usage, and at $6 a month, it's pretty easy to argue that it's worth it. If they offer the same deal next month, great. If not, you leave. Nothing could be safer since you pay as you go. On the other hand, you'd better hope you always have something that can handle Apple's current DRM, or your library of iTunes purchased music is gone. If you think your purchased tracks are really forever, it is you who is naive.
I've bought a handful of songs from iTMS. You don't really think that I'm spending $10,000 to fill my iPod, do you?
No, my guess is that if you're like most people the majority of your iPod is filled with stuff you already owned and legally ripped, plus a few songs you've stolen.
Most of what you said was substanceless oneupsmanship. Though it's taken me a few times around, I'm going to learn from my mistakes and leave the playground. I will, however talk about the tech stuff:
Wanna talk technology? Great. "Plays for Sure" deletes your music if you don't hook your player to your computer frequently. Boy, that's some great technology.
You can redownload it whenever you want. That's the point of a subscription. I'm well aware you're just renting music, and all of your music will disappear the second you stop paying. The point is that $60 a year is nothing, especially to access so much music. If I live to be 80, I'll still never end up paying as much for my access to the entire catalog as I have already paid for CDs. That's compelling to me, and you haven't given a good reason why I'm being irrational in that. Moreover, you haven't given a good reason why millions of other people won't do the same math and draw the same conclusion. You just make ad hominum remarks about disappearing music and evil DRM and how successful Apple has been thusfar. The subscription model is just starting to come on line, so Apple's first to market success is not relevent to the download/subscription debate.
Whatever they're doing is obviously working OK, and I don't see any reason why they should change.
Remember the original article, 10 parents up from this? The world's changing around them, and my original thesis was that unless they offer their own affordable subscription service or open up their player, people are going to defect to players and services which support subscriptions. Have you ever even tried any of the sub services? Once you have access to an entire CD store's worth of music at your fingertips, it's hard to want to go back to buying it one dollar per song.
Ah. I disagree with you, so I must be an emotional zealot.
Nope. It's the fact that every time I tried to say something about the merits of this or that, you'd come back with an Apple propaganda pamphlet or hyperbole about Microsoft's evil and completely sidestep any substantive discussion on the technology. I assume you're smarter than your line-item retorts would make you appear (seriously, telling somebody if they don't like something they don't have to use it is a pretty tired rhetorical device, not to mention a pointless tautology) so I guessed you had some emotional investment in Apple vs. Microsoft.
Nope. Texas. Just moved to Oregon. You really need to take a hard look at your preconceptions. They are not serving you well.
Well, they usually work great around here. Sometimes you miss, what can I say?
By implying I'm an Apple zealot who would buy white poop. You'll forgive me for misinterpreting your intentions.
I'm honestly sorry if you took offense. I never actually said you were one of the zealots (though I'm starting to suspect you are) and I even told you that I used to be one myself. Anyway, it was supposed to just be funny.
Time has certainly told about Apple's runaway, breakout success, so yeah, it'll tell about Apple's decline too.
Considering this a runaway success for Apple is a bit much. The ipod is certainly a runaway success. and they've done incredibly well with the iTunes store. But last I checked they were supposed to be a computer company. And they haven't done so well there, with market share still about 5%.
I really think you take Apple too personally. My guess is that you live in either NYC or, more likely, CA. The culture there is to consider one's consumer habits as integral to your personality, as if you're only as cool as what you buy and your life will be complete if only you can compile the optimal array of gadgets.
I don't really care if Apple fails or succeeds, because I don't work for them. I was just making a guess as to what will happen. Either you work for them, own a lot of their stock, or you've got an unhealthy emotional connection to the company. Trust me, they don't give a shit about you, and you're not cool by association just because you buy their products. Conversely, if they tank you're still just as good a person.
I meant to say first gen iPod mini. Anyway, you're getting a bit worked up. I didn't say anything was Apple's fault or not. All I was saying was that I think the iPod/iTunes combo is overrated and too restricted and I'm predicting its popularity will decline with the advent of $60/year subscriptions and similar hardware on the market. My own bad choices are completely irrelevent to whether or not that's true. I just think people will eventually tire of spending $10 to buy a single album and realize that for less than the price of six albums on iTunes, they can listen to virtually the entire catalogs of their favorite artists for a whole year.
I wasn't putting you down. I'm sure you made the right decision for you. I'm just predicting that lots of people will feel differently. Only time will tell if I'm right about Apple's decline, but pointing out my failings as a consumer won't change anything.
Microsoft's music sales might have a lot of different names over the door, but it's still the same stuff.
Man, you're really hooked on that idea. So, when you decide to listen to music, do you say "I think I'd like to listen to some Apple AACs!" or "I think I'd like to listen to some Peter Gabriel?" It's mostly about the content, not the software or the hardware. The music is the most important thing. Nice hardware is a bonus, and you can get nice hardware on both sides. But I wish I had the choice between subscription versus pay-per-download. And I wish I could pay 79 cents instead of 99 cents.
For example, I happen to like Rhapsody's interface quite a lot. But I can't use its subscription service simply because Apple puts their profit ahead of their customer's utility. Where have we seen that before?
I think you're right about the MS/Apple settlement. Apple did have a lot of cash so it was probably just about the IP.
Didn't occur to you to ask the manufacturer about a product that doesn't perform up to spec?
Like I said, it is, technically, within spec. (I have the first model iPod, and it's only supposed to get 6-8, and Apple covers their ass quite a bit in the documentation, saying you can get less with heavy use and over time it will degrade.)
Look, Apple's not perfect, but come on: This problem is your fault.
Interesting consumer theory. What is my fault, however, is getting an iPod based on the sheep-like theory that everybody else riding the Red Line had one so it must be the best music player. Of course, everybody watches reality television, too, so I really should've done a bit more investigating on my own before following the herd on this one.
What does the sign over the door have to do with the experience?
Inherently, you're right. It has nothing to do with anything. People just always say that around here about Microsoft and it gets a good reaction. I thought I'd try it with Apple. My main issue was that I have no choice, not that it's Apple.
wouldn't subscribe to a music service that could go belly-up any time Microsoft crooked its finger, but hey, knock yourself out
Please. Is there ANYTHING in this world of ours that couldn't go belly up if Microsoft wanted them to? Apple only survived the 90s because Microsoft needed them to live to keep the DOJ off their back. Remember that bailout MS gave Apple several years ago?
Have you returned it for warranty service?
It didn't occur to me to do so, since that's within the range they say you can expect with heavy use. I'll give it a shot, though, since there is an Apple store right down the street from here.
Heh heh. Seriously, it just resets itself all the time, even when it's just sitting around. I'll go to turn it on and it will have to do a reset. Maybe I just have a bad one.
Twelve hours? You listen to music, away from electrical outlets, for twelve hours? Frequently?
I generally get about 5-6 hours out of my iPod mini. Yes, I would be very happy with 12 hours.
Your opinion, and of course, you don't need to defend it.
I appreciate that, but I'm happy to defend my opinion, since opinions can be changed with new information. In the case of the wheel, my problem with it is that when you take your finger off the wheel, that often causes the iPod to move off of the item you've selected. I think that's objectively a bad design.
There will also be the core of haters, who would hate anything Apple produces no matter how good it might be. What's your point?
My point is that Apple is a company that owes it's existence to people who religiously follow the company. (I used to be one of those people, for the record. I started with a Mac 128k.) That, I think, encourages the wrong behavior on the part of Apple and leads them to be very provincial.
It's about the user experience, and the fact that people will pay for a good one. That's why Apple is in business.
If it works for you, I guess I can't argue with that. But paying $1 per song and being forced to use only one music store that happens to be owned by the same company I got my music player from is not what I call a good experience. I bought the thing for MUSIC, and Apple is not making it easy for me to get music. If I had an iRiver H10, for example, I'd have a lot more choices.
Because there aren't any WMA players that have a decent user interface.
That's a hard statement to defend, given that everybody has had more than enough chance to copy Apple's design. Plus, it's a fricking music player! How much can the interface really make or break the machine? I would think battery life would be far more important, and yet the Apple followers don't seem as bothered by the fact that ipod battery life has usually sucked (except maybe for the most recent models). I have an iPod mini, too, but my feeling is that I got suckered by ultimately unsubstantial things into getting an overpriced piece of modern sculpture. My iPod "crashes" all the time, the battery life sucks, and the interface really isn't even that good. The thumbwheel idea is cute, but actually fairly imprecise. I think the iPod is one of the most overrated things I've come across. I just don't think it can keep up in the long term.
Apple will always have a core of zealots who would buy Steve Job's bowel movements if he painted them white, but most people I think will move on to other players/systems that offer more for the money. In the end, it's about the music, not the company making the player. At least for most people it is.
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Basically the government spends money on what it wants to, and it's too bad if you don't like it. I want WiFi, you want roads. You can't always get what you want...
First off, it's hard to imagine roads being handles privately, at least by more than one company. And even with one company, it's hard to imagine. There's already a WiFi market.
Two, your attitude is pathetic and obnoxious. If everybody had your attitude we'd be living under a monarchy. Government should be run by principles, not apathy. It may be true that abuse is unavoidable, but people like you who just throw up their hands and let the government do everything is part of the reason our government costs so much. By the time you wake up, you'll be paying 75% of your income to the various levels of government. Enjoy the "free" WiFi.
You explain to me how wireless internet is a basic human need that can't be provided without government intervention and I'll agree with you. The government wasn't originally supposed to be a device for the realization of everybody's individual notion of an ideal society. Hell, I think everybody should have a car. That's far more useful than WiFi, especially for poor people. Why not have the government buy each citizen a car?
There's a cost to every government action, and it's not just money. Maybe we should spend our collective resources on bigger issues than yuppies downloading stock reports in Starbucks on their laptops.
Thanks for the refs, pyrrhonist. I'll check them out. I shouldn't have been so flip, especially about prog rock, which I'm admittedly not that up on (I'm just a fan of the old bands like the Who, Yes and Floyd). I was just trying to point out that it's impossible to say good stuff only comes from one place. I probably completely abused the term progressive rock.
Interesting. I hadn't heard of that. Thanks!
I disagree. I think, by definition, a troll is out to hook anybody. A nasty but directed response to said troll may have been dumb of me (as you correctly pointed out) but it is more properly classified as a flame. Eventually, somebody will be compared to a Nazi, but I can't remember the word for that.
I'm not arguing anything but the physical means of transmission. I like your idea, but no reason why not do it over the ample satellite bandwidth. Using the Internet to handle wide area broadcasting to mobile users (i.e. the target audience of satellite radio) is like swatting a fly with a field howitzer.
Whatever. If you like classical, it's Europe. If you like jazz, it's America. Prog rock, UK. Hard rock, America. Etc. If you like crap, take your pick. Next time you feel compelled to say something as stupid as "the only decent music comes out of the UK" I suggest you make use of the "Post Anonymously" button. That's what it's there for.
emember that when the government does anything, they pay for it via forced confiscation of people's income. That's a perfectly reasonable (or at least unavoidable) thing to do for many things, and I'm not inherently anti-government. But if you remember that fact, it makes it a bit hard to suggest we have local governments indulge us with something like free wireless when it can already be done in the private sector. Buy your own net access, and quit suggesting your neighbor be forced to chip in against her will for your luxury.
File this under "Just Because We Can Doesn't Mean We Should." For on-demand streaming, great. But using a packet-switched, short-range wireless IP network to do broadcast audio is one of the worst ideas I've ever heard of. A good way to broadcast radio would be to put a single transmitter really high up where millions of people could have line-of-sight reception of the same transmission. If only we had a way to put an antenna up so high that we could all see it...
Why should it happen? Do you think the government should provide internet access to everybody? (Read: should we all be forced to pool our money and buy each other internet access?) The government is so efficient and competent at everything else, why not, huh?
Not sure about the music, but your taste in recreational drugs is impeccable. :-)
I'm pretty sure it was literally the coldest place in the universe, barring another intelligent life form out there doing similar physics experiments at the same moment. It requires more than just vacuum and something like evaporative cooling. I can't say with certainty, but I doubt there's anything "naturally" occurring in the universe that would have the cooling power of a laser cooling apparatus.
I'm not sure the concept of ground state as you're thinking of it applies here. You can have a BEC without the wavefuction being a stationary state. I don't see why the ground state couldn't be a state with angular momentum (aside from spin) but I'm not sure. In any case, a wavefunction certainly can have angular momentum (i.e. nonzero expectation value for the L = r cross v operator).
I haven't RTFA, but I don't think you should be so quick to dismiss these guys. As you implied, you don't really have the background to do so. (Nor do I, for the record.) I think it's the case that just because the wavefunctions of the atoms in the BEC become one, that doesn't mean there is some sort of single, minimal allowed wavefunction. I don't see why you couldn't have a BEC where the atoms' wavefunction had angular momentum.
Mod parent up; he's absolutely correct. The fact that the "vacuum" of space isn't even cold enough for BEC just shows how amazing the accomplishment is. Apparently when Ketterle was first doing the BEC experiments, Building 26 at MIT was host to the coldest place in the universe. Pretty remarkable if you think about it.
From the latin, meaning to the man, or arguments pertaining to emotion or personal attacks, not the substance of the conversation. Shit, I'm back in your playground. Oh well.
I have no recourse if they decide to alter the deal. If you think you're going to be just spending $5/mo from now till you die, I think you're insane. They WILL turn the screws, and you CAN'T stop them. It's impossible for me to understand why you think otherwise.
I'll try for the impossible: with subscription, if they change the deal you just cancel. Simple as that. By definition, you were just paying for the temporary usage, and at $6 a month, it's pretty easy to argue that it's worth it. If they offer the same deal next month, great. If not, you leave. Nothing could be safer since you pay as you go. On the other hand, you'd better hope you always have something that can handle Apple's current DRM, or your library of iTunes purchased music is gone. If you think your purchased tracks are really forever, it is you who is naive.
I've bought a handful of songs from iTMS. You don't really think that I'm spending $10,000 to fill my iPod, do you?
No, my guess is that if you're like most people the majority of your iPod is filled with stuff you already owned and legally ripped, plus a few songs you've stolen.
Wanna talk technology? Great. "Plays for Sure" deletes your music if you don't hook your player to your computer frequently. Boy, that's some great technology.
You can redownload it whenever you want. That's the point of a subscription. I'm well aware you're just renting music, and all of your music will disappear the second you stop paying. The point is that $60 a year is nothing, especially to access so much music. If I live to be 80, I'll still never end up paying as much for my access to the entire catalog as I have already paid for CDs. That's compelling to me, and you haven't given a good reason why I'm being irrational in that. Moreover, you haven't given a good reason why millions of other people won't do the same math and draw the same conclusion. You just make ad hominum remarks about disappearing music and evil DRM and how successful Apple has been thusfar. The subscription model is just starting to come on line, so Apple's first to market success is not relevent to the download/subscription debate.
Whatever they're doing is obviously working OK, and I don't see any reason why they should change.
Remember the original article, 10 parents up from this? The world's changing around them, and my original thesis was that unless they offer their own affordable subscription service or open up their player, people are going to defect to players and services which support subscriptions. Have you ever even tried any of the sub services? Once you have access to an entire CD store's worth of music at your fingertips, it's hard to want to go back to buying it one dollar per song.
Nope. It's the fact that every time I tried to say something about the merits of this or that, you'd come back with an Apple propaganda pamphlet or hyperbole about Microsoft's evil and completely sidestep any substantive discussion on the technology. I assume you're smarter than your line-item retorts would make you appear (seriously, telling somebody if they don't like something they don't have to use it is a pretty tired rhetorical device, not to mention a pointless tautology) so I guessed you had some emotional investment in Apple vs. Microsoft.
Nope. Texas. Just moved to Oregon. You really need to take a hard look at your preconceptions. They are not serving you well.
Well, they usually work great around here. Sometimes you miss, what can I say?
I'm honestly sorry if you took offense. I never actually said you were one of the zealots (though I'm starting to suspect you are) and I even told you that I used to be one myself. Anyway, it was supposed to just be funny.
Time has certainly told about Apple's runaway, breakout success, so yeah, it'll tell about Apple's decline too.
Considering this a runaway success for Apple is a bit much. The ipod is certainly a runaway success. and they've done incredibly well with the iTunes store. But last I checked they were supposed to be a computer company. And they haven't done so well there, with market share still about 5%.
I really think you take Apple too personally. My guess is that you live in either NYC or, more likely, CA. The culture there is to consider one's consumer habits as integral to your personality, as if you're only as cool as what you buy and your life will be complete if only you can compile the optimal array of gadgets.
I don't really care if Apple fails or succeeds, because I don't work for them. I was just making a guess as to what will happen. Either you work for them, own a lot of their stock, or you've got an unhealthy emotional connection to the company. Trust me, they don't give a shit about you, and you're not cool by association just because you buy their products. Conversely, if they tank you're still just as good a person.
I meant to say first gen iPod mini. Anyway, you're getting a bit worked up. I didn't say anything was Apple's fault or not. All I was saying was that I think the iPod/iTunes combo is overrated and too restricted and I'm predicting its popularity will decline with the advent of $60/year subscriptions and similar hardware on the market. My own bad choices are completely irrelevent to whether or not that's true. I just think people will eventually tire of spending $10 to buy a single album and realize that for less than the price of six albums on iTunes, they can listen to virtually the entire catalogs of their favorite artists for a whole year. I wasn't putting you down. I'm sure you made the right decision for you. I'm just predicting that lots of people will feel differently. Only time will tell if I'm right about Apple's decline, but pointing out my failings as a consumer won't change anything.
Man, you're really hooked on that idea. So, when you decide to listen to music, do you say "I think I'd like to listen to some Apple AACs!" or "I think I'd like to listen to some Peter Gabriel?" It's mostly about the content, not the software or the hardware. The music is the most important thing. Nice hardware is a bonus, and you can get nice hardware on both sides. But I wish I had the choice between subscription versus pay-per-download. And I wish I could pay 79 cents instead of 99 cents.
For example, I happen to like Rhapsody's interface quite a lot. But I can't use its subscription service simply because Apple puts their profit ahead of their customer's utility. Where have we seen that before?
I think you're right about the MS/Apple settlement. Apple did have a lot of cash so it was probably just about the IP.
Didn't occur to you to ask the manufacturer about a product that doesn't perform up to spec?
Like I said, it is, technically, within spec. (I have the first model iPod, and it's only supposed to get 6-8, and Apple covers their ass quite a bit in the documentation, saying you can get less with heavy use and over time it will degrade.)
Look, Apple's not perfect, but come on: This problem is your fault.
Interesting consumer theory. What is my fault, however, is getting an iPod based on the sheep-like theory that everybody else riding the Red Line had one so it must be the best music player. Of course, everybody watches reality television, too, so I really should've done a bit more investigating on my own before following the herd on this one.
Inherently, you're right. It has nothing to do with anything. People just always say that around here about Microsoft and it gets a good reaction. I thought I'd try it with Apple. My main issue was that I have no choice, not that it's Apple.
wouldn't subscribe to a music service that could go belly-up any time Microsoft crooked its finger, but hey, knock yourself out
Please. Is there ANYTHING in this world of ours that couldn't go belly up if Microsoft wanted them to? Apple only survived the 90s because Microsoft needed them to live to keep the DOJ off their back. Remember that bailout MS gave Apple several years ago?
Have you returned it for warranty service?
It didn't occur to me to do so, since that's within the range they say you can expect with heavy use. I'll give it a shot, though, since there is an Apple store right down the street from here.
Not really: MacOS 8. The defense rests... :-)
Heh heh. Seriously, it just resets itself all the time, even when it's just sitting around. I'll go to turn it on and it will have to do a reset. Maybe I just have a bad one.
Twelve hours? You listen to music, away from electrical outlets, for twelve hours? Frequently?
I generally get about 5-6 hours out of my iPod mini. Yes, I would be very happy with 12 hours.
Your opinion, and of course, you don't need to defend it.
I appreciate that, but I'm happy to defend my opinion, since opinions can be changed with new information. In the case of the wheel, my problem with it is that when you take your finger off the wheel, that often causes the iPod to move off of the item you've selected. I think that's objectively a bad design.
There will also be the core of haters, who would hate anything Apple produces no matter how good it might be. What's your point?
My point is that Apple is a company that owes it's existence to people who religiously follow the company. (I used to be one of those people, for the record. I started with a Mac 128k.) That, I think, encourages the wrong behavior on the part of Apple and leads them to be very provincial.
It's about the user experience, and the fact that people will pay for a good one. That's why Apple is in business.
If it works for you, I guess I can't argue with that. But paying $1 per song and being forced to use only one music store that happens to be owned by the same company I got my music player from is not what I call a good experience. I bought the thing for MUSIC, and Apple is not making it easy for me to get music. If I had an iRiver H10, for example, I'd have a lot more choices.
That's a hard statement to defend, given that everybody has had more than enough chance to copy Apple's design. Plus, it's a fricking music player! How much can the interface really make or break the machine? I would think battery life would be far more important, and yet the Apple followers don't seem as bothered by the fact that ipod battery life has usually sucked (except maybe for the most recent models). I have an iPod mini, too, but my feeling is that I got suckered by ultimately unsubstantial things into getting an overpriced piece of modern sculpture. My iPod "crashes" all the time, the battery life sucks, and the interface really isn't even that good. The thumbwheel idea is cute, but actually fairly imprecise. I think the iPod is one of the most overrated things I've come across. I just don't think it can keep up in the long term.
Apple will always have a core of zealots who would buy Steve Job's bowel movements if he painted them white, but most people I think will move on to other players/systems that offer more for the money. In the end, it's about the music, not the company making the player. At least for most people it is.