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Posted by FatKat on 06/12/06 02:06
ZnU wrote:
> In article <1149862513.890308.195230@y43g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>,
> "FatKat" <robynari@juno.com> wrote:
>
> > ZnU wrote:
> > > In article <1149716394.150508.39230@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
> > > "FatKat" <robynari@juno.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > ZnU wrote:
> > > > > In article <s4Yeg.15439$Zc7.204783@wagner.videotron.net>,
> > > > > NRen2k5 <nomore@email.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > [snip]
> > >
> > > > > Of course, what some other companies would like to do is get into
> > > > > Apple's existing value networks;
> > > >
> > > > WTF!?!? What value networks? What are you talking about?
> > >
> > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_network
> > >
> > > Think iTunes + iPod + accessories + etc.
> >
> > I'm thinking of an open source encyclopedia that prints whatever
> > anybody posts. I'm thinking of self-serving corporate hype. I'm
> > thinking meaningless marketing talk consisting of annoying
> > non-sequitirs fleeing from an idea or a reasoned answer.
>
> You're not thinking very clearly.
Just trying to make it easy for you - apparently that's impossible.
Your wannabe Madison Avenue ad-speak doesn't make for a very flexible
language, I should have known better since it didn't make the point you
wanted "Think iTunes + iPod + accessories + etc" - which ofcourse was
pointless/
>
> > > > > to have their own music sales services benefit from the iPod, or
> > > > > their own devices benefit from iTunes, so they don't have to start
> > > > > from scratch and build an entire integrated solution themselves.
> > > >
> > > > They could just sell CDS/MP3 players that require no software
> > > > solutions at all, and can do so without haviong to start with
> > > > anything.
> > >
> > > Apple sells an easy-to-use, simple, well-designed all-in-one solution.
> > > If other vendors offered a user experience similar to Apple, and the
> > > iPod had 80% market share, you could maybe say it was just a fad. But
> > > the truth is, people buy iPods because Apple offers something you
> > > *can't* get elsewhere.
> >
> > Obviously wrong because your market-speak is equally descriptive of
> > CD/MP3 players
>
> You're actually saying CD/MP3 players are better than iPods?
Actually, I came on this thread trying to understand what made iPod so
much better than MP3-CD. I can see some advantages, but was expecting
somebody to come up with some that were actually practical. I have yet
to see any - instead I've found massive cognitive dissonance - hey, I
spent good money on my Ipod, ofcourse it's better than anything else
(though it's normally expressed in terms of everybody else choosing
iPod over the alternatives, these iPod defenders are almost certainly
talking about themselves.
> They're
> significantly larger, hold less music (unless you feel like carrying
> around 90 CDs, to match the capacity of a 60 GB iPod), and have vastly
> inferior user interfaces.
I've held both iPods and CD players - both can be held with one hand -
so "significantly larger" is just plain wrong. The comparison of
MP3-CD to a 60gb iPod would end the conversation because only the iPod
would be able to perform that spec. Except that there's no reason to
take that capacity out of the issue. 60gb sounds like a lot - oh it
does more than sound, it IS a lot. It's tons of capacity, literally
more than you can use. 60gb is like 60 movies, or fewer movies and my
entire music collection. It's literally more capacity than most people
could want at one time - so why does anybody pay for capacity they're
not likely to use? Most of the people I know who own iPods also own
DVD-equipped laptops, so they already HD capacity & playability for
exra-DVD's burnt as AVI's. This is borne out by the fact that before
iPod came along, few people on the go with mobile devices like iPods
actually carried around excess media in the range of 60gb, or even half
that. A few years back, I went abroad carrying little more than a
laptop and some AVI-DVD's. The next year, I went on a trip with my new
MP3-CD player - suffice it to say that despite regular usage, I barely
scratched the surface of what I had brought along with me. 60gb, 20,
gb or even 10gb is simply more capacity than anybody would need at once
- 10gb will cover about 8 hours of sound recorded at high BR or 10
high-res hours of video. That capacity might make sense for people who
are going on long trips to remote areas, but cable and Satellite TV has
narrowed the incidence - most iPod owners are just commuting or going
on short trips, or aren't leaving home at all - they aren't really
carrying that much more than they would have had they opted to go the
MP3-CD route or the DVD-laptop route (which most of them have done
anyway). Thus all that extra capacity is a) uneccessary & not
infrequently b) redundant with other hardware they already have.
As to the user interface, and going by my Panasonic player - the iPod
does have a superior interface, though hardly "vastly superior". Apple
likes to portrary its customers as extraordinarily savvy, but
apparently they're just lazy if they can't be bothered to handle
something as prosaic but otherwise workable as a CD player.
> It's also far more awkward to change your
> music around, since you have to actually burn new discs.
That's true if you get new music that you want to add to existing
music, but you just burn new discs. I don't find that alternative too
onerous, and actually like the idea that I have multiply archived my
music - with an extra copy in the office, one in the car, several in
different spots around the house, one in the player, you get the idea.
Even if I owned an iPod, I'd still burn new discs for archiving
purposes - now those same discs have a dual purpose, archiving and
playing.
When the music is otherwise unchanged, there's no point, unless iPod
users are so sensitive that they actually need to have exactly the
music they want in exactly the right order. I may just be reachng
here, but I remember it wasn't 5 years ago that I was stuck with
cassette - not just CDA, but ole' fashioned compact cassettes, tapes
that degraded, had horrible sound, you had to fast-forward past the
songs you didn't like and capacity was measured in minutes. With that
thought in mind, it doesn't feel too awkward to have the music I want
in perhaps the order I'd want, perhaps not. God, can iPod users be so
lazy and sensitive?
>
> > it's not an all-in-one solution because you need to buy the
> > accessories to keep your iPod working - a skin, a screen-cover, a
> > recharger.
>
> You're being pretty silly now. That's like saying if one car vendor
> sells an entire car, and another just sells the body, and lets you buy
> the seats and the engine separately, that there's no difference, because
> after all, you still have to buy the gas separately for the first car.
Actually, you're being silly here - what you've just described sounds
pretty much like iPod - you pay what sounds like the price of a
finished car, yet end up spending extra on options that should be
standard. Ofcourse, many car dealers do this anyway - they've come to
occupy a notorious corner of our industrual society selling people crap
they don't want. If you actually read what I wrote, you'd realize that
your example actuially is opposite to what I wrote - there is a
difference between the two cars, putting aside the first one having a
hefty pricetag because people will pay for it despite the obvious
disadvantages. The two are different - why should I now argue against
a point I've never made? As to the fact that you have to buy gas
separately - the energy part is always separate, but what iPod does is
blur that separation by tieing its power supply to a largely
proprietary system intended to make battery replacement a purely Apple
affair.
>
> Anyway, Apple includes a little case (at least with the nano)
My CD came with a case of its own - it's the frame of the player.
> and iPods charge off of USB.
and my player can just use new batteries.
>
> > Rechargeable batteries are nice, but they don't last forever, and
> > those on an iPod are much harder to replace than a couple of
> > penlights that will work in a host of devices and can be had
> > anywhere. Will an Ipod work w/o Itunes? With an MP3-CD player, all
> > you need is your computer's file manager. TRo say that iPod offers
> > an all-in-one really means that Apple has created a small industry of
> > unnecessary goods and services around the iPod, goods and services
> > one wouldn't need without the iPod, an entire market that exists
> > merely to serve the iPod rather than enhance the listening experience
> > of those who buy them. The point is that while you can't get iPod
> > features elsewhere, you CAN get practically the commensurate
> > experience at a fraction of the cost.
>
> You're going off on tangents again.
The tangent? We're talking about iPods, and the above discusses the
longetivity of power sources for competing products, the ease of
transfering media to your player from an existing source, whether iPod
is an all-in-one package of components that are uneccessary for other
players, and whether those features are redundant or otherwise worth
the cost - what's irrelevant here?
>
> > > That you're not interested in what Apple is offering, and don't
> > > really get it, is obvious.
> >
> > Sure, must be my fault - always blame the customer.
>
> Um, sorry, you're the one who's trying to claim millions of happy iPod
> customers have been taken in by baseless hype.
and you've yet to show how these millions of consumers are better off -
I've made the case for showing that they could have saved hundred of
dollars had they gone the MP3-CD route.
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