How can you bitch about the iPod?

Fahrvergnuugen

Fahrvergnuugen

I am the law!
I'm so tired of hearing people complain about what a great dissapointment the iPod is.

It was EXACTLY what I thought it was going to be. AND IT'S AWESOME. Not only is it an mp3 player, but you can take files around with you. It's like a firewire equiped 5 GB zip disk.... Apple gave us a hard drive with a battery attached to it. How can you say that's not cool?

As for cost.. Do you remember how much that Creative Labs MP3 player was when it came out? It had a 6GB disk drive in it and it was like double the size of the iPod. I think it was like 5 or 600 bucks....and it wasn't even firewire.

If it's too much money, DON'T BUY ONE. I don't have $100,000 to buy the Porsche I want...that doesn't stop it from being the coolest car on the planet [well...the Bugatti Veyron is pretty schweet too :) ]
 
Amen, Brother!

Frankly, when I got home and checked www.appleturns.com and saw the message "It IS an iPod! Details later." then went to Apple.com and saw it was an MP3 player, right away I thought, "oh, great. Another MP3 player." But when I saw all the rest, I knew it was more.

Give it time. As soon as the commercials get all over.. Come on, Apple! Put em EVERYWHERE! I only saw the commercial on the website. Not on TV.

I'm still waiting for Apple to wake the hell up and unleash their huge OS X Ad Campaign. I mean, TV Commercials, Radio Ad's, Magazine ad's, Bus Stop posters, sky writing, big Apple on the Moon, etc.. Apple. Don't let me down. Don't screw us over. Don't let MS get even BIGGER. You want a bigger piece of the marketshare pie? When are you actually gonna ASK? (Ask meaning A-D-V-E-R-T-I-S-E!)
 
If Apple did send the letter to those magzines and drive our expectations this high, yes, we will quietly ignore it.

There is absolutely no "break through" in this product.

It's stylish looking doesn't justify it's ridiculously high price.

I like Apple and I have higher expectation for it.
 
You have done nothing to justify you're statement.

There is absolutely no "break through" in this product.
Click to expand...

How many other 5GB, FireWire, MP3 players with a 10 hour lithion battery do you know of out there?

It's stylish looking doesn't justify it's ridiculously high price.
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I'm surprised you ever bought a mac in the first place. Does a Porsche's "stylish" looks justify its "ridiculously high price"? NO. It's performance combined with it's schweet style sure does though. If you don't have the money, buy a Hyundai.

You paid a premium price for performance when you bought your mac, unless of course you're a thief on top of being a hypocrite.
 
Originally posted by Fahrvergnuugen

How many other 5GB, FireWire, MP3 players with a 10 hour lithion battery do you know of out there?
Click to expand...

Still, it's nowhere near a breakthru or revolutionizing product. I'm getting sick and tierd about Apple's PR ethics. When the Powerbook G4 came out, it surely was a breakthru, no doubt, and the intro movie had people taking about it as a breakthru and a revolution, no problem there. But some months later, when the new PowerMacs were released, Apple again called them a breakthru, and in the intro movie, people were saying the new PowerMacs would revolutionize the buisiness. Eh? Revolutionize? Doesn't a revolution take more than a processor speed bumb and a slightly modified case?

This iPod, is in no way a breakthru like the Mac II, the Newton, the iMac or Mac OS X. It's the same concept as many other product, all Apple added is their touch and some new cool features.
 
I have to chew out both Apple and Consumers on this one.

Apple was stupid for overhyping this thing. Sure is a great piece of hardware I could use for work if my boss and I both had Firewire Macs. We do A/V stuff and something like this is pure gold. However, I don't intend on getting something to replace my machine until Jan.

Shame on Apple for overhyping a product, albeit a pretty darn useful one for the mobile A/V guys who don't do the heavy DV stuff on the go.

The Consumers were rather stupid for making the hype even worse. Every time some new product comes up, a PDA is thought up, things get overblown, and everyone disappoints themselves. MacOS X 10.1, the TiBook revision, etc. etc.

Shame on the Consumers for making the hype worse, and then expecting their overblown hype to be delivered on.


Apple is innovative, yes. But we are in a period where consumer electronics are not selling too well, so Apple's budget is a little tighter than usual, especially with the Retail Store push. The truly ground-breaking stuff won't start coming out until the Consumers start having faith in the economy again (I already do, I see the Dow Jones and am rooting for it to hit the big 10k before Nov 1st). Apparently Consumers don't want to have faith until ground-breaking stuff starts happening. Well folks, it doesn't work that way.

This particular product, overhyped as it may be, is pretty darn spiffy. It does break the mold in many ways, and if Apple shows commitment to expanding the iPod's possibilities (and dropping price a few months down the line) with new formats, etc. It will make itself known as one of the best products available in the arena. Except for a few flaws, it already can be considered such to some people. If you want a cheap MP3 player, buy a RioVolt, but be aware the Volt is in another segment of the MP3 market... The iPod is designed to compete with the Jukebox/etc. which are priced at the same level, but don't even support Firewire in any way! Let alone a battery which is hella easy to recharge, and the ability to use it as a Firewire drive...

Now I will end my evil rant. :rolleyes:
 
Bah. I never saw Apple hyping much of ANYTHING. Last week they said "we're releasing something new". This week they released it.

We, in that span, concocted all manner of fantasy from reNewtons to preposterously big media thingies that played full frame digital video (25Mbit) over AirPort (11Mbit) and played DVD's and CD's and vCD's and and and...

I saw -fans- hyping this more than Apple- certaintly. What is Apple going to do.. run all over the place correcting people so their expectations aren't dissappointed? What a whiny friggin' fanbase.

"Apple to Accounce New Digital Hub Music Device"

That's just what they did. Why are you dissappointed that it wasn't a full blown PDA with a mobil version of MacOSX??? The R+D behind that is STAGGERING.

Also- if I here one more person bitch about the iPod not integrating with PC's I'll scream. USB is a very small bandwidth bus. If PC users want to play with neat hardware- they can at least get with the times and get a firewire adapter for 50 bucks. My Mac doesn't have a floppy drive anymore either... should I complain about that?
 
Originally posted by .dev.lqd
We, in that span, concocted all manner of fantasy from reNewtons to preposterously big media thingies that played full frame digital video (25Mbit) over AirPort (11Mbit) and played DVD's and CD's and vCD's and and and...
Click to expand...

Okay, I'll forgive you for falsifying (DivX, MPEG4 are *not* 25Mbit, more like 500kbit). But you're right all the same.

It's as it always was. People want tomorrow's technology now. Companies deliver today's technology and sells it as tomorrow's.

When Apple actually *did* sell tomorrow's technology, it was called a 'Newton'. It failed miserably, and by the time they finally got it about right (MP 2100), the market went after the Palm, which didn't try to sell the future. The product wasn't better, it was just cheaper at the time. And smaller. (Which is a good thing in PDAs.)

Yes we want full 3D enviroments rendered live by an iMac and projected directly into our brains. We read William Gibson, don't we. Yes we want free video feeds to our powershades like some Credit Card company tells us we'll get in the future (or might as they put it). Science Fiction has always been a strong force in our culture(s). Apple tends to be on the edge of those things. They have learned that the market doesn't always react the way they expect it to. Thus they're now making very good products that can be sold at a price that is just a bit above normal. People pay those prices, because they want to. A want (as in a 'need') is fulfilled.

Don't blame Apple for not making the future happen now. Instead let's pay the due respect for still making the best computers in the world (overall experience), the best operating system in the world and - at the same time - letting consumers have their share on the overall idea of the digital hub with the iMacs and the iBooks.
 
I love my newton (I say it every chance I get ;) )

Anyway, disappointed, indeed I am, I expected something trully new out of apple.

Spitfull ? Naaaaah. The iPod looks cool, and handles itself cool, so its all cool. I just dont have a need for it, thus I am not buying it.

Its like the MD (MiniDisc) dillema I had a year ago. I liked it technologically and in terms of coolness, I just did not have the need for it.


Admiral
 
Digital Video, when referencing the DV standard, is 25Mbit.

That's what I was referencing. I'm aware that mp4 based streams can easily fit within Airport's framework... I was just referencing various predictions I'd read over the past week.

A set top mp4 decoder would be pretty cool- but the R+D is staggering.
 
i've been waiting for this exact thing (well, smaller and lighter would have been better): i don't need to buy a firewire drive for backup - i don't need 20 or 40 or 60 gigs to backup the essentials, just a gig for the critical files. rechargable 10 hour battery life, same as the rio players, but rechargable. i can still store 750 songs at 160kbps on the thing with a gig reserved for backup files, who needs more than that on a portable player? i will also find a way to rig it into my car stereo so i have a plethora of tunes available on the road. and it will fit in my pocket.

the one thing that does concern me is the 20 minute shock protection. 20 minutes?!?! how often does this thing skip? hopefully that's total overkill and they just plunked in enough ram and used the extra for shock protection.
 
Fahrvergnuugen's Porsche analogy fails on one level for me. If somebody gave me a Porsche, expensive as it is, I would use it consistently. If somebody gave me an iPod I would use it for a day, just cuz it's neat, and then never again. That's just me. I don't need an MP3 player with a modest sized hard drive. I've got monster size hard drives and CD players and I don't listen to music on the run. Again, that's just me. The iPod is a kind of slick little device, but I just don't think the audience will be there. I fully hope and expect to be completely wrong.

All I want from Apple is realy, really fast processors, an even faster OS X (I'm still not impressed) and Final Cut carbonized or Cocoa-ized. As for third party providers, carbonize your damn apps and now.
 
One's a car and one's an MP3 player. You have a use for a car, but not a portable mp3 player. That's the difference. Zamboni makes the best Zambonis but that doesn't mean I am going to buy one ;)
 
Yeah, I just said that, but with different and more words. ;)

My point is that I personally have absolutely no use for the iPod, pure and simple. Hopefully other people will.
 
If anyone handed me either of these, I would marvel, use it for a moment while making certain not to scratch it, and sell it to the highest bidder because what I need right now is new pants. If I could afford new pants, maybe I'd be thinking about an mp3 player. If I had an mp3 player, maybe I'd want the porsche to match. But in the end I think they are exactly the same, they are both NOT new pants.

It's a wonderful product in a currently established market. I think this is smart on the part of Apple. Pragmatic, and smart. I'm a little disappointed because I was hoping for a new market, but the economy isn't ready for that right now I don't think.
 
The iPod really disappoints me for a number of reasons, not all of which I will get into.

I understand why Apple did it. FireWire isn't the most popular way to store things. True it's fast, but there really isn't that much the average Joe can do with it. So hardware for it is still pretty costly.

FireWire offers what? Cameras, drives, ahhh what else? Okay okay, this isn't a debate about FireWire I know...

But truth be told, this product is over priced. I mean come on, what idiot is going to spend $400 on an mp3 player (which is how they are marketing it)?!?!?

If you want to sell me a 5 gig firewire drive, I'd tell ya to go take a hike. I can buy an 80+ gig for less than that now... and portable.. yes it's true that paying for portability has always been a rule of thumb (just as us laptop users) but $400 for 5 gig? Come on really?? If I wanted to do that I could buy

queM2.jpg

QPS Que! M2 6GB Firewire Hard Drive
for ONLY $89.98

Then by myself an mp3 player

IomegaMP3.jpg

Iomega Mp3 Digital Audio Player (which supports mp3, MS Media Player)
for $149.99

*both items can be found at Mac Zone

So why complain? Why not just shut up and "Don't buy one." Good question, because it's a good product, it - by all accounts should be a great seller. It might give Apple them the shot in the arm they need to make it through the Xmas season. But when the company we know and love makes a mistake -- a very big mistake -- we speak out! It's our responsibility to speak out. It's only fair.

Just like the idiot who idealizes Apple and says they LOVE IT before they even bought it, I have a right to speak my mind.

Apple needs to know both sides, or else the development of their products falls upon the narrow wire of luck. It is the comments from all of us that has helped shape Apple into what it is today. Tried and true, loyal customers have supported Apple when the products were over priced and bad... now their just over priced... we're half way there, and I'm not going to stop now.

//evildan™
 
The iPod is smaller and weighs less than any firewire hard drive on the market. The comparisons aren't meaningful.

Just because you can't afford it doesn't mean it's overpriced. Apple has made the best mp3 player and the smallest firewire drive on the market, this nobody can deny.
 
Originally posted by strobe
The iPod is smaller and weighs less than any firewire hard drive on the market. The comparisons aren't meaningful.

Just because you can't afford it doesn't mean it's overpriced. Apple has made the best mp3 player and the smallest firewire drive on the market, this nobody can deny.
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I am sorry strobe, but thank you for making my point.

My comparissons are meaningful... yes there are pros and cons to the firewire drive I used in my example. But my example was found in a 2 minute search. I didn't mean to say that this is a substitute for the iPod. My intent is to call Apple on overpricing a product, just to over price it. (and in the worst economic time in the last 30 years!)

In my mind the iPod should be priced at $300. Yes, it's only $100 from what it is priced. Strobe, I realize that, but in marketing, the preception of value is an easy thing to get wrong - And Apple got it wrong - again. Price your product too low and people will think it's crap and not buy it; price it too high and people just won't buy it. $300 is the price for the iPod. It's just enough to hurt a little to the average consumer, but not so far out of reach that they wouldn't consider buying it. It could be the coolest thing in the world... but all the average consumer will hear is "$400" and "mp3 player" and they will do the same comparrison I did and not buy the better product. (the iPod).

And just for your info Strobe, I can afford it. But why should I correct you on that point? Your entire statement was an assumption.

You assume I can't afford it.

And you assume that the iPod is the best mp3 player on the market? Wake up, strobe, really, with all due respect, you don't know that do you? Yes you can say it's one of the smallest firewire drives on the market... but is that worth the $400... I think not. And I'm not the only one who thinks it is over priced, check out what MacOS Rumors has to say about the subject.

I mean it looks cool, I'll give you that, and I'd buy one, I really would... but I can think of about 20 other overpriced $400 items that would fulfill my love for music. I am not the average computer consumer... I love to buy. I think it's safe to say that I spend 85-90% of my spending money on technology. But going into the Xmas season, I - like the average intellegent consumer - is going to hold their wallet a bit tighter than last year.

Strobe might look at this as one lost sale for Apple... it's not, I might still buy one, but that doesn't change the fact that the iPod is overpriced.
 
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