iPod is a serial killer, Rio is dead

MacDailyNews Take: It's the natural order of things. Survival of the fittest and all that. First the weak go, then the not-so-weak. Apple's iPod is turning out to be quite the real killer: "iPod Killer," get it? That's "Mr. iPod Killer" to you, bub. And we have a feeling that iPod's about to go "serial" sooner than later.
Click to expand...

::ha:: ::ha::
 
this is much more poignant than people seem to taking it for. Rio wasn't just another mp3 player manufacturer, like the droves of flash players etc, Rio started the idea! the Rio was the first Mp3 player on the market, and Diamond were the first company to say "this is the future", and they were right. apple may have done a better job, but they owe a lot of their success to the Rio.

this is almost like a hardware equivalent of Windows' rise to dominence. will the ipod become bloated and slow to progress, born out of it's huge success? it could be, with many people boycotting the ipod already for it's dated feature set. at the moment, it's just about keeping up with the opposition, as they've only just got colour screens on half of their range, and 60gb is still the biggest drive they offer, and even then at the sacrifice of a much heavier device.

apple are a company that takes risks to move the industry forward. the ipod desperately needs pushing forward, IMO. the current design of white front/chrome back etc is nearly 5 years old now. look how much better the current lineup of macs look compared to that of 5 years ago.
 
Lt Major Burns said:
look how much better the current lineup of macs look compared to that of 5 years ago.
Click to expand...
I think the 5-year-old Macs looked much, much better, with the exception of the G5 tower. The current models look like they belong in a hospital. And I hate hospitals. Ruby, Indigo and Sage were nice. But I digress....

I agree that Apple needs to push forward with the iPod. As a Mac/Apple fan, I consider the iPod a bit of an embarrassment, really. I mean, the one product Apple makes that becomes the worldwide favorite is the one product that offers the least advantage over its competition. It's kind of sad. For the clueless types, it's great advertising, but for the slightly-more-clued-in, it's very bad, because it promotes the idea that the Mac is all about style and is overpriced. That's not true. But the iPod is mostly just about style, and it is significantly more expensive, and it seems people can't understand that "iPod", "Apple" and "Mac" are three different things.

The iPod halo effect goes both ways, and I don't like it.
 
More features on a product doesn't necessarily mean it's better. Apple is the one company around today that gets the "user experience" versus the feature list. Having a good set of features on your product is important, but if the usability is terrible, it doesn't matter if it has every feature on it, it won't catch on.

Apple has also done a good job of adding features to the iPod as needed. Everybody gets on their case for not producing a video iPod, but there is almost no content for such a device, so why make it?

The iPod is not just about style. It's about user experience. That's why it's dominating the market. All the other players think that the key to toppling the iPod is to add a feature that the iPod doesn't have. Everytime they do this, the iPod's marketshare goes up. Granted, it won't last forever, but I believe in our current state, Apple has the right balance of usability/feature set.

Personally, I'm suprised that four years in to this, that no other manufacturer, including Sony, has produced an MP3 player that's anywhere near as simple, intuitive, elegant, and feature packed as the iPod.
 
( "No content for such a device"? I know of about 257 sitcoms that just beg to be watched on the go, so do daily shows like, well "The Daily Show" and all the others. I guess podcasting is already ready for video, anyway - and we shouldn't forget music videos. )

Btw.: I've had the first Rio MP3 player, and guess what: It didn't suck. Mostly because there was no competitor back then (besides MiniDisc, that is...), but still: It was good. So: I agree that without Rio, there maybe never have been an iPod...
 
There is no legal content available for such a device. Ripping TV shows and movies is still very much a gray area when it comes to the legality of doing such a thing. Apple's not going to enter a market until that market has some legality to it, and while ripping movies and TV shows and the like may not actually be prosecutable at the moment, it has not been proven "legal" in court. We can argue "time-shifting" and "space-shifting" all we want, but you'd get laughed out of court bringing those terms up currently.

Maybe later. Not now, though. Unless Apple can pioneer some agreements with movie firms and wriggle out some contract, we're not gonna see much but music videos and short independent stuff for a while.

At any rate, people just won't agree on this until Apple either does it or says they won't.
 
EDCC: I meant that basically, content was available. The big "IF" would of course be that those shows would have to be made available legally. And at a price.
 
ElDiabloConCaca said:
There is no legal content available for such a device.
Click to expand...


Piffle! Vidcasts (Podcasts with video) are everywhere. Not to mention Quicktime Trailers. How about video you made yourself in iMovie to show on an attached TV (like you can with Photo slideshow currently)?


Not to say any of that particularly interests me, but there IS a market (albeit a small one).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top