I am pitting the iPod

The BBQ Pit
1

its gone too far.
They are everywhere and their marketing seeks to homogenize everyone into silhouettes of stereotypes. They carry the pretense of “inventing” a portable mp3 player, a portable video player, i mean, I was watching full color mpegs on my pocket PC like 6 years ago!

Am I the only one that sees the similarity between the Apple product line and the evil Empire from Star Wars–storm troupers? All smoothed over WHITE plastic??

If anything, Apple is rapidly becoming what it was protesting against in the eighties…the MAN.

So I propose a boycott of Ipods in the name of individuality and self expression! Buy one of those RCA jobbies and spray paint it florescent orange and draw on it with a felt pen…or if you have an iPod, at least deface it so you can help promote yourself and not Steve Jobs, who really doesnt care about anyone any more than any other massive corporate fatcat. Stop drinking his delicious koolaid people!

end of pitting.

2

The over-saturation of iPod became very evident when I mistakenly went into a BestBuy looking for a case that I could put my iAudio into.

BB had hundreds of cases. Every single one was for the iPod.

3

What a lot of iPod zealots don’t realize is that some find the iPod really ugly… The thing is a brick. The interface confusing and uncomfortable. (maybe if they put the screen on the bottom and the wheel on the top, but right now I don’t feel comfortable using it with one hand). You are pretty much forced to use iTunes unless you want to come up with some elaborate solution. I really don’t know, but I would gladly pay 30-40% more for my iRiver that I ever would for a comparable iPod, even though the iRiver is currently cheaper.

4

Mine is black. Maybe I got the Darth Vader model.

5

I think your comment would be more accurate if you replace “over-saturation” with “demand”.

6

Darth Vader: Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your iPod.
Luke: He told me enough. He told me YOU stole it!
Darth Vader: No, Luke. I am your iPod.
Luke: No!! It’s not true! That’s…impossible!
Darth Vader: Search your playlist, you know it to be true

7

Demand is something you have for gasoline and milk. Things you get for iPod and Pepsi is over-saturation - demand for the image due to marketing, not the product. There just isn’t that many things that separate the iPod from the competitors other than its flashiness and marketing hype. There’s a large selection of comparable personal music players out there around the same price points and while the iPod does have some neat features that appeal to some people (who are willing to pay the higher price), the only explanation for the iPod’s success is the image: “Innovative”, “Cool”, “Futuristic”, “Idiot-proof”, “Sexy”, etc. The image engineered from the bottom up by the geniuses at Apple.

8

iTunes is only needed to access the music store but its tracks can be read by RealPlayer with no elaborate solution needed.

9

I never thought they implied they invented those things although I can see why people would think so. My first MP3 player had 32mb memory unexpandable. It held 9 or 10 songs and I liked it that way.

I knew what was coming because I mapped out different designs for such a system and I mapped out some more that will be released in the next few years. There is still one critical type of device that is largely missing and it sure as hell isn’t a Palm pilot or an integrated cell phone. Apple’s revolutionary idea was a tiny hard drive powered device that could store hundreds or thousands of files and play them with a clean interface. It seems obvious to everyone now because they made you think that way.

Apple did that with a grand slam and they certainly pushed the market forward on their own. Don’t get caught in the trap of “I could do blah blah on this thing years ago if I really, really tried”. Few ideas are completely original and integration and execution combined with a good user interface and good marketing are what it is all about.

You seem to be organizing one of those hippie “individuality” movements where individuals can show how unique they are by following the directions of a self-appointed leader on an internet board.

10

Of course, iTunes is also needed for copying tracks to the iPod and updating its software.

11

Ipod and Pepsi are brands of MP3 player and soda. Gasoline is a generic product. If people had some odd obsession for Mobile gasoline over Exxon you could point at that as bizarre. In fact if one oil company is doing better than a competitor it’s probably due to nothing more than marketing or image.

If the market is said to be saturated, there are too many MP3 players regardless of brand. It there are ten time more Ipods than other players, it’s because there’s a demand for them.

Plus, they’re Innovative, Cool, Futuristic and Sexy.

12

I like the interface, but that godddamned Dock connector bugs the hell out of me. Most special Ipod accessories or adapters are overpriced.

I have a Nano and I like it, but now I want to put my whole library on one. Do any of those other brands play AAC? They’ve already turned to the Dark Side and I’ve ripped a whole bunch of CD’s into AAC, which is better than mp3 but not yet the standard. Transcoding would mess up the sound more than if I’d made mp3s in the first place.

You have to use Itunes, but you don’t have to use their store. You can rip CDs or play any unprotected mp3s, or convert wma files.

13

What’s everybody’s beef with i-tunes? Granted, I’ve only been playing with it for a few months but so far it’s doing the job nicely.

14

It’s a slow-ass memory hog that doesn’t necessarily do what you want? The beef isn’t with iTunes, it’s even if iTunes was the best application in the universe. you’re still being forced into it. The very first thing I did when I got my iRiver was figure out how many ways I had of transferring music to it and which are appropriate when.

15

So just to ask, how successful is a product allowed to be before it becomes a symptom of everything that’s wrong with American culture?

16

I was irritated to discover that JHymn doesn’t work once you upgrade to iTunes 6.0. I rather liked having the option to strip out all of the DRM stuff, even though I only did it a couple of times.

17

Or it could be becaue their product is better

18

Meh. I bought my first iPod 3 years ago and it’s been great, done everything I wanted. Just recently upgraded to one of the video ones and I have no qualms.

Also, I don’t get all this hate for iTunes. No one has to use iTunes with the iPod. Don’t like iTunes? Use a different program. It is not required. I think it works great, but if you don’t, then just use something else!

19

Yes, those of us who prefer the iPod to other mp3 players are hype-addled sheep who couldn’t possibly find any of the design or functionality of Apple’s products compelling.

Love,
Slacker (who is getting his new 60GB iPod next week - haven’t decided on Vader black or Stormtrooper white yet though)

20

Um, wouldn’t that mean your hand would cover the screen?

I’m not going to go out and buy something just because everyone else is doing it, but I’m sure as hell not gonna be pissy if something I bought becomes really popular. I like it, I bought it, end of story. If it “over-saturates” the public, who gives a fuck? It does what I want it to do, what I bought it to do, and I like it.