# I am pitting the iPod **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 21, 2006, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-pitting-the-ipod/349246 "2006-03-21T03:35:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![D\_Odds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/d_odds/32/2882_2.png) [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-pitting-the-ipod/349246/101 "2006-03-22T20:15:08Z")
> [@Slacker](#): > > First I’m going to convince my daughter that doing the dishes is great fun. Being smarter than Dad about technology is _cool_. Doing dishes - way uncool. ---
**Author:** ![rayh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@rayh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rayh)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-pitting-the-ipod/349246/102 "2006-03-22T20:22:20Z")
> [@Wolfian](#): > > Back in my day we walked uphill in the snow both ways and paid 200 franks just to hear Beethoven fart the opening to “Erocia” and we liked it! I can still smell the sausages… [snobby nitpick] It’s “Eroica”. [/snobby nitpick] And Beethoven didn’t have an iPod, he was deaf. ---
**Author:** ![Wolfian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/7ea924/32.png) [@Wolfian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wolfian)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-pitting-the-ipod/349246/103 "2006-03-22T20:58:20Z")
> [@Anastasaeon](#): > > You’re right. I got cocky. I apologise. Well you can shove your civility right up your ass! 😛 I was a bit snippy in that last post. Sorry right back at you. **Argent Towers** , again I was a bit snippy, but you did come across as a bit of a snob (as you admit). I do agree with your underlying point, but the delivery was totally off. **mmrealtime** , you amuse me. I can’t wait for the rant on soccer moms who circumcise their children using the snipped claws of kitten while driving 15 miles under the speed limit in the fast lane in an SUV while talking on the phone without brushing the snow off their roofs. Not to mention the pan and scan DVD playing while that’s going on. **rayh** , :smack:. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Odds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/d_odds/32/2882_2.png) [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-pitting-the-ipod/349246/104 "2006-03-22T21:03:56Z")
> [@Wolfian](#): > > **mmrealtime** , you amuse me. I can’t wait for the rant on soccer moms who circumcise their children using the snipped claws of kitten while driving 15 miles under the speed limit in the fast lane in an SUV while talking on the phone without brushing the snow off their roofs. Not to mention the pan and scan DVD playing while that’s going on. You forgot to add that they’re smoking and tossing cigarette butts out the window. ---
**Author:** ![mrrealtime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e8c25b/32.png) [@mrrealtime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrrealtime)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-pitting-the-ipod/349246/105 "2006-03-22T23:02:21Z")
> [@Slacker](#): > > WTF? You know, when you make a tin-foil hat, make sure you put the shiny side out, it has some dangerous chemicals don’t you know! > … > The iPod represents much more than a well built, well designed mp3 player. It represents \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_. Your tinfoil hat reference is inappropriate. I am not making a ridiculous claim of some impossible scenario. it represents a POTENTIAL strangle hold on the distribution of music, provided the iPod continues to eclipse all other music playing hardware, and iTunes maintains its position as a closed corporately controlled entry point for music that can be distributed on the hardware. This will only NOT happen if people make alternative choices. What I am seeing , particularly with respect to the article I sited in the OP, is a disturbing trend. ---
**Author:** ![mrrealtime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e8c25b/32.png) [@mrrealtime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrrealtime)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-pitting-the-ipod/349246/106 "2006-03-22T23:09:09Z")
> [@Wolfian](#): > > mmrealtime, you amuse me…(unintelligligable beard muttering)… Consider my expletive directed at you earlier retracted. I was really angry that you stomped on two other kind and gentle posters, not me in particular. I will come clean and state that my hatred for Apple is deep seeded and stems from a 10 year largely unwanted relationship with the company, and the ongoing company of legions of the cult of mac, constantly bombarding me with the latest farts and burps from the great white whale. ---
**Author:** ![Slacker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6bbea6/32.png) [@Slacker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slacker)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-pitting-the-ipod/349246/107 "2006-03-22T23:12:28Z")
> [@mrrealtime](#): > > Your tinfoil hat reference is inappropriate. I am not making a ridiculous claim of some impossible scenario. > > it represents a POTENTIAL strangle hold on the distribution of music, provided the iPod continues to eclipse all other music playing hardware, and iTunes maintains its position as a closed corporately controlled entry point for music that can be distributed on the hardware. This will only NOT happen if people make alternative choices. What I am seeing , particularly with respect to the article I sited in the OP, is a disturbing trend. OK so you’re concerned that Apple is going to monopolize digital music distribution, despite the fact that we have innumerable gigantic corporations actively hoping to compete with them. In case you haven’t heard, a few plucky upstarts like Yahoo, Real, Microsoft, Sony, and Napster all have electronic music services, and there are plenty more out there as well. Tell me, if you want to purchase some digital music, what’s forcing you to use iTunes? A handful of exclusive tracks they offer? The competitors all offer exclusives as well. But for the most part, almost everything you want is available on all the biggies, and if you so desire, in your local record store or on [Amazon.com](http://Amazon.com) for that matter. OMG wait Amazon is monopolizing the ordering-CDs-by-mail-so-you-can-stick-it-to-Apple market! :eek: You may be right, there’s no escape!!! Are you really so thick that you think iTunes will eventually be the only way you can buy a new song? ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-pitting-the-ipod/349246/108 "2006-03-22T23:20:53Z")
> [@mrrealtime](#): > > my hatred for Apple is deep seeded Apple? Seeds? Yuk yuk yuk! ---
**Author:** ![mrrealtime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e8c25b/32.png) [@mrrealtime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrrealtime)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-pitting-the-ipod/349246/109 "2006-03-22T23:30:42Z")
> [@Slacker](#): > > Are you really so thick that you think iTunes will eventually be the only way you can buy a new song? at 90% market share of MP3 players, they may not be the ONLY way, but its easy to see the destination from here, and hardly unreasonable to assume that the other large distributors will simply aquiesce to Apple eventually, as long as it made economic sense. Again, “Thick” is hardly an appropriate adjective for my premise. ---
**Author:** ![nameless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/779978/32.png) [@nameless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nameless)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-pitting-the-ipod/349246/110 "2006-03-22T23:40:59Z")
> [@mrrealtime](#): > > I will come clean and state that my hatred for Apple is deep seeded and stems from a 10 year largely unwanted relationship with the company, and the ongoing company of legions of the cult of mac, constantly bombarding me with the latest farts and burps from the great white whale. And the truth comes out. Look, I don’t know what the legal definition of a monopoly is, but it seems to me that if my company sells all of the Underwater Wombat Cleaners–100% of the market–that’s still not really much of a monopoly is it? It’s a niche. Digital music is still a niche. mp3 players are still a niche. The majority of music is bought on CD and played on CD players. Until that changes, I don’t see a problem. You’ve taken your own personal distaste for a company and perverted it into some totally tenuous pit thread. Why don’t you pit them for the reasons you hate them instead of pitting them for the reasons you’d **like** to hate them. ---
**Author:** ![mrrealtime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e8c25b/32.png) [@mrrealtime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrrealtime)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-pitting-the-ipod/349246/111 "2006-03-22T23:41:29Z")
good eye, biffy the pun slayer! ---
**Author:** ![mrrealtime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e8c25b/32.png) [@mrrealtime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrrealtime)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-pitting-the-ipod/349246/112 "2006-03-22T23:44:57Z")
> [@nameless](#): > > Why don’t you pit them for the reasons you hate them instead of pitting them for the reasons you’d like to hate them. chuckle, well put…I concede. The iPod is the greatest thing ever invented. Shame on me for dissenting. I will succomb to the customary lobotomy. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Odds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/d_odds/32/2882_2.png) [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-pitting-the-ipod/349246/113 "2006-03-22T23:47:41Z")
No one ever thinks their tinfoil hat theories are THTs. For this one to work, all the major record companies have to fall in line with Steve Jobs. And that’s as ridiculous as Disney falling to him… Oh, wait a second… ---
**Author:** ![Dag\_Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@Dag\_Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dag_Otto)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-pitting-the-ipod/349246/114 "2006-03-23T00:07:41Z")
> [@Slacker](#): > > In case you haven’t heard, a few plucky upstarts like Yahoo, Real, Microsoft, Sony, and Napster all have electronic music services, and there are plenty more out there as well. > > Are you really so thick that you think iTunes will eventually be the only way you can buy a new song? iTunes will be the only way to buy music for 99 cents per track. Everyone else will be selling them for less. ---
**Author:** ![nameless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/779978/32.png) [@nameless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nameless)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-pitting-the-ipod/349246/115 "2006-03-23T02:22:13Z")
> [@mrrealtime](#): > > chuckle, well put…I concede. The iPod is the greatest thing ever invented. Shame on me for dissenting. I will succomb to the customary lobotomy. The unnecessary and misguided hyperbole hurts my eyes! It’s like staring into a supernova of stupid! ---
**Author:** ![black\_rabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f19dbf/32.png) [@black\_rabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/black_rabbit)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-pitting-the-ipod/349246/116 "2006-03-23T02:58:36Z")
> [@World Eater](#): > > Because there’s far more functionality then just reading off the HD Such as? Meaning, what additional functionality does _requiring the database for playback_ provide? I can understand some people’s need to have an automatically generated list of favorite tracks, bookmarks in audiobooks, or… uh… whatever. But there’s absolutely no reason that I can think of to requiring the iTunesDB, and therefore iTunes (or some equally lame imitator), to play anything. Note, I’m not knocking the [dude who wrote](http://shuffle-db.sourceforge.net/) the Python script I use for my Shuffle; it’s an ingenious solution for those of us who think it’s dumb to use a music store to transfer files to a removable hard drive. > [@](#): > > How exactly do they suck balls? > > I can rip and burn cds at the touch of a button, transcode different file types, and can easily browse tons of pay and free content. > > Seems like decent functionality to me. Seems like bloat to me. It’s a matter of personal taste, but I like it that XMMS is my music player, Grip is my ripper/encoder, GnomeBaker is my CD burner, none of them try to be anything else, and none of them can fuck up my mp3 player if I remove it at an inopportune time. On a more objective note, have you _seen_ the system requirements for iTunes? 256MB? For what it does, that’s just stupid. You’d figure Apple people would be able to get the concept of “less is more.” > [@](#): > > Ain’t the free market great? Indeed. ---
**Author:** ![mrrealtime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e8c25b/32.png) [@mrrealtime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrrealtime)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-pitting-the-ipod/349246/117 "2006-03-23T03:20:01Z")
> [@nameless](#): > > The unnecessary and misguided hyperbole hurts my eyes! It’s like staring into a supernova of stupid! This has to be the most ironic statement Ive ever read. Well worth the read. ---
**Author:** ![mrrealtime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e8c25b/32.png) [@mrrealtime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrrealtime)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-pitting-the-ipod/349246/118 "2006-03-23T03:22:16Z")
> [@mrrealtime](#): > > chuckle, well put…I concede. The iPod is the greatest thing ever invented. Shame on me for dissenting. I will succomb to the customary lobotomy. I should have stopped at sentence #1. Too much inertia…couldnt stop it. ---
**Author:** ![Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troy_mcclure_sf/32/4150_2.png) [@Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Troy_McClure_SF)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-pitting-the-ipod/349246/119 "2006-03-23T03:41:00Z")
This thread makes me feel old, too… I remember when I was called a brainwashed idiot for using a Mac. Some things never change. ---
**Author:** ![slaphead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@slaphead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slaphead)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-pitting-the-ipod/349246/120 "2006-03-23T10:22:45Z")
> [@mrrealtime](#): > > at 90% market share of MP3 players Cite? Even if you define MP3 players as ‘devices dedicated solely to playing MP3’ rather than ‘devices capable of playing MP3s perfectly adequately’ I very much doubt they’re anywhere close to 90%, given that flash memory MP3 players are approaching the price point where you can get one for 3 cereal cupons. Maybe if you define the market as ‘top-end glossy trendy high-design fashion accessory MP3 players that agitate the bile of mrrealtime’ they are approaching a monopoly. However that entire market is coming under threat from Sony Ericsson and Nokia with their “$800 3G broadband cell phone with integrated mobile TV and MP3 downloader/player\*” devices. Which have the added bonus of being able to play selected MP3’s REALLY FUCKING LOUDLY whenever someone sends a text, or calls, or the phone detects that the level of ambient noise is below 78db, or whenever the owner is scheduled to have a bowel movement, or some other random dickhead-defined irrelevancy occurs. \*4 hours usage with optional 19Gw/Day external battery semi-trailer [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-pitting-the-ipod/349246.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-pitting-the-ipod/349246.md?page=7)