domarch's Profile

What? My 3g ipod software was updated pretty regularly until the technology in the new ipods went beyond what my hardware could handle (color, video, etc). It can never be upgrade to the software of the touch or the iPhone - they run OSX. Am I bummed about this? No. It does what I need, it works great (even if the battery is showing it's age). And in terms of music formats, it plays the majority of what's available out there except for...Microsoft's proprietary DRM. It works with Amazon's MP3 store. It works with MP3.com. It works with Windows. Where's the lockdown? And how is the Zune - which adds DRM to a song when you share it and doesn't work on a Mac - a more open platform? Do you have some kind of inside info that Apple's not going to update the calendar? Or at some point allow developers to create programs for the touch and the iPhone? Rumors are that's coming pretty soon so your argument may become irrelevant sooner rather than later. Will apple want to maintain some kind of control over what goes on their equipment? Probably. The user experience is their primary focus and buggy programs that crash the hardware are going to drive the user nuts. Most general, not tech head, users I know don't care about adding a lot of esoteric software to their phones or computers. The latest poll on iLounge showed the majority of iPod users use their iPods for....music only! Imagine that. They're the people who drive the $$. And let's talk convergence for a second. I know and work with a lot of people who use blackberrys. You know what? The majority of them carry a cel phone as well. Let me repeat that - the majority of them DON'T USE THE BLACKBERRY AS A PHONE. I have asked about this, and the answer I get back is: when I'm on the phone and have to check my e-mail or discuss an e-mail, the blackberry is usesless. That's the problem with the converged device...unless it's not a business tool, but a consumer gadget. Which is what Apple's putting together. It's a different paradigm. This is a pretty lousy article - all supposition and no real facts.

I think your 3 year old is watching way too much TV

I was under the impression that the one of the keys to the unified "Apple Experience" is the tight control between hardware and operating system, which you don't have with windoze based machines. It was my understanding that that lack of control can cause some of the glitches and crashes that occur in Windows. Whether that's true or not, it does seem to me that that philosophy is a viable reason for Apple not wanting to let OS X run on other boxes. If problems occur due to some variation in the design of the motherboard, it will reflect poorly on the OS and thus poorly on Apple. I'm also curious as to why everyone assumes that the chips that will be running OSX will be the same Intel silicon that's inside a Dell box? It's never made much sense to me....

I don't see how you can disagree that Apple "gets it". Ease of use can certainly be seen as an essential part of innovation and an essential part of what Apple "gets". It seems to me that other mp3 players didn't take off simply because it was too difficult to manage the music and therefore too difficult to use the product. The biggest reason the iPod is successful (as breuklen pointed out) is iTunes. It's a no brainer for the typical user to get their music from their computer onto the player. Couple that with a very simple navigation system and industrial design that ties the whole thing together and you have a pretty innovative product. When Apple ported it over to Windows, it proved that point - the iPod just took over the market. The sales aren't the issue (as has been noted), but the adoption by millions of people is. As I recall when the first Mac came out there was that similar kind of feeling. It was so easy to use that the not-so-computer-literate were able to take advantage of what a computer could offer, right out of the box. Xerox didn't "get it" because they couldn't get it out to the user, and Microsoft took forever to catch on as well. Of course what helped Microsoft finally take over was the huge installed base of DOS based computers that business had already invested in(you can see various articles on this at daringfireball.net). You can't tell me, that it was the "innovations" of Windows 3.1 that people were flocking to! Yes, MS catches up, and innovates in their own right. But where Apple excels, and truly innovates, is making something easier for the average person to use. And IMO, they have a much better track record of creating products that get that right the first time.