A Decade of Apple Oddities 204
harrymcc writes "It's been exactly ten years since Steve Jobs stood on a stage at Apple and explained to a surprisingly small group of journalists that his company was going to make a music player and call it iPod. Technologizer's Benj Edwards celebrated the iPod's first decade by rounding up a dozen iPod-related oddities, including the iPod-powered tooth cleaner, an iPod mount for a semi-automatic sniper system, and the classic 1958 Dieter Rams Braun FM radio that may have helped inspire it all."
Yo Dawg (Score:2)
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as for TFA whomever came up with a camera dock so you can work your iPod from across the room? A little too much time on their hands methinks.
I think the prize for 'gratuitous use of an iPod when there's more appropriate technology' must go the Ion Torrent DNA sequencer, a $50,000 piece of lab equipment that incorporates a dock for an iPod Touch (which supposedly runs a status monitoring app, though the machine itself has a perfectly good screen for this):
http://www.slashgear.com/ion-torrent-personal-genome-machine-has-an-ipod-dock-23120950/ [slashgear.com]
But from a 2011 perspective, maybe the most curious artefact in iPod history is the HP-branded version, whi
Why so much Apple crap here lately? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why has there been so much Apple crap here on Slashdot lately? I'm not saying that there shouldn't be a story when Apple does something of a technical nature that's notable, but most of these stories are totally irrelevant and very boring.
There's nothing special about iPods. They're a digital music player, just like every other digital music player out there. People have modded them for many years now, and many of these same "hacks" were done using portable CD and tape players well before then. None of this is remotely interesting, even to those of us who enjoy such hacks.
Can we please have some interesting content here for once? Something not having to do with Apple or American politics, perhaps? Maybe something involving science or math in some way, or maybe even engineering?
The difference is in the details (Score:2)
There's nothing special about iPods. They're a digital music player, just like every other digital music player out there
That's like saying a Ferrari is nothing special. It's a car just like every other car out there.
Fact is that there are differences and the differences matter greatly. The differences in Apple's products and competing products may not matter to you or me but they do matter. If you don't grasp this then you will never understand why Apple sells so many of them.
Re:The difference is in the details (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, the Ferrari is special: it's an overpriced, unreliable, impractical car for guys who feel inadequate. Kind of like Apple products.
Re:The difference is in the details (Score:5, Insightful)
As a basic transportation appliance for moving a standard family unit with accessories and groceries from point A to point B, the Ferrari sucks ass. The Corolla provides 1000x the value for that purpose.
For recreational driving, having fun, going fast, showing off, the Ferrari wins. Some people will never appreciate any of those things and struggle to rationalize why anyone would ever waste money on a sports car. Finding nothing in their own psychological inventory, they project feelings and motivations familiar to them, such as issues of "inadequacy", particularly sexual inadequacy. ("He has that fancy car to compensate for his small penis, ha ha!") Such projections reveal at best a lack of experience, perspective, and imagination; at worst a small-minded pettiness brought on by envy that someone else would have the means to waste so much money on such a frivolity.
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As a basic transportation appliance for moving a standard family unit with accessories and groceries from point A to point B, the Ferrari sucks ass. The Corolla provides 1000x the value for that purpose.
For recreational driving, having fun, going fast, showing off, the Ferrari wins. Some people will never appreciate any of those things and struggle to rationalize why anyone would ever waste money on a sports car. Finding nothing in their own psychological inventory, they project feelings and motivations familiar to them, such as issues of "inadequacy", particularly sexual inadequacy. ("He has that fancy car to compensate for his small penis, ha ha!") Such projections reveal at best a lack of experience, perspective, and imagination; at worst a small-minded pettiness brought on by envy that someone else would have the means to waste so much money on such a frivolity.
If I want to have "fun" driving, I go and play with dodgem cars or go-karts. I don't spend $100k on a toy car. In any case you can't have the sort of fun driving that you need a Ferrari for without either breaking the law or going to a race track.
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It must leave some product imprint - like growing up with an Apple SE/30 or G3 or iMac...
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That virtually every guy feels inadequate.
Just because you feel inadequate doesn't mean everyone else does. Guy's like Ferraris because they are cool, fast and amazingly fun to drive. (Yes I have driven a Ferrari though I've never owned one)
But over 10 million people have bought a Camry. There must be something right about it.
There is. It's fairly practical and reliable and relatively cheap basic transportation. That doesn't mean people won't buy something better when they have the means or that there aren't better cars available. A BMW 3 Series is a better car than a Camry but it also is more expensive. There is a reason it is
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The BMW is not more comfortable, nor more reliable, nor lower cost, nor easier to use. It doesn't drive anywhere where the Camry doesn't drive, and it costs more. It will be in the shop more and its repairs will cost a lot more. The few things where it might technically be argued to be better (handling, top speed) don't matter on US roads and highways.
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There's nothing special about iPods. They're a digital music player, just like every other digital music player out there. People have modded them for many years now, and many of these same "hacks" were done using portable CD and tape players well before then. None of this is remotely interesting, even to those of us who enjoy such hacks.
Unless you take off your anti-apple blinders for a minute and realize that the ipod changed the digital landscape. To say that they're a digital music player is backwards: the rest of the world would say digital music players are bad ipods.
Like them or hate them, apple and the ipod revolutionized the tech world.
iPods were NOT the first pocket MP3 players! (Score:5, Insightful)
To say that they're a digital music player is backwards: the rest of the world would say digital music players are bad ipods
I owned a Diamond Rio & Creative Nomad, 2 years before the iPod was ever sold. I enjoyed them more than the first iPod, and I still would take the music management software that I had to use for them over any version of iTunes.
I say this as a iPhone owner. I don't hate Apple, but I hate the incorrect praise they get for inventing things they did not invent.
Re:iPods were NOT the first pocket MP3 players! (Score:4, Insightful)
He didn't say they were the first pocket DMP. He's saying that people judge DMPs by the iPod. Much in the same way that handheld tablet devices are judged by the iPad, and smartphones are judged by the iPhone.
This is, for better or worse, very hard to argue. Again, none of these were at all first. But let's think about what came before:
- The iPod. Previous devices were bulky, slow, complex - well, Nomads. Existing DMPs had slow transfer rates and were complicated. I don't know a single non-nerd who had one. How have DMPs looked since the iPod's release?
- The iPhone. Previous devices were bulky, slow, complex - well, WinPhones. They worked, but they sucked. Existing smartphones were really set up for mice, and I don't know a single non-business user who had one. How have smartphones looked since the iPhone's release?
- The iPad. Previous devices were bulky, slow, complex - well, Tablet PCs. They worked, but they sucked. Existing tablets were just Windows laptops with a stylus and perhaps a note-taking program and handwriting recognition. I don't know a single non-nerd non-business person who had one. How have tablets looked since the iPad's release?
I could say the same thing about the Macintosh and the LaserWriter. Nobody who has anything interesting to say has ever said that Apple did any of this first, but they might as well have since nobody had one before Apple came along and made them viable products. And they've been imitated on each one, to the point where you can't find a "classic" Tablet PC anywhere, or a "classic" WinMo smartphone, or a "classic" Nomad-esque device.
And this is why Apple kicks everyone's ass. I know I've been wrong on every front - the iPhone (2G only?? No apps?) and the iPad (I already have a laptop and a phone) were huge successes despite my conviction that it was impossible. Apparently, most of these other companies are filled with people like me - and not the people who buy millions of these things because they fill a need.
A well-written counter-point on /.! (Score:2)
Well done, I think you've explained it perfectly. I owned several WinMo phones before the iPhone, and I also couldn't get what the big deal was: "Music on my phone? Been doing that for years! Besides, that stupid thing can't multi-task like my phone".
As you say, though, no one else got it until Apple did it. That is precisely what Steve Jobs & others at Apple should get credit for. Not as inventors, but as translators of technology to the masses.
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Correct on all counts but the Tablet PC. Those were never meant for the consumer market, but rather education and business... and there's still no "app for that", what with suitable ARM hardware and software combos still completely absent from the market. The HTC Flyer and Thinkpad Tablet are a step in the right direction with their N-Trig pens, but have a ton of catching up to do. I don't think we'll see a worthwhile contendor until Windows 8 tablets with digitizer pens and a ported version of MS OneNote a
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iPod - was not the first mp3 player - Poor battery life, fiddly, breaks easily - My Creative touch has an equally simple interface and has outlasted many friends iPods
iPhone - was not the first smartphone, or touchscreen smartphone, or multitouch smartphone, Is fragile, and a "walled garden"
iPad - Was not the first Tablet PC - Never wanted one, have no use for one - A gadget looking for a purpose, all the faults or a laptop, combined with all the faults of a smartphone ...
Apple are good at marketing, the
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I think it's the difference between invention and innovation.
What Apple under Steve Jobs excelled at, was to get brilliant engineers make an appliance instead of just a piece of technology, sometimes of their own invention, often by combining existing inventions in a new way.
The other thing is a complete believe in your own ideas and willing to bet big on them in advertising and production.
Nobody claimed Apple invented the MP3 player (Score:3)
I say this as a iPhone owner. I don't hate Apple, but I hate the incorrect praise they get for inventing things they did not invent.
Nobody with a clue is saying Apple invented the digital music player. Even Apple never claimed to be first. Apple created their own because the ones that were on the market pretty much sucked and they saw an opportunity. And they were right, the competition did pretty much suck.
What Apple did bring to the party in the case of the iPod was a complete system. There were devices that were good and there was software that was acceptable but NOBODY made a good version of both and made them work together. Fu
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I think the other thing they brought to tech was a non-tech perspective.
Apple starts with the perceived optimal user experience and works backwards to apply technology.
HP, Dell, et al start with a feature list which defines the user experience by default.
This approach worked well when tech was (mostly) the realm of technologists.
Apple was ahead of its time, which cost it dearly in marketshare.
Now the world has caught up to Apple (so to speak) which is how they have achieved 30+% growth selling relatively ex
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You seriously would take manual music management over more automation? The Rio held at most 12 songs at a time. Unless you like hearing the same 12 songs over and over you had to switch out music manually. For me that might be multiple times a day. A song list for work, then a separate one for workouts, and then another for relaxing and reading. Having to do that manually sucked.
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I had a Rio and a Nomad as well. To be honest, I don't know why you'd remember either fondly. The Rio had a whopping 64 megabytes of storage and upgrades were sillingly expensive. You could put a whopping one whole CD on it. That device actually got me to see if I could learn to love 64kbit mp3's. The Nomad was much bigger in terms of storage... and it was the size of a CD player.
Speaking as an owner of both products, the iPod (+iTunes) was a BFD. I know Apple fanboys are obnoxious, but let's not comba
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No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.
That never gets old.
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Re:Why so much Apple crap here lately? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not so. The iTunes Music Store didn't exist until a year and a half after the first iPod became available. It was also initially compatible only with Macs, which made up only about 5% of the market at the time, further limiting market penetration.
IMHO the revolutionary part was the iPod combining a number of critical elements:
- the smallest HDD (physically; by itself the 5GB drive was the price of an iPod)
- Firewire for fast transfers and charging (cheaper players were agonizingly slow USB1, and required separate charging cable or bulky batteries)
- the iTunes playlist sync, rather than manual file management (which some people still prefer to this day). So you didn't have to manage files in two locations (computer, and what you wanted on your player)
- the scrollwheel interface that let you navigate through hundreds of titles efficiently, compared to arrow keys or typing songs to find them.
Looking at the original /. discussion on it, it's especially hilarious to see a comment about how he didn't like HDD or even Flash-based mp3 players, because CD-mp3 players were cheaper and readily available. That line of thinking is what allowed Apple to steamroll over every other player at the time.
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I agree whole heartedly. Slashdot needs to stop shilling Apple.
Re:Why so much Apple crap here lately? (Score:5, Insightful)
All the articles are free advertising for Apple. The company doesn't care whether the readers and posters are for or against their products. Just so long as you talk about them and spread the name.
Nor is it limited to SlashDot -- the article titles and summaries are broadcast to social media sites as well, pushing the Apple name into the public eye without comment.
It's disgraceful.
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So uncheck Apple filter. :P
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Why has there been so much Apple crap here on Slashdot lately?
Are you joking? Seriously? A news site for nerds with a typical focus on the tech industry and you're surprised Apple gets a lot of play? Really?
Are you upset Android/Google gets a lot of play as well? Or is this just a one-sided, idiotic complaint about Apple?
Seriously, complaining about the quantity of Apple stories on Slashdot is just daft.
Re:Why so much Apple crap here lately? (Score:4)
Why has there been so much Apple crap here on Slashdot lately? I
Steve Jobs just died. In order to become a saint he must go through a process of beautification. Basically Apple zealots have to stand around and discuss how he invented EVERYTHING from air to slice bread and how it is only through the miracle of his genius that we all basically are allowed to live. Anything positive he had anything to do with must be exaggerated. Anything negative must be minimized or excused.
Meanwhile a true gentleman and pioneer of modern computing like Ritchie dies and no one outside of nerddom even know who he is. Welcome to a world dominated by idiots and fame based on monkey sociology. Yes even nerds can be idiots.
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I think one of the things that make Steve Jobs special, is his rock star status. The only other nerd/geek type person who achieved that I can think of is Einstein.
Even Bill Gates never really got out of the Nerd-corner.
There are many great pioneers of modern science and technology, but very few of the general public could name them.
I think a lot of the hatred is because a lot of people here are very socially awkward themselves, but secretly are jealous about someone with a tech backgroud escaping the nerd-c
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Why did you post your crap reply to this thread? I'm not saying that you don't have the right to an opinion on anything posted on slashdot, but your replies are totally irrelevant and boring.
There's nothing special about your reply. It's a dumb comment, just like every other comment out there on slashdot. People have modded you up, and many of these "hacks" like you have nothing remotely interesting to say, even to us on slashdot who enjoy such "hacks" from time to time.
Can we please have some interestin
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You say Apple is "brainwashing" everyone about OS X? Tell me, when did you last see it advertised on TV? How about in print? On the web?
Apple started out in the hardware business then, after a brief and fruitless foray into software, they started selling music and video. Only recently have they made a serious and successful attempt at selling software, and they mainly sell other people's wares.
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You say Apple is "brainwashing" everyone about OS X? Tell me, when did you last see it advertised on TV? How about in print? On the web?
I think John Hodgman and Justin Long might like to have a few words with you regarding the last time they advertised Macs and OS X. [wikipedia.org]
And before you embarrass yourself, yes, that was both on TV and on animated banners on the web (I can't confirm seeing print ads). And yes, they DID mention it by "OS X" more than a few times during that campaign.
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It's a very good OS, and so is iOS. So is Linux. Windows is finally pretty good too. I like OSs and I admire the engineers who make them better all the time. Good stuff, impressive.
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Yes, you are super-awesome and way too independent-minded to like what the sheeple buy from Crapple, right? Please, continue standing cross-armed in the corner, grumbling at everyone else, independent-minded Slashdot poster.
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Haters gonna hate.
They hate that Apple doesn't suck up to their particular hardware/software/user interface fetish.
They hate Apple because Apple doesn't care a fat rat's ass what they think or say about Apple.
They hate Apple because when they got to the opening day of their local Apple Store, the Store had run out of free T-shirts, which meant that they HAD to do laundry and not put it off another few days.
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Cocoa is pretty special, TTYTT. Good set of APIs.
Re:Why so much Apple crap here lately? (Score:5, Funny)
and more efficiency than any other OS.
[citation needed]
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"There's nothing special about iPods. They're a digital music player, just like every other digital music player out there..." ...except it's the single best selling line of personal music players of all time, having sold more units that all competitors combined.
And it's so sad the haters can't put things into perspective. We're talking 2001, not 2011. At that time it wasn't just like every other digital music player, just like the original iPhone wasn't like the other mobile phones out there. So sad for a tech site.
Re:Why so much Apple crap here lately? (Score:4, Insightful)
You're right, in 2001, the iPod was extremely expensive, ugly and wouldn't work with anything other than a Mac. And as for the iPhone, it wasn't going up against Windows phones, it was going up against RIM's Blackberry, who knows what would have happened had RIM not been criminally incompetent.
2001 (Score:2)
You're right, in 2001, the iPod was extremely expensive, ugly and wouldn't work with anything other than a Mac
Ugly is a matter of opinion and taste and based on sales and design awards I'd say your opinion is in the minority on that one but if you think it is ugly that's up to you. The original iPod was pricier than some (though not all) of the competition but it also worked better than most of the competition. Apple seems to have been the first to realize that it wasn't just the device but also the software to manage the music collection as well that mattered. They provided the most complete product, not just a
Re:Opinion and taste (Score:3)
Apple is where it is because they did the visual interface work that geeks traditionally couldn't be bothered with. I'm seeing lot of anti-Apple articles, but they're based on patent actions, or problems with walled gardens, or the Apple-fans, etc. I'm not seeing many articles laughing at the actual design of iPhones. They deserved to be where they are, compared for example with Microsoft's fumbling on the non-gamer entertainment side.
Is it just me but are we riding the "maturity curve" of tech, away from
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In 2001, most mp3 players were crap. I've got a Creative Zen as an example: the UI is really hideous. I mean, which other music player has been controlled by letting the manufacturer take a shit on the consumer's face? And where's the logic in this? Still, to skip to the next track, you need to let Creative shit. That's just how it works. Not quite logical, not quite intuitive, but it worked. Yes, it was unpleasant!
Now, I wouldn't claim that Apple was the first corporation with the idea that Hey, instead of
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It's worth noting that original iPhone didn't do very well either, despite the hype.
They only shifted 6 million units before the 3G came out, even Nokia's N95 sold double that in the same period.
That 6 million figure is from Apple's own financial reports too btw.
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My memory says USB 2.0 was finalized as a specification in early 2001 but not agreed to be adopted by USB implementors until late 2001 which was after the iPod came out. This means when the iPod came out no one had USB 2.0 yet. Again selective memory on your part. Of course if you bothered to look this up, you would know that.
Apple made the decision not to include an FM player but as an addon. Of course if they did, people like you would spin that as Apple being greedy and locking out 3rd party accessor
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"There's nothing special about iPods. They're a digital music player, just like every other digital music player out there..." ...except it's the single best selling line of personal music players of all time, having sold more units that all competitors combined.
So? McDonalds probably sell more burgers each day worldwide than anyone else. That doesn't mean they sell the world's best burgers.
Fuck apple. (Score:5, Insightful)
I understand that being in the eyeball-grabbing game, a site must post an avalanche of apple related stories especially around new or upcoming marketing drives, so I'll just state that I wish it wasn't so, that the site wasn't in the eyeball-grabbing game, but in the game of building a quality community. And I'll just leave a friendly reminder:
Take heed! Apple is evil. They are out to lock you in and to destroy your freedom.
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Actually I agree that they are not evil. I don't believe in evil. I believe acts can be good or bad. Vendor lock-in and destruction of freedom are bad things. Apple is just a legal entity for maximizing profit. It's the whole god damn system that is out of order.
People shouldn't give money to entities (albeit non-living and amoral) that do bad things like destroying freedom.
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Are Apple ninjas forcing you to buy Apple hardware?
If yes, you're a loony.
If no, WTF are you complaining about?
If you don't want an iPod, buy a Zune.
Oh, wait...
Right.
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Look. Marketing works. Otherwise it wouldn't be done. Money is power. Companies like apple can use their power of marketing and power of money to shape the world as they see fit. They are shaping the world into one of for example vendor lock-in and closed source software.
My idea of freedom is in part constructed by a notion of there being access to source code. When a hugely more influential entity than myself is shaping the world into one where people are influenced by marketing to give money to and buy pr
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Look. Marketing works. Otherwise it wouldn't be done. Money is power. Companies like apple can use their power of marketing and power of money to shape the world as they see fit. They are shaping the world into one of for example vendor lock-in and closed source software.
My idea of freedom is in part constructed by a notion of there being access to source code.
You realize that although Android is Open Source, all the services that manufacturers must include if they want to use the name Android (and have a hope of a carrier to sell them) are not open, right?
I also have high doubt anyone that owns an Android Phone, regardless how big of an open source advocate they are, have only open source apps installed (mainly due to the notes on things like Google Maps alone not being open source.)
It's not like you can download the entire Google Maps source code tomorow and se
Re:Fuck apple. (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure they want to "sell" you things. That's why, when you already bought one of their products, they make sure you need to buy a new one now and then, through forced obsolescence. You think Siri is nifty? It's only a software update, and would work perfectly on your iPhone4 if Apple didn't want your money so bad. When you buy from Apple, you buy an expensive subscription to new hardware.
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What avalanche? A whopping two out of the last 20 stories have been about Apple--and one of them was really about an Android app mimicking an iPhone feature. The company that Slashdot posts most about is Google.
Since Android came out, Slashdot has become a ridiculously over-the-top haven for emotional Apple-haters. This place has really jumped the shark.
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Where exactly have you seen Google mentioned in GP's post?
You know what? Fuck that either/or mentality.
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Yea fuck Apple! We should all use Google products, cause you know they're honest and kind. Hooray for angry nerd stereotypes.
You are Apple's customer, you are Google's product.
Nah. Fuck google too. We need a free as in freedom search as well.
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We have freedom in search, I switched to duckduckgo [duckduckgo.com] a while back and I rarely if ever feel the need to use Google's search engine.
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That's a good start. For immediate privacy concerns, at least. What would be needed going forward is a search where users are in control of the algorithms and the infrastructure. A non-profit community project. It would be huge of course, but pretty big community projects like openstreetmap and wikipedia suggest it shouldn't be impossible in the future when the magic of bringing masses of people together that the internet does has been working a bit longer...
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>Fine. I'll buy all my gadgets from you instead. May I see your brochure?
My gadgets are widely available on ebay in all shapes and sizes. I don't know where I put all of my brochures. Here's one of them: https://sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]
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I don't need the karma
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Anyone who thinks buying an MP3 player is going to "destroy your freedom" really needs to go outside for a while and gain some perspective.
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This right here!
He's dead, can we move on? (Score:4, Insightful)
He's dead, can we move on? (Score:2)
Yeah slashdot! Stop beating a dead horse.
10 years?! (Score:2, Redundant)
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Too bad they never made any sequels. [xkcd [xkcd.com]]
garbage (Score:2)
I just cannot imagine the amount of garbage which that iPod docking connector has caused.
And every time I walk into an electronics store, I'm thinking: what a waste.
When Apple stopped being a computer company. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's been exactly ten years since Steve Jobs stood on a stage at Apple and explained to a surprisingly small group of journalists that his company was going to make a music player and call it iPod.
In 'B' school (yeah yeah, heard it all before) we had a Harvard test case about the PC industry which included Apple Computer, Inc. To make a long and boring story short, the test case basically left Apple for dead saying it had no chance competing in the PC industry because of the slim margins (they all do), small market share, etc ....I mentioned that Apple has other things going on and they'll keep kicking. The prof kicked in "as a computer maker, No.They should liquidate" But before I could finish my point - pointing out the iPod and the change in direction of the company - some fangirl kicked in about the wonders of Macs and blah blah blah blah ....
I was trying to make a point that Apple was no longer a PC Computer maker and they were a personal device maker. And Apple Computer eventually changed their name to Apple, Inc.to reflect that change in direction.;
I learned two things in my MBA cap class: I just wasted 2+ years on a shit degree. Apple fans can be such conformists.
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I was trying to make a point that Apple was no longer a PC Computer maker and they were a personal device maker. And Apple Computer eventually changed their name to Apple, Inc.to reflect that change in direction.;
While I think you're right, the iPod's success made it central to Apple financially and as a brand, you have to keep in mind that Apple always was, as you put it, a "personal device maker". Apple has always been about selling consumer gadgets, and viewed computing from that perspective. Jobs very, very consciously tried to emulate Sony [cultofmac.com]. Take another look at the iMacs, the NeXT cube, or the Newton with this in mind...Jobs was applying the Walkman/Discman/VCR mindset to the personal computer.
Now, when you
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They are still a computer company. They're just smart enough to realize that most people don't care that they're using a computer.
While you're technically right (oh the pun), that's not the point when looking at it from a business perspective. MBAs don't care if there's a computer in your walkman, just like mainstream society.
Stick your slides up your backside (Score:5, Insightful)
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Seriously 13 slides and zero good content even on the first page. I'm not clicking through that shit.
This is why most of us don't bother reading the articles...
Just saying.
13 slides? (Score:2)
TL/DS (too long, didn't slideshow).
Steve has been dead nearly a month now. (Score:2)
I wonder when all these Apple stories "remembering the good ol' days" will finally stop getting flooded into every major news site.
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The news outlets will continue to the Apple news cycle until the election next year. After all, there isn't anything interesting going on in the world... It's not like we aren't at war or anything.... Hey wait....
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Who said anything about being an Apple hater? The world really is just black and white with you guys isn't it?
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You guys absolutely can't stand that this company has so much influence on the tech industry. Too bad.
Either that or we really just don't care. Woohoo, a silly gadget turns 10! Who cares?
I'm sick of the "you hate Apple, since you don't worship Apple" shit, though. I have exactly as much loyalty towards Apple as Apple has towards me. Actually, I have exactly as much loyalty towards Apple as I do any company. None. I don't care. If Apple makes a product that meets my needs more than anything else with a comparable price, then I'll buy their product. If, when it breaks, there is something better made b
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Woohoo, a silly gadget turns 10! Who cares?
Hard to believe isn't it? Some people even take the trouble to write a 500-word opinion about it in a forum. Silly!
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I see your point... but...
Normal human beings commonly experience nostalgia for things that have brought them positive feelings.
This is true. But feeling nostalgia over something only ten years old, that is still produced, is equally odd. Can you really be nostalgic for something less than a generation old? I suppose you can, but its still... I mean people are nostalgic, generally, for things that were around when they were kids. But most people who were kids when it came out (who had really generous parents), are now young adults at best. Can you really have nostalgia when your in your early 20s?
Als
Why is everything iPod compatible? (Score:2)
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If you don't mind buying from the other of Slashdot's Great Satans, Sony ICFC707 Clock Radio has an aux input, large time display and no Apple dock. I don't know about great speakers though.
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Why is everything iPod compatible? Because basically everyone owns an iPod. And because there are so many iPod owners out there, people build devices compatible with the iPod because that's a really good way to make money. It doesn't take much to realise that it's profitable to produce products for a large market that's already proven that it has disposable income to spare.
The iPod still owns something like 3/4 of the portable MP3 player market and has sold millions and millions of units. Surely you can see
Leave us not forget that which came BEFORE iTunes (Score:2)
SoundJam MP. [skitch.com]
SoundJam MP was, perhaps, the first genuinely useful MP3 application for the Macintosh. One could easily rip CDs to MP3, mix songs as one wished in playlists, and then burn them to CD.
Rip. Mix. Burn. Where have we heard that before?
It even had support built in for the few MP3 players of the time.
Review of an early incarnation of SoundJam. [macworld.com]
Review of the final revision. [atpm.com]
And, the ObWiki entry [wikipedia.org].
MacLife history of iTunes [maclife.com].
Without SoundJam MP. there would likely have been no iTunes, as Apple bou
FYI regarding NSFW (Score:2)
Not everything Apple did was golden .... (Score:2)
I can think of at least three Apple products that were Lemons (or Edsels) as far as sales went. ... eventually)
1: The Apple III computer.
2: The Lisa computer (though this was the prototype for the Mac that WAS well received
3:: The Newton PDA (perhaps it was just ahead of it's time)
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Why? He wasn't reviewing what it was to become. Seems a fair opinion giving the time and context.
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The fact remains, however, that the iPod was lame and continued to be lame until it got wireless. And it didn't have much storage space. Also, it was DRM-laden back then, too.
It remains the case that Apple's business plan floats along on a big fat gasbag of marketing hype. Mr. Jobs flirted with new-age cult crap in his youth, and learned how to do that stuff pretty effectively. To the degree, even, that True Believers will write this comment off as coming from a Hater.
Apple's Macintosh, the basis of eve
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Also, it was DRM-laden back then, too.
Actually, it wasn't, since the iTunes Music Store opened in 2003, while the first iPod came out in 2001. The DRM was added in an update (along with support for AAC).
Unless you count the lack of support for copying back the music from the iPod as DRM. There were many programs out there that could do it, though (the files were in a hidden directory on the iPod's disk).
Re:And Slashdots Founder's Reivew fn the iPod (Score:5, Informative)
No, the fact does not remain. It had 5Gig - a massive amount for a pocketable player at the time. Forget CD player-sized Nomads, the correct comparison is to pocket-sized Diamond Rios and similar. They had 64Mb and 128Mb typically (my memory fails, there might have been 256Mb ones as well by then).
DRM-laden? Rip, Mix Burn was the advert - you ripped your own CDs, DRM-free. The iTunes Music Store came later than the iPod.
It's perfectly possible not to like them without falsely belittling them.
Cheers,
Ian
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The fact remains, however, that the iPod was lame and continued to be lame until it got wireless.
Sigh. Yes we all wanted wireless back in 2001 and you ding Apple for somehow not incorporating it when really no one did because it wasn't practical for any MP3 player.
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"I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders." - Michael Dell on the future of Apple
"I think there is a world market for about five computers." - Thomas J. Watson, chairman of IBM
"We don't think that's what people want. A movie takes forever to download." - Steve Jobs on the possibility of an iTunes Movie Store
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Jobs made a similarly dumb comment about Netbooks too for what it's worth. They really missed the boat on that one, Apple could've taken that market with ease.
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That quote will go down in infamy as one of the most lamebrained and utterly wrong in history.
Followed by RIM's reaction to the initial iPhone announcement: They refused to believe it was real. [electronista.com]
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Actually, that's pretty common, especially for individuals who are that rich. It's tough to buy investments with that amount of money without having to deal with serious SEC red tape. It wouldn't surprise me if a 3rd party was doing most of the investing for him.
That being said, if he owns Apple stock and is hyping it, he could be in hot water about promoting it which is why I rather doubt that he knowingly owns any shares.