IBM Designed the iPod Before Apple Did

[Asher]

Originally posted by Agathon
Yeah, but it's too expensive for something I don't really care about. I find it difficult to listen to music while walking, due to environmental noise. And don't start on those noise cancellation headphones, I think they make the music sound flat.

Besides, the wife wanted an imac, and she was paying for half of it.

So really you were stupid enough not to pay $50 more for Firewire?

[Agathon]

Just shows how useless and inflexible IBM is.

[Agathon]

So really you were stupid enough not to pay $50 more for Firewire?

It was a bit more than that.

And this was back in 2000 where the only use for firewire was digital video and removable hard drives.

I don't want or need a removal hard drive and I will never buy a digital video camera or any other kind of video camera for that matter. Video cameras are used to molest and annoy people at what are otherwise festive occasions, or to make films of people's children eating dirt or performing tricks like they were trained animals. I have no desire to do any of these things.

I'll probably buy an ipod with my next mac, but I already have a perfectly good discman that does the job well enough for now.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Agathon
Just shows how useless and inflexible IBM is.

They could do it, it's just stupid to.

Why go for a $500M market with 15 companies competing when you could go for a $8B market with 2 or 3?

[FlameFlash]

Originally posted by Asher
The iPod is a ripoff. Even at the new, lower price. It's technically inferior to most other players on the market in just about every way.

The people I see buying iPods are either Apple fans (makes sense), or otherwise complete airheads. The kind of people who wear GAP T-shirts or the now-popular "Triple-SOUL" T-shirts. The kind of people who rice up their Civics and get "BBS" stickers on their windshields even though they don't have BBS wheels. The kind of people who'll buy a Cadillac Escalade.

They make me cringe.

Ah. The people with more money than brains, eh?

I know my first MP3 player will be integrated into my next PDA with simply a FM transmitter attached to it, that's the only place I can see wanting music on the go anyway since I have a car that doesn't have a CD player: while traveling. Oh, and look, the PDA also can do everything the iPod can, but better. (Thinking about a CompactPC or whatever the Windows OS PDAs are called).

Originally posted by Agathon

Besides, the wife wanted an imac, and she was paying for half of it.

Hang on, hang on! While this majorly thread-jacks, you and your wife don't pool your money for the common good of your family but keep everything seperate, or did I just read WAY too much into that statement?

[Agathon]

Why not go for both?

If Apple, a computer company run by ex-hippies can spin itself into a music business, then why not? It's making them money.

But this is just more of your tiresome Apple bashing. Of course it is a conspiracy and only artsy weirdos want to buy ipods (although Shaquille O'Neal strikes me as on the periphery of the artsy weirdo scene).

I saw an elderly gentleman in a suit using an ipod the other day. Perhaps he is a beatnik in his spare time.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Agathon
Why not go for both?

If Apple, a computer company run by ex-hippies can spin itself into a music business, then why not? It's making them money.

It's making them piddly money.

For IBM to enter that market they'd need to invest money and resources. IBM's investing TONS of money entering new market, but not tiny consumer electronics markets -- things like lifesciences, theoretical physics, etc. Huge markets for huge multinational corporations and governments.

So that's why they don't go for both. A company's assets and resources are fixed, and the shareholders only want so much money going to expansion at any given time...

[Asher]

Originally posted by Agathon
But this is just more of your tiresome Apple bashing. Of course it is a conspiracy and only artsy weirdos want to buy ipods (although Shaquille O'Neal strikes me as on the periphery of the artsy weirdo scene).

No, people with more money than sense buy them.

Artsy weirdos make up a huge portion of that. But stupid celebs (he's a frickin' basketball player) are part of it, too.

[Agathon]

Ah I see, you have to be a complete idiot to buy anything that you don't like.

Why do you care so much about what other people buy anyway? I'm quite happy for people to suffer under Microsoft's products if they buy them. That's their problem - just the same as if they buy Britney Spears albums or whatever it is you teenyboppers love now.

The substance of this thread is that, for whatever reason, Apple got the jump on the portable music player market.

Skippedy-doo-da. Who cares?

[Asher]

I'm a nice person, I care.

I'm trying to help you, but the Force is strong within you.

[Agathon]

I'm a nice person, I care.

So, let me get this straight.

You want to save people from using what you consider to be crappy, bug ridden products and get them to use Microsoft products (particularly Windows) instead?

****ing Hell...

[Asher]

Who said anything about bug ridden?

I'm telling people not to waste their money on Apple. They don't make a single thing reasonably priced.

Windows is fine, I see a lot less problems daily on Windows trhan I do on OS X.

And they charge $99 for an upgrade every 4-5 years, Apple charges $129 yearly.

If Mac users could do math, they'd figure it out.

[Agathon]

And they charge $99 for an upgrade every 4-5 years, Apple charges $129 yearly

Win 95, Win 98, Win 98SE, WinME, WinXP

Longhorn isn't out only because they can't get it to work properly. That's why you are all waiting.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Agathon
Win 95, Win 98, Win 98SE, WinME, WinXP

Longhorn isn't out only because they can't get it to work properly. That's why you are all waiting.

Win98SE was Windows 98 with bundled patches that you could download for free -- it was a refresh, if you had Win98 and patched for free from the internet you effectively had Win98SE.

That was really Win95 -> Win98 -> WinMe over a 5 year period, but no one really updated to WinMe.

It doesn't matter anyway.

2001: Windows XP
2005/2006: Windows Longhorn

Get it?

[Q Classic]

But this is just more of your tiresome Apple bashing. Of course it is a conspiracy and only artsy weirdos want to buy ipods (although Shaquille O'Neal strikes me as on the periphery of the artsy weirdo scene).

I saw an elderly gentleman in a suit using an ipod the other day. Perhaps he is a beatnik in his spare time.

neither of them seem to me to be to be the type who honestly appreciate good technology and know much about computing and digital convergence, let alone other random and useful gadgets.