What, no thread yet on Apple's latest monstrocities?

[Asher]

Originally posted by Agathon
This from the guy who flat out invents ****. You have been saying for two years now that others would overtake the ipod. I guess you'll have to postpone that for another year.

And others will overtake the iPod.

As for accusing me of "inventing" things, you just now invented me saying the iPod would "flop" for 2 years...

Pretty funny if you ask me.

Precisely what I was goin to say...

Then again, you're just an anti-Apple lunatic, so it's hard to take anything you say seriously. I don't like Microsoft's business practices

This is one part I don't understand.

Apple does everything Microsoft does, but far worse. They just get away with it because the company is rather insignificant, and most users are turned off by their business practices.

[Evil Knevil]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

It only has 256MB?

It's upgradeable to 1 GB of RAM. 256 is just the initial specs.

Yeah, but it costs upwards of £70 to get the extra RAM.

Speaking from an utilitarian point of view, the mini-mac doesn't work out being any cheaper, since you still have to get a monitor, keyboard, etc .....
... Unless you have one already, in which case you've probably also got a PC.

Even if you've got a spare monitor, do you really want to hook it up to a mini-mac? I doubt many people have stylish TFT's lying spare. mini-mac & crappy monitor?

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Spiffor
I thought the Ipod was MP3 compatible? When I looked about it, recently, the shops I went to wrote clearly in the product description that the Ipod was compatible with the MP3 format.

I could be wrong but I believe Apple recently patched the Ipod so that only Apple's I-Tunes music could be played on it. Not MP3 or WMA files.

[Evil Knevil]

Originally posted by Oerdin


I could be wrong but I believe Apple recently patched the Ipod so that only Apple's I-Tunes music could be played on it. Not MP3 or WMA files.

No.

[Agathon]

I thought the Ipod was MP3 compatible? When I looked about it, recently, the shops I went to wrote clearly in the product description that the Ipod was compatible with the MP3 format.

Of course...

It's compatible with every common format except OGG and WMA. You can get OGG hacks IIRC and itunes will convert all your WMA files to ipod compatible formats if you ask it to.

You can't get any simpler than that.

Plus, there are vastly more peripherals available for the ipod than for any of its imitators.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Agathon
That's not a real reason. In what way do Apple want you to rebuy your CDs. Presumably you would just rip them like everyone else does. You can rip them in to whatever format you like (mp3, AAC, WAV, AIFF, Apple Lossless), except WMA (which itunes will convert for you if you have any of them).

If you already have files in the above formats you can use them on an ipod. The only proprietary format on the ipod consists the songs you buy from the itunes music store. You don't have to buy any of those if you don't want to. Just rip your CDs or use the files you already have.

I can do this even after the latest patch? I recall a thread about Apple trying to block the use of MP3s on the grounds that they wanted to stop piracy.

[Evil Knevil]

Originally posted by Agathon

I thought the Ipod was MP3 compatible? When I looked about it, recently, the shops I went to wrote clearly in the product description that the Ipod was compatible with the MP3 format.

Of course...

It's compatible with every common format except OGG and WMA. You can get OGG hacks IIRC and itunes will convert all your WMA files to ipod compatible formats if you ask it to.

You can't get any simpler than that.

Only problem is the loss in quality (double-pass effect) caused by converting a lossy file into another lossy type. Where can you get OGG hacks? I've looked.

Originally posted by Oerdin
I can do this even after the latest patch? I recall a thread about Apple trying to block the use of MP3s on the grounds that they wanted to stop piracy.

Yes. I'm Listening to mp3s right now on my recently patched iPod. To try and block mp3s would be commercial suicide. What you may mean is that Apple are considering stopping the ability to convert ACC files downloaded and bought from iTunes.

[Asher]

You can't get any simpler than that.

Sure you can -- support it natively. Any person who knows anything about audio will happily say it's stupid to transcode like Apple does.

Then again, Apple apparently cares little about actual audio quality on their players.

[Agathon]

I can do this even after the latest patch? I recall a thread about Apple trying to block the use of MP3s on the grounds that they wanted to stop piracy.

No. It was probably a thread that Asher started.

Sure you can -- support it natively. Any person who knows anything about audio will happily say it's stupid to transcode like Apple does.

Why would they want to support it natively? Why allow Microsoft to **** up digital music the same way it has ****ed up operating systems?

The people who will use the transcoding option are people who don't care. That's most people.

Almost everything you say on this topic is ****, because you are under this insane assumption that everyone should want what you want. If you stopped doing this, you might come off as less of a clown.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Agathon
Why would they want to support it natively? Why allow Microsoft to **** up digital music the same way it has ****ed up operating systems?

That doesn't even make sense.

WMA is a codec, a format like Word .DOCs.

Apple is the one with the iron-fist, shutting down other players who want to interoperate with theirs, and forbidding anyone else from licensing their technology.

And you're worried about putting WMA on their players? They already license it for iTunes...

If you stopped doing this, you might come off as less of a clown.

You said it "doesn't get any simpler". I noted it does, and that's not transcoding which loses quality and takes time.

You can call me a clown for such an observation, but those kind of lame tactics likely only work in Philosophy Academia.

[Agathon]

Awwww.... Apple is being mean to Microsoft. Can you hear the violins?

Apple is the one with the iron-fist, shutting down other players who want to interoperate with theirs, and forbidding anyone else from licensing their technology.

And it's worked. Presumably you think that companies should just be charitable. As long as they aren't breaking the law and customers are happy, who cares?

And your laughable comments about Apple's financial viability have been shown up today. They smashed expectations and earned 70 cents a share over analysts' estimates of 49 cents.

You said it "doesn't get any simpler". I noted it does, and that's not transcoding which loses quality and takes time.

Not for most end users. They don't care. Push a button, do it once - end of story.

The only people that care are you and Microsoft: the latter because they want to run digital music as a monopoly. That would be really great for consumers given their track record with Windows.

I'm not surprised that Apple doesn't want to play with Microsoft here. I wouldn't if I were in their shoes.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Agathon
Awwww.... Apple is being mean to Microsoft. Can you hear the violins?

The point was Apple is doing what you claim to hate Microsoft for, and you support it.

And it's worked. Presumably you think that companies should just be charitable. As long as they aren't breaking the law and customers are happy, who cares?

Because it's the same practices Microsoft did, but even more extreme.

If Apple actually does manage to sustain a 90% marketshare in digital music players like this, it IS illegal, just like the MS anti-trust trial. Granted, Apple is more blatant about it, so the trial would be shorter.

And your laughable comments about Apple's financial viability have been shown up today. They smashed expectations and earned 70 cents a share over analysts' estimates of 49 cents.

If you knew anything about the stock market, you'd know this has absolutely nothing to do with the stock being overvalued.

Not for most end users. They don't care. Push a button, do it once - end of story.

Most end users on their pathetically slow Mac Mini might wonder why it's taking 4 minutes to import a single song into iTunes...

The only people that care are you and Microsoft: the latter because they want to run digital music as a monopoly. That would be really great for consumers given their track record with Windows.

I'm not the only person with most music in WMA format, and I'm definitely not the only person who thinks PAYING Microsoft for the WMA license (they needed to do this to decode it with iTunes legally), and then not exposing that functionality to end users is stupid.

They are "playing" with Microsoft, and Microsoft gets revenue from Apple for it. The only thing is, Apple is not doing what's in the best interests of the consumer, which is allowing them to play WMA formats in their original format and sound integrity.

Apple is a ruthless monopoly, a strategy that gives them a great start and then shrivels up over time into a tiny minority as people grow tired of the Apple-only solutions...

[Asher]

Speaking of stock, you forgot to mention that Apple's stock went down about 6% yesterday on this news of the Shuffle and Mac Mini -- votes of confidence abound.

[Agathon]

Speaking of stock, you forgot to mention that Apple's stock went down over 6% yesterday on this news.

pwned!!! Up ten bucks since the results were announced.

http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/CNBCTV/Articles/Dispatches/P106295.asp

[Asher]

Originally posted by Agathon
pwned!!! Up ten bucks since the results were announced.



http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/...es/P106295.asp

Nope, you're looking at afterhours trading which fluctates wildly given the short time ago markets closed.

An hour ago they lost a bit under a buck after close.

You really do know next to nothing about the stock market, do you?

Not to mention mathematically challenged: 65-73 is not a difference of 10...