With all this I-this and I-that I was wondering are we giving apple too much attention? Are thier products all that hot like the new ITV? Should we be plunking out $300-$500 dollars every year Steve Jobs announces something on that podium/stage he thunders to the public? I don’t appreciate buying an IPod in '04 and dies less than 2 years later.
*Is Apple selling half-baked products in the beggining of the year and then making another killing later with an improvment they could have put in before?
The ITV and the IPhone are both great but are they bonifide products you can use for many years? Why pay a premium when they will make an adjustment 6-8 months later while you are stunned with the one you purchased earlier?
This is all speculation. AppleTV is getting pretty good reviews and the iPhone hasn’t been released yet.
If you follow the mentality that you shouldn’t buy b/c they will make adjustments in 6-8 mos, you will be waiting forever. That’s Standard Operating Proceedure for the tech industry. Has nothing to do with Apple.
To answer your main question…do we give too much attention to Apple? Probably. But at least they make products worth talking about.
Didn’t mean to put that much ‘hateration’ in to this thread!
That’s why I listen to music from my TREO instead of buying an IPOD. I put songs on my 1gig card an go on my way. I HOPE the TREO makes in the future something that can play movies and videos as good as the IPOD.
I can’t tell you how many times I dropped my TREO and it still works. That’s what I call a sustainable product. This November will be 2 years with my phone and I don’t see it slowing down.
I had my first iPod for close to 4 years. I dropped it and miss used it countless times. I still use it as my home stereo iPod and it would have kept going fine if I didn’t want more memory and video capabilities.
That said, there is plenty of room for improvement, but there is on everything. There is no competitor at the current time, I wish their was if only because I like a choice… and it would probably prompt apple to fix some of those iProblems…
You cary an ugly TREO with just a gig of music… hmmm…
Yayo, why is the Treo better than an iPod in your opinion? You’ve listed durability, but that’s purely subjective–I seriously doubt the Treo could top the Nano or Shuffle in drop testing, and even the high-end iPods are solid, with far fewer moving and removable parts than the Treo.
I find it interesting how many Industrial Designers avoid the iPod because it’s trendy, instead putting up with inferior substitutes. I think designers should vote “good design” with their pocketbooks. If you want to be a “hater” go pick on copycats like the MS Zune, Samsung etc.
What I siad was I’d rather use my TREO to listen to music than to buy another iPOD, and hope the TREO comes out w/something NEW to compete with the iPHONE later this year or next!
yayo since you seem to be a 24 fan, you might have noticed that CTU uses apple and the terroists use generic PCs. i believe that the message is clear if you use a PC you are a terrorist.
cg- I dare you buy the iPHONE and drop it 2-3 times and it will crack like the Liberty Bell.
As for Mac’s @ CTU, I’ll check tonight! I think your bluffing though.
Maybe that’s why it takes 24 hours to track a terrorist; maybe they keep looking at those friggin widgets and sh*t. they’ll get in the way.
I think Yo is right is saying that there really is no-one who can really touch Apple at the moment. The Zune was (is) a joke, Microsoft clearly didn’t think about that one enough. For Microsoft to get into the game they’ll have to start with a loss to get some consumer following before being about to make direct profit.
As for iPod and their ever funny battery issues, search for the Neistat Brothers, they did a video a couple of years ago which follows the phone conversation with Apple help centre who tell him that even though his iPod was only about a year old (I think…?) that he might as well buy a new one then send it back to Apple to get refurbed (they quoted a battery change at something ridiculous like $200).
I had an iPod, it broke, I sold it on eBay as broken, so I got some sort of compensation for it (about a third of the price!).
If anyone is interested, there is a good book by Giles Slade released in May 2006 called Made to Break which talks about the area of repetitive consumption and planned obsolescence (i.e. batteries that last only a year, which is the same length of the warranty strangely enough!)
Good conversation though, thanks for bringing it up. Being from the UK I think it’s going to be a mixed reception for the iPhone because it won’t be here until Sept or October this year… we will be tired of looking at it by then? Who knows.
I don’t think Apple sells half-baked products. I do think that they obsolte their products faster than anyone, which creates a higher churn rate, and that ends up pissing some people off. Why I don’t know–I still love my first-gen iPod, and I’d be perfectly content with it if I only had 5Gb of music. Back when I bought it, I did–today I have ten times that much and I appreciate Apple has kept up the pace, presently offering an 80Gb iPod.
I also don’t expect any personal electronic device to last beyond 2-4 years of daily use.
Cost/Benefit =
2 years = 730 days = $0.68 a day @ $500
4 years = 1460 days = $0.34 a day @ $500
For perspective, I paid $8.50 for my commute to work today (50mi at 20mpg = 2.5 gal at $3.40) I also paid about that much for lunch.
So I’m paying 10-20 times more for something I hate (my commute) than something I love (my iPod.) And don’t even get me started about my mortgage (but I do love the sunshine here.)
THX-georgeous for the book plug; right on the money!
Are there any good tech magazine stores in London? I’ll be there for a few days next week actually?
Yeah, I got mine in Foyles bookstore on Charing Cross Road (http://www.foyles.co.uk). Give them a call and get them to reserve it for you, when I got it there it was the only copy in the place and I have to search the entire floor to find it (it was the only one in any ‘good’ bookstore in London!)
Good book though, a lot of history however, regarding consumption (i.e. Ford cars vs. Chev, Industrial Rev etc) but towards the end of the book there is more about e-waste and more presently relevant issues. There is some fantastic stuff regarding consumer profiles as well (when reading it, it automatically makes you think ‘iPod’).
Definitely give it a look, sounds like you’d enjoy it.
I’m with you cg, I can’t understand the “that piece of good design has gone mainstream, and I’m used to only liking fringe products, so now I must boycot this successful product”
Even though I don’t understand it… I still fall prey to it myself! I wish I didn’t, but we’re all human. I try to remove the fact that this object happens to be popular or unpopular, and evaluate it as much on design (and cost, lets not be silly) as possible… It doesn’t always totally work, but it helps.
If and when something better than a mac book or an iPod comes along, I will have not trouble dropping apple like a hot potato, I’m not much for brand loyalty… or so I like to think…
Thank you Yayo for posting this. I’ll come out of the closet too. I’m tired of the iPod, and I’m tired of seeing all kinds of products try to be the iPod. Can Apple please give us a new design paradigm to copy…er inspire us.
