Imitation is no match for innovation

gah, fine its a usb mass storage device, my point is you HAVE to install itunes/3rd party apps in order to use it as an mp3 player, that is what i dislike
agreed that even that is VASTLY superior to the heap of **** that was the sony software, i had a netMD for a while, the software made me cry

i used to use winamp, i tried itunes for a day or so when it was first released, i went back to winamp, then i got introduced to foobar and thats what i use now

its true i dont like apple and probably will never buy an apple product but i have my reasons, its not just random hate
i've posted my history of bad experiences with apple products in one of the other numerous apple threads here so im not going to again, suffice to say i was not impressed.

 

The idea of all the extra features Ill never use in an os is annoying to me. I have my copy of xp stripped down to win 98. I turn off everything i dont need or use. With itunes it takes up so much resources its worthless to me. Sure there are tons of ipod clones but the choice is good, eventually someone will unseat apple at the top of the mp3 player market.

This is just an opinion in the article, I understand this, but I couldnt count how many times ipod was said.

 

dont really think i said i loved my ipod 3rd gen, it happens to be sitting in my drawer with other spare parts, i didnt pay a dime for the thing, and merely traded for it for an item i got for free, to me there is no more of an un baised opinion on the matter, the point with itunes and the whole mac shall rule the world on music is incorrect, i have a library of over 10k songs, and frankly having to go and cater to all the shortcommings on the ipod's playlist is sadening... if only winamp made a good portable mp3 player, wait thats my laptop...

i never said the article was wrong, i just dont agree with everything in there, is that so wrong?, personally i like to hear the views the editors put on things, it gives another look at something you never thought a second point of view might be... still dosent mean i have to agree with it, but it doesnt mean im saying the article is wrong...

geesh, this is the last article i post in...

 

I think the point that imitation is no match for innovation is true for everything in life.

Look around you, for example movies the same old ideas in a new shell no matter how good always have critics saying how it's an overused story blah blah however a creative director with an innovative story or new type of genre always has a lot of interest.

People like change, alot of other companies copying one manufacturer in this case Apple's Ipod is not doing anything helpful apart from competition.

At least we can say this competition will keep Apple constantly on their toes unlike for example Microsoft which is a operating a monopoly as they practically have such a high market share there is no competition.

 

Yes but Microsoft became a 'monopoly' out of self-growth. They didn't buy any other countries to gain such a large market share (although they do now obviously) and thus this was just a result of their success.

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I don't know if I am making myself sound like an idiot or not. Hasn't the ipod just got smaller with a bigger screen? Where is the innovation in that. I know I will have people reading off a bunch of different little things that change but what about a complete overhaul. I do have an Ipod nano and I like it a lot. But is size and screen the major differences from the original ipod. I personally like what Nintendo is doing with innovation, changing the way players play games (DS and revolution controller). I would like to see that kind of creativity in other markets. Sure there might be some flops from companies but there will also be great new products.

 

I think the one place Apple and the iPod win out is on publicity, thats thier true innovation. If it wern't for plastering the world with annoying adverts it wouldn't be so huge.

When it gets to the point where people buy white headphones to make it look like they've got an iPod, they havn't won out due to technical superiority, but because of brainwashing the masses. Once something becames fasionable, people want one without knowing anything about it and assume its the best "cos my best mate's got one and he says its good' and he got one for the same reason. But then you also get the people who hate it because it's fasionable (for good reason usually )

I think it's a similar story with the Macs, my friend's brother installed a OSX theme for windows on his laptop so his friends think hes cool for owning a mac. You're not part of the cool crowd if you don't own a mac obviously, I think its a geeks way of rebelling against 'the system'.

I'll stick with what works, I'm not saying macs are bad, but I'm used to windows, and I'm a gamer, that reason alone is enough. It said in the article about all these fancy new things Vista will have that macs have already, to be honest I want none of that, I prefer to pick and choose which things I think are best out of all the media players, web browsers, etc.

EDIT: Oh and someone above said that people like change, it's a known fact that people don't like change, they like something thats the same or similar to things they're used to. All big films in the last 20 years or so havn't been innovative, I'm not just talking about the remakes. Most of the innovative films are pused to the bottom of the charts by big blockbusters, making no money and getting little recognition. Yes there are some people who don't mind a bit of creativity and difference (me included) but the majority of the population ('the masses') feel frightened by it.

 

A fair point, that thread was a total nightmare; many, MANY idiotic posts, i found myself skipping a lot of them, which could possibly be what caused my mis-interpretation of the point. After a quick glance back through it (oh man, i couldn't actually read every post, half of them make you want to beat your head into a wall...) i realise that it could be taken either way. I apologise for any angst ive caused

 

The innovation was that they took the click/scroll wheel first, and people are trying to copy the UI and overall look/design without patent/copyright infringement. Honestly, there's only so many ways to go genre->artist->album->song or playlist->song starting play (or navigation for that matter) at any given step. Apple made it easy to use, people bought it. People told their friends and soon people started recognizing the stupid white earbuds. It then became iPod=MP3 player to most people. When it comes to music, people generally just want to be able to find what they're looking for and start playing, with as little thought as possible. Any player with a screen does that. Apple just marketed it best, and now other companies are trying to use Apple's success to their advantage (and, typically, are failing miserably).

So basically, Apple made the MP3 player popular. Anyone who tries to say otherwise has been living *inside* a rock. They did exactly what every company strives to do: make their product synonymous with the product's function. Again, Kleenex and facial tissue, band-aid and sterile bandage, etc. Arguably, computers and Windows (though, thanks largely TO the iPod, that's not as much the case as it was just two years ago). When your product/brand equates to what it does in the vast majority of consumer's minds, you've reached the epitome of advertising success.

Now other companies can make an MP3 player that has every feature ever possibly wanted with a one-year battery life after a five-minute charge, all in the same formfactor as an iPod, but chances are people will still continue to call MP3 players iPods. It's no longer making a cheaper/better/more useful product, it's about kicking it's arse in advertising. But if you can't match the features at the very least, you don't stand a chance. Hence the lack of innovation.

 

Sorry I pulled it after reading a little more. It took me a while to write becuase I was at work so I had alot of pauses. Anyways after typing the thing up I saw that quite a few people had posted rather negative reactions which kind of made my post seem silly. For those that never saw it I will give a brief overview of what I said. I was really impressed that such a provactive article generated such intelligent conversation. I commented that this site has one of the best tech communities on the web because when something like this comes up in most places it causes a huge flame war. people here actually explained thier side of things instead of just berating the other person's opinion. I then went on to pretty much agree with what alot of people said about small tech sites covering events others already had. Which was that they should and they do because people that go to thier site for thier particular take on something. Everyone's writring stykles and opinions are different so you can get very different info about the same thing from different places. Anyways I pulled the whole thing because quite a few people did begin to berate Will for this article. I was disappointed especially since I just gushed over how great our community is here but I suppose it happens.

 

The reasons for me making that statement were because (like you) I was getting fed up of reading the same comments. I don't mean to say this nastily, but it's late and I've just spent the best part of 16 hours packing up in readiness to move house tomorrow with the worst hangover I've had in a loooong while so it might come across as a little blunt and to the point. I apologise in advance.

If you haven't already noticed, we're trying to broaden our readership by expanding into new areas that we've previously turned our noses up at. That includes system reviews - you'll be seeing a lot more too. There are always the hardcore enthusiasts who will build their own system and they'll be 100% against buying something that they consider to be an over priced, poorly configured hunk of junk with lots of bloatware.

Hell, I'm like that myself but I know that there are people who do love the convenience of buying everything from one vendor. Not to mention the convenience of having a system that you don't have to worry about when things to tits up. How many times have you had your computer die on you (for no apparent reason) when you're in the middle of an important assignment and sat up til 3 or 4am trying to work out how to get your computer working again?

I know I've done it on more than the odd occasion - I had to do it the other week. Thankfully, experience pays off and you learn your way around an operating system so that you're able to fix it with relative ease when it all goes tits up. Some people don't want that heartache and I can understand why - that's where pre-builds come into a league of their own, especially when there is 24/7 tech support included in the deal.

If people can build their own for less, that's fantastic - I can too. But stating that in a discussion thread for a system review is well into the realms of trolling. The point I was trying to make was that if it was overpriced for what it was, I'd like to see comparisons made to other pre-built systems with a similar configuration/specification. I'm sure you're not going to build the same system for less for a friend and then be on the end of the phone 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

 

Amen to that; though Im still probably reachable via messenger or phone 15/7