iRant
NP - Dark Tranquillity - Focus Shift
Ive always resented the whole fuss made about the iPod, but when asked about it, whatever. Its a powerful mp3 player, colour screen, interesting (if gimmicky) navigation system...and very pretty. All in all a nice mp3 player. But seriously, its been blown WAY out of proportion.
My lecturer was going on about it today and for me that was it. The myth that the iPod was the first mp3 player, or launched a new market, or exploited a niche, its absolute bollocks. And nobody's been able to convince me of it. Lets be clear: first you had the Walkman (cassettes: remember those?). Then you had CD players - nifty little things. I'm not sure if you had MD players or MP3 CD players after that, but with MP3 CD players you were getting into the convenient mass-music market.
And then you had MP3 players.
Thats right, the iPod is an mp3 player. Its not some brand new funky spunky alien technology, come to revolutionise our pitiful human ways. Its an mp3 like any other. Im sick of how people act like its the 2nd coming, or how my university's exam rhetoric states 'no calculators, electronic dictionaries, or iPods'.
The only revolution the iPod launched is a marketing revolution. Its success is ridiculous. Purely because of marketing, the iPod became the DEFINITION of digital music. Sure, its an awesome piece of hardware, but its not the first, nor the last. The fact that I can go to eBay and get a 4GB mp3 and video player with a 3 inch digital screen which is smaller than the iPod for 30 pounds is proof of that. Oh yeah, and its ridiculously overpriced. RIDICULOUSLY. Contrast the funky chinese device just described with an iPod nano, which is something like 130 pounds (and half the capacity).
But the iPod is a status symbol, like a Merc or a Beamer. Suddenly a device that sits in your pocket and lets you listen to your favourite rocker wont do it anymore - it has to be an iPod. Or you're not cool. People forget that there were mp3 players before, theres mp3 players today which are just as functional and cheaper, no it has to be an iPod.
I swear, people are sheep. It drives me nuts. Most people dont have any complaints about their iPods, and if it were significantly cheaper I would probably get one myself. Paying for an iPod, clearly you're getting more than an mp3 player, you're getting status. But I'm not the kind of person who needs to play ridiculous amounts of money for self-validation. I don't need an iPod to feel accepted. I need an iPod for music. And theres better alternatives.
Posted by illogicist at 10:43 AM
7 Comments
Why I don't see myself owning one of these MP3 players?!
I usually enjoy your arguments on stuff, but this time I don't think you started right. Even Steve Jobs, who unveiled the first iPod, didn't announce that the iPod was "the first mp3" player. So, its either misinformation or your teacher was way off marks. What he did say though was that it would revolutionize the way people thought about mp3 players.
Now to how and why it is amazing. Almost all other mp3 players before the ipod pretty much sucked because you had to have a CD source and no internal memory. Now Apple out of the blue comes out with a device that is as small as a deck of cards with 30 gb (was it?) of memory storage. You'd have to know about hardware architecture to appreciate the beauty in that. To top it off, the design is beautiful etc etc. Whats noteworthy is that no other company thought of doing what Apple did that year. Who's fault is it if consumers (us) like Apple a little more JUST because of that?
I do agree with the marketing comment though. Steve Jobs + Apple can pretty much sell anything and make a profit.
I can almost compare you to someone who hated CD/DVDs, but loved cassettes. =P
NightFace, how would we know?!
Sree, don't take it too far. Myself I wouldn't know why! :S
I totally agree with you Z, I mean Ipod is cool to have and everything, but its very expensive and I dont think its worth it .. maybe I am not a person who has to listen to music all the time this is why I dont really understand the 'NEED' to have one ..
Dude, please enable your blog's feeds so that I can add you to my reader.
I can see why anyone would hate the iPod purely on the ground that it's too damn popular and let's face it no one wants to be a sheep who only follows trends. But then again, the iPod truly was a product that while it didn't do anything new, it did it so much better and in a much easier way. I had an mp3 player in 1999, long before the iPod came out. I hated it. Getting songs on it was horrendously difficult. I chucked it away after a couple weeks even though it wasn't cheap at all. I then thought of buying a Creative Nomad Jukebox, which had 5gb of memory (if I'm not mistaken). But it didn't come with good software and it looked like a Sony Discman cut in half. I saw the first iPod that came out, which was Mac only, and it was a huge improvement over the Creative. Smaller, better looking, easier to use. I didn't buy it. I waited till the second generation of iPods for Windows to come out in 2003 before I bought one. I can honestly tell you it was the best thing I've bought in at least 5 years.
Even now, 4 years later, except for the Microsoft Zune, no one has made anything that works better than the iPod. Last month I wanted to buy an mp3 player as a gift for an uncle. I spent an hour in the shop looking for an alternative to the iPod. The only viable alternatives are Creative's products which are no iPod copiers which cost just about the same, and Sensa's products, which look like black iPods.
When someone comes up with something better than the iPod, I'll buy it. But for now I own both a regular iPod and an iPod nano, and I use both of them every single day.
Aww u don't worry chuck, I'll buy you an ipod :)
some of my siblings, cousins and my kids bought i-pods a long time before me...there was a huge hype about them at the beginning... anywhere you would go people were talking about them as if they were some kind of magic!..and yeah it was annoying..and at the time they were a bit expensive too...as were their accessories and I must confess that when my kids insisted to buy them I was against them because I thought they are not worth it...but when they did I was amazed how much their i-pods reduced their need to buy new CDs/cassettes..all they had to do was download their favorite songs via internet and or get them from borrowed CDs...they rarely buy CDs now days...
i-pods are amazing to listen to in the cars because you don’t need a stack of CDs or cassettes lying in your car ..all you need is an extra i-trip and a car charger so you would listen and switch to a variety of music for hours and hours…and you can use it everywhere…with a head set or without! ..you can easily access your favorites..
i know there are many similar mp3 players around in the market now days...but i still think i-pods are the best because even after years of use they are maintenance free..i know many who got less expensive brands their players crashed after few months only !
I got me one a few months ago only..and I think i got it in good bargain because I had the 30 GB along with a protective case, i-trip, car charger and normal socket charger with just RO 146!...
I am glad I did..because now I have the full Quran in it with hundreds of anasheed, du3as, thousands of music and songs and I still have so much memory left..and whenever I like a new song or whatever all I have to do is download it..no need to go out and look for it!..there is no fuss of or mess just one device to switch on and choose to play a list according to my mood!
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