“Is the thought of loading your CD collection onto that little white box called the iPod enough to scare you back to vinyl? You aren’t alone. As Apple Computer’s popular MP3 player becomes a mainstream must-have, it’s only natural that the ranks of techno-deficient iPod owners will continue to grow,” Seth Porges writes for BusinessWeek.
“And where there’s a demand, someone is always ready to help. A slew of books and services has popped up to take the intimidation factor out of the iPod,” Porges writes.
Full article here.
Intimidation factor out of the iPod???
Must also be afraid of his own shadow.
This has to mostly be for windows users. Mac Users can use the iPod without ever cracking a book.
Yeeeeaaaaaaaaaahhhh!!!!
iPod and iTunes for Dummies, Secrets of the iPod … what next?
Goldilocks and the Three iPods;
Agatha Christie iPod Mysteries;
The iPod Bathroom Reader;
iPod It Dere and Someone Stole It?
Maybe not. But if it made the cover of Time or Newsweek then you can be assured that a number of opportunistic writers are hard at work. I might consider “The Making of the iPod” if it’s substantial — over 150,000 words.
If any publishers are reading this: Short books are for the illiterate!
I know how to transcode. How dare the person who wrote this send me a free copy.
What’s an iPod?
Sorry for the ignorance, I’ve been on holiday.
And starting Wars.
Go F#*% yourself…
I propose the iPod Amendment, so that every minority (blacks) can listen to the DNC speeches from iTunes. And hopefully they are smart enough to Vote for Me before they Vote against Me.
Did I mention I was in Viet Nam.
How about a movie!…
Could call it ‘I ipod’ and it could star Will Smith and could be about a rare 60gb ipod that play music so load that it kills it’s owner!!
Sounds like a block buster to me- LOL!
As hard as it is for us to believe that there are people CHALLENGED by ripping music into their iPods consider this.
I have a Victrola in my house, about 100 years old. Still plays great! but the point is that up until a few years ago the act of playing music entailed putting a disc onto a spinning platform and pushing a button (or closing a lid). Bingo. Music. Adjust the volume. Done.
That was the way music was played, by the average person for a CENTURY.
Anyone could learn in 10 seconds, and never forget. The average person couldn’t balance a tone-arm, but they got by. And even inserting a cassette into a player was dead simple,
NOW we have a situation that is REALLY SIMPLE for US. The savvy ones. Insert a CD, iTunes is launched, the CD is recognized, click “import” the songs are digitized and automatically inserted into the iPod.
The whole process is very easy, compared to the way it used to be, But for people who have never done anything more complicated than placing a platter on a round surface and adjusting the volume, it’s like dealing with the controls to an alien space ship.
And then there’s dealing with various encoders, bit rates, playlists, authorizing your computer, etc.
Just knowing the difference between an mp3, AAC, AIFF, WAV, and the new lossless encoder is a lot for people to grasp in even simple terms.
You didn’t have many features with a Walkman. Pop in the cassette, maybe some EQ.. Metal Tape? and that was it. An iPod does SO much more, but to a lot of people it’s incomprehensible in anything but it’s simplest default settings.
(continued in next post)
But now the iPod, which has been used mostly by reasonably techno-savy people, is falling into the hands of people who don’t like electronic complexity, are frustrated by 20 levels of menus, and just WILL NOT read the manual. Skimpy as it is. I see these people going beserk with iMacs and iPods because, as simple and intuitive we think these devices are, they are 10 steps deeper into techno-complexity than these people are used to dealing with.
And it’s VERY frustrating for them.
My parents can deal with a color TV set, even a color TV set with cable. But add on the DVD player, the Surround Sound, I’m still using my S-VHS player, 300 channels on my cable, 3
or 4 remotes (depending on what’s lost that week), and 15 minutes after they are sitting in my den My 30 inch tv set has a blue screen and white noise is pouring out of the all the speakers in the room.
The time is past where you could just punch buttons randomly and stumble across the right combination. It’s like that scene is Zoolander where the male models are just whacking and poking the iMac to get it to work. My parents think they can just monkey with it and it will be fine. But as it is every 20 minutes I have to fix the damn stuff. And grasping all the different ways that the hardware works together is just WAY over there heads.
There are a LOT of people who can’t or WON’T bend to the evergrowing complexity of ordinary household devices. The consumer WANTS all the features, but will never bother to learn them. And in the end is just frustrated and angry because it makes them look stupid.
Because technology keeps galloping forward it’s hard to imagine that it will EVER be the way it used to be where a device had features that were virtually FROZEN for decades. Like the ordinary home telephone. Is it safe to say that except for, maybe, Caller ID the home telephone was virtually unchanged for 50 years? Now, no two cellphones have the same interface, or features, or much of anything in common, and it changes every 6 months. And MAYBE only 5-10% knows what in the hell all those features do or how to make them work.
(continued in next post)
Sometimes I just wish that Cellphone service was PERFECTED, and forget about taking movies with it, I just want to be able to make and receive calls just about anywhere. Which I can’t do.
And the iPod, the symbol of simple, intuitive, sleek, technology is still above the heads of so many people. What say ye? Should we go a bit slower, perfect the features, make it easier for the average user, and less prone to failure because we are pushing the envelope. OR. Full speed ahead? The way we are.
David Vesey
Definately full speed ahead!
That’s what Microsoft will do in August!…
You don’t need to spend $15 on a book the iPod comes with a manual that should help you out. If you still can’t figure it out then those people shouldn’t be around computers or electronics; for the good of the world.
Yes the cell phone I had 18 years ago had better reception! It was however rather large – I carried a camera in the case pocket
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” />
I have a Sony-Ericsson Z600 now, full of features but I can’t turn voice mail off or extend ring time so for use simply as a phone it’s not as good.
hey david,
i agree with you 100%. i also have a Sony-Ericsson. Nice phone management. very nice, user friendly interface. Camera is worthless because of quality. but more importantly can’t get a clear connection. not exactly Sony-Ericsson fault. but the point is with all the techno and feature on the phone, the basic function is broken or not up to par.
Apple cannot afford to just stand by. they have to keep adding features and functions to ward off the competition. and with the 4G iPod, they did that. are they making the iPod more complicated? sure. but at least in this case the basic function of listening to music is still working. but unlike the other competitors, Apple has made the process easy. SJ has made it the point of playing a song in 3 easy step. I don’t think the competitors hardware is that simple. and from all the other review i’ve seen, they suck big time.
Not Apple’s fault if some people are stuck in the cassette or 8-track ages. tech is moving faster now especially with small form factor. expect things to get smaller and with added features. at least give Apple credit for keeping to their true simplicity and user experience. it could be a lot worse. just look at the competition.
Gandalf…
Cell phones did work better in the past, because they were larger and had longer antennas. I guess they had bigger transmitter / receivers, I don’t know.
But users wanted smaller cell phones and less obtrusive antennas, so the Cell phone companies obliged, knowing full well it would degrade performance.
The will of the people, the tyranny of the majority.
David Vesey
Hey ME…
And I agree with YOU 100%. Apple has done more than anyone to simplify and make intuitive, and -fun-, things that other companies make dreary, complicated, and dull.
My point was that even when Apple streamlines all these steps, there are people who can’t keep up. Won’t keep up. And to have the features that Apple products have, it’s unlikely they could be made even simpler.
When the Walkman busted into the scene as the latest greatest techno/miracle/toy for the masses, a 4 year old could master it. It was for the masses.
But we now have techno marvels du jour that some people cannot understand or refuse to learn. In the past, the big breakthroughs like the electric light or telephones or TV were very simple to use.
I suppose as our tastes are more sophisticated, and modern gizmos have to do so very much more to improve on the past, the day when you had a box with only two switches is over.
And we have unleashed the dogs of Featuritis.
david vesey
(this is david vesey, and I have approved this message)
David,
Yeah my old Moto was a ‘transportable’, a big lead acid battery with a radio on the side and a handset on the top. With the aerial far away from the head it was permissable for the transmitter to be more powerful (I think 0.6mw rather than 0.2mw for transmitters held against the head).
Best keep even 0.2mw away from the head – and other sensitive parts too
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” />. The threat from radiation is real, just like the tobacco industry and the fast food industry the mo-fo industry will get sued to hell in 50 years time.
These services are popping up all over the place!
I’ve noticed two in the UK this week alone, including some guys called Encoda (http://www.encoda.co.uk) who are so keen to get customers registered that they’re offering iPod mini’s for some customers and the customer who sends in the 250,000th disk gets whatever is the top-of-the-line G5 at that time.
I’ve registered for it and referred a half-dozen friends. Now if only they’d put up a counter like the iTMS 100 million thing.
To Howard Dean: “Yeeeeeeeeaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!! Uhhhhhhhhh huhhhhhhhhh!!!! That’s right!!!”
Yeeeeeaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!
I’ll tell you what people want. They want a device (I love saying the word device, it covers so much) that will enable users to playback my funky ‘Get On Your Feet’ dance again and again.
oh i like the idea of winning that G5, and all I have todo it get them to encoda my music collection..
Well I have been thinking about jumping onboard the mp3 player thing, but just never known which way to go. I have some 700 cd’s in my collection and do not fancy sitting each weekend for the next 5 months ripping them myself with iTunes on my old Powerbook, if i had only 30-40 then I would be like ok that will take me some time but it can be done. But if you have any big number it would take you days or even weeks? so I have to say I think this sort of service is ok in my books.
There are a LOT of people who can’t or WON’T bend to the evergrowing complexity of ordinary household devices. The consumer WANTS all the features, but will never bother to learn them. And in the end is just frustrated and angry because it makes them look stupid.
Often what features are already available are more than enough. Many computer users limit themselves to the raw basics like web browsing/services (webmail) and text editing but anything beyond that is quickly intimidating. And what they’ve “learned” is purely procedural, with little or no conceptual understanding. That seems part of the reason why anything that takes more than a couple steps is overwhelming.
I don’t like to overgeneralize causes for this sort of technophobia but the symptoms are often similar. There’s a lack of interest and motivation combined with fear and doubt. And it seems like an innate characteristic with certain people towards anything unknown that triggers a loss of control. Plus there’s the media’s negative, paranoid influence.
Anyway, I say push the pedal to the metal.