Subtitled, “Apple’s beloved music player plaqued [sic] by poor quality and a damaged brand,” an anonymous piece by silicon.com states, “The first signs have started to emerge this week that Apple’s super-cool must-have iPod music players are, well, how can we put it – actually not that great. For Apple’s legions of diehard fans we’re sure we’ve just committed some unimaginable sin by uttering those words but let us look at the evidence.”
For their supposed “evidence,” silicon.com really shows how far they need to reach to find examples for their hit piece. Silicon.com uses Duke University’s results in experimenting with iPods in a education setting and one journalist’s experience with three (yes, just 3) iPod mini units.
This massive wealth of “evidence” has led the geniuses at silicon.com “to look elsewhere for [their] next music players.” In fact, one brilliant silicon.com staffer “plans to pick up a 20GB Creative Zen Touch” instead of replacing his iPod mini — ostensibly before Creative goes out of business. He’d better hurry.
Silicon.com, part of CNET Networks, wants to know, “So is this the first wave of an iPod ‘backlash’? Is the iPod love affair over?” We guess if poorly-written, ham-fisted B.S. from a site plastered with Microsoft ads counts, it would be. We’ll leave it for you to decide.
Full article here.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Fortune: Apple iPod a true cultural and social phenomenon – June 13, 2005
Apple shares slide on reports of iPod sales of over 5 million for quarter – June 03, 2005
Hewlett-Packard adds ‘Apple iPod mini from HP’ to iPod digital music player lineup – June 02, 2005
Goldman Sachs expects ‘little sequential growth’ in Apple iPod shipments this quarter – June 02, 2005
Piper raises Apple estimates on Mac sales strength; estimates 5.5 million iPods shipped this quarter – May 26, 2005
iRiver spokeman: iPod’s 92 percent market share due to competitors’ neglect of niche – May 26, 2005
Prudential: Apple iPod market expanding, iPod now holds 76% share of all U.S. portable music players – May 23, 2005
Piper Jaffray notes strong demand for Apple Mac and iPod models – May 10, 2005
Apple’s iPod shuffle takes nearly 60 percent of US flash-player market in March – May 04, 2005
2nd Post!
seriously though… i don’t know whether to take this seriously or not.
I have had 3 freezes on my iPod and I know others (All PC users) who have had various problems themselves.
That being said if there were significant issues with all the millions sold wouldn’t we see a huge backlash? What stats do we have on other players being problematic? – None. Why? Because they not Apple and are not a best selling product and therefore of no importance to try and knock down.
Any ‘news’ site that cannot spell plagued correctly should not be taken seriously.
Maybe they should try proofreading their article rather than letting Word do it for them.
our store has had an original green mini on display running 12 hours a day every day for several months (eight?). Literally thousands of people have played with the click wheel and it still works perfectly, I do have to clean it regularly (what do people have on the grubby little fingers?)
It is in a dock running off the AC adapter so I can’t respond to the battery issue, but it certainly works great this way.
Oh… and non-Apple players NEVER have problems
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Always writing up the obits for Apple. It’s like that classic rock song you hope you’ll never have to hear again, but, inevitably, you do.
The Duke University thing is also total BS, it’s irrelevant that they were using ipods, the point was to see how portable devices such as the ipod could benefit students.
From what I’ve read they’ve discovered it was most useful for language students (duh) really they could have used any such players and the results would have been the same. The fact that they chose ipods proves that ipod is the market leader and as such the first choice for such a scheme.
The programs usefulness was not really gonna be dictated by the machines used as such but by how well teachers (and students) integrated them into their lessons. To some it would seem pretty obvious that in some fields of study they would be of limited use.
The Duke scheme may not have been successful in all areas but not because of the ipod but more because the project itself was not a particularly brilliant idea. It’s like trying to go to the moon in a leading model of car, then when it fails saying the car is no good and other cars must be better.
I’d love to see some objective piece on the audio quality various MP3 players. I remember seeing one of various iPods which showed they were severly lacking in bass response (using a headphone load and plotting the freq. response). However, the Shuffle showed awesome freqency response across the board.
iPods in medical imaging.
http://www.medicalimagingmag.com/issues/articles/2005-02_05.asp
I love the iRiver ads. The model biting into an apple, with the tag line “The Sweeter One.”
Why? Unless you’re following another’s act.
I’ve had a 2 or 3 ipod freezes in the last year (none in the last 6 months).
Compared that with my other favorite hard drive device- a Dish Network DVR, witch has froze up about 9 times since It was installed May of 2004.
So, My iPod is pretty much rock solid as far as I’m concerned.
rubbish.
Stunts like this will only send more iPod owners to iTunes and away from brick and mortar stores.
what a chickensh*t. Anonymous? please…
You embarass your CNET brethren, which is pretty easy to do, but still, this is even beyond their standards.
My first generation iPod works flawlessly and so does my 4th generation Color 60gig iPod. So I think this is a poorly-written, ham-fisted B.S. from a site plastered with Microsoft ads. And it doesn’t know anything except to write crap about a product that is just better than anything out there.
Go Apple as you obviously got everyone’s attention since alls they can do is write lie’s about you now to degrade your product which they know darn well have the best quality ratings. I don’t think you’re going to fool those that have iPods by writing such crap. And the people who want iPods are still going to buy them.
Hum, My iPod suffured from lockups and crappy battery life. My Zen Micro has been just fine…
Everyone, Just FYI
CREATIVE isnt going out of business, There business is almost as big as apple as a whole..They dont just make portables, they make a ton of other valuable products that apple could never compete with…Just FYI…
http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6450_7-6247126-1.html?tag=cnetfd.og
The iPOD Blows Chunks
I have a 1st Generation iPod and it makes a bit of noise now but it still works very well. I love it.
Dam got me name wrong lol
Anonymous pieces on CNET are just the editors way of Trolling for hits.
Don’t feed the Trolls.
Do these freaks have hearing problems???
can we get back to running osX on cheap wintel boxes please?
“CREATIVE isnt going out of business, There business is almost as big as apple as a whole..They dont just make portables, they make a ton of other valuable products that apple could never compete with…Just FYI…”
Hmm lets see Apple’s Market cap is 31 billion creative’s is 650 million yeah I guess it’s almost as big, foolio!
>Oh… and non-Apple players NEVER have problems
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Mine doesn’t.
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Too bad I’m lying… and it does. 🙁
>Oh… and non-Apple players NEVER have problems
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” />
Mine doesn’t.
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Too bad I’m lying… and it does. 🙁