“I don’t remember most of the dreams I have, whether nice or nasty. But, man, did I remember one from last week. I was on this really long and rambling road being chased by millions of Ipods of every size and shape. Though none of their earbuds were plugged in, there were so many of the things I could hear the mother of all mixes, every song, podcast and TV show available on Itunes,” Barry Gerber writes for Mobiltiy Guru. “That’s not all; behind all the Ipods was a bunch of silent zombie-like humans led by Steve Jobs. All of them had tons of folding money falling out of their pockets and eye sockets. I recognized most of these celebs. Everyone was there from Job’s Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak to ex-Disney head Michael Eisner to a passel of entertainers including Britney Spears, rapper Ghostface Killa, Michael from NBC’s ‘The Office’ dragging a zombie birthday cake and Josef Suk, classical violinist.”
“As with most bad dreams, I awoke in a sweat of horror before the final reel. So I don’t know if I got caught or not. It was then that I realized I was not new to Ipod nightmares. It’s only that my previous nightmares were real,” Gerber writes. “So that you don’t get a nosebleed adjusting to the various parts of the Great Ipod Scam, I’m going to start with the least offensive sub-scam and end with the most egregious of all.”
Gerber’s list of “Ipod” scams:
• Scratches And Cases
• FairPlay DRM limitations
• The cutesy lower case “i” in “iPod” and “iTunes”
• Lack of built-in FM radio and user replaceable battery
“Apple has a very good thing going for it with Ipods and Itunes. So far the company has been able to hoodwink its customers with poorly or unfairly designed goods and services all in the name of that little “i”. I don’t expect things will change much, given the profit potential,” Gerber writes. “Some say the music died on February 3, 1959 when singer-songwriters ‘The Big Bopper’ (J.P. Richardson), Ritchie Valens and Buddy Holly were killed in a terrible airplane crash just outside of Mason City, Iowa. I disagree. The music really died the day Apple brought the Ipod and Itunes to market wrapped in a series of sub-scams that not only killed the music, but what was left of the soul of Apple itself.”
Full article, “Who Designed This Crap? The Great Ipod Scam,” here.
MacDailyNews Take: Gerber’s a genius! Now we can see it all so clearly. Thanks so much to Barry Gerber for awakening us from our zombie-like stupor. We’ll never look at a lower case “i” the same way again.
Advertisements:
• Apple’s brand new iPod Hi-Fi speaker system. Home stereo. Reinvented. Available now for $349 with free shipping.
• Apple’s new Mac mini. Intel Core, up to 4 times faster. Starting at just $599. Free shipping.
• MacBook Pro. The first Mac notebook built upon Intel Core Duo with iLife ’06, Front Row and built-in iSight. Starting at $1999. Free shipping.
• iMac. Twice as amazing — Intel Core Duo, iLife ’06, Front Row media experience, Apple Remote, built-in iSight. Starting at $1299. Free shipping.
• iPod Radio Remote. Listen to FM radio on your iPod and control everything with a convenient wired remote. Just $49.
• iPod. 15,000 songs. 25,000 photos. 150 hours of video. The new iPod. 30GB and 60GB models start at just $299. Free shipping.
• Connect iPod to your television set with the iPod AV Cable. Just $19.
If I write an article about iPods people will be sure to read it!!
iMoron!
I suppose just “not buying one” isn’t good enough for him? iPod/iTunes isn’t for everyone, nor was it meant to be. Some people are in great need of a life…
Why don’t you do something productive and write about a REAL scam…start big. Start with the mother of ALL scams…Religion!
iWanker
Yep that about says iT.
What a sad chap this poor excuse for a writer is!
Leo
What an interesting concept. Apple brings iPods and iTunes to market, and this somehow (how?) affects the music market and “kills” the music. If this idiot didn’t buy an iPod and use iTunes, how did they have some sort of affect on him.
OK, that was a rhetorical question. The real answer is that they didn’t. The real answer is that this bozo has some sort of beef with Apple’s success in the music market. So he does what every other loser in the world can do – he creates a blog and publishes.
Oh well. If he doesn’t like Apple/iTunes/iPod, he can ignore them and not patronize their businesses. He can continue to overpay for CDs, or listen to the radio.
Hey Baby Food, lets not go there…..
Fraught with danger it is!
One way or the other!
Leo
The real scam is 3rd worlders! They need to get jobs so they can move to a real country or make a real country of their own!
Oh and BTW they really like Macs, at least the ones in the Philipines do “Jim of the Tahoe” you know who you are.
Hey are there any racist Jamakians on today…I see you Viridian.
“Hello. My name is BARRRRRRRRRRRY Lincoln. And I’m out here on the street today to conduct a survey. I’m gonna play a tape recording for strangers and have them guess whether the sound they’re hearing is people weightlifting, or two people having sex. And if they get it right, of course, well then, they get to have sex with me.
BARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRY Lincoln.”
Jimbo, you are perfectly right.
How can anyone dream these things without the experience during waking hours and the reconcilliation during sleep.
The wanker must have stuffed up his iPod and feeles such a jerk that he needs to BLAME someone else for his stupidity.
Good call.
Leo
You’re right, Babyfood. Religion is the root of all evil.
http://musobs.blogspot.com/
• FairPlay DRM limitations
• The cutesy lower case “i” in “iPod” and “iTunes”
• Lack of built-in FM radio
Is this guy serious? You’re actually going to call these things scams? The lower case “i” calls your mother and steals her money over the phone? DRM agreements that make legal digital downloads possible at all is a scam? An absent feature (that most don’t want) killed the music?
I’ll take the scratches as a design flaw and lack of user-replaceable battery as a “planned obsolescence” scam, but other than that, this Gerber guy has no case.
G-ZUS
You are right too, but this is not the place for it!
Go to iGod.com and have it out there with the ‘botherers’
Leo
Who is this John Dvorak wannabe?
You want to talk scams? How about M$ offering a completely insecure OS and then offering to charge customers to protect it?
Dear FUseeK,
Yes there are three world and I hope you understand what they mean?
The first world was born of the Cold War and consisted of the USA, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand, sometimes!!!
The second world consisted of the Western Bloc headed by the Former Soviet union and the Third World was all the poor bastards left out of the other two. These include all the poor nations of Africa, South America and such.
So your statement about getting a job is so silly that if defies comment. And if they get real jobs they might move to your country!!!!
Leo
Apple Stock is a SCAM.
it was headed down to $50 if it wasnt for iPHONE rumors.
Now its back above $60 for no reason at all.
This guy is just trying to get attention by being controversial.
I don’t understand why there seems to be some in journalistic circles who seem to think that the iPod (if you’re going to refer to an official product, at least capitalize it right) has personally offended them somehow. He offers no proof how the iPod and iTunes killed the music. He doesn’t back up he reasoning behind what he considers scams, and is basically venting useless vitriol. This is better for a personal blog entry, not an article. I know not everyone likes the iPod, and I can accept that, but if you’re going to claim that everyone who jumps on the iPod bandwagon is a zombie, you better be ready to back it up, otherwise you will be considered a tool and not a very good one, either.
GERBER….Baby pablum
iIdiot.
What an iDiot!
So the music did not die with Napster and LimeWire?
Poorly designed?
I guess the iRiver was the Taj Mahal of mp3 players.
Hey Baby Food… EVERYBODY’S got a religion, including YOU.
No… ESPECIALLY you.
Dimwit.
Poor bloke, must’ve got given a Creative!
Apple’s stock will probably pass $70 again once Steve Jobs gets on stage to talk about new products ( including iPHONE ) and iMAC sales for the first quarter of 2006.
Remember , its April, and on April 15th ( plus or minus 5 days ), It will be time for Steve Jobs to ‘ not disappoint ‘ his shareholders.
If sales were not good, he will probably offset it by introducing new products.