“I’ve been using the 512-megabyte iPod Shuffle exclusively for a week now, and against all expectations, I’ve found that a screen is hardly essential for a digital music player, particularly one that only holds a couple of days’ worth of music to begin with,” Andy Ihnatko writes for The Chicago Sun-Times.
“It’s also feather-light. It is, in fact, the only micro-size digital music player worth a damn, because in place of a tiny and unreadable screen, Apple has installed a full-size and comfortable set of buttons in the familiar iPod wheel arrangement. Operating other players its size is a lot like trying to set the time on a $5 digital watch,” Ihnatko writes.
“But the biggest advantage of the Shuffle over all other RAM-based players is the simple fact that it’s an Apple product and relies on iTunes instead of Windows Media Player. It works, period. I spend every Christmas driving around the state on a Holiday Goodwill Tour of friends’ and relatives’ houses, and this year, the houses where my welcome was the most warm and the children were most delighted to see Uncle Andy were the houses in which someone unwrapped a non-Apple music player that morning,” Ihnatko writes. “Y’see, most of ’em didn’t work. It was a Holy Day, and I spent much of it reinstalling Windows Media Player 10 and downloading new device drivers. That’s not right. It’s just not right.”
Full article here.
“that’s just not right…”
baaaaaawhahahhahahahahahha
Word: Evidence
Finally someone who gets it!!
This market is about Compliments not just the product. And iPods have the best complement of them all: iTunes
Final … no-one can compete until they develop the iTunes beater … and that is unlikely now:
1) iTunes is entrenched as a platform
2) MP3 producers make hardware and do not know how to make software (and M$ doesn’t offer anything decent either)
need any more EVIDENCE?
“relies on iTunes instead of Windows Media Player”
Yay!
****Off Topic****
Desparate plea for help
I was reading through MDN articles yesterday, and there were several (2-3) posts in a thread that gave links to sites with discontinued/ abandoned software for Mac plus, mac 512 and SE. Can anyone please repost those links or direct me to the article they were posted in?
Many thanks,
darknite
****/Off Topic****
Apple needs to sell as many iPods this year (all models) and in January 2006 announce a licensing agreement for the iTunes. Allow other brand players to drop Windows Media and support iTunes and/or other stores to plug-into iTunes – where users can pick the store they wish to use. This will be a kick in the balls to Windows Media.
Which is the point that old Sim Wong over at Creative simply doesn’t get.
It’s not the remote control, it’s not the screen – it’s iTunes, you dummy. It’s the beauty of having your physical and your “virtual” music integrated in one place with one interface for ripping, mixing and burning. Add in the best storefront with a great range of functionality that even your grandmother could understand, and that’s the iPod experience.
Not some kludged together combination of player, jukebox, and store that just confuses the bejaysus out of anyone coming to digital music in the expectation that it might be a painless experience.
Congratulations to Andy Ihnatko for stating what should be a blindingly obvious truth to people like Enderle.
Andy! You mean that it doesn’t “Play for Sure”?
Most of my coworkers use iTunes now.
As soon as they saw the discs I was able to bring to work (complete with jewel case inserts proudly proclaiming “Printed with iTunes”) to listen to during our shift, they all wanted to use something so easy and powerful.
When I told them that they could download the software for free right on to their pc’s, they almost all went and did it. Every single one of them who tried iTunes has made it their only digital music center.
That was a year ago and now everyone is waiting for the new iTunes/Pepsi promotion (last year I was the only one who wanted the caps). Also, lot’s of them who balked at the the price of iPod and iPod mini are interested in iPod shuffle and some who said they would never buy an Apple because of the price keep asking questions about Mac mini.
What a difference a year makes…
iTunes, iTMS, and iPod are dominant because they just flat work better than anything else, but they also have a special personal experience quality; that’s what “halo effect” is all about.
~M
iSteve:
I kind of agree with you, but I think Apple has to start licensing iTunes/Fairplay functionality for select marketplaces right here and now.
Roku and Sonos are two home players that need to get full iTunes (iTMS) support, and I would also add Hermestedt’s HiFidelio to that list given that it creates an affordable market for people who want digital music library, but haven’t got the confidence/inclination to deal with a computer or want a unit that has a certain aesthetic when used in a domestic audio setup.
MCCRF – I totally agree with immediate support for 3rd party equipment that augments iTunes/iPod. That will forever ban Windows Media Centers from the living room.
darknite,
This one?
http://mac.the-underdogs.org/
Don´t forget that it is not WMA compatible!
(Thank G!)
WMA=George MF Bush
You know…people complaining about the lack of a screen need to look at it this way….the ORIGINAL Sony Walkmans (you remember…the ones that played cassettes (remember those?)) DIDN’T have a screen telling you which song was playing. AND…the mix you made was the mix you heard (you couldn’t randomize them). AND…a 90 minute mix took 90 minutes to record (actually longer if each song came from a different album/CD). AND you had to plan which 45 minutes worth of songs were going to fit on each side. AND, if you didn’t have auto-reverse, you had to turn over the tape. AND you had to pay $3.50 for each new pair of batteries that had to be changed every 12 hours (how come people don’t remember this when they bitch about the iPod battery life). AND the tapes would deteriorate. AND get eaten up. AND if you wanted to skip the song you had to FF and hope you chose where the song ended. AND if you wanted to replay the song you had to REW and hope that you chose where the song began. AND…a new Walkman was $150…plus the price of the cassette tapes.
So…is the ipod Shuffle a good deal?
Thanks Batman!
darknite: There’s also http://www.macmothership.com
I’m guessing a couple previous posters didn’t know this, but Andy is one of the biggest Mac geeks out there
brought to you by the word light
to shed some light on the subject
Do-do-do-do, do-do-do-do. Read my comment on the last article.
Great minds think alike.
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Absolutely, Larry Singer!!
To Many – Too drawkcaB
Just as too many people tend to see Pages as a poor attempt at being Word, rather than an excellent tool for non-professional publishers to produce excellent quality documents quickly, too many people see the iPod Shuffle as a poor flashplayer (no display). But, when it comes to being a source of music, it far exceeds the other more popular no-display alternatives such as the radio (conventional and satellite) where the user cannot specify what song and when it should be played.
For me, the Shuffle is an excellent and much improved alternative to the pocket AM/FM radio; my music, in my time, with no annoying commercial interruptions. Who needs a display with my own music? Radios are the ones that need displays.
Accept things (and people) for what they are and not what you think they should be. If you look beyond your own limited preconceptions, you will see the beauty of things as they really are.
Ooh this is known as bad press in Redmond..
but only if your users read.
natch.
Darknight ?
Try This, it should get you started
http://www.peak.org/~luomat/articles/software/licenses/
My heart goes out to those poor souls who did not receive an Apple Ipod this christmas.
It must have been one hell of a long and sad day!
Good news though!!
They can get rid of that ‘uncreative’ player or Dell ‘bj’ and buy an ipod shuffle instead!
Praise the Lord – they will see the light!!
Andy and MCCFR get it.
The shuffle has a screen — in fact it has a large 12″+ screen in millions of colours! It is called iTunes. This is the beauty of the shuffle: its seamless integration with software to perform playlist managment and autofill and smart playlists and what not. This is also why ipods rock (including the shuffle): because they work hand in hand with iTunes. Other players don’t. Windows players don’t.
iPods are a true extension of the computer and do not pretend to be anything else. Apple should be looking at selling mini/shuffle & mini/mini bundles that emphasize this (even if there is miminal bundle discounting happening.)
Andy Ihnatko is a big mac guy. His reviews of Apple are always postive, it shows he uses macs on a regular basis. The Sun-Times has always had pro-mac computer writers. He has filled the shoes of the late Don Crabb very well in my book.
The Shuffle has two screens — the iTunes one and the one burned in your mind when you deliberately load it. The early iPods and iPod mini have three then, and if you have a photographic memory, so do its larger brothers and sisters.
And that’s a lot, according to the magic word.