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- rewritable, on 10/12/2007, -12/+33I went shopping for a MP3 player a while back and ended up buying a some creative 4 GB (I wanted solid state memory since I wanted to execise while listening to it). After taking it home and spending 3 hours trying to figure out how to put music on it thru some slack jawed redneck method with WMP 10 I took it back and got a 1 GB nano for the same price and then I had it home and loaded up with music in 30 minutes. Thats why Ipod's pwn.
- aaryn, on 10/12/2007, -1/+20Music is subjective boys
- iluvatar, on 10/12/2007, -6/+24estvir, i've had my ipod for over two years now with no signs of slowing down. And as far as quality goes, the ipod hasn't been beat in terms of usabilty or synchronization with iTunes.
The real reason that the customer is not truly in control is because of DRM. However, the average consumer has no idea what that means. (Personally, I've never bought a song of iTunes so it's never been a problem for me) - kevinmotel, on 10/12/2007, -8/+25i have bought songs from the iTMS, and its not a big deal, i play them on my computer. i put them on my iPod, and i can burn them to a CD for a car, what more do i need?
- kevinmotel, on 10/12/2007, -8/+23oh heaven forbid something is popular. that is the dumbest reason for not liking something. everyone else has the iPod, so i'll try and be different by not getting the iPod
- rewritable, on 10/12/2007, -6/+19Ever heard of CCR, Led Zeppplin, Hollies, George Thorogood, Hank Williams, Porter Wagoner? Thats right people I listen to what I want to, not what MTV tells me to listen to.
- xswag, on 10/12/2007, -8/+21I went with a Creative Zen Xtra 40GB for a lot less. With what I saved I got some Shure e3's. You can replace the battery in this without special tools or a service call to the manufacturer and the harddrive can be user replaced or upgraded to 60GB (I've even heard you can put a 100GB drive in it http://www.aoaforums.com/forum/general-hardware-discussion/36570-upgrading-your-creative-zen-xtras-hard.html). Of course its bulky so that is the only negative thing I can say about it. I've had it for years now and its still working great.
- Phoenixfury, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15People just prefer simplicity over features. The more features you add into a product, the more complex it becomes. People don't like wading through complex menus or even care to think about redundant features of their mp3 player.. They just want to get their music playing with the least amount of effort possible. Think of the iPod as a hammer, and other mp3 players are hammers with lights, GPS and the ability to make phone calls.. But in the end does all that make any difference when all you want to do is drive a nail into wood?
- FunkyWitDaSysTm, on 10/12/2007, -5/+18fta:
"No thanks to the record industry, but I'm enjoying being a customer again because it's on my own terms. And that's the ... thing about the iPod: it puts you, not them, in control."
there ya go. - spangemonkee, on 10/12/2007, -10/+22The reason the ipod is so popular is because most people don't know that there is anything else out there. Apple is the only company that does a massive campaign for their product. When was the last time you saw a tv commercial for a mp3 player that wasn't an ipod?
- tapo, on 10/12/2007, -4/+15XviD is pretty much a giant patent issue if you want to use it in the U.S. Who would Apple license it from?
Why would Apple use FLAC when they have ALE (Apple Lossless Encoding?)
"all i see is apple crap proprietary codecs besides mp3 and wav"
AAC isn't by Apple, it's the Advanced Audio Codec, developed my the same people who developed the MP3, and it's the default audio codec for MPEG-4.
MPEG-4 and H.264 are both not by Apple, but by the MPEG group.
AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format) is open and used by people other than Apple. It's as open as WAV (which was made by Microsoft, but you don't seem to be complaining about that).
Quicktime isn't a codec at all, it's simply an open container format, as well as a multimedia framework on Mac/Windows.
And Vorbis (which you refer to as OGG) had issues with the chipset that Apple has been using for their iPods (PortalPlayer). Now that this has changed, they might be able to implement it well. Under Linux/Rockbox Vorbis works, though with a drain on battery life/CPU. - ketsugi, on 10/12/2007, -4/+15Estvir, I used my 2nd Gen iPod for 4 years before I finally traded it in for a newer model, and it was still working fine when I did, apart for some mechanical wear-and-tear on the audio jack, and of course the reduced battery life (4 years is a long time to be using LiOn batt).
- JangoFett, on 10/12/2007, -6/+17The ipod is so popular because people are suckers for dancing silhouettes.
- Quix, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11Ah, ugly = better. Sexy = crap. Check.
- jaschwan, on 10/12/2007, -9/+17umm yesterday... Most people like the ipod because it has an exellent design style and it's smooth small and functional.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11You're an idiot for assuming that. When I bought a 3G iPod for £400 I evaluted everything in the market, there were cheaper MP3 players, more feature filled MP3 players, but nothing could sync automatically without me having to press a button.
Having owned a 128MB Muvo before hand, and having the trauma of trawling through 20GBs of music to hand pick 20 songs was not a chore I enjoyed. Thus the track list never got updated and the player never used. Now imagine having to hand sync a high capcity MP3 player? In explorer, copy/paste. Forget it, I went iPod because it was the best product on the market for overall quality, features and software integration. - inkswamp, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9No big mystery. Here's how they did it. They made a product that a) looks nice; b) works well; c) has a sleek design (i.e., no excess buttons like every other electronics product seems to need); d) works easily with a music store; e) isn't overly restrictive with its DRM. That's it. And thus far, nobody else has been able to match all of those points (or if they have, something has fallen drastically short.) Apple's desire to simplify is what it's all about. I know geeks love their gadgets and half-a-million buttons and 1000 page manuals and esoteric features nobody ever really uses but most people want simplicity and ease-of-use. Apple caters to that better than anyone else.
- kethraal, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10gamer82987: AAC isn't proprietary. Apple simply chose to use that Codec for their music store. While the m4a wrapper that they use can contain a proprietary DRM scheme (FairPlay), it does not mean that AAC is a proprietary codec.
"How about other video codecs like xvid and divx"
Well... DivX actually *is* proprietary... but I'll ignore that for a second. The iPod support MPEG4, which I know xvid is capable of producing.... so they do support that. As for DivX... well, the market outpaced them some time ago. xvid and H.264 (which is also *not* proprietary) have both consistently outscored DivX, so I certainly understand Apple's logic in not supporting it.
"quicktime files are crap"
Interesting... Why do you think so? Personally I've never had any problem with them, since they are, after all, just a container format for whatever audio and video codecs I want to use... similar to AVI and ASF.
-kethraal - Quix, on 10/12/2007, -9/+16Among others, one big reason the iPod is popular is because people plug it in and it works. My brother-in-law just bought a couple of Zen Micros because he saved money vs. buying iPods. He can't get either Zen to sync with his brand-new Dell nor his 3-year-old Dell. So much for saving a few bucks.
The iHaters like to throw the "sheep" thing around a lot (because they have no better argument than that?). Yeah, I bought the best product on the market, it's served me flawlessly for 3 years now, and it was worth every penny I spent. Baaaa. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11In other news: how sugar water took over the world
- iluvatar, on 10/12/2007, -6/+13I feel like I'm on something awful.
/No, your band sucks! - theblueprint, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11I'm so non-conformist, I'm not conforming with you... I'm going to buy an iPod!
*apologies to South Park* - kingace, on 10/12/2007, -9/+15My cousin listens to Alexisonfire. It's the ***** ***** ever to be called *****.
- skellener, on 10/12/2007, -10/+15> Incompatibility with other formats...
AAC (16 to 320 Kbps)
Protected AAC (from iTunes Music Store)
MP3 (16 to 320 Kbps)
MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 2, 3 and 4)
Apple Lossless
WAV
AIFF
H.264 video: up to 768 Kbps, 320 x 240, 30 frames per sec.,
Baseline Profile up to Level 1.3 with AAC-LC up to 160 Kbps, 48 Khz, stereo audio in
.m4v, .mp4 and .mov file formats
MPEG-4 video: up to 2.5 mbps, 480 x 480, 30 frames per sec.,
Simple Profile with AAC-LC up to 160 Kbps, 48 Khz, stereo audio in
.m4v, .mp4 and .mov file formats
Supports plenty of formats. The only single "retail" format it doesn't support is Windows Media.
I don't have or use any sort of Windows Media. - winampman2, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7My ipod nano is thin. Only 7 to 8 millimeters. I like that. I have not seen another competitor that can beat that. Theyre all bulky, and the software sucks. Its so easy to rename tags using iTunes. The ipod has such an easy and intuitive interface compared to some others.
- Zippo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Apple created a MP3 player with much more memory than the main competitors, made it really easy to use, created an effective and legal music download store, and made the player really good looking. They also marketed it really, really well.
It's a no brainer, really. Go ahead and say it's "faulty", but my iPod is solid.
Also, when you make something expensive and good looking, you make an effort to prevent it from being damaged - this in itself helps it last longer. - motbob, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Actually, the Avalanches made a really great album, "Since I Left You."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Since_I_Left_You
Amazing music. - mateo60, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9When I've bought from iTunes, I can do anything I want with the music besides give it away. And thats pretty easy to get around if you really wanted to. People who bitch about having DRM in iTunes sound like babies. DRM in some form is a necessary evil. iTunes DRM doesn't go to far at all, unlike lots of other DRM I've seen.
- tapo, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8I love my iPod to death, and I don't think I'll ever use another product, because of these reasons:
1. The clickwheel beats the crap out of other MP3 player interfaces I've tried. It's just really intuitive and lets you create an 'on the go' playlist quickly.
2. I use a Mac as my main computer (Ubuntu on the PC), and I love the way iTunes works under Mac OS X. It's easily the best MP3 player for the platform.
3. I hate Windows Media Player, and Microsoft's crappy, closed formats (WMV and WMA) that I can't play on another OS. I may not like iTunes' FairPlay DRM much, but at least AAC is an open standard. - steviefungi, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7I actually prefer the iPod over anything else, especially when you're in a working environment like I am every day. It's better to have something smaller so it won't get scratched in my pocket, and easier to use so I can concentrate on what I'm doing.
No, iPods aren't that bad at all for quality, and if you're so worried, buy the extended warranty thing from Best Buy (2nd worst company to Wal Mart). Same goes for buying cars. You can get any of them with warranties, so go with somethign you can deal with better. It's like buying a Honda Accord over a Ford Taurus. You know the Taurus is bigger and cheaper, but why not, and everybody has a Honda! Duh, because they're good, easy-to-use cars, while the Taurus is a big piece of *****. - kevinmoore, on 06/13/2009, -3/+8estvir, my third-gen 30GB iPod is over three years old and works fine. I did replace the battery once for $25 and 15 minues of my time, but that's nothing I'd complain about.
- macattacks10, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Well there are a good amount of CDs that are mostly filler music. If the CD is truly good, people do buy the whole CDs, and there are plenty I have purchased the whole CD off of iTunes cause they are good.
- vhold, on 10/12/2007, -7/+12"what more do i need?"
Well, personally, I need to be able to buy a competitor's mp3 player and not have my music investment vanish. I rather like the idea of shopping at more then one place. - benliong, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Most in the market for mp3 player don't realize that software package used to manage your music is just as important as the hardware itself, if not more so. iTunes sucked back when 2nd generation when I was running it on windows with some 3rd party software. But once they have itunes for windows, things get a lot better very quickly.
The convenience and simplicity with iTunes is just scary. I can pretty much customize it to load songs in a certain genre that I haven't listenned to for over a week, delete all the podcasts I listened to and pull in new ones that was just downloaded, and all these little details.
I would very much like to try out creative players for the abilities of recording live audio, but this integration of hardware and software grows too important for me and I'm afraid to lose it by switching to other players. With iTunes, I'm garunteed a certain kind of quality, in both hardware AND SOFTWARE. - Kaioshin, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8Took over the world? Perhaps the USA and Japan, but at least where I live you have to go out of the country to actually see it. Apple doesn't care about outside markets is the expression I would get. When I was trying to get a hold of a white 60 gig 5G iPod it was out of stock EVERYWHERE. Heck, I was even willing to import it from any EU country, but nooo. Eventually I got the black one, but come ON.
Normal people would never go out of their way to get an iPod, especially since it's not a status/coolness/whatever symbol here. Most people don't even know about it.
Come to think of it, I only saw ONE person with an iPod, and that was just a glimpse at the capital city bus stop. ...yup, taking over the world. - birch25, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6estvir, i'm going on 4 years with my current ipod and i haven't had one single problem with it. just because apple releases a new ipod every year doesn't mean their old ipods are dying.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4"I need to be able to buy a competitor's mp3 player and not have my music investment vanish"
CDs are cheap. DRM has to exist in this world for the moment. You can't ignore it. A lot of people are experiencing legal digital downloads who would never have had a chance before. And iTunes is the least of the problem out of the lot. Try going to Napster / Real and seeing how far your rights go there. Want to burn to CD? ***** you consumer, ***** you. - Zippo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Yes, there were some other companies making mp3 players with many gigs of space, but in 2001, most people might have had a 64 or 128MB player. Huge-ass players weren't popular. Then along comes the iPod with 5GB.
- ggko, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3It's like the arguments against the Mac Mini. You'll always find a competitor that betters them in one or two areas, but overall, Apple comes out on top.
- estvir, on 10/12/2007, -21/+24you may be a customer using your own terms for content control, but when it comes to something like product quality you're getting kicked in the face.
the ipod is a throw away item to apple and for the same price you can get hardware or an electrical appliance with around 5 years or so of expected life, with the ipod it's 1 year and bam, you're on your own. - zezak, on 10/12/2007, -12/+15No, the reason iPod is popular is because it is well-made, easy to use, and stylish.
- MetalGod, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I used to have a Creative Zen. The hardware is nice but the software is crap.
- sxtxixtxcxh, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4ogg flac divx xvid: they are useless to everyone besides the most uber geek.
- klang, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I also love my iPod and as I have no interest in buying music online from "all you can eat while you pay"-type stores, the DRM does not affect me.
I have my CD collection in AAC format and if I need it in some other format it will cost me a weekend worth of ripping, no great loss.
CD's are still my main way of getting music. They provide the choice I need. They provide the backup I need. Buying music online forces you to accept one format and provide for your own backups. I've had too many harddisk crashes to know how important that is, so I prefer play it safe, get CD's and not think about that.
One other thing about CD's .. they have resale value. You can sell a CD you don't like. You can not sell an album you've bought off of iTunes ... - Boondoggle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Well, I didn't buy my iPod to be cool, so I'm still good with it, but thanks for the useless info.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7It's called a Driver, You can download it and it allows your device to interface with your Windows PC.
- Quix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"It's called a Driver, You can download it and it allows your device to interface with your Windows PC."
Thanks, Scott. Now that I've found an expert in Windows drivers (you), perhaps you can assist my brother-in-law, who installed the Windows drivers per the Creative instructions but to no avail. The fine folks at Creative technical support weren't of much help, but it sounds like he should have talked to you first. - snugsoho, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2There was me thinking people just liked how the iPod and iTunes worked well together as a package, sure there are plenty of MP3 players on the market with better specifications and far superior capabilities but the majority of them look like they were designed in the dark and you need to be a geek to get them to work.
However with the iPod it has always been install iTunes, plug in your iPod and you're done and for normal people with real actual lives away from their computers that is a feature which is much appreciated...
Of course there are other reasons why the iPod is dominant such as access to the iTMS and the iPods design - neither of them are for everyone but that doesn't automatically imply that buying music from the iTMS or buying an iPod because they are cool is wrong. Plus the iPod is quite well priced when you weigh it up along side it's competitors.
Now, if Apple would only sort out that reliability issue... :o) - noGoodNamesLeft, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6This article from the same Guardian website (they own The Observer) that told us how iPods were failing in droves after a year. Hmm...
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