Microsoft iPod<\/a>, but it’s not only about packaging, but USABILITY!<\/p>\nRule number one: Less is more.<\/p>\n
We’re supposed to believe all the iPod competitors are better because of their FEATURES!\u00c2\u00a0 Like the ubiquitous FM radio.\u00c2\u00a0 If FM were that fucking good nobody would BUY an MP3 player.\u00c2\u00a0 As for those wanting to listen to the TV at the gym, Apple makes an ANCILLARY product, so those of us who don’t give a shit, the MAJORITY, are not burdened and confused by extra hardware.<\/p>\n
We don’t want our products to do more.\u00c2\u00a0 We want them to do ONE THING, VERY WELL!<\/p>\n
All that bullshit about cell phones replacing iPods.\u00c2\u00a0 NEVER going to happen until maybe APPLE designs a cellphone.\u00c2\u00a0 One that the average person can use to play music.\u00c2\u00a0 Not something only a teenager can figure out intuitively, but ANYBODY can figure out almost instantly.<\/p>\n
It’s kind of like the Treo versus the Blackberry.\u00c2\u00a0 Look at all the extra shit the Treo has!\u00c2\u00a0 The camera!\u00c2\u00a0 The touch-sensitive screen!\u00c2\u00a0 But what if you lose the stylus?\u00c2\u00a0 And do you want to remove the stylus to do all those functions?\u00c2\u00a0 And do you want to shoot photos?\u00c2\u00a0 Isn’t that what KIDS want to do, not businessmen?\u00c2\u00a0 And how come the battery life sucks.\u00c2\u00a0 And you only get e-mail every fifteen minutes (okay, Verizon has a workaround, but you’ve got to leave your PC ON!)\u00c2\u00a0 And how come when you forward calls, you can barely hear them?\u00c2\u00a0 In THEORY the Treo is better than the Blackberry, but the Blackberry does one thing extremely well, MOBILE E-MAIL, which is what most people want, so it’s the device of choice.<\/p>\n
Then again, if only Apple designed the Blackberry instead of RIM…you’d be able to figure out and use all the features!<\/p>\n
You can figure out the iPod WITHOUT reading the very brief and easily understood instructions.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s just that simple.\u00c2\u00a0 Plug it in and it updates itself automatically, and transfers your music automatically.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is why it’s a great big hit, and no portable satellite radio is.<\/p>\n
Yesterday I tried to use my Inno in Felice’s car.\u00c2\u00a0 Shit, the box alone will drive you crazy.\u00c2\u00a0 There are so many PIECES!\u00c2\u00a0 What are you supposed to do with them all?\u00c2\u00a0 What if you lose one?<\/p>\n
You’ve got to put the device in a dock.\u00c2\u00a0 And power up via a cable plugged into the cigarette lighter.\u00c2\u00a0 And get signal via an antenna that’s attached to a long wire floating in your automobile, unless you have it permanently installed, but why would you do this if you wanted to BUY a portable unit like the Inno?\u00c2\u00a0 And then you’ve got to use a cassette adapter, assuming your car still has a cassette slot.\u00c2\u00a0 And if not, then you’ve got to tune into an FM frequency, which, of course, you lose as some station encroaches in the next metropolis.\u00c2\u00a0 As for figuring out how to set the FM frequency on the Inno?\u00c2\u00a0 Shit, you’ve got to read the instruction booklet, which is written in English, but is STILL hard to understand.<\/p>\n
And then there’s the design ineptitude.\u00c2\u00a0 Want to go to the next station?\u00c2\u00a0 Wouldn’t that be a normal choice?\u00c2\u00a0 You CAN’T!\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got to pull up the menu, and then scroll to the NEXT station, and then hit Enter.\u00c2\u00a0 Which makes surfing stations SO frustrating.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, it’s a bit easier to use the remote control…but you still can’t jump up a station at a time just by pressing a button and why do you need a remote for such a small unit and how come the buttons are so hard to press on the remote and the instructions don’t always register on the Inno??<\/p>\n
But you can buy MP3s from Napster!\u00c2\u00a0 Like I GIVE A SHIT!\u00c2\u00a0 Isn’t this like FM radios on MP3 players???\u00c2\u00a0 Why can’t XM just focus on good SATELLITE RADIOS!\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, if I want an MP3 player, I’ll BUY ONE!<\/p>\n
Oh, the unit worked well otherwise…\u00c2\u00a0 But if you buy one of these things, be prepared to be frustrated.\u00c2\u00a0 God, ANY focus group would have told the designers their heads were up their asses.\u00c2\u00a0 But no, like Sony Connect, XM wanted to reinvent the wheel, and came up with a hubcap.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean is it really that hard?<\/p>\n
Obviously it is.<\/p>\n
Which brings us to my Sirius S50.\u00c2\u00a0 The instructions left so much out I couldn’t get the machine to work.\u00c2\u00a0 Turns out I need a home dock.\u00c2\u00a0 Why wasn’t this in the booklet, like right up front, instead of the endless user agreement\/license which no one ever reads ANYWAY???<\/p>\n
The S50 too allows you to transfer MP3s to it.\u00c2\u00a0 But WHY???\u00c2\u00a0 God, all the paraphernalia in the box…I just wanted to record Sirius stations and walk around the neighborhood listening to them, is that so HARD?\u00c2\u00a0 Shit, I’m a professional…when I can’t figure this shit out, the average man is LOST!<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, they’re selling millions of iPods, which do only one thing, play music, as Rio and iRiver go out of business and XM and Sirius make no inroads into the portable market.\u00c2\u00a0 Shit, how come the scroll wheel is so easy to figure out on an iPod and the navigation on the Inno and S50 seems to be understandable only by Mr. Spock?<\/p>\n
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Steve Jobs doesn’t have to worry.\u00c2\u00a0 His iPod near-monopoly is not on the verge of being threatened.\u00c2\u00a0 Quite the contrary, the more inane products that are released by so-called competitors, the brighter the shine on the Apple, er, iPod. You’ve probably seen that Microsoft iPod faux commercial Microsoft iPod, but it’s not only about packaging, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apple"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-78","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}