“By now, most iTunes users have already downloaded and installed iTunes 10. We’ve already given you the low-down on the biggest addition to the new version of iTunes – the Ping social network – but we also wanted to give our impressions on two ‘improvements’ promised in the release notes: look-and-feel and performance. While we agree that iTunes is ‘faster and more responsive’, we’re not sold on the revised user interface.” Vertical window titlebar widgets? Can’t we just take this thing ’round back and put a bullet between its eyes? We’d be doing everyone a favour.
The song listing has become clearer and more concise and the interface has definitely gained in aesthetic appeal and calmness. But boy, was I happy about Ars’ explanation of how to easily get the original title bar back:
* The vertical widgets shocked me and made me dread a possible future where Apple would use vertical widgets in all its applications (the horror!)
* I often minimize iTunes by double-clicking the title bar. Now, with less space to do so, it has become less easy.
* Though I understand a larger volume control helps usability, why does the round knob have to be so terribly ugly? There are better alternatives.
* I applaud the switch to monochrome icons, especially with the left sidebar. I do not use it often and always thought it was in my face too much.
* The buttons at the bottom of the screen have always been a bit awkward in my eyes. They do not serve usability as well as they should. This has not gotten better nor worse in my view.
This should restore the widgets in their horizontal position :
defaults write com.apple.iTunes full-window -int -1
I didn’t try it yet.
It works. You should probably quit out of iTunes first.
yes it works….that is how I fixed mine.
anyone else notice the ring tone maker feature has been removed?
Never liked iTunes but I still use iTunes.
I liked SoundJam MP but once Apple got their hands on it and turned it into iTunes I have never really liked it. About that time I switched from using Macs to Windows.
After SoundJam MP I switched to MusicMatch Jukebox and loved it, even paid for it. I used it for years until one day I upgraded and my serial key stopped working, then Yahoo destroyed it. I wish Yahoo would open up that source or something, it’s so outdated now (lacking support for newer formats) that it’s not a realistic choice.
I’ve tried SongBird and MediaMonkey but they unfortunately feel like unfinished projects where they do have cool features, but the main program feel like they’re not quite there.
I would describe myself as a disgruntled iTunes user. There are probably a lot of us out there like me and unfortunately no one is willing to put some coin down to complete with iTunes because I feel that there is a market out there. It just needs to be better than the current iTunes alternatives out there at the moment. I’m kind of shocked Amazon hasn’t done so.
you sound like you would probably like Foobar2000 (http://www.foobar2000.org/)
Amarok is also nice, and the windows version is coming along nicely.
I agree. I’ve been waiting for YEARS for either a better iTunes alternative or for iTunes to improve. Instead, iTunes has gotten more bloated and awkward with each version – with Apple adding junk that is only there for them to increase sales, while making it harder for me to do what I want.
I got tired of fighting iTunes and iTunes alternatives, dumped my iPod and went with a MP3 player that allows simple drag & drop file copy and folder organization.
I’m much happier and I never need to worry about upgrading my computer to run the latest iTunes. I don’t need any software at all. I can even copy MP3s from my Amiga if I want to! (..and I do)
This is because iTunes is provided FREE and since the launch of what was originally the ITMS it’s PRIMARY purpose, despite it’s ability to sync with iDevices, is to sell content. Geeks complaining about that fact is both irrelevant and senseless because for the average user iTunes is a big part of the reason the iDevices are perceived to be at the pinnacle of user friendliness. iTunes is a one stop shop for buying, managing (the content AND the devices), playing and syncing the content – ALL content. Yes it’s bloated and awkward, but then for most users so is Microsoft Office. That doesn’t stop people from using it either…
There is always the old stand by, WinAmp.
I “like” iTunes 10. First of all I have Win64, which may be a less made build. Also I’ve always UNCHECK “I want that Apple to update my Apple software” because I don’t want Safari “for free”, with QuickTime and all that crap/soft-ware.
Of course I’ve had installed QuickTime at the end. And of course the Apple Update part was installed, silently. iTunes 10 anyway excluding that first time it locks, after I closed it with task manager, it seem to be working.
I think that QA is an issue at Apple in installing/first start cases. Probably they do it by purpose (to install unattended software), but this will make me think that Apple is another monopolistic corporation as was Microsoft 10 years ago.
Regardless of this biased review, and the first (b)lock, the software will run fairly smooth afterwards.
“…but this will make me think that Apple is another monopolistic corporation as was Microsoft 10 years ago.”
That would be because they are
I’d add that if you need a simple example, just look around you in a public place and count how much iPod devices there are.
There’s simply no more real competition in the pmp player market anymore, except in the low end (Because Apple fail to understand that a music player without a screen is not worth more than $20) and in the very high end (because audio geeks, having known the MD era, often won’t be easily lured into using SonicStage 5 aka iTunes).
Edited 2010-09-03 20:42 UTC
But the Apple business model does not depend on being a monopoly. They have an almost monopolistic profile in music players because their players simply outsell everyone else’s (the argument as to why that is the case is a separate one). Apple don’t need monopoly practices because they think that they can out compete anybody in the open market and they probably can.
In this context a monopoly practice would be encoding all music in iTunes in such a way to make exporting or playing it in another player impossible and I don’t see Apple doing that. Getting mp3 into and out of iTunes is easy. They do sell music with DRM built in but all the evidence points to their willingness to abandon DRM if the music labels agreed, when they did Apple did.
They may have achieved a monopoly and they sure as hell want to defend their sales but their model is not monopolistic, this is very different to say Microsoft which also achieved a monopoly, but did so as a deliberate business strategy and then ruthlessly defended that monopoly (remember “embrace and extend”).
Apple does not deliberately erect barriers to new players entering the player market, it thinks is can beat them fairly and routinely does so.
Apple does not deliberately erect barriers to new players? You mean their attempts at blocking the Palm Pre from syncing with iTunes wasn’t deliberate?
Also, Apple is far from the only option in the portable mp3 player market, and even further from the best. Their players are poor value for money, compared to the rest of the market. They just happened to become fashion.
There are available ways to do sync with iTunes using Apples SDK. What Palm did was a cheap trick which misused the agreed public rules governing the USB standard which was to pretend to be a device it wasn’t (ie an iPod). I have no idea why Palm took that route – it seemed nonsensical to me but it was after all coming out of a business that was imploding. But Apple did nothing wrong here and Palm’s actions, subverting and breaking agreed open standards around USB, should not be defended by anybody here.
I will also restate my main point – which is that Apple’s business model is not monopolistic even where, though free and fair open competition, they have achieved any sort of monopoly (the only case where they have done this is with the iPod). Apple does not use monopolistic practices as part of its business model. Apple does make products and services that work unusually well together, that is very much part of their business model, but that is not monopolistic – its just clever.
I will argue that…
-Once distributors begin to put iPods apart from others DAP/PMP, on a shelf that’s visible right away while the others are put aside in the back of the store, as if it was some kind of special product…
-Once we ONLY see ads about iPods, and they are everywhere… (ads costs money which competitors don’t have)
-Once the most popular music store, which mostly gained its place through clever use of the already large iPod market share, will only easily sync with the iPod… (don’t tell me that the files can be accessed, I know that. The problem is that most people don’t, and think iTunes files can only be accessed through syncing)
…we can suspect that there’s some monopolistic practices around.
Edited 2010-09-05 06:48 UTC
Again my argument is that there is no evidence that monopolistic business strategy forms any part of Apple’s overall business strategy. Apple’s approach, often stated by Steve Jobs is to make the best products that offer the best user experience and then let the customer decide, through their purchasing decisions, whether Apple has succeeded. Apple doesn’t need to cheat or use monopolistic manipulations (unlike, say, Microsoft) because it has utter confidence that on a level playing field it will win.
Taking your points:
– Store owners will promote the best selling products. There is no evidence I have ever seen that Apple applies pressure to resellers to discriminate against its competitors (unlike ample evidence in the case of Microsoft). If you have any evidence then please do offer it up.
– The fact that iPods are so successful and you see them everywhere is not itself evidence of Apple having a monopolistic strategy or implementing a monopolistic practices. Its simple evidence of the success of their products.
– Apple are not going to deliberately make it easy for their competitors – what company monopoly or otherwise ever does that – and since there has been no clamour from customers for the features you talk about Apple are not interested in developing them. The important point is that Apple has not deliberately designed iTunes in such a way that it locks out its competitors, rather Apple have just ensured through the integrated design of their hardware and software, that the experience of using it is for most consumers so easy that it makes their competitors efforts look clumsy. Using the (by industry standards) unusually integrated use of software and hardware to create (by industry standards) unusually seamless experience for consumers is the very essence of Apple’s distinctive strategy. Its what makes their products so hard to beat.
There’s a misunderstanding there. I was talking about ads, not iPods. Sorry if I did not formulate my sentence properly.
My point was that if a genuinely cool new product (for example one from Cowon or Archos) appears, it will be hard for it to compete with the iPod, even if it is superior on almost every single aspect, because it will be relegated to a dark corner of the store, because a less rich company won’t be able to show nearly the amount of marketting that Apple brings, and because iTMS users will be pissed off by the inability to simply get their songs on the device.
Apple managed to create a monopolistic market that effectively kills competition, no matter what their products are worth.
Contrast with, for example, the PC market. If a brand came up tomorrow and sold nice-looking PCs (like the Nseries from Asus) without the usual preinstalled crap under a reasonable price tag, it would sell milions of units, because it would be on the same level as all other PCs, minus confidence in the brand, which is not important judging by how people buy Acer laptops.
See what I mean ?
In my (subjective) opinion, Apple’s product quality has declined, because they don’t need to make good products anymore. They’ve killed competition, whatever they make will sell anyway.
Edited 2010-09-05 13:24 UTC
(PS : I can go into more details about why I think that Apple’s product quality, especially under the iPod brand, has become worse over time. The post above just shown an explaination of this observed phenomenon. I think that Apple don’t use the good old monopolistic methods of the old era, but still make sure that their monopoly is maintained by killing loyal competition in an indirect way.
This is a bit like IE’s ballot screen : nothing wrong at first look, but keeping IE included in Windows still greatly benefits to its market share, I think. If long-time IE users had to download it like any other browser, without being gently directed to the download page by windows update or something like that, they might think twice. Though trying to get IE out of Windows would be wrong for several reasons, it shows the idea.)
Edited 2010-09-05 13:45 UTC
I cannot understand what you are complaining about. Apple doesn’t use monopoly practices to suppress competitors it just uses traditional and perfectly acceptable standard business practices to beat its competitors. I see no problem with that. So its advertising is better and perhaps more pervasive than its competitors – so what? So if your music is in iTunes its a hassle to use a competitors product – so what – you still can. Apple make the iPod- iTunes combination deliberately easier to use than its competitors – that’s their strategy. Its bit like complaining because a car manufacturer makes more attractive cars than its competitors.
What seems to bother you is not that Apple’s business techniques are somehow illegitimate or immoral or unethical its that they are successful.
As to declining standards – who knows? Everybody that buys a faulty version of a product will complain about the quality of that companies products – what’s important is what is the evidence of Apple’s product quality compared to its competition? All the surveys of customer satisfaction I have seen rate Apple at or near the top. Other than personal anecdote do you have any evidence that Apple’s qulaity has declined or that customer satisfaction with Apple products has declined?
I think ist fine to say you don’t like Apple products or you don’t like their design philosophy but really you should be complaining that their competitors are so limp. If you want real competitors to Apple then complain about how awful its competition is (just wait and see the really bad iPad copies that will hit the market and fail in the next year). Apple’s product design excellence and subsequent market success just reveals how mediocre so many tech companies are.
Apple have entered three new markets in recent years, markets already full of many well established competitors and in music it crushed the opposition, in phones it transformed the sector and but for Google it would have crushed the opposition (it still might, which Android handset maker is actually making much in the way of profits at the moment?), and in tablets it is in the process of crushing the opposition. They are doing this through product design excellence and should be applauded for doing so.
If a care manufacturer makes more attractive cars than its competitors, it does not prevent someone making better cars to enter the car market. Unlike those things which I mentioned.
No. They deserve their initial success. My problem is that any competitor to Apple in the DAP/PMP thing will have a *very* hard time, even if its products are “just better”. Heck, even a company as big as Microsoft, with a very good product (according to those who tried it), didn’t manage to get the tiniest part of Apple’s market share. Doesn’t that look problematic to you ?
Well, let’s begin with the iPod classic :
-The first iPods were something huge. In a market governed by unattractive, feature-bloated, and geek-oriented devices, Apple managed to introduce a DAP that did what it was supposed to do just well, in a fashion that was both attractive and accessible to everyone. They deserve congratulations for that.
-Then Apple introduced the iTunes music store, then iTunes for Windows. iPods became bundled with iTunes. This can be considered as the first anticompetitive move from Apple, because the iTMS became a mandatory part of the iPod ecosystem. Just like IE became a mandatory part of the Windows ecosystem years ago. But well, after all, the iTMS was cool, isn’t it ?
-Then, after introducing the excellent ClickWheel, Apple didn’t know what to do with iPod classic, and the drop in quality began. Feature bloat occured in the firmware, filling the menus with crap and making the device harder to operate, on the behalf that every device with a 2″ LCD should display photos and playback videos (uh…).
Now, the Mini/Nano :
-The first iPod Mini, again, was something huge. Getting thousands of songs in an average pocket was a much welcome comfort. So was the price. Unsurprisingly, Apple sold a lot of iPod Minis.
-Then, at some point, it became laughable to call “mini” such a big device, so Apple introduced a flash-based refresh of the Mini called the Nano. While the idea was cool, Apple did not take the time to polish it as much as the previous iPods. This can be seen by the boring plastic look of the first release, and by the crappy firmware quality of the first two releases (UI lockups requiring to have the device discharge completely before it is usable again were fairly common). I suppose that’s because at this point, the iPod brand dominates the DAP market and hence Apple don’t have to care about it anymore.
-At the third release, Apple finally got the Nano firmware right, so they began to bloat it like the one of the iPod classic, noticeably by introducing photos and videos on a 2″ screen again, not hesitating a second to make the device look and feel incredibly ugly for that.
-Then, as they understood the mistake they made by looking at their sales, they gave the nano a more aesthetically pleasing look.
-Then they introduced a very rare variant of feature bloat, namely hardware feature bloat. Cause you know, it’s a bit harsh to sell exactly the same product without introducing anything new, so let’s introduce a cellphone-quality video camera there… Nobody will ever use it, it’s just a good excuse for keeping the price tag high.
-Then, recently, Apple got nonsense one level further by introducing a 1.5″ touchscreen, and advertising multitouch as a feature… As if anybody could use it… At least, they got rid of some nonsensical features in meantime, though the interface probably feels even more bloated on that small screen.
And then my favorite, the iPod shuffle :
-From the very start, this DAP was a joke. 99$ for a 512 MB flash DAP that doesn’t even include a screen and hence doesn’t even let you easily hear the song you want ? It wasn’t even reliable, a lot of people encountering device lock-up (there was some media coverage of it). The iPod was trendy, though, so some people (mainly young one) just wanted to have one, no matter how crappy it is as long as it is relatively inexpensive.
-Realizing that they had made a mistake, Apple then dropped the price, and later made the device more compact. Under the lower price tag, the device managed to get more adepts.
-Then the shuffle became the most laughable DAP on Earth again with its third generation. Not only were the controls incredibly complex to use, but you couldn’t even replace the earphones with a spare pair if you broke them because Apple put the buttons on the earphone wire and introduced the world’s first earphone DRM (in fact, the two issues are related to each other). Moreover the price tag of the iPod shuffle 2G, okay for its times, began to be just too high as competition had moved on.
-It seems that Apple got rightfully punched in the face again, because they recently went back to the shuffle 2G world, which apparently made a lot more sense in the eyes of their customers. A bit of useless Genius feature was added, though, to signify that this was really a new product and not an old one coming from the graveyard.
Finally, the iPod touch is interesting. It is, by itself, a very good product, if we ignore the increasing iTunes lock-in. What’s funny is that it shows how much the iPhones are overpriced : add a SIM card reader and a few simple hardware and software tricks to an iTouch, forced activation through iTunes in order to piss people who don’t use it off, and you get an iPhone. Now, can someone explain me how this can be worth the $300-400 difference between both products ?
Edited 2010-09-05 20:19 UTC
There has been serious competitors to Apple products for a long time, the problem is that they can’t compete with Apple in the “trendy” area. Apple were there first, and made sure that their products became the most hyped pieces of tech in the world. How can any competitor face that ?
Examples of serious competitors who got flushed down the toilet :
-Archos XS200 series. Small, pretty, well-built, good sound quality, very long battery life, good price.
-Some Archos video players (e.g. archos 5) were brilliant precursors to the iPod touch.
-Iriver H300 series and Cowon X5 were brilliant alternatives to the iPod classic who probably went out because of lack of market visibility in our “occidental” countries.
-Microsoft Zune and Zune HD. According to those who tried it, those were extremely well-polished and satisfying products. And the average guy has no animosity towards the Microsoft name, contrary to us geeks.
<among others…>
The sole good product I know of which deliberately shot itself in the foot was sony’s minidisc. The product itself was excellent, but aside from it they introduced iTunes-like nonsense, while not being good enough as engineers to do it right. The result, SonicStage, bloated, full of crappy DRM, and buggy, is the direct and obvious cause of failure of an otherwise great product.
To the contrary, I find this frightening. We have seen many examples of monopolies before in the tech world. Microsoft is the most obvious example for us geeks. It never, ever, ends well (except maybe in the case of Nokia, which continue to produce pack their phones with awesomeness at high market share). The sole idea of a single brand having a monopoly over several markets opens the way for horrors undreamed of before. SF writers always had a better talent than me when it comes to describing it
Edited 2010-09-05 20:45 UTC
Genrally my response to both your comments above (which I did not quote in full for brevity’s sake) is so what?
This whole discussion thread started because I pointed out that a company that makes products so successful that they become dominant in a given market does not mean that that company is acting as monopoly. In this case Apple competed in the open market, trounced its competitors on several occasions and have been reaping the rewards of success. Again I say – so what. Apple is not blocking other companies from competing with them they are just beating them by making products that are more popular. If that means that they end up getting complacent and make shoddy kit then eventually competitors will make alternatives that sell better than Apple kit, it may be hard to do at first but if their products are better then eventually they will beat Apple.
Compare this to the situation when a company such as Microsoft did use monopolistic practices by, for example, blackmailing OEMs not to sell alternative OSs.
Listing the reasons you think other non-Apple products are better just shows how out of touch most of the small techie world is with the world of the consumer. Techies actually think that having more “features” or “better” specs (the “missing” USB port on the iPad – just the latest example) actually matters to consumers. Consumers want devices with less features that are simpler, that are easy to use, that are attractive, that are safe, that you don’t have to fiddle with or read an instruction book to use – in short consumers want exactly what techies don’t. Hence the belief that tens of millions of people positively choosing Apple products must be somehow unnatural, gerry-rigged, worrying, the result of some subtle con by Apple, the result of Apples voodoo marketing, the result of Apple’s lock in (take your pick).
Most of Apple’s competitors are run by techies, no wonder Apple keeps killing them.
Your like putting a label on people when arguing about something, don’t you ? You like it when you can put them in simple, obvious categories. Especially, you like when you can separate them between “good” (people with some common sense, which includes you and the vast majority of the world) and “bad”/”techie” (people which will buy any crappy device as long as it makes coffee, no matter if they won’t use this feature).
This is a pathology that’s common among the human race. Maybe I have it too, I obviously can’t tell myself. Problem is, by introducing over-simplifications in your reasoning, it makes you miss the point.
First, where did I say that it was about features in the usual sense ? Check some Archos XS202 product review if you find one. This is about playing music, no more, no less. Unlike with its iPods competitors at the time, you didn’t get…
-Scratch-friendly cover
-Silly games
-Low battery life
-Video and photos playback
-Crappy sound quality
-Proprietary USB cord that costs you $30 if you have to replace it (!)
-Mandatory use of a bloated, buggy (at the time), and unpolished piece of Windows software called iTunes.
This is a simple example that Apple’s success is not only about well-chosen features. It was initially, but competition managed to catch up at some point. And that didn’t change a single thing.
Now, just for the pleasure of destroying your “the average guy doesn’t like extra features” myth, let me introduce the iPhone, one of the most successful smartphones in the last few years.
Previously, phones were (rightfully, in my opinion), considered as a mean of communication. You used one for vocal, SMS, and e-mail communication. Other features, like media playing, web browsing and gaming, were considered as extra gadgetry by the manufacturers. Something that you put on the specs, but generally don’t polish much because you know it’s just something normal people (as opposed to “techies”) toy with. Your phone may have cool games, if it has a crappy loudspeaker, an insanely high price tag, and a poor battery life, it won’t sell.
Then Apple proceeded by taking this reasoning backwards. They released a phone which was *all* about gadgetry. Voice communication was only slightly above the “ok” level, and text-based communication was made much more complex through the use of a keyboard with no haptic feedback. Battery life was awful. Price was insanely high. Initially, you couldn’t even choose your carrier (and in some places of the world you still can’t). And let’s not talk about sturdiness, the device was just as fragile and scratch-friendly as its iPod ancestors.
No, dare to explain what, except for some features that arguably have nothing to do in a phone, made the iPhone successful ? The iPhone remained for a long time a perfect illustration of successful feature bloat. And after the App Store release, it became even advertised as feature-bloated : “You know, you can do that, that, that, that, that…”.
It’s now time for you to realize that if techies are defined as people who love silly features as long as they sound cool, then there are billions of techies on this planet.
Edited 2010-09-06 07:49 UTC
If you honestly cannot see what innovations made the original iPhone such a break through and such a success I pity you.
As Thom says, READ READ READ READ READ ^^
I know some things which made the iPhone successful, though I obviously can’t pretend to know everything. Its success is generally linked to the old dream of an all-in-one mobile device which does everything. An excellent web browser, polished PMP functionality, the App ecosystem, choice of more flexibility at the expense of reduced efficiency through use of the touchscreen interface… It’s all about this simple idea.
Now, I’ll ask my question again, in a different form : how can you simultaneously preach the virtues of simplicity (I agree with you there), and like the modern Apple ecosystem ?
Apple made simple devices once, but we’re talking about a device that pretends to be <reads Apple.com> a phone, a pmp, a mobile internet device, a video call system, a camera, a video camera, an ebook reader, a movie editing system, a photo album, a GPS system, a voice recorder, a calendar, a stocks displayer, a notepad, a calculator, a compass… Oh, and it shows the weather in several places in the world, too. Ain’t it pretty ?
Do you, with this in mind, still pretend that Apple make simple devices, respect the 80/20 rule, and don’t unwisely fill their products with features in order to impress potential users in a “look what I can do” fashion ? Do you pretend that iPhone users use all of these features ? That they don’t get lost when scrolling in the multiple panes of the menu, looking for an app that they have a hard time to find due to the lack of visual hierarchy and the simply too high amount of icons around ?
In that case, I must tell you that all real-world data that I have about iPhone users, though it’s probably insignificant since we’re talking about half a dozen users, goes against these statements.
(PS : By the way, this is not specific to Apple’s iOS platform. Most competitors have also sacrificed the essential – simplicity and phone/agenda functionality – in favor of superfluous features. The sole smartphone OS which still resists this tendency, as far as I know, is Symbian. It is often labeled as “dated” on the internet because of this, but in my opinion that’s why it became #1 smartphone OS and still is as of today. Though it will lose its place if Nokia don’t take the time to fix its few quirks)
Edited 2010-09-06 09:11 UTC
The iPhone is a very feature rich device. The core features are fairly easy to use. I had several smart phones that had less features and were much harder to use prior to the iPhone. It seemed that the whole industry took notice and attempted to make better interfaces once the iPhone took hold.
Apple did not just make a better phone…. they made the industry make better phones by example. I really don’t care who makes the next revolutionary device… because in the end it keeps competition alive and elevates the whole industry.
@neolander
You know what? The competition did catch up to apple in the pmp Market… But if you want to overtake the leading brand you must SURPASS the leading brand not just catch up with it. Apple get that right every time they enter a new Market (with the obvious exception of the AppleTV, WTF is going on there!?!)
Look at the 1st Generation iPod, iPhone and even iPad, very simple devices with a limited feature set, but each feature tuned and honed to the point that I could just go out, but one and use it… No messing around, no instruction manuals, the devices just work and it’s difficult to put it into an unusable state.
Second that with clear simple designs that are, instantly recognisable, friendly and unobtrusive… It is a winning consumer strategy!
I have to say I loath iTunes… It is horrible, but the competition hasn’t even caught up yet… Let alone surpassed it.
Edited 2010-09-06 09:55 UTC
They did surpass it :
-The Archos XS202 surpassed the iPod classic in my opinion, for reasons given above.
-Video players from Archos, Cowon, and iRiver surpassed the laughable video playing capabilities of the iPod for ages before Apple launched a device in a similar form factor (iPod touch)
-Archos and Cowon tablets also surpassed the iPod web browsing abilities for a long time (none vs usable)
Surpassing apple didn’t make any of those devices sale any better.
I agree about the iPod G1, but as explained above I just can’t understand how you can write without a smile that the iPhone and the iPad have a limited feature set. Once again, those devices sale through the argument that they can do everything, and I’ve seen a lot of people confusingly trying to retrieve something in a messy iOS main menu. Simplicity is not the major selling point of Apple devices anymore.
About the instruction manuals, please be fair. I’ve seriously not encountered any single electronic device requiring to read more than 2 pages of the instruction manual – or even including one – for years.
About reliability, well… All products have faulty models, including Apple products. I heard people saying that their iPhone 3GS crashes a bit more than once in a month around here, and I also heard that the iPhone 4 had some antenna-related issues. Maybe Apple products are better polished, but what kind of statistics could make this move from a claim to a proven fact ?
That’s perfectly true, Apple know how to make attractive products. Though again, we’re not in 2000 anymore. As an example, on the phone market, high-end HTC phones can’t exactly be called ugly. And on the DAP market, Zunes and D2s don’t look that bad either.
What for ? The competition has Windows Media Player 12 and Windows Explorer (all releases), both giving more than sufficient performance, reliability, and usability for their user base
It’s useless to reinvent the wheel when it is bundled in the computers that 90% of your user base buys…
Edited 2010-09-06 12:15 UTC
@neolander
The other pmps did not surpass the iPod in terms of what gave the iPod its edge, they simply added more features or tried to make a “better iPod”. As buckminster fuller once said, you don’t change things by fighting the existing system, you change it by making the existing system irrelevant! That has been Apple’s edge, when entering a market, they then build on the reputation earned by a strong entrance.
Getting back to your point, Apple have done nothing uncompetitive, they have not forced any other manufactures out of the Market. They simply made devices that appeal to people who weren’t buying these devices before!
Sure I had various other mp3 players before my first iPod (5G iPod classic)… But in the end I just wanted something that worked… Got the iPod, and found a ready set Eco-system, it was easy to buy songs, rip CDs, and manage my music… I used to prefer to do it all manually, then then I just let iTunes do it for me one less headache… Apple didn’t for me to use their system, all my existing media (mp3s and movies) worked on the iPod… while iTunes is a bloated mess, it takes some hassle out of y life giving me more time to do other things.
I had a PDA (a beloved HP iPAQ 4550), but the software on that thing was horrible… It never synced with my computer properly and surfing the web was a struggle.
I got an iPhone, and it only had a core set of apps… A phone, a media player and a web-browser… But it did these things so well I was able to chuck my motorolla phone, my iPod and my PDA…
Apple have the Market they have by being lucky (right place at the right time) and having good products… They haven’t done anything (yet!) that is uncompetitive.
The point is somewhat mute as the Pmp Market is basically dead now, and Google/htc are giving Apple a good run for their money in the new mobile device Market.
Not sure I understand that, it might be some English issue on my side.
The way I read it, your point is that most competitors make incremental changes to existing products, while Apple begin by making a risky move, launching something highly special in order to get some publicity on that market, and only then make incremental changes and polish the product.
Did I understand everything ?
Edited 2010-09-06 14:00 UTC
@neolander
Yes, you have summed it up in a very eloquent way. Which puts my post to shame somewhat
Meh, don’t be so modest
Anyway, I agree with you on the point that a lot of modern companies have a problem with risk-taking and breakthrough change, tending to make products that are just the same as those of competitors, choosing a product being a matter of boringly comparing specs. This sounds like a better explanation of Apple’s success than other things I’ve heard before. Thanks
Edited 2010-09-06 14:37 UTC
Duh! I wonder why? perhaps because the criteria you use to judge the attractiveness of a product is not that used by the vast majority
of buyers and – guess what – Apples success is based on targeting the mass market not the isolated techie hobbyist.
You’ve shown an ability to write better posts in the past. I’ll suppose you wrote this one a bit too early/too late (I can’t make assumptions about that, since we probably don’t live in the same part of the world).
But that’s not a problem, as empty as this post sounds, I’ll find some content in it myself that you didn’t even thought of when you written it.
What you did was only, at first look, copy-pasting your killer argument, namely “it’s in your brain, you are not normal people, you can’t understand them because you don’t have the same judging criteria”. This argument is handy because when used against some interlocutors, it allows you to quickly end the discussion, both parties having reached a state of satisfaction.
* You because you won the argumentative fight, had the last word, and proven your superiority on the other member by your ability to use market numbers to your advantage and by telling that the other member of the comment section suffers from illness, from not being a normal human being.
* The interlocutor agrees to surrender, even knowing that to visit a website called osnews.com you’re actually just as dorky as him. He agrees to the silly statement that he can’t understand people who are just like him, just as human as him. And he does so because he likes the feeling that he’s gotten into a superior intelligence state compared to the average people that you pretend to be representing.
So this looks like a win-win. Sadly for you, I’ll reject this compromise, because I like truth better than feelings. You just don’t know the average guy (should him exist, which I frankly doubt) better than me. We both have relatives, comrades, colleagues, that give us a picture of the thing. We both have two arms, two hands. We’re evenly human beings, normal human beings with 46 chromosomes. So we can understand each other, and it’s generally better than pretending that we’re different kinds of peoples.
Edited 2010-09-07 05:03 UTC
The second kind of content which I’ll find in your post is related to the reason why you wrote it this way.
Frankly, this is crap. We both know it. I’ve just shown how wrong it was in the previous post. I gave you hundreds of better arguing alternatives in my posts, and you rejected all of those just to go back to what you see as a killer point, and continue to repeat with a robotic spambot voice “You are a techie. You are not a human.”
Question is : why did you do so ? Why did you reject years of evolution in varied and colorful human argumentation and choose to act like a child, endlessly repeating the same thing, in the hope that it could somehow make it sound less wrong than it is ? Why do you continue to split the world in black and white ?
Here’s my theory on the subject : you don’t want to get rid of this sentence. You feel that the binary vision of the world (techie vs normal people), which you found in oversimplified ads and express on this site, has started to show its crack. That it won’t get you any further. But in the past few years you spent a lot of time practicing use of this sentence, endlessly slightly changing it bit after bit until it sounds perfect. You don’t want to give up on that now. No matter how damaging it becomes. This is basic psychology.
This is all theory, of course, but think about it. It might be right. And if it’s the case, the longer you keep stubbornly repeating the same thing, the harder and the more damaging it will be for you in the end when you have to take a break from binary separations of the human race and adopt more modern and efficient ways of thinking. So what if you took a decision now ? Admitted that I’m just as much of a human being as you ? Read my posts with less hate and more curiosity, looking for all those details which I carefully put in them, for points on which we agree ? Considered that we are, in the end, both normal people, as much as we are geeky ? And started more positive and interesting discussions, like other members of OSAlert did on this comment section ?
Think about it, please.
Edited 2010-09-07 05:23 UTC
And now, after doing my best to find some more content in this incredibly content-less post and trying to make this conversation more interesting, I’ll finally go back to usual, less mentally tiring, first-degree analysis. Because without it, this analysis would obviously not be complete.
Are you so full of your magic techie vs human sentence that you are seriously arguing in 2010 that mobile video plaback and web browsing are features for techies ? This is where, I think, this post really becomes the most appalling.
We’ve seen those tiny DVD players being sold even more easily than bread in supermarkets. We’ve seen thousands of netbook sales. We’ve seen laptops heading towards outselling desktop computers (maybe they already did by the way, I do not have precise numbers in mind, only relative growth). We’ve seen Apple making milions by selling a phone that is good at browsing the web and marketing it as such. And other milions by opening a video store dedicated to mobile devices. All this can be explained by considering the recent evolution of human societies.
And here you are today, telling me that mobile web browsing and video playback are features for techies. Frankly, you must admit that this is funny.
I suppose that it was those features that you were dismissing. But maybe you were talking about my points concerning the Archos XS202. And are telling me that being more sturdy and less filled with crap, lasting longer on battery, sounding better, costing less, and making the computer more reliable are features which are of no interest for normal people. Then please develop this point, that would be more interesting that your usual “you are a techie, you can’t understand” repetitive sentence.
Let me repeat this again, just to higher the chances that you read it : I’m genome-wise just as human as everyone else, and I am equipped with the same sort of brain, so I *can* understand. Forget those childish and emotional methods, act like a mature person, and put some real argumentative power on the table, damn
Edited 2010-09-07 06:13 UTC
I grow tired. This whole tedious exchange started because your fundamental position is that Apple products (the specific case under discussion was the iPod) sells well and does better than their competitors not because people genuinely and quite rationally prefer them but because of some other – probably slightly nefarious – reasons. Market apathy, Apple’s unfair advertising, Apple’s iTunes lock in, etc etc – I am sure you could add to the list. So you list various bits of non-Apple kit and list the features which means that it is better than Apple’s and then argue that this proves that Apple’s success somehow is dependent on factors other than simply making stuff that consumers prefer.
I tend to go for the simpler explanation, that Apple are very, very good at designing and marketing products that consumers really like – and that is basically all there is to it. Of course how and why Apple are so much better at designing and selling consumer technical gadgets than any other company, by a large order of magnitude, is a very, very interesting question but the answers to that question does not lie in the arcane explanations that you have, it lies in how the company goes about its business, how it is organised, what its history and culture is, etc.
As long as you view the success of Apple’s products as somehow anomalous you will, like My Jones, find that there is something happening here and don’t know what it is.
First, many thanks for making this discussion interesting again. I mean it.
As it’s getting long, let’s sum up where we are right now.
In my opinion, there are things which look suspicious in the Apple business. I mentioned some examples. Another example which I didn’t mentioned earlier is that here in France, once the iPhone was out, carriers blessed by Apple with the right to distribute it didn’t make an ad related to any other phone for… say… Two years ? This is yet another thing that makes me wonder if Apple spend all of their budget in legit things like product design…
But you’re right that whether Apple bribe their retailers or use anticompetitive practices are not very interesting points. Concretely, I have no proof of this, only market symptoms that in my opinion look suspicious and in your opinion look just fine. So I can’t sue apple, make millions, and start my own tech company on top of that capital. In that case, democracy says that we should consider Apple as innocent unless someones finds enough data about this to make a proper lawsuit.
Moreover, it would actually be quite interesting if you were right. Because if so, if Apple’s sales are solely related to the quality of their design and merchant skills, this means that anyone who don’t have as much money as them can understand their strategy and outperform them simply by handling it better than them.
One must then wonder : if it is that simple, why has no competitor ever tried that and won ? There are many holes in the Apple business model, that could theoretically be exploited in order to outperform them by playing their own game.
This is where, when I think of it, your argumentation is being frustratingly weak : the way you write it, it looks like Apple are somehow intrinsically superior than their competitors. You described earlier the competitor’s inability to outperform Apple products as a sad fact of life, something which you simply can’t understand. (While my explanation just works
)
So I’ll challenge you on that point : could you explain how Apple make those better products. In that part of your post…
You seem to think that Apple are better merchants than other tech companies. However, when you try to explain it, you still remain very vague…
Dare to go into about details about “how the company goes about its business” and “how it is organised” ? And to explain the “history and culture” part, which looks strange to me. When I look at Apple’s history, I see a lot of products which had poor reception on the market, or even didn’t ship at all. The Lisa, the Newton, a video camera, the first Apple III, Copland… How did those failures help Apple’s success, in your theory ? How did the Apple culture (if it is not related to the moneybag) change to something which makes product successful on the mass market ? And what is that something ?
(PS : I don’t think that the point given earlier about Apple’s way of shocking product launch is weak. It sounds possible, after all. My everyday experience is that Apple make a lot of money on their reputation, and this sounds like an easy way to build it up.)
Edited 2010-09-07 20:03 UTC
You conveniently forget that Palm didn’t mimic Apple’s USB string before Apple started updating iTunes to lock them out.
Palm needed to make their own sync tool. Instead of masqueraded as a device by spoofing an ID in the USB protocol. That is a DYI hacking approach and is not becoming of professional software development.
I tried many other MP3 players and they all sucked horribly before I got an ipod 3G (which still works). Eventually I moved to an iPhone 3G. It has worked extremely well for me for a couple of years now. It even syncs well with my corporate email. Droid is about the only thing that comes close to providing a strong alternative… and it is not there yet. Especially with Motorola locking Droid X up tighter than an iPhone.
I will agree that iTunes on windows feels awkward. It is much more natural on OSX.
Glad to see I am not the only one having had the ‘locking up’ problem (using vista home).
I just hope it is a 1st-time-only occurrence because, if the time Apple is taking to fix the problems that the itunes installer has with upgrading the bonjour service is of any indication, I would have to basically switch to another player.
Let me see if I have the logic correct:
Product X by company Y, which nobody is forcing me to use and is free, does not do exactly what I want because for some reason company Y doesn’t bother to read my mind. Ergo company Y must be a monopoly.
I am not saying all these huge mega corporations don’t use douche moves to achieve huge market shares. I am just saying that throwing the “monopoly” term around sort of diminishes the validity of some of the grievances.
If you don’t like OSX, use windows or linux or BSD or whatever (and vice versa). If you don’t like iTunes, use Win Media player or some of the free alternatives. If you don’t like the iPod use a different mobile player.
Edited 2010-09-04 01:58 UTC
What if you don’t like the crapware Apple installs using their /update/ tool, but like iTunes?
It takes forever to load. And what’s this $1.29 for songs?
Well, I just tried out the new version on my MacBook.(2008 13in version).
Frankly, it is a big improvement over the previous version.
At last the Albums (I have more than 50) are easily identified. It seems snappier than before.
After one (and fairly short) experience where I downloaded 6 different Posdasts to the MacBook and thence to my iPhone(company std) then synced 6 CD’s I bought at a car boot sale yesterday(1970’s prog rock), I am pleased with its operation.
I do have another MP3 player. This is my Vosonic VP5500 with a 160Gb HDD. I use this for my Photo Shoot backups. IT has all my 45Gb+ Music collection on it. I have no problem dragging & dropping MP3’s to it from the MB.
I’m off on a photo shoot to the Pyrenees at the end of next week. I’m driving the kit down to the location which is close to the Andorran border. I shall be listening to music the whole way down from my iPhone or MP3 player. Nuff said.
It works pretty well.
Its nothing to do with the “users are idiots” mentality. Whenever one company dominates a market, it’s bad for consumers. Internet Explorer 6 is a good example.
Edited 2010-09-06 11:02 UTC
http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/simplicity_is_highly.html
Excellent article, thanks for the read !
Graying out the buttons and most of the other changes were not a big deal to me and it does seem like iTunes is more responsive. However, I could not take the Vertical window management buttons. I sent them a bug report for that and asked them to have an intervention with there UI designer, as his drinking problem is beginning to affect the quality of his work.
Fortunately, the fix is a simple terminal command.
defaults write com.apple.iTunes full-window -boolean YES
I just can’t see violating a fundamental UI convention to save 10 pixels of space on a 24″ screen. The inconsistency of this being the only app that has a window that works this way makes it even worse. Not that I would want vertical buttons everywhere… but they do need to pick one. I really can’t see how it got out of QA without some one asking… What the hell is this… really?? You sure about that button placement because it looks like a bug to the testers?
I switched from being a full time iPod user (with iTunes, of course), to being only an occasional user. Now it’s mostly my Sansa Clip, and I use, for syncing, either manual drag and drop (easy, works like a charm), or MediaMonkey, Songbird, or Windows Media player. All sync up with the Sansa very easily.
And I love the Sansa Clip. It is really a capable little device, with superior sound to the iPod Nano (which is what I have), lots of features, and one third the cost of the iPod Nano. And, of course, I don’t have to use iTunes. iTunes has lots of good features, but it is totally bloated.
I’d add that my girlfriend, who doesn’t care about the extra features the tiniest bit but didn’t want an iPod because of the premium price and various bad experiences with iPod nanos around her, still loves the Sansa Fuze that I bought her some times ago.
When I look at it, Sandisk really made wonders on their little devices’ UI when you have ease of use in mind. The home button is just a great idea, and the menus are uncluttered and simple to navigate through. I wish they had more market exposure for this.
Edited 2010-09-07 20:10 UTC
Yup, I’m sold on Sansas. My next device will be a Fuze.
I’ll also add that MediaMonkey, which I had previously mentioned, syncs up great with the Sansa devices, and it works with iPods as well.