How iPods Took Over the World 360
An anonymous reader writes "The Observer has a piece today about the iPod's ascension to dominance of the mp3 player market. The author argues that it's largely the result of clever business tactics and the iTunes music store." From the article: "The second thing about the iPod: it puts you, not them, in control. Basically, the record labels are devotees of the Henry Ford business model: 'You can have any music you want so long as it's what I want to give you.' But using the cyberspace jukebox, you're no longer at their mercy. You don't have to pay for the four filler tracks on every album. You don't have to buy albums at all. You can put country next to classical, punk next to jazz, Barry Manilow next to Placido Domingo (wait, that's a joke)."
Re:iPod's marketing is so clever, (Score:5, Insightful)
More to it (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember what most MP3 players looked like before the iPod? I'm not just talking about the general ugliness of some of them, but the way the interface was designed specifically to appeal to people who LOVE high-tech gagetry, and think the Windows file manager is downright spiffy.
No non-geek had any clue at all how to operate them, or even what they were for. They just barely knew that "EM PEE THREE" had something to do with music, because their nephew set them up with Napster back around 1999 so they could steal music online and listen to it at the office.
Then the iPod comes out. It's not an "MP3 Player", it's a music player. It has simple and obvious controls. It's easy to figure out how to get songs into it, and easy to figure out how to play them when they are there.
What iTMS is doing is ensuring that the iPod *keeps* it's lead in the market. It's also creating a new revenue source for Apple. (They started it off as a possible loss-leader to sell iPods, but it's turning a profit these days, and with the addition of video downloads, I'm betting it will become an even bigger revenue generator for them. There's no way in hell I'm going to pay two bucks for a low-res TV show episode, but it appears that some people are happy to do so. Go figure.)
Simple (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't like Ipods (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't that make Digg redundant? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Only one REAL reason (Score:5, Insightful)
The iPod was popular on it's own at first because it was _simple_ and easy to use, their initial apps for it IMHO sucked miserably. But the iPod integrated with your already existing music library, and syncing everything up was very, very easy.
Now add a couple years, you can choose from a couple different models, all using the same easy to use interface, it still interfaces nicely with iTunes, which runs on Mac/Windows which can rip and organize all your CDs, and sync with your iPod, and hot dog! Now you can buy music straight from withini the same application that you already keep all your music in to begin with!
Don't fool yourself, marketing was a vital role, but don't underscore the brillant move by apple to bring all these music services into iTunes+iPod, because without the whole package you just have something that's smaller than the Nomad Jukebox, lame.
4 filler tracks? (Score:0, Insightful)
Not only marketing (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Linux Software (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:PSP even without a harddrive blows away an IPOD (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually no, it still has its cool factor but nobody is going to "play" with yours because they already have one. It's now just a "keeping up with the Joneses" type of phenomenon. I don't have one because I hate Apple and don't like getting something jsut because everyone else has it.
PSP is too expensive and too niche-ey to become really mainstream. And the fact that Sony sucks at marketing because they won't share any formats. All the people in the know like slashdoters know that in the long run the DRM stuff and format issues become a pain in the ass.
When are PVP's going to become the thing to have? Archos AV500?
I know they're closely intertwined... (Score:4, Insightful)
Full albums (Score:4, Insightful)
- Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon
- Nirvana's Nevermind
- Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here
- Soundgarden's Superunknown
- Michael Jackson's Thriller (despite that horrible duet with Paul McCartney)
Whenever I hear a song from one of these albums on the radio, I'm always waiting for the following track to start playing at the end. It's so unsettling to hear them out of context. It's like seeing a drawing of Spider-Man floating on a page with no background, rather than in a comic book with a plot and setting. I'm sure every classic rock fan has encountered that one jackass DJ who plays Led Zeppelin's "Heartbreaker" and not "Livin' Lovin' Maid" afterwards.
I don't think the situation will get better for we who enjoy music's artistic merits. Radio and MTV (or MuchMusic) already can't tolerate any songs longer than about 4 minutes. I feel this "iPod effect" will only cause record labels to enourage their artists to record music that is marketable rather than good (more so than they do already).
Re:I don't like Ipods (Score:5, Insightful)
The iPod is designed for urbanites. The battery is perfectly adequate for people who don't go more than a few hours away from an outlet most of the time. I have my iPod running in my car (off the car charger) when I drive in to work in the morning, listen to it on headphones in the office, take it jogging with me over lunch, and back in the car in the evening. If I go for a bike ride or a walk that evening, I can take it along then. It's even nice for domestic air travel, and awesome to have with you for a day of downhill skiing.
Even when traveling by hitch-hiking or on a bicycle, you plug in your charger in the restaurant where you eat lunch (every restaurant has a few outlets in the dining area so they can run vacuum cleaners and stuff), and you're good to go until dinner. No problem.
That said, unless you attach an external battery pack, it's unsuitable for camping out in the wilderness.
Then again, when *I* go out into the wilderness, I'm trying to get away from all that shit, and the only piece of electronics I want with me is *maybe* a GPS. Kind of hard to hear the call of the eagle, or the wind rushing through the pines, if it's drowned out by your "slow jams."
Still, it sounds like the iPod is the wrong player for your lifestyle. You do, however, realize that the way you live is rather atypical, right?
iTMS? Are you sure? (Score:5, Insightful)
People buy the iPod because it's attractive, has a large harddrive (one of the first players to use a harddrive, I think), and has a great interface (circular touchpad) for browsing the contents. And, no doubt, because the marketing has been successful in making it the first thing that comes to mind when people think about MP3 players. Frankly, there may be other players on the market that do as good a job or better, but when it comes down to it the iPod is just a good little piece of hardware that does what it does very well. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why it's popular.
Personally I haven't bought one because I want something that can record a line-in signal. And because I have, like, no money at all right now. I might eventually get an iRiver or something that can record CD-quality music.
However, I'm almost sure that iTunes is never the reason why people by the iPod..
Of course, I could be wrong.
Re:iPod's marketing is so clever, (Score:2, Insightful)
But yeah, it shouldn't have been marked as a "Troll" either. The population of slashdot has changed to the point that there are a lot of people with mod points who don't actually seem to know what a troll is anymore. C'est La Vie.
Overcomplicate the obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:iPod's marketing is so clever, (Score:4, Insightful)
You are confusing the iTunes Music Store with the iPod.
I have purchased 6 iPods and currently use 2 (sold the others). I haven't purchased a single track from the iTunes music store yet my iPods are full of music I have legally purchased.
I am fully in control of that music, as mentioned in the article. The iPod works perfectly with plain 'ole mp3 files.
The author is wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
It is primarily due to ipod's (and itune's) highly intuitive and easy-to-use interface that made it a real winner. It made it possible for anyone who would otherwise be afraid to touch a new high-tech gizmo, instantly comfortable with ipod. And Apple's marketing of ipod is another factor contributing to ipod's success. The initial buzz that was created with white earbuds was something many marketing teams dream about launching their products.
Of course, being able to buy a track at a time is a great thing and definitely helped ipod gain market-share. But, Apple didn't invent it. It was there before ipod.
Osho
Re:Simple (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay, you're a non-conformist. And the problem with you non-comformists is, most of you are only doing it because you think not conforming will make you "cool".
Re:No, that's the iTMS. (Score:5, Insightful)
Now only if they would get rid of the DRM, I would actually buy stuff there too. Right now, it's too risky. Who can guarantee me that in 10 years I can still play the music I buy now ?
Re:I think he's wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
It is a quality product, but look at Bose speakers. Marketing goes a long way.
Re:I think he's wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
Have a decent user interface. That may not be important to you, but it is important to a couple of people. Those people bought iPods.
Re:iPod's marketing is so clever, (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Only one REAL reason (Score:3, Insightful)
The day Apple decides to change their business model, or to tweak what they allow you to do is the day you'll notice.
I own an iPod nano, which stayed virgin for about half an hour after buying it - it never had a single song uploaded and played with Apple's software. I run rockbox on it and have freedom to use it as I see fit.
Re:Ipod Annoyances. WMP Dissaster. Free Utopia. (Score:5, Insightful)
Amarok needs a hell of a lot of work. The only thing I managed to get it to do was freeze. When I tried to add the ~1000 songs I have on my computer, it quickly ate up all my memory and then stopped doing much of anything, slowing the rest of the system down to the point that I had to do a hard reboot.
Hmmm, what could be more natural than plugging your IPod into someone else's computer? Remember tape swapping? IPod brings a nasty surprise by erasing all of it's contents when you try to SHARE. Getting your music back is a painful operation, not simply a button press. This punishment of sharing, evil on it's own, will also punish people who lose their music due to other failures.
There are a number of ways around this. You're right, it's annoying for the average user, but not so annoying that it offsets all the benefits of iPod + iTunes.
There are many other annoyances which users of ITunes do notice. The most significant is not being able to sort by Artist and Album. Others are less important but almost as annoying as a whole.
I must be misunderstanding you... it is possible and very easy to sort by Artist or Album. What do you mean?
The main reason other players fail is Microsoft. WMP is a well documented dissaster of DRM and poor quality software. Even when other players include their own interface, they all want in on the Works for Sure, Napster/Purge M$ DRM service d'jour. Absent M$ and DRM crap, these players work well enough, especially if the user only bothers with CDs as you suggested.
Even so, every other player on the market lacks something compared to the iPod, be it style, features, capacity, ease of use, etc. The iPod is quite well rounded. By the way, it's "du jour."
* Rip with Konqueror's audiocd: function. With too lame, ogg is a concern only for those who care about freedom and saving 10-20% of storage space. Correct lables, flac, ogg and mp3 encoding has never been easier. ABCDE provides more robust ripping from the command line if you want that.
* Record analog with Krec, Krecord, Audacity or Gramofile. Use Rockbox for your iPod or iRiver portable device.
* Get your new music off the web. The Internet Archive [archive.org] has more than 30,000 concerts by artists that want you to share. Most players have built in stream sources.
* Play and organize your music with Amarok. It's all the goodness of iTunes with none of the annoyances.
Yeah, or they could use one program to do all of that and not waste time mucking about with the command line, updating dependencies (depending on what distro you're using) and generally jumping through a number of annoying hoops just to perform one simple task. This is one of the main reasons that Linux as a whole has very little share of the desktop market - lack of integration. Everything in Linux relies on something else, and while that's more efficient for servers, it's just a huge pain in the ass for home users.
The main obstacle to free software adoption for music is FUD and a false sense of dependence on M$ formats for "work". The free software user is less likely to have pirated crap because no one needs that crap anymore.
No, the main obstacle is that all of the free software you've listed is about a billion times less convenient than iTunes or even Windows Media Player, especially to anyone without extensive knowledge of computers.
Re:iPod's marketing is so clever, (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I don't like Ipods (Score:3, Insightful)
That may not be completely true. You can in fact buy portable, foldable solar panels for recharging portable devices like the iPod, which are suitable for backpacking -- you can drape the foldable panels down the back of your pack, plug everything in, and let your iPod charge.
However, having just returned from a several day hike along the Juan de Fuca trail, I agree with you -- leave everything but the emergency electronics at home, and just enjoy nature. My iPod stayed home.
Yaz.
Re:iPod's marketing is so clever, (Score:5, Insightful)
Because his post is that of an anti-DRM troll. DRM is only tangentially relevant to the topic at hand, yet he used it as an excuse to go on an ideological rant.
No one *wants* DRM, but most everyone will accept it under reasonable terms. Apple's terms are more than reasonable. Posting such an unreasonable rant about reasonable DRM is not insightful--at least, yagu's rant isn't. His post is inflammatory, and really qualifies as a troll or flamebait, even though I'm sure he truly believes in what he posted.
Guess the apple fans don't like insightful opinions.
What was insightful about his post? Nothing in it was relevant to the topic of the iPod. Most of it was ideological vitriol. And the only reasonable part, which you point out below, was aimed at a company that did the *exact opposite* of the "CDDB betrayal" he complains about!
How is that not a troll, or at the very least flamebait?
Insightful? Are you mad?
The point about the CDDB database is relevent. It seems that all to often companies don't really understand what the consumer wants. Often times, the quality of community created software is vastly superior to anything a company would come out with due to their marketing restrictions.
Yes, all too often companies *don't* listen to their customers. The whole point of this slashdot story is that Apple does, and created a product that gives the customer what they really and truly want in the iPod.
Re:I don't like Ipods (Score:2, Insightful)
Top Prize for Stupidest Post Yet (Score:1, Insightful)
1) Usability of the device as a portable USB drive is a feature, NOT an interface issue.
2) It just so happens that iPods CAN be used as portable USB drives.
3) This has to be the first time I hear anyone claim that any Linux product offers superior interface or ease of use than Windows, let alone Apple, which is synonymous with brilliant design and ease of use. Linux fans can harp about security, open source, and standards compliance all they want, but the platform's notoriously poor ease of use and inconsistent interfaces are legendary, and the principal reason why Linux has barely made a dent in the desktop market.
4) MusicMatch Jukebox is and has always been notorious for its poor reliability and performance. It is one of the chief reasons I hated MP3 players before buying my first iPod. The moment Apple released iTunes for Windows and demonstrated they could write better and more reliable Windows software than any of the seasoned experts in the Windows world, that was all it took to begin the mass exodus to Apple's iPod. iTunes HUMILIATED every Windows based software product of its kind, particularly when it came to its flawless and effortless synchronization with the iPod. No more crashes. No more lost songs. No more sync failures. No more troubleshooting of the hardware/software communications configuration.
5) You, like all the losers in the Microsoft/Creative/iRiver camp, insist on looking for "features" and "specs" that you can match or beat against the iPod. You keep refusing to look at what everyone is clamoring about - the user interface and the overall user experience. Believe it or not, there's such a huge chasm separating the two platforms in this area, that most people will gladly pay twice as much for an iPod with half the storage space and extra features as a competing product from Creative or iRiver. Oh, and before buying my first iPod, I almost bought an iRiver player. That is, until I saw one in person and it felt like some crude toy that might fall apart in a few hours. Five minutes hands on with that iRiver was all it took to write it off as a candidate.
Re:I think he's wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
There were at least five things that made the iPod stand out above the other MP3 players in 2001; it wasn't until 2004 that Creative Labs caught up.
1) Size/Density: In 2001 the iPod was 5gb in the size of a deck of cards. The 6gb Nomad Jukebox was the size of a Mac mini and the 256mb Rio PMP was the size of a Zippo. The similar 1.8" HDD Zen Touch wasn't released until 2004.
2) Upload speed: In 2001 the iPod used Firewire to upload songs at 12mb/s, compared to the 1mb/s of the USB Nomad Jukebox. You could fill an iPod in 7 minutes, while it would take over 80 minutes for the Nomad.
3) Usability: In 2001 the iPod had 4 buttons and a scrollwheel to access the songs, playlist, volume, and position. The Nomad Jukebox had 11 buttons to do the same; one could be used in one hand, the other could not.
4) iTunes: In 2001 you only had to plug in the iPod for it to charge, upload, and synchronize. The Rio and Creatives of that age required you to create playlists, drag files, and use special functions in software. iTunes was literally plug, wait, unplug, and play.
5) Mass Storage: This gave the iPod immense geek cred. Your iPod was a vanilla Firewire/USB mass storage device. I installed OS X on mine.
It took competitors three years to catch up; in the mean time Apple had released the iPod mini, which Creative countered with the Zen Micro 9 months later and the Zen Touch was the first Zen to use a 1.8" HDD also in 2004. All the while Apple released smaller and lighter iPods, cheaper and higher density iPods, and Windows compatibility to boot.
Is it any surprise they succeeded when everyone else was giving them the keys to the kingdom?
They got the whole system right, not just one part (Score:3, Insightful)
He points out that Apple didn't get just one thing right, they got a bunch of things right AND made them work well together.
== Quote:
The iPod's competitors have wasted years of opportunity by assuming that they can beat the iPod on features and price alone. They're wrong.
In fact, at least six factors make the iPod such a hit:
cool-looking hardware;
a fun-to-use, variable-speed scroll wheel;
an ultrasimple software menu;
effortless song synchronization with Mac or Windows;
seamless, rock-solid integration with an online music store (iTunes);
and a universe of accessories.
Mess up any aspect of the formula, and your iPod killer is doomed to market-share crumbs.
== Endquote.
I'd argue that they also got the ITMS business model right, in addition to the superb integration of the above six.
You'll note there's no mention of marketing anywhere there.
Re:Why I think iTMS Store blows (Score:1, Insightful)
Sitting here with moderator points this morning, I was really torn. I could have just pulled the "Flamebait" dropdown, but I'm hoping that you'll take these comments to heart.