Re:The answers lie in Archos (Score 1)

But certainly mostly style and marketing. I own two Archos units, obviously far superior to any ipod. I bought my first unit back when they first came out - I had my AV320 pre-ordered. Funny thing is that of all my friends that saw it, they all marveled at it. However, only one friend bought one (he actually bought two, and his wife still bought an ipod), and the rest all bought Ipods. When asked why, I could never get anything more out of them besides "I just like my ipod". No one even tried to make the point that their ipod was better than my archos. I guess it is the same as my thread where I make the point that most people would prefer a rolex to casio, even though the casio is superior in every functional aspect. When I look at my Archos Gmini, I really do see a beautiful unit, but I suspect that most people see it as some geek unit, while the Ipod is viewed by most as being very cool. Also, I moved to the Philippines about 6 months ago. I remember walking through the local electonics mall when I first got here and saw several vendors selling Archos, and only one selling ipods. At the time I thought it was just that the Filipinos, with limited incomes, were more concerned with bang-for-the-buck then style. Very heartening for me at the time. Fast forwared to today. You can walk through the mall and find the same two vendors selling archos, and maybe twenty vendors selling ipods. Hmmmmm. Never seen an ipod ad, or any apple ad, anywhere in the 6 months I have been here. So it is not brand recognition or timing or marketing. People just see something "beautiful" or "cool" in the ipod. Or maybe they don't have the intellect to understand an archos, but an ipod is a very simple thing. And of course, no device can really be powerful and simple at the same time. So there will always be a market for powerull units, and another for simple units, and the simple units will always do better than the powerful units because that is apparently what the majority of people want. Steve jobs maybe an asshole, but he really does get it.