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Why the IPod craze will fade: Apple doesn't learn from its past. With Apple pushing it's latest line of Iphones and Ipods onto an eager consumer market I am often left to wonder if I am the only one who thinks that this is perhaps another case of the "Emperors new clothes". There is absolutely no doubt that the Apple Ipod MP3 Player (Nano, Photo, Video or any other variety) is a cool little piece of hardware, but I do have to ask: why must they make things so difficult? For instance, I have a large CD collection, all paid for with hard earned cash, which I have already converted to the MP3 format; As people have pointed out you CAN drag and drop onto your PC in MP3 format but what about the reverse; How can I get all my mp3's off my Ipod back onto another computer? If I own the CDs, and have gone to the effort of ripping them to my Ipod, surely I should be able just move them across to my computer?
Unfortunately, this is not possible without some sort of third party software. The reason? My educated guess would be that this is because of the Digital Media Rights (DMR) mess (Don't get me wrong, Artists and engineers deserve to be paid for their work) but does it need to be THIS hard? Which leads me into the title of this article; For those people who do not know the history of Apple Computers versus IBM, here is a extremely brief outline... Apple developed the Apple Macintosh and insisted that any software or hardware company which wanted to develop software or hardware for the Apple Mac had to get their product approved by them. IBM on the other hand had more of a "here's our hardware, do what ever you want, no approval necessary" approach. Obviously developers took to the IBM because it was "just easier" as it required no 'stamp of approval' from Apple. As more and more hardware was developed for IBM pc machines, more and more software developers developed software for the growing user base; it simply made more financial sense to do this. Apple, by trying to control every facet of development for the Apple Mac, blocked its own development, and in turn the hardware developers, the software developers and the consumers voted with their feet. So, has Apple learned that cool looks alone will not guarantee the longterm success of a product? It appears not. What does matter is the ease with which people can use the product, and the ability for third party hardware developers to develop for the product. Give me an IPod where I can just plug in via my USB cable, browse the folders, drag and drop from computer to Ipod and vice versa and I will be happy. Add in a pretty IPod looking interface as an added bonus. The chances are that someone, somewhere, (maybe in China or Thailand) is already developing a rival product such as this, and once it hits the market, Apple may find that contrary to popular belief, history does in fact repeat. |
