Can Apple get any more lame?
Well, Apple has rolled out two new products to the adulation of Macheads everywhere. The iPod Shuffle, a depressingly bad digital music player, and the MiniMe Mac, a knockoff of a million small form factor PCs, would be written off as just another pair of so-so products if anyone *but* Apple had released them. But since the Hand of Jobs has touched these devices, they apparently float on water. You, I assume, love them, simply becuase you're always putting stakes down on the wrong side of right.
posted by Dave @ 10:34 AM
7 Comments:
At January 17, 2005 4:39 PM,
Rick Broida said…
Welcome, viewers, to another episode of "Dave's World," where products that don't satisfy Dave's needs can't possibly be of value to anyone else! I neither love nor hate the Mini and Shuffle, but I do have some strong feelings about both.
The Shuffle is a master-stroke. It's tiny, cute, and, unlike most other Apple products, reasonably priced. $99 for a 256MB flash player is a very decent deal, especially one with iPod cachet. Apple will sell a gazillion.
The Mini represents Apple's first real shot at challenging the Windows juggernaut. Once again, the combination of cute, cachet, and a low price will lead to huge sales; it'll undoubtedly be Apple's biggest desktop ever. Mark my words.
At January 18, 2005 4:59 PM,
Rick Broida said…
Correction... the $99 Shuffle has 512MB of RAM, not 256MB! That's more than reasonable--it's actually quite compelling when you consider it's also a flash drive.
At January 22, 2005 6:31 PM,
Dave said…
So, the Shuffle is a master stroke? Indeed, it is -- one entirely of marketeering, and one you've totally been sucked into like a 14 year old girl thumbing through a glamour magazine.
You says it's great since it has the iPod's cachet. Well, let's talk about that. The iPod--the original one, that is--is great becuase it has a hard drive and features effortlessly smart controls. This new music player has neither. So what are you actually buying, besides the Apple logo? What connection does this new iPod have to the original? To have to invoke the Apple "cachet" when justifying the device shows how desperate you really are to make some sort of reasonable case.
The key issue, of course, is that it's just a run of the mill flash drive player. There's a zillion like it on the market. But what makes this one unique -- and crappy beyond words -- is the lack of any display or play controls. Oh, but that's not a bug, it's a feature! Just like the Apple iCar, an automobile you can't steer. It just stops at random places, assuming eventually it'll go someplace you like.
So it's not that I'm dismissing it becuase I have no use for it. I'm dismissing it becuase it's totally broken before you even take it out of the box. It's missing one of the most fundamental attributes of a portable music player--the ability to see and control the music you play.
At January 23, 2005 9:44 AM,
Rick Broida said…
Tomato, tomahto. Your shocking anti-Apple rant smacks of hubris--either that or your new Microsoft implant is doing its job. You seem to think that if a product isn't perfect, it doesn't matter if it's attractive, affordable, and smartly marketed.
I didn't say the Shuffle was the perfect MP3 player; I said it's an ingenious product, which it is. Consider the target markets: teens, students, and anyone else who wants "an iPod" but can't afford $300+; people who like to exercise (you remember that, right?), for whom shuffle-play is all that matters; and folks who are just plain curious what all the fuss is about (and don't want to spend hundreds of dollars to find out).
Once again your ire is up just because a product doesn't meet your particular needs or fulfill your vision of perfection. What are you, a Borg? Oh, right, you've been assimilated by Microsoft. Same dif.
At January 23, 2005 11:26 AM,
Dave said…
Interesting. We apparently use two very different rules of measure when evaluating products. I try to answer questions like "is this product any good" and "is it as good or better than the competition." Your response to this iPod shows that you're only interested in a single metric: "could it possibly be of interest to anyone?" I shouldn't have to tell you that this is the wrong question to ask. Surely, *somebody* is going to want the iPod Shuffle. As the old saying goes, there's a sucker born every minute. *Somebody* will buy absolutely anything, no matter how bad, broken, or ill-conceived it is. And a music player with no direct control over tracks that essentially only plays songs in random play is as ill-conceived as they come. People new to digital music can easily find better players than this one. And there's nothing magic about it being an "iPod." In this context, calling it an iPod is just a marketing gimmick, like slapping the "Nikon" brand on a lawnmower.
At January 24, 2005 8:39 AM,
Rick Broida said…
Ah! You finally get it! Calling it an iPod is a marketing gimmick! That's what I've been trying to make your pea-sized brain understand. It's a gimmick! And an ingenious one! And Apple will sell a gazillion Shuffles! Why you're so disgusted by that continues to elude me, but I suspect even you can appreciate smart marketing.
Why do you think people continue to cough up $400-500 for an iPod when they can get a similarly equipped, say, Dell DJ for half the price? Because there's cachet to the iPod and Apple markets it brilliantly.
With the Shuffle, Apple has taken that signature all-white design, shrunk it into something impossibly cute, and priced it at $99. Do you honestly not see the wisdom in that?
I know, I know, you don't like the specs, and therefore it's a bad, evil, for-suckers-only product. That's a surprisingly grumpy attitude, even for you.
At February 22, 2005 2:07 PM,
Rick Broida said…
A brief addendum; Apple has inexplicably declined to send me a Mac Mini or iPod Shuffle for review, despite my public displays of exuberance (not just here) toward the products. I really wanted to cover them in my newspaper column; Apple basically said "no thanks." Gee, what could possibly explain their tiny market share?
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