Net Sense: Why Apple Keeps on Shining

[skwoytek]

I agree with much of what Bambi Francisco says, but the part about the iPod seems a bit tainted. Almost an ad for Creative Labs or against Apple. And I don't even own an iPod, I just sell them.

Net Sense

I know the average customers and this article would mislead a lot.

Apple has two Shuffles that weigh less than an ounce. I compared the one which costs $99 and has 512 megabytes of storage, which holds 120 songs. Like all Apple products, it's sleek and elegant. But you can only download songs onto it from Apple's iTunes music store.

So I can ONLY download songs onto it from Apple's iTunes music STORE? or do they mean only from iTunes Software? Do I have to buy all my songs? Does this mean I can't use my own mp3s?

For about $10 more bucks, Creative Technologies offers the Muvo N200, holds the same number of songs. But it also includes an FM-tuner, a voice recorder, a display to show song titles. And, you can download songs from any music store, like Microsoft's online music store, Wal-Mart's, Roxio's Napster music store, or even Circuit City's MusicNow, online store, just to name a few.

Does this any store include the iTunes music store? Can I now play my iTunes Store purchased music on the Muvo N200?

And finally...

Then there's the iPod, which holds 5,000 songs, or 20 GB, for $299.

Ten-thousand songs may be overkill, at least for me. But for $239, or a 30-percent discount to the 5,000-song iPod, you can get a mobile player that holds 7,000 songs if you went with the Creative Nomad Jukebox.

Is my math wrong? 30% off of $300 seems like $90 = $210. Now 20% off of $300 seems like $60 and the actual $240 the Nomad sells for. A subtle slip that makes the Nomad sound that much more attractive. I see Apple haters trying to down play Apple products everyday.

Are these simple mistakes and miswordings? It looks like the editor already deleted or corrected something. Am I the one who's wrong? Is this no big deal in a nationally syndicated column?

 

[angelneo]

I think its easy to see that the author do not have that much experience in the IT area. Not that she is not singing praises of the Apple products, but she opts to compare the products via numbers and prices only. And she tries to justify the difference between her number and reality by merely stating that people goes for brand. I kind of get the feeling that she has been dumped this article and is just fishing out data off the web to write.

 

[quackattack]

iPods can play any mp3, acc, or apple lossless files. they do not have to be downloaded from ITMS to work. This is a common misconception that really gets to me.

 

[greenleaf]

Stories like this are frustrating Because to the average reader they wont know the points we just talked about and might opt for the other player

 

[Santaduck]

Unbelievable.

However given Apple sales figures, such ignorance is probably not the norm... there are a lot of folks out there that have learned that their mp3s (and AIFFs and WAVs) play just fine on the iPod.

Mentioning AAC & Apple lossless probably just confuses the issue for beginners, and sounds like a 1-to-1 with the iTunes store (which is wrong), but the main point is that it plays mp3s.

 

[craigdawg]

I know I'm preaching to the choir but...

One thing that's hard to articulate is how Apple products are defined and enhanced by the software that Apple writes to work with them. iTunes and OS X add value that makes simple price comparisons meaningless.

Yay I saved 30% but I have to use NOMAD Explorer. Yay I saved $300 but I have to use Windows XP Home.

It's the software Bambi!

 

[mkrishnan]

Does this article seem to anyone else like it was translated into English from some other language? It just doesn't make any sense in numerous places, about random topics....

 

[PlaceofDis]

Does this article seem to anyone else like it was translated into English from some other language? It just doesn't make any sense in numerous places, about random topics....

ill have to agree with you on that one, poorly written and researched, obviously giving a slant, i dont like it, now if it was fair and balanced and still came out saying that the Creative players were better Ok i could deal with that, but this guy doesnt even have his facts straight

 

[apple2991]

Sounds like the author is just having some iPod envy. Maybe she just bought a Nuvo and then saw her friend's iPod, and wrote this as an attempt to justify her purchase to herself.

At least I HOPE she's trying to see it from a biased point of view. Otherwise, I am saddened by the sheer lack of fact-checking in today's press.

 

[rueyeet]

From the article, she seems like the typical PC user who's never really used a Mac or an iPod, and shops by the numbers.

So the iPod shuffle with 512 MB is $99, but the Muvo N200 with the same 512 MB is only ten dollars more and has a screen, FM tuner, and voice recorder. Sure, you might wonder why you'd listen to the radio when you're already listening to your own music, commercial free; you might wonder why you'd need a voice recorder on a device that you can squeeze what, one class onto, and that's if you're willing to erase your music to do it--but hey, more features per dollar MUST be better, right?

To her, iTunes is just another music store. Evidently she doesn't realize that it's also the top-of-class digital music jukebox software for both Mac and PC, or that most people rip CDs (or, heaven forbid, download from p2p) to start their music collections instead of buying all of it from ANY of the online music services. I see that skipped over so much that I wonder sometimes if the RIAA hasn't issued directives against reminding people that they can rip their CDs.

Sure, the other music services have crappy, inconsistent DRM schemes, but there are MORE of them, so it must be a better deal!

Given the more-is-better trend of Bambi's thinking, the comparisons of the Mac Mini and the Powerbook to Wintel equivalents with higher numbers and more features is only to be expected; and of course OS X isn't figured into the choice at all. Her conclusion is basically that Apple comes off worst in the numbers game, so it must be an inferior product that people are only buying for the label.

Which is, of course, completely missing the point. I didn't switch because Apple was "cooler"--I switched because I was tired of fighting Windows to do basic stuff. Granted, I was running ME and XP wasn't out at the time, but the last two years have only convinced me that I jumped the Windows ship right before things got really bad with the malware situation. I wouldn't run a Windows machine now; I haven't got the time to upkeep it properly.

I can see the T-shirt now: "I went Mac BEFORE it was cool."