I think it finally got a break when it got this design, if this is actually real. The device itself looks good, but I am not to sure about the software it's going to be carrying. I also thought the Zune OS was a little bit clunky for my taste.
iPod Touch and the iPhone are still king in my opinion and recent statistics prove it by dominating the market. (mp3 player wise)
As soon as the iPod Touch gains Push Notifications nothing will stop Apple, i just wish it had a GPS/3G radio so i can go back to Verizon for voice and keep a data plan with AT&T just for my iPod Touch.
but with price raises in iTunes, tell me 15 bucks/month unlimited music isnt just kick ass
plus you always have those people who are going to buy a zune "to be different" but they are tools
Subscription based music model has proven to be NOT what a majority of the people want. The prices raises in iTunes are for singles. It won't drive people away, it'll just drive them to buy more albums and be more selective of the the singles they do purchase.
People don't buy Zunes because they want to be different, they buy them because they were either mislead by someone, are anti-iPod, or like Microsoft technology. To do it just to be different would be like cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Bill Gates got so envious when Apple beat him to Xerox that he Xeroxes everything Apple does.
Apple didn't beat Bill Gates to Xerox. Microsoft wasn't even in the operating system business at that point in time. All they made were Basic interpreters. Apple was already working on a graphics engine (later to be called QuickDraw) when Steve Jobs took their engineers to Xerox. Mainly to pick the PARC engineer's brains (and hire away some of them to Apple) and see demonstrations of the technologies they were tinkering with. A lot of people like to think Apple stole the Mac interface from Xerox when that isn't true at all ... Apple got the idea of using their graphics engine to build a graphical user interface and using a pointer/mouse as an input device rather than a keyboard. (Although a few interface elements were borrowed, probably due to the fact that some of the PARC engineers ended up working at Apple; icons, pop-up menus.)
Apple didn't beat Bill Gates to Xerox. Microsoft wasn't even in the operating system business at that point in time. All they made were Basic interpreters. Apple was already working on a graphics engine (later to be called QuickDraw) when Steve Jobs took their engineers to Xerox. Mainly to pick the PARC engineer's brains (and hire away some of them to Apple) and see demonstrations of the technologies they were tinkering with. A lot of people like to think Apple stole the Mac interface from Xerox when that isn't true at all ... Apple got the idea of using their graphics engine to build a graphical user interface and using a pointer/mouse as an input device rather than a keyboard. (Although a few interface elements were borrowed, probably due to the fact that some of the PARC engineers ended up working at Apple; icons, pop-up menus.)
Yeah, Apple paid Xerox $1,000,000 worth of Apple stock for the technology. Saw it on Pirates of Silicon Valley. When SJ found out about Windows and confronted Bill Gates, Gates lashed out saying that all SJ did was beat him to it.
Yeah, Apple paid Xerox $1,000,000 worth of Apple stock for the technology. Saw it on Pirates of Silicon Valley. When SJ found out about Windows and confronted Bill Gates, Gates lashed out saying that all SJ did was beat him to it.
It has been stated by several people who were actually around at the time, that "The Pirates of Silicon Valley", while possessing fairly accurate personalties of the people involved, did not portray events very accurately.
It has been said that Apple did give Xerox a bunch of Apple stock, but I'm not 100% sure about that. Steve Jobs was however a shareholder of Xerox at the time and that's how he got access to the PARC engineers.
I never saw the movie, but Microsoft didn't create Windows in a vacuum; they had special early access to the Macintosh and the API's, because Steve Jobs asked them to create an office suite, so that the Mac, when released, would be a viable office computer. Steve Jobs got upset because Microsoft took a lot of those API's and started to build their own knock off the Mac GUI. If you were a programmer in the mid to late 80's and got to see references to both Window's API's and the Mac's, you could clearly see that Microsoft pretty much copied verbatim the Mac's API's. The function calls had slight name changes here and there, but the parameters were all pretty much the same. Of course, Microsoft's implementation of those calls was absolutely horrid; in the original release of Windows, the windows couldn't even overlap!
I was a hobbyist Mac programmer back then and when I got my hands on Windows programming reference book the first time, I couldn't believe how familiar ALL the calls were. I was able to match the functions 1 for 1 with functions in the Mac's API, including the data structures. I was amazed.
It has been stated by several people who were actually around at the time, that "The Pirates of Silicon Valley", while possessing fairly accurate personalties of the people involved, did not portray events very accurately.
I guess the best thing to do is to watch it for yourself and make your own conclusion, many of the things you stated are summarized in the movie.
Being a shareholder or a board member does not allow you access to engineers.
What's so great about the App Store? Seriously, most of the apps suck. The actual UI is great, but it's hampered by a lack of RAM, a bit of a sluggish OS, and it could stand to have better battery life (I've got a 1g Touch BTW).
A tiny bit out of 20,000 apps is still a lot of apps.
There was a study a few months ago that showed that people on average don't use more than 5-6 apps on their PC's which have an infinite number of apps. All a user needs is to find those 5-6 apps that makes life extremely easy for them. They don't need all 20,000 to be of amazing quality.
The only way that Microsoft could compete against Apple at this point is to figure out a way to leverage its very successful XBOX 360 platform with their Zune platform...
Has anyone ever actually seen a Zune in the wild? Yeah, I didn't think so.
I teach out in the Seattle area and I rarely see Zunes except for the kids that have parents that work for Microsoft. I do think the UI for Zune (2.0) actually looks better than the iPod Classic UI, but since I have purchased the iPhone, neither interface looks very impressive to me.
Here is what I usually see at our school:
MOST POPULAR BY FAR - iPod Nano - so many of these, it's incredible
iPod Classic - not so much since the iPod Touch came out. Mostly older generations. I imagine apple is going to can this one in about a year.
iPod Touch - these numbers increase all the time. The browser and schools starting to add wi-fi have made this one very useful for students. You can find out something without having to run to the computer lab.
iPhone - I see a lot of 1st generation iPhones popping up. I just assume Dad bought the new one and gave the old one to their son or daughter.
iPod Shuffles and Zunes - I see about the equal number of these. It's kind of sad because I think PMPs have definitely become a social status thing, so a lot of kids that don't have the cutting edge technology seem to try and hide them. I think that's why I rarely see Zunes or shuffles out in the open. I may just not see the Shuffle because there is no need to take it out of their pockets. Who knows/cares.
I definitely have not seen a new shuffle in the wild, but it's practically invisible.
Comments
only to be blindsided by Apple's move to flash RAM-based video players with the iPod nano and shuffle.
Apple should advertise this feature more
Has anyone ever actually seen a Zune in the wild? Yeah, I didn't think so.
I saw a first gen Zune, I think it was brown, on display at a store. Never seen one since.
I saw a first gen Zune, I think it was brown, on display at a store. Never seen one since.
I just saw a brown one yesterday on the bus. It was the first time I'd ever seen one in the wild. It's like spotting a Yeti!
iPod Touch and the iPhone are still king in my opinion and recent statistics prove it by dominating the market. (mp3 player wise)
but with price raises in iTunes, tell me 15 bucks/month unlimited music isnt just kick ass
plus you always have those people who are going to buy a zune "to be different" but they are tools
Subscription based music model has proven to be NOT what a majority of the people want. The prices raises in iTunes are for singles. It won't drive people away, it'll just drive them to buy more albums and be more selective of the the singles they do purchase.
People don't buy Zunes because they want to be different, they buy them because they were either mislead by someone, are anti-iPod, or like Microsoft technology. To do it just to be different would be like cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Thats a fact.
While the zune marketshare is low, people who have owned ipods and a zune seem to prefer the zune by a very large margin.
I do not own a zune, for the record. But if the accessories were there i'd have no problem buying one.
Bill Gates got so envious when Apple beat him to Xerox that he Xeroxes everything Apple does.
Apple didn't beat Bill Gates to Xerox. Microsoft wasn't even in the operating system business at that point in time. All they made were Basic interpreters. Apple was already working on a graphics engine (later to be called QuickDraw) when Steve Jobs took their engineers to Xerox. Mainly to pick the PARC engineer's brains (and hire away some of them to Apple) and see demonstrations of the technologies they were tinkering with. A lot of people like to think Apple stole the Mac interface from Xerox when that isn't true at all ... Apple got the idea of using their graphics engine to build a graphical user interface and using a pointer/mouse as an input device rather than a keyboard. (Although a few interface elements were borrowed, probably due to the fact that some of the PARC engineers ended up working at Apple; icons, pop-up menus.)
Apple didn't beat Bill Gates to Xerox. Microsoft wasn't even in the operating system business at that point in time. All they made were Basic interpreters. Apple was already working on a graphics engine (later to be called QuickDraw) when Steve Jobs took their engineers to Xerox. Mainly to pick the PARC engineer's brains (and hire away some of them to Apple) and see demonstrations of the technologies they were tinkering with. A lot of people like to think Apple stole the Mac interface from Xerox when that isn't true at all ... Apple got the idea of using their graphics engine to build a graphical user interface and using a pointer/mouse as an input device rather than a keyboard. (Although a few interface elements were borrowed, probably due to the fact that some of the PARC engineers ended up working at Apple; icons, pop-up menus.)
Yeah, Apple paid Xerox $1,000,000 worth of Apple stock for the technology. Saw it on Pirates of Silicon Valley. When SJ found out about Windows and confronted Bill Gates, Gates lashed out saying that all SJ did was beat him to it.
Yeah, Apple paid Xerox $1,000,000 worth of Apple stock for the technology. Saw it on Pirates of Silicon Valley. When SJ found out about Windows and confronted Bill Gates, Gates lashed out saying that all SJ did was beat him to it.
It has been stated by several people who were actually around at the time, that "The Pirates of Silicon Valley", while possessing fairly accurate personalties of the people involved, did not portray events very accurately.
It has been said that Apple did give Xerox a bunch of Apple stock, but I'm not 100% sure about that. Steve Jobs was however a shareholder of Xerox at the time and that's how he got access to the PARC engineers.
I never saw the movie, but Microsoft didn't create Windows in a vacuum; they had special early access to the Macintosh and the API's, because Steve Jobs asked them to create an office suite, so that the Mac, when released, would be a viable office computer. Steve Jobs got upset because Microsoft took a lot of those API's and started to build their own knock off the Mac GUI. If you were a programmer in the mid to late 80's and got to see references to both Window's API's and the Mac's, you could clearly see that Microsoft pretty much copied verbatim the Mac's API's. The function calls had slight name changes here and there, but the parameters were all pretty much the same. Of course, Microsoft's implementation of those calls was absolutely horrid; in the original release of Windows, the windows couldn't even overlap!
I was a hobbyist Mac programmer back then and when I got my hands on Windows programming reference book the first time, I couldn't believe how familiar ALL the calls were. I was able to match the functions 1 for 1 with functions in the Mac's API, including the data structures. I was amazed.
It has been stated by several people who were actually around at the time, that "The Pirates of Silicon Valley", while possessing fairly accurate personalties of the people involved, did not portray events very accurately.
I guess the best thing to do is to watch it for yourself and make your own conclusion, many of the things you stated are summarized in the movie.
Being a shareholder or a board member does not allow you access to engineers.
What's so great about the App Store? Seriously, most of the apps suck. The actual UI is great, but it's hampered by a lack of RAM, a bit of a sluggish OS, and it could stand to have better battery life (I've got a 1g Touch BTW).
A tiny bit out of 20,000 apps is still a lot of apps.
There was a study a few months ago that showed that people on average don't use more than 5-6 apps on their PC's which have an infinite number of apps. All a user needs is to find those 5-6 apps that makes life extremely easy for them. They don't need all 20,000 to be of amazing quality.
Has anyone ever actually seen a Zune in the wild? Yeah, I didn't think so.
I teach out in the Seattle area and I rarely see Zunes except for the kids that have parents that work for Microsoft. I do think the UI for Zune (2.0) actually looks better than the iPod Classic UI, but since I have purchased the iPhone, neither interface looks very impressive to me.
Here is what I usually see at our school:
MOST POPULAR BY FAR - iPod Nano - so many of these, it's incredible
iPod Classic - not so much since the iPod Touch came out. Mostly older generations. I imagine apple is going to can this one in about a year.
iPod Touch - these numbers increase all the time. The browser and schools starting to add wi-fi have made this one very useful for students. You can find out something without having to run to the computer lab.
iPhone - I see a lot of 1st generation iPhones popping up. I just assume Dad bought the new one and gave the old one to their son or daughter.
iPod Shuffles and Zunes - I see about the equal number of these. It's kind of sad because I think PMPs have definitely become a social status thing, so a lot of kids that don't have the cutting edge technology seem to try and hide them. I think that's why I rarely see Zunes or shuffles out in the open. I may just not see the Shuffle because there is no need to take it out of their pockets. Who knows/cares.
I definitely have not seen a new shuffle in the wild, but it's practically invisible.
I just saw a brown one yesterday on the bus. It was the first time I'd ever seen one in the wild. It's like spotting a Yeti!
Oh, THE HORROR! THE HORR0R!
Did you at least offer to "recycle" it for them?