ipod: style icon?

[superdupersang]

i bet over 50% of the poster on this site has an ipod.

well they have just sold their 100 millionth player.

thats a lot.

the clean minimalistic lines and the revolutionary click wheel.

that word is used too much (revolutionary) and most of the time is not deserved, but i think we can say it has revolutionized the area of user interface.

but the marketing and advertising, everyone from bush to tweenies to your mum has one, the crap battery, scrath magnet and the royal smuggness steve jobs.

it annoys me. ive never owned one (but my brother has the 6th gen 30gb and the shuffle is mighty tempting)

and then there are site like www.anythingbutipod.com

but whatever my thought, the ipod is the first global style icon of the 21st century.

so what are your thought?

whats your media player of choice?

[sexasomniac]

haha, i traded my zune yeseterday for a 30gb ipod and so far, im in love. i had a 1st gen shuffle and that was the easiest thing ever to use.

[Kasper]

sure for some (or many), the ipod is a style icon. like the other, i was at my friend's house and his little brother who's in high school was there with some friends and they were talking about their ipods and one of the guy changed the earbuds for some real headphones and they were all complaining that they found it so stupid since ppl wouldn't know he's listening to a ipod... high school kids are funny.

for me, it's just the best mp3 player out there, that it's.

[superdupersang]

samsung k3

iriver clix

meizu

toshiba gigabeat s60

etc.etc.etc

[svartedoom]

give me a fucking break here! i have a 60 gig ipod and i try to hide it whenever i have it outside. i tossed out the white head phones too. and no, i did not pay full retail for mine. my ipod fell off the back of a big truck.

style icon? i could care less! i laugh at the hipsters who blatantly show us that they are carrying an ipod! it is so obvious and they try so hard!!!!! so sad!!

[bee hee]

I don't understand how anybody could try to be showing off their iPod. It's basically assumed that you have one these days.

I usually get a kick out of folks with the white earbuds attached to a cd player.

[Pogi]

I've had a Nano when they were first released. Now I know people see them as a fashion accessory but I like it for it's tiny size, easy to use click well and minimalist design.

Plus the white is so innocent.

[canice]

i had mine stolen and it was the best thing that ever happened to me.

[Swych]

i'm not sure by 'style' icon, i relate it to it being stylish and something that I'd flash around.

but i certainly see it being an important consumer icon in the 21st century- like 60s modernist furniture (think Eames/ Corbusier/ Mies chairs) is to 'contemporary' high class living.

except the ipod is so diluted the class is completely gone.

[ghostdeini]

fuck yall, minidisc is the wave of the future

[Kasper]

fuck yall, minidisc is the wave of the future

yeah, 10 years ago...

minidiscs were so ahead of their time though, it's a shame it never caught on in north america

[Tyro1]

I find myself listening to it less and less. I think at first any MP3/portable music player seems really great at first, but it gets really anoying having music play in your ears non-stop, my life doesnt need a continuos soundtrack.

iPods seem to be the easiest to use. I like mine becasue I can watch video on it too.

[Tyro1]

yeah, 10 years ago...

minidiscs were so ahead of their time though, it's a shame it never caught on in north america

I think minidisks did ok in japan for a couple of years but that was it...

I keep mine locked away with my laser disk player.

[sidneylo]

So, what's this shit about the iPod being diluted? Are you talking about video? I feel as though it's integration into both PC/Mac formats with multimedia makes it quite successful. I agree with the sentiments about the audience, but I wouldn't go as far as to say 'fuck Apple' or 'fuck iPods' cause the hipsters use it.

That, and Apple is pioneering the fall of DRM. Hell, for any reasons I hold disdain for Apple, this move alone, regardless of the inherent benefits for Apple/Jobs making this first step, is landmark for digital music.

minidiscs were so ahead of their time though, it's a shame it never caught on in north america

The big factor in it's failure in the States, in my observation, is its proprietary hardware and format. You couldn't just buy a md player and go with it. Conversion was necessary--at the time, purchasing players was necessary to convert from CD to physical md discs. That and the sales of md disc music really isolated itself. It was hip and I loved mine, but it was a pain to record.

I loved the remote control w/ LCD info scrobbler...

[axtsang]

So, what's this shit about the iPod being diluted? Are you talking about video? I feel as though it's integration into both PC/Mac formats with multimedia makes it quite successful. I agree with the sentiments about the audience, but I wouldn't go as far as to say 'fuck Apple' or 'fuck iPods' cause the hipsters use it.

That, and Apple is pioneering the fall of DRM. Hell, for any reasons I hold disdain for Apple, this move alone, regardless of the inherent benefits for Apple/Jobs making this first step, is landmark for digital music.

The big factor in it's failure in the States, in my observation, is its proprietary hardware and format. You couldn't just buy a md player and go with it. Conversion was necessary--at the time, purchasing players was necessary to convert from CD to physical md discs. That and the sales of md disc music really isolated itself. It was hip and I loved mine, but it was a pain to record.

I loved the remote control w/ LCD info scrobbler...

...and battery life. Which is why I switched to Zune! I'm one of the very view who has one in Canada. Try to hide it as well as I can when its in use, too many questions involving it.

[sidneylo]

...and battery life. Which is why I switched to Zune! I'm one of the very view who has one in Canada. Try to hide it as well as I can when its in use, too many questions involving it.

Word. Very understandable on that issue. More recent flash-based memory has allowed for a lot better battery life though, but it seems Apple has utilized its benefits for smaller physical dimensions rather than a larger battery source.

[Kasper]

The big factor in it's failure in the States, in my observation, is its proprietary hardware and format. You couldn't just buy a md player and go with it. Conversion was necessary--at the time, purchasing players was necessary to convert from CD to physical md discs. That and the sales of md disc music really isolated itself. It was hip and I loved mine, but it was a pain to record.

I loved the remote control w/ LCD info scrobbler...

totally agree with that. another problem is that companies making mds (Sony in particular) waited way way too long to market mds in north america and when they did, minidisc were almost obsolete cause of all the hard drive based mp3 player. got my first md in like 2000 and EVERYBODY had to ask me what it was cause no one had ever seen one before. . napster had just gone out and mp3 player costed a couple bills for like 56 megs so i used my md to record mp3 that i played live on my computer so it took so long to record music and i had to be really carefull when i used my computer cause if i made any noise (ICQ was a bitch), it would show on the md. i bought like 150 blank mds on ebay cause i thought i would archive my mp3 collection on md. damm times have changed...

the Sony md had the most stupid convertion program ever. plus it copied every song you converted in a secret folder on your computer so your hard drive would full up real fast, man i hated that program.

[roundhouse]

let me just say i was probably one of those people who didnt like ipod and wanted an alternative, but one day an offer came buy so i bought a 2nd hand 1st gen nano. ive loved ipods and Apple products ever since.

Ipods are most likely the best mp3 players out there. After getting my nano i hacked it so it can play Videos and Gameboy which just enhanced my ipod experiance although i dont play gameboy and i dont play videos that often. despite some of the major flaws with some of the ipods (the black nano's scratch as easy as a cd and the battery life decreases with time) they are still one of the best players on the market although price wise they are still 'up' there.

oh yeah question: are the sony md discs rewritable? or do i have to buy a new cd everytime i wanta new playlist.

[Vitamian]

I would call the iPod a Design Icon, not a Style Icon which is a far different situation. A style icon is usually a person of unusual esthetic stature.

Personally, I think the iPod is a design icon that can rest along the Olivetti typewriters of Marcello Nizzoli and other various 20th century industrial design icons.

[Kasper]

oh yeah question: are the sony md discs rewritable? or do i have to buy a new cd everytime i wanta new playlist.

rewritable, although they did sell some official md for a while (music stores in japan had a small section).

[sidneylo]

despite some of the major flaws with some of the ipods (the black nano's scratch as easy as a cd and the battery life decreases with time) they are still one of the best players on the market although price wise they are still 'up' there.

Not knocking your statements... more of a point of observation / for discussion:

The battery life is really a limit of lithium battery technology. Currently they are on the verge of streamlining battery technology, along side efficient electronics and controlled power consumption (multi-core for pcs, for example), that would vastly increase the battery lives of consumer gadgets.

Yeah there are quite a few instances of lithium batteries going bad due to specific situations and I agree with the whole 'scratching' issue on the polycarbonate plastic shells of Apple products.

In terms of price, Apple has always been consistently more expensive with their products (to a certain extent.) Where it's less applicable is in the computer department, where the myth is really not true.

Also, note that around the time of the iPod's inception, the market was very expensive. iPods ranged from $400 to $600. My MD player was at least $300. Apple has consistently lowered the price range each season...considering the options, I would say they've come a long way with NAND flash memory technology.

It has gotten to a point where you want to say, "wow, it's really just everywhere I go." But that could just be Steve Job's RDF coming into effect and swaying the consumer market.

[notesee]

I got a 60 GB video iPod, I haven't messed with many other MP3 players, but I like the interface of the iPod better than the iAudio players.

I had a Mini Disk player too, I loved it, but it was such a bitch to record songs on it though. The later generations were able to just drag and drop songs onto the disks, pretty much the same as an MP3 player.

I think they were big in Europe also, besides Asia. I heard that albums were released in MD format in both those continents, but when I was over there, around the time of the MD hey days, I didn't see any in stores.

Do the Zunes have bluetooth? I think that'd be such a dope feature to have, to be able to trade songs wirelessly between devices.

[ghostdeini]

napster had just gone out and mp3 player costed a couple bills for like 56 megs so i used my md to record mp3 that i played live on my computer so it took so long to record music and i had to be really carefull when i used my computer cause if i made any noise (ICQ was a bitch), it would show on the md.

hahha man you just took me way back to high school years when I went to singapore and picked up a sony. I remember having to buy an optical cable to hook up to my discman so I could record from cd->minidisk in real time. then I had to buy a USB->optical line converter so I could record mp3s... in real time. and I distinctly remember hearing the default AIM buddy list sounds in a couple of my songs and it took me a while to figure out what they were doing there

[sidneylo]

"Mom, I'm trying to record MD-lah! STOP MAKING NOISE MOOOOOOOOOOM."

-circa 7th grade using metallic blue sony md player

Do the Zunes have bluetooth? I think that'd be such a dope feature to have, to be able to trade songs wirelessly between devices.

You can trade songs up to three times before having to buy it for yourself.

Problem #1... finding another person on the street with a zune to share music...

[superdupersang]

my md player (a panasonic) broke and now i have 50 discs with music i cant even access.

another thing i dislike about the ipod is that with my iriver has a joystick which i can control with my hand in my pocket or with gloves on.

cant do with the ipod.

and all the snowboard jackets with "integrated music system" or some crapo.

best thing i saw on a ski slope was a dude with a rucksack with speakers on the outside.

also i also had this. i lost in in america. left in the hotel draw, forgot about it till i was in the next state.

arse.

i miss you mz-e10. please come back?

[poly800rock]

i bet over 50% of the poster on this site has an ipod.

well they have just sold their 100 millionth player.

thats a lot.

the clean minimalistic lines and the revolutionary click wheel.

that word is used too much (revolutionary) and most of the time is not deserved, but i think we can say it has revolutionized the area of user interface.

but the marketing and advertising, everyone from bush to tweenies to your mum has one, the crap battery, scrath magnet and the royal smuggness steve jobs.

it annoys me. ive never owned one (but my brother has the 6th gen 30gb and the shuffle is mighty tempting)

and then there are site like www.anythingbutipod.com

but whatever my thought, the ipod is the first global style icon of the 21st century.

so what are your thought?

whats your media player of choice?

style icon? not sure, but easily the ipod single handedly revolutionized music for better or worse. When's the last time you listened to a cd beginning to end?

give me a fucking break here! i have a 60 gig ipod and i try to hide it whenever i have it outside. i tossed out the white head phones too. and no, i did not pay full retail for mine. my ipod fell off the back of a big truck.

style icon? i could care less! i laugh at the hipsters who blatantly show us that they are carrying an ipod! it is so obvious and they try so hard!!!!! so sad!!

no way, you got yours below retail? and ashamed to use it too? you're so cool!

[shinchrono]

Everything the ipod did to the music industry is a big fucking deal for sure, but I don't know about "style icon." Maybe for the week after it was released? I do think that without the power of the ipod, hand-held entertaiment would be nowhere near the level of widespread popularity that it is now, what with the PSP, DS and all.

It's kind of like saying Chipotle is a "cuisine icon" or something...

[Swych]

When's the last time you listened to a cd beginning to end?

All the time now actually, because my ipod / itunes keeps erasing itself and all my playlists (i dont know why) so I only listen to full albums.

[poly800rock]

when my ipod broke, i was digging up cds i forgot i even stole from the providence college radio station..

[Kasper]

The question is...does anyone here browse their songs by album?

I used to...Not quite sure why, really.

i'm always telling myself i will browse by album instead of by artist cause i always end up not listining to my compilations.