Stunning achievement in design
Written: Feb 29 '04
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Pros: Design, feels like a winner
Cons: Price
The Bottom Line: This is the gold standard for a reason.
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| derk99's Full Review: Apple iPod 40 GB White MP3 Player |
I’ve held the future of computing in my hand and its name is Ipod.
For those unaware, the Ipod is Apple’s hugely successful music playing computer, which has been so successful it has spawned a dozen competitors. How successful is the Ipod? This year Apple will sell more Ipods than it will sell computers. At a margin of 27 percent, Steve Jobs is laughing (or listening) all the way to the bank with this tiny Lexan and stainless wonder.
In fact it was Jobs who ordered his Apple faithful to make a Windows version of the Ipod, announcing at Macworld that “hell froze over.” The result? Sales up 235 percent.
I travel a lot and I have to say that an Ipod full of tunes and Bose Quiet Comfort 2 noise-canceling headphones on my head is as close to a religious experience I have ever had in an aircraft.
Like Bose, Apple has chosen to take the high road when it comes to details and price. It is Steve Jobs sitting there in California, saying, “Are you willing to pay top dollar for impressive design?” If so, Apple is here.
Can you imagine what would happen if Apple released a Windows version of its Powerbook?
Anyway, it is hard to explain what a technical marvel an Ipod really is. Inside isn’t a flash memory card, like other MP3 players. Inside is an actual hard drive, with sizes ranging from 15 gigs to 40 gigs. (That’s gigabytes, in a package the same size as a cassette tape.)
Forty gigs of music is 10,000 songs; an entire month of songs played 27/7.
It not only can hold music, but also files you need to transport to another PC, your entire contact list and your schedule. Put the Ipod in the cradle and it syncs automatically. And its touch-sensitive scroll wheel is a marvel.
The heart of the software is Itunes, the package Apple has devised to send your music from your computer to your Ipod. This is very slick, well-designed software. It allows classification of your music into genre, composer and other subsets to make finding the music you want to hear easier.
If you download your music (ahem!) illegally, you’ll have to enter those categories and details yourself. If you own the CD already, you just insert it into your CD-ROM drive and Itunes automatically sucks the music off the disc and into Itunes with one click of a button. Then you cradle your Ipod and whooom, you’re on your way.
Don’t own the disc? Itunes whisks you to Apple’s online music store, where you can buy the songs you like for 99 cents. Think no one will pay for music? Apple has sold more than 32 million songs since its launch last year. It is a slick interface with the right price point.
The Ipod remains pricey ($299 to $499 depending on hard drive size) but exudes quality when you touch it.
Now Apple has released the Ipod Mini, a smaller, colorful version of the Ipod. At $249, it’s still pricey and has only a 4 gig hard drive, much smaller than the Ipods. However it also has been a runaway success already, with more than 100,000 pre-orders. I think given the choice, I’d buy the $299 Ipod at 15 GB rather than the Mini just to capture the much larger size.
It’s a first-class product and Apple ought to take a bow.
You can see the whole Ipod story and a video tour of the device at www.apple.com
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 499
Recommended for: Music Lovers - High Capacity Storage for an Entire Album Collection
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Epinions.com ID:
derk99
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Location: Midwest, USA
Reviews written: 86
Trusted by: 5 members
About Me:
I am a happily married man with 8 wonderful kids.
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