Microsoft confirms Zune rumors
why is the iPod so popular? it's just a f-ing mp3 player!
Also, why is an mp3 called a podcast? It's just an mp3!
Podcast started with Adam Curry I believe. It was not made up, or pushed by Apple at all, although now they use it. And it's not neccessarily an mp3 file (I know you know that.)
The iPod is the most popular player precisely for the reason you do not like it - because it's tied seamlessly with iTunes (not the music store - the music organizing / playing software.) Anybody can figure it out because it's a complete end to end solution (from ripping the CD, automatically getting tags from the internet, and loading the player.) Products like the iRiver do not offer the complete solution, so it is confusing to non geeks.
Also, this is subjective, but I'd be surprised if even you disagreed - the iPod is easily the most attractive player. That matters for a personal device like this (same with cellphones.) People want to carry a nice looking object. I personally don't see anything wrong with that.
I would think you would be much more against the Sony devices (that force you to encode everything in Atrac3!)
No, I dislike Sony. I stupidly bought a Vaio (for speed) and found it full of Sony bundled products, most of which I won't use.
Just looked at the Wikipedia entry for podcast--gosh, what a confused mess of overlapping uses of a term.
I could call what I do podcasting--a couple of times a week I post an mp3 of new music on my blog. You could save it to iTunes and play it on a iPod. And it's available over RSS (thanks to your feed). And Bloglines now has a built in Flash player that's kind of spiffy, I hate to say.
I think I prefer to call what I do "posting mp3s of new music on my blog" because the Pod really does seem like a branded term.
Also, a "podcast" has the association of being some kind of radio show. I know of hardly anyone doing that (at least that I'm following).
It just seems like an '05 buzz word with no real meaning to me.
And yes, the iPod looks great. It just surprises me that people can't learn the rudiments of moving mp3s around. As you know, I learned, and I'm really slow to pick up new things.
i appears path and subway users go for the ipod judging from their white headphone lines. are they the podcast listeners? the daily commuter users?
I promise you they are not listening to "podcasts" they downloaded from their favorite RSS feed. What they have is a Sony Walkman in the form of an elegant white box.
I'm not saying listening to tunes through an iPod isn't a major trend.
I was just wondering idly how the hell that happened.
As Jim says, it's a combination of style and a easy scheme for getting music from one place to another.
Do you have all your music on your computer? I remember when I finally did this. It completely revolutionized my relationship to it. It was like I hadn't really listened to music in years. When I was younger it was so important to me. But then I sort of left it behind as I moved out of the college dorm style of living.
Then the whole digital thing happened and it was like I found a good friend all over again. I don't understand it, but it had a lot to do with ease of access. I always had lots of CDs, but I wouldn't play them, or at best there would be a small pile by the player that I would listen to over and over. Once everything was digitized it was like all the friction went away. I started just shuffling inside my whole collection. I started listening to things I would have never put on. I got excited about music again.
I think that happened to a lot of people. They made it just easy and accessible enough for all of us lazy Americans to discover the joy of music again. And I guess Napster and the rest helped too!
I don't particularly like the me-too statusy white headphone thing, or the zone out what is going on around you thing, but I like people being excited about music again. I think it's a net plus.
I'm still navigating between CDs, vinyl, cassettes (!) and what's on my computer.
I'm gradually adding songs to an expanding digital folder as I go--a download here, a rip there, and yes, it's way more convenient and fun for everyday listening.
The main reason I don't have a portable mp3 player is I can't listen to headphones for more than 10 minutes without getting intense pain in one ear. Not sure if there's any medical cause--I looked into it in my 20s and the doctors were baffled. I have to pace my headphone use when recording my own music.
Too much info, I know, but my questioning of the trend is based on concerns other than my own medical history. Like--why can't there be lots of schemes and options instead of one that becomes so branded that the word "pod" gets applied to everything?
Also I was thinking that your DJing probably kept you more in touch with the music so that this isn't suddenly some reunion for you like I think it is for a lot of people. You never lost touch.
As for options, I'm not sure what you have in mind. More media formats? We already have a ton, but most people just use mp3 because that's what everybody else uses, and therefore it's the easiest for trading. That seems like a good thing to me. And if you mean the hardware, then what different options do you want? They are all just mp3 players. How different could they be.
I think you object to having to load files through iTunes. For the experienced user who already has a music collection, and already uses something other than iTunes - I admit that is sort of a pain. But Apple is not doing it to be evil, they are doing it so that the experience will be easy for people who don't know anything about computers.
They could just have it mount like a USB hard drive and you could drag the tracks over yourself - but where does it mount? Does the novice user even understand what that means? And then you are going to drag 7,000 files over? From all different places in your file system? I guess the geek would want that, but the novice doesn't.
With the iPod, at least on Macs, you just plug it in. If iTunes isn't running it starts up automatically. Menus automatically pop up asking a few simple questions, and then it syncs all your mp3s. It absolutely doesn't do anything fancy or revolutionary (just like the iPod itself) but it's the complete package and it just works. I think just letting the device mount like a drive, while giving the user maximum flexibility, isn't easy enough for people to use. They need a layer like iTunes in between them and the file system to faciliate the synchronization of files. This should be easy for others to duplicate, but no one else has done it yet. We'll see how Microsoft does.
[Sorry, way too long, not sure why I care so much. I guess I feel like I aspire to this same way of building things, so I feel like I have to defend the philosophy.]
I guess I will have to try that open source solution that Paul Slocum suggests: Rockbox running on an iRiver player (once he tells me how to get rid of the firmware). Just to see how easy it is, or not.
Since I'm not that concerned with portability, Winamp is perfect for me as a jukebox, for reasons I'm pretty sure I mentioned elsewhere--mainly not having to recopy files to play them, a big waste of disc space.
All my files are in the folders I've created (by genre, era, etc) and I access them directly in Winamp and then create playlists if I am so inclined.
I drag the files or folders from computer to computer (using the ethernet network) or from computer to backup drive to computer (using USB), just like I would any data files. I can move a lot of files quickly the latter way if I have to move everything at once.
With the player I'd like to be able to selectively load files and folders the same way I do with Winamp--directly to the player via USB. Like I said, I need to try out Slocum's scheme.
kleenex
xerox
podcast
|
- mark 7-22-2006 4:06 am
why is the iPod so popular? it's just a f-ing mp3 player!
- tom moody 7-22-2006 4:17 am
Also, why is an mp3 called a podcast? It's just an mp3!
- tom moody 7-22-2006 4:20 am
Podcast started with Adam Curry I believe. It was not made up, or pushed by Apple at all, although now they use it. And it's not neccessarily an mp3 file (I know you know that.)
The iPod is the most popular player precisely for the reason you do not like it - because it's tied seamlessly with iTunes (not the music store - the music organizing / playing software.) Anybody can figure it out because it's a complete end to end solution (from ripping the CD, automatically getting tags from the internet, and loading the player.) Products like the iRiver do not offer the complete solution, so it is confusing to non geeks.
Also, this is subjective, but I'd be surprised if even you disagreed - the iPod is easily the most attractive player. That matters for a personal device like this (same with cellphones.) People want to carry a nice looking object. I personally don't see anything wrong with that.
I would think you would be much more against the Sony devices (that force you to encode everything in Atrac3!)
- jim 7-22-2006 5:05 am
No, I dislike Sony. I stupidly bought a Vaio (for speed) and found it full of Sony bundled products, most of which I won't use.
Just looked at the Wikipedia entry for podcast--gosh, what a confused mess of overlapping uses of a term.
I could call what I do podcasting--a couple of times a week I post an mp3 of new music on my blog. You could save it to iTunes and play it on a iPod. And it's available over RSS (thanks to your feed). And Bloglines now has a built in Flash player that's kind of spiffy, I hate to say.
I think I prefer to call what I do "posting mp3s of new music on my blog" because the Pod really does seem like a branded term.
Also, a "podcast" has the association of being some kind of radio show. I know of hardly anyone doing that (at least that I'm following).
It just seems like an '05 buzz word with no real meaning to me.
- tom moody 7-22-2006 5:26 am
And yes, the iPod looks great. It just surprises me that people can't learn the rudiments of moving mp3s around. As you know, I learned, and I'm really slow to pick up new things.
- tom moody 7-22-2006 5:29 am
i appears path and subway users go for the ipod judging from their white headphone lines. are they the podcast listeners? the daily commuter users?
- bill 7-22-2006 2:27 pm
I promise you they are not listening to "podcasts" they downloaded from their favorite RSS feed. What they have is a Sony Walkman in the form of an elegant white box.
I'm not saying listening to tunes through an iPod isn't a major trend.
I was just wondering idly how the hell that happened.
As Jim says, it's a combination of style and a easy scheme for getting music from one place to another.
- tom moody 7-22-2006 7:28 pm
Do you have all your music on your computer? I remember when I finally did this. It completely revolutionized my relationship to it. It was like I hadn't really listened to music in years. When I was younger it was so important to me. But then I sort of left it behind as I moved out of the college dorm style of living.
Then the whole digital thing happened and it was like I found a good friend all over again. I don't understand it, but it had a lot to do with ease of access. I always had lots of CDs, but I wouldn't play them, or at best there would be a small pile by the player that I would listen to over and over. Once everything was digitized it was like all the friction went away. I started just shuffling inside my whole collection. I started listening to things I would have never put on. I got excited about music again.
I think that happened to a lot of people. They made it just easy and accessible enough for all of us lazy Americans to discover the joy of music again. And I guess Napster and the rest helped too!
I don't particularly like the me-too statusy white headphone thing, or the zone out what is going on around you thing, but I like people being excited about music again. I think it's a net plus.
- jim 7-22-2006 7:42 pm
I'm still navigating between CDs, vinyl, cassettes (!) and what's on my computer.
I'm gradually adding songs to an expanding digital folder as I go--a download here, a rip there, and yes, it's way more convenient and fun for everyday listening.
The main reason I don't have a portable mp3 player is I can't listen to headphones for more than 10 minutes without getting intense pain in one ear. Not sure if there's any medical cause--I looked into it in my 20s and the doctors were baffled. I have to pace my headphone use when recording my own music.
Too much info, I know, but my questioning of the trend is based on concerns other than my own medical history. Like--why can't there be lots of schemes and options instead of one that becomes so branded that the word "pod" gets applied to everything?
- tom moody 7-22-2006 8:08 pm
Also I was thinking that your DJing probably kept you more in touch with the music so that this isn't suddenly some reunion for you like I think it is for a lot of people. You never lost touch.
As for options, I'm not sure what you have in mind. More media formats? We already have a ton, but most people just use mp3 because that's what everybody else uses, and therefore it's the easiest for trading. That seems like a good thing to me. And if you mean the hardware, then what different options do you want? They are all just mp3 players. How different could they be.
I think you object to having to load files through iTunes. For the experienced user who already has a music collection, and already uses something other than iTunes - I admit that is sort of a pain. But Apple is not doing it to be evil, they are doing it so that the experience will be easy for people who don't know anything about computers.
They could just have it mount like a USB hard drive and you could drag the tracks over yourself - but where does it mount? Does the novice user even understand what that means? And then you are going to drag 7,000 files over? From all different places in your file system? I guess the geek would want that, but the novice doesn't.
With the iPod, at least on Macs, you just plug it in. If iTunes isn't running it starts up automatically. Menus automatically pop up asking a few simple questions, and then it syncs all your mp3s. It absolutely doesn't do anything fancy or revolutionary (just like the iPod itself) but it's the complete package and it just works. I think just letting the device mount like a drive, while giving the user maximum flexibility, isn't easy enough for people to use. They need a layer like iTunes in between them and the file system to faciliate the synchronization of files. This should be easy for others to duplicate, but no one else has done it yet. We'll see how Microsoft does.
[Sorry, way too long, not sure why I care so much. I guess I feel like I aspire to this same way of building things, so I feel like I have to defend the philosophy.]
- jim 7-22-2006 8:51 pm
I guess I will have to try that open source solution that Paul Slocum suggests: Rockbox running on an iRiver player (once he tells me how to get rid of the firmware). Just to see how easy it is, or not.
Since I'm not that concerned with portability, Winamp is perfect for me as a jukebox, for reasons I'm pretty sure I mentioned elsewhere--mainly not having to recopy files to play them, a big waste of disc space.
All my files are in the folders I've created (by genre, era, etc) and I access them directly in Winamp and then create playlists if I am so inclined.
I drag the files or folders from computer to computer (using the ethernet network) or from computer to backup drive to computer (using USB), just like I would any data files. I can move a lot of files quickly the latter way if I have to move everything at once.
With the player I'd like to be able to selectively load files and folders the same way I do with Winamp--directly to the player via USB. Like I said, I need to try out Slocum's scheme.
- tom moody 7-22-2006 9:40 pm
kleenex
xerox
podcast
- steve 7-31-2006 3:32 pm