Have you ever heard someone call their iPod a "pod"?

[thewayne]

I haven't. But then again, I fully admit (and revel in) not being cool or hip, nor do I own an iPod (but my wife does). Apple is suing an outfit who is filing trademark applications using the words MyPodder and Podcast Ready, because Apple claims that everyone refers to their Apple(tm) iPod(tm) as a "Pod".

If you come up to me and say that you have a "pod", I'm first probably going to think of a pod of seeds. Then there's the storage pods that you can have delivered to your house and load crap into. And there's the new Print-On-Demand industry. An iPod(tm) is not going to be the first thing to come into my mind.

Frankly, I don't like iPods(tm), if you have one and like it, good for you! I promise not to hold it against you. My main issue is two fold: first, I don't find the interface to be convenient or easy to use, I much prefer the interface design borrowed from the tape player standard with added features for controlling play lists and such. And second, you can't replace the battery without sending it in for a service.

But then again, in many ways, I am definitely a Luddite and again, that is something that I revel in. My cell phone makes calls. It doesn't have a camera (video or digital), it doesn't play music, I suppose you can play games on it but I never have. I've also never accessed the web on it, though supposedly it can also do that. Heck, I've never sent a text message in my life!

(Yeah, I'm a Luddite, sitting in front of a PC in which I've done two CPU upgrades in the last three days, with three printers sitting around him, a Palm Pilot with both WiFi and Bluetooth, and a very secure wireless installation. I'm just a Luddite in certain ways.)

http://blog.wired.com/music/index.blog?entry_id=1562695

Comments

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

I'll occasionally refer to my iPod as "the pod", but I really didn't think that was a universal nickname for it, I'm just a bit odd. I love my iPod, mostly because I got a 3rd generation 20GB "used" from a friend of mine, so I paid considereably less for it (I priced everythin he tossed in out on a website, and I saved over $200). Prior to my iPod, I had a Rio...which no one seems to like, as they completely suck and stop working. silveradept, itsdavesblog, and I ALL had Rios that started malfunctioning after a year or so of use.

I sometimes wish my iPod was a little bit smaller though so I could fit it into smaller places, but i like it for the most part.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

I helped my mom buy a Rio for my dad, and yes, it sucked.

I then helped my dad get a Creative Labs, I don't remember what model. With the exception of the USB port crapping out, it's been solid. My dad is a very hard user, he's a retired industrial plumber and does a lot of work for friends/people from the church/my condo/etc., and he wasn't using a case for the player, and the USB port got gunked up. But aside from that, it's been solid.

Myself, I had an early Creative Labs Nomad, 6gig player that looks sorta like a CD player. It served me long and well. Now I have two laptops that I use as my players.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

yeah, i think both SA and Dave wound up with creative's as replacements. I really like SA's, he's got the tiny one, but I don't think i'd trade in my iPod....yet. (I also have a laptop)

[apostate-96.livejournal.com]

Personally, I just take that story as an indication of how pissy Apple's getting and how much they're trying to grab money and get public exposure as possible.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

but then apple does crap like "accidentally" rlease not only the REGULAR release, but the Limited Edition release of BNL's new album - the first one almost a MONTH ahead of time, and the LE about 2 weeks in advanced.

[apostate-96.livejournal.com]

That's messed up, too.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

yeah. I mean, whee for those of us who discovered it and got a full sneak peek, but it really wasn't fair to the band at all!

[apostate-96.livejournal.com]

No, it wasn't. And I can see how that'd make other bands or businesses reluctant to work with 'em in the future.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

I have admired Apple for a long time because of their technology and innovation, but they are really too staid as a corporate culture for my liking, which is surprising considering how "California" their corporate culture is. At the top, they're still Fortune 500 or whatever.

For example, they briefly allowed other people to make their computers with Apple supplying the bios chips, and then yanked the license. They are never going to significantly increase their market share unless they loosen up and stop making such damn expensive hardware.

[apostate-96.livejournal.com]

Agreed about their hardware. They'll also have soem serious catching up to do with those who're able to do their own upgrades. While I can see the proprietary point, it doesn't help 'em get their stuff out there any faster or better. And, for as long as they keep working that way, I'll be sticking with the IMB-type PC's.

[thedragonweaver.livejournal.com]

You're working under the mistaken assumption that "market share" is what they're going for. I'm not going to get into it (a few too many arguments with my dad, who doesn't let go of points), but when people look at Apple— computers at least— and say they're not increasing their market share, people are missing the point.

And the hardware's expensive because— drumroll— hardware's what they sell. They don't make significant money on the software, and the software's integrated to the hardware design. You work with computers; you know how legacy hardware can sometimes interact strangely. Evil Rob used to be in sales at a CompUSA (apparently, the only one that consitently got good ratings from customers :D ) and would tell stories of putting together computers for users based on their primary part, because Motherboard A didn't like Soundcard B, but worked really well with Soundcards C and D, and Videocard E worked best with B and horrible with D... and so on.

By keeping hardware design within strict tolerances, and by NOT allowing third party vendors to do their varying tolerances, coding is much simpler. You only realize how much simpler when you are, say, out on location and one stupid computer out of six starts behaving strangely, in a manner you just can't reproduce on another computer... (I do photography; high school portraits and team sports. Time is ALWAYS of the essence.) And it's a little better engineered than the baseline, thus more expensive.

[thedragonweaver.livejournal.com]

I should qualify that the "stupid computer" is not an Apple, but a baseline PC laptop.

[askshana.livejournal.com]

ahhh when you wrote "pod" I thought of green beans, then "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (you know, the Pod People)