Spat asks ‘what about the SmartPhone?’

Spat asks why Microsoft doesn’t make a bigger deal about the SmartPhones when it comes to the iPod. I love my SmartPhone as much as the next guy, but you can’t compare that to the iPod. Here’s why: my son will not consider buying one. A cell phone has a monthly service charge. An iPod doesn’t. Also, an iPod is “cool” but a SmartPhone isn’t. There’s a variety of reasons for that.

By the way, I really dislike it when Microsoft employees post blogs but don’t put their names on their blogs (or their email aliases). Why? Cause I wanted to email Splat something internally, and I can’t. Please, please, please use your real name on your blogs and put your email address out there. Or don’t blog.

To make things even worse, I used the contact link on Spat’s blog, but my email was rejected by Microsoft’s spam filters. Sigh.

Back to the iPod. I brought home one of the older Portable Media Centers for my son to try out. He has been playing with it all day. Says “why didn’t you make a bigger deal about this, if you had, I would have considered one of these instead of an iPod.” What turned him on? He burned a CD onto both his 20GB iPod and the Windows Media Center. The Windows Media Center sounds noticeably better. Tomorrow we’re going to try some experiments to figure out whether it’s the headphones that come with both units, the format/compression, or the unit itself, but he’s right, his new iPod doesn’t sound as good.

I think we should do a podcast together tomorrow too, since he’s become quite the podcasting expert (he even told Woz about various podcasts that Woz didn’t know about).

Update: thanks to Jojjo, who pointed out that Spat is Steve Patrick. I still wish he would have that on his home page somewhere. Blogging is a very powerful relationship-building tool. How can anyone build a relationship with Steve if they have to dig through old posts to find his email and name?

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58 thoughts on “Spat asks ‘what about the SmartPhone?’

  1. It is a matter of personal needs/choice. I love hearing music, but I would not consider buying a device that only plays music, and I don’t watch TV anymore unless I rent a good movie. It is not cool to carry another device with a screen just for this. What really sucks about current smartphones is storage capacity. Give me 20 GB and watch how Steve Jobs’ reality distortion field vanishes.
    I have to close now. Tropical Storm Alpha is over my head. Wish me luck.

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  2. It is a matter of personal needs/choice. I love hearing music, but I would not consider buying a device that only plays music, and I don’t watch TV anymore unless I rent a good movie. It is not cool to carry another device with a screen just for this. What really sucks about current smartphones is storage capacity. Give me 20 GB and watch how Steve Jobs’ reality distortion field vanishes.
    I have to close now. Tropical Storm Alpha is over my head. Wish me luck.

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  3. I thought I was geeky enough to know about all the little gadgets, but I’ve honestly never heard of the “Portable Media Center”. Got a photo to show me? I waited and waited for a Windows-based portable media player that was worth it, and finally got tired of waiting and bought an iPod — a month before the new ones were introduced, of course. My kids are clamoring for Nanos and if there’s a product out there that’s better, I’d definitely try and sell them on it.

    Your boy is right — this one sounds like it fell through the publicity crack.

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  4. I thought I was geeky enough to know about all the little gadgets, but I’ve honestly never heard of the “Portable Media Center”. Got a photo to show me? I waited and waited for a Windows-based portable media player that was worth it, and finally got tired of waiting and bought an iPod — a month before the new ones were introduced, of course. My kids are clamoring for Nanos and if there’s a product out there that’s better, I’d definitely try and sell them on it.

    Your boy is right — this one sounds like it fell through the publicity crack.

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  5. How is the batterylife on the Creative Zen? I considered Ipod Video, but look at it’s batterylife when playing video’s? Two hours. That’s not even enough for one flight, so I bought the Nano for music, and just bring my M200 when I need video.

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  6. How is the batterylife on the Creative Zen? I considered Ipod Video, but look at it’s batterylife when playing video’s? Two hours. That’s not even enough for one flight, so I bought the Nano for music, and just bring my M200 when I need video.

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  7. Jorgen: I don’t yet know. I’ll watch it. My son played it for several hours on battery today and it did OK.

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  8. Jorgen: I don’t yet know. I’ll watch it. My son played it for several hours on battery today and it did OK.

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  9. Oh brother, Smartphone can’t be compared to iPods, and the PMC is all but near death, with all of Hollywood and Burbank gearing up for the Video iPod. Who outside of a few gadget freaked geeks even knows of the PMC? Yet even seemingly 80% of 2nd graders at my sister’s school ALREADY know of the Video iPod. Cry, wail and scream all you want, but tough toodles, the market has spoken. And your kiddo’s sound quality ‘test’ is subject to so many variables, scientific test it does not make.

    Why doesn’t MSFT make a big deal about the SmartPhone? Well actually they did, just no one paid any attention, so it dropped off. No one cares, it’s edge market only and makes Service Providers commodity churn, something none of them want.

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  10. Oh brother, Smartphone can’t be compared to iPods, and the PMC is all but near death, with all of Hollywood and Burbank gearing up for the Video iPod. Who outside of a few gadget freaked geeks even knows of the PMC? Yet even seemingly 80% of 2nd graders at my sister’s school ALREADY know of the Video iPod. Cry, wail and scream all you want, but tough toodles, the market has spoken. And your kiddo’s sound quality ‘test’ is subject to so many variables, scientific test it does not make.

    Why doesn’t MSFT make a big deal about the SmartPhone? Well actually they did, just no one paid any attention, so it dropped off. No one cares, it’s edge market only and makes Service Providers commodity churn, something none of them want.

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  11. Microsoft doesn’t really make a big deal about a lot of things. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Portable Media Center ad on tv. If there was one, I’m sure the PMC would be a big hit.

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  12. Microsoft doesn’t really make a big deal about a lot of things. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Portable Media Center ad on tv. If there was one, I’m sure the PMC would be a big hit.

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  13. I use the Verizon Pocket PC Phone with 1GB SD card and I would never consider getting a video iPod. For starters, who wants a device that the CEO himself doesn’t believe in. Second of all, Microsoft has years more experience in portable video than Apple. File sizes are better, the streaming experience is better in WMV vs QuickTime. Now if Napster will just let you download videos I’d be set. Especially since I have EVDO which an iPod doesn’t.

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  14. I use the Verizon Pocket PC Phone with 1GB SD card and I would never consider getting a video iPod. For starters, who wants a device that the CEO himself doesn’t believe in. Second of all, Microsoft has years more experience in portable video than Apple. File sizes are better, the streaming experience is better in WMV vs QuickTime. Now if Napster will just let you download videos I’d be set. Especially since I have EVDO which an iPod doesn’t.

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  15. ‘A cell phone has a monthly service charge.’

    Not always the case. Most young people in the UK have pay-as-you-go mobile phones. Smartphone doesn’t do enough for these people, yet still people do buy them on pay-as-you-go.

    There’s not enough ringtones, music downloads, games, etc for the Smartphone to make it good for those people.

    Smartphone is too much about the information worker, and not enough about the consumer.

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  16. ‘A cell phone has a monthly service charge.’

    Not always the case. Most young people in the UK have pay-as-you-go mobile phones. Smartphone doesn’t do enough for these people, yet still people do buy them on pay-as-you-go.

    There’s not enough ringtones, music downloads, games, etc for the Smartphone to make it good for those people.

    Smartphone is too much about the information worker, and not enough about the consumer.

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  17. Hold on! The truth is, the size of the market (number of units shifted) for mobile phones with the capability to play video is already much larger than the market for iPods.

    Now, Apple has done a good job with the new video playing iPod, but it still leaves plenty of room for devices with better form factors (I’ve written more on this on my blog at http://www.psynixis.com/blog/?p=22).

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  18. Hold on! The truth is, the size of the market (number of units shifted) for mobile phones with the capability to play video is already much larger than the market for iPods.

    Now, Apple has done a good job with the new video playing iPod, but it still leaves plenty of room for devices with better form factors (I’ve written more on this on my blog at http://www.psynixis.com/blog/?p=22).

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  19. Who the hell wants to listen to music or watch videos on their cell phone? This is like me wanting my toaster to deep fry chicken. Oh well.

    The reason why the Portable Media Centers haven’t sold is because they’re too expensive, the battery life is horrendous, most interfaces are painful to navigate, the DRM (on some, not others) is way too restrictive, format support is wonky and there’s no real ‘critical mass’ on video content that there was on digital music when the iPod came out.

    The reasons why SmartPhones suck? Most people just want to make phone calls. Yeah, they have some practical applications with business types, but that’s a limited market. Windows Mobile is a pain in the ass, Palm is dead and Symbian feels unfinished. The usability and practicality just isn’t here yet. Not to mention that stuff like EVDO and Bluetooth are so CRIPPLED by the providers, you end up paying too much for limited features.

    The sounding better thing is almost laughable, Scoble. I guess the people on their third or fourth iPods just love sucky sound and every reviewer that touched the thing was blinded by their Apple love. Durrrrr. Stop being a moron, dude.

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  20. Who the hell wants to listen to music or watch videos on their cell phone? This is like me wanting my toaster to deep fry chicken. Oh well.

    The reason why the Portable Media Centers haven’t sold is because they’re too expensive, the battery life is horrendous, most interfaces are painful to navigate, the DRM (on some, not others) is way too restrictive, format support is wonky and there’s no real ‘critical mass’ on video content that there was on digital music when the iPod came out.

    The reasons why SmartPhones suck? Most people just want to make phone calls. Yeah, they have some practical applications with business types, but that’s a limited market. Windows Mobile is a pain in the ass, Palm is dead and Symbian feels unfinished. The usability and practicality just isn’t here yet. Not to mention that stuff like EVDO and Bluetooth are so CRIPPLED by the providers, you end up paying too much for limited features.

    The sounding better thing is almost laughable, Scoble. I guess the people on their third or fourth iPods just love sucky sound and every reviewer that touched the thing was blinded by their Apple love. Durrrrr. Stop being a moron, dude.

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  21. Tetra: my son disagrees with you totally about the Media Center. He used it for six hours yesterday and he says the battery only went down 1/3.

    SmartPhones don’t suck. It’s pretty obvious you’ve never used one. And, yes, I enjoy listening to music and watching vids on mine.

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  22. Tetra: my son disagrees with you totally about the Media Center. He used it for six hours yesterday and he says the battery only went down 1/3.

    SmartPhones don’t suck. It’s pretty obvious you’ve never used one. And, yes, I enjoy listening to music and watching vids on mine.

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  23. Yeah, the PMC MAY BE better than the video iPod. But Beta is better than VHS. Which won that battle?

    MS has had the PMC out for how long and did we ever see NBC shows at msn.com to download for it? Heck, MS never even had MSNBC content available for it. You guys didn’t drop the ball by making an inferior product, you dropped the ball by not providing CONTENT for a superior product.

    Remember when DAT drives came out for home audio use a few years ago? Superior format. Could I walk into Best Buy and pick up a the latest Bon Jovi DAT? Nope. Heck, consider a more recent example, Sonys minidisc. Superior format, superior device to CD players. But where was the content? If the MS Media center had a way to rip DVD’s to WMA and load them on a PMC maybe you’d have a shot. But try getting WMC to rip DVDs and see how far you go.

    Apple consistantly kicks your ass because they don’t announce or launch until all the pieces are in place. They didn’t just launch a video iPod. The launched a video iPod and pointed you to their music store where you could download episodes of two of the hottest shows on TV for less than the price of a latte. MS launched the PMC, to little or no fanfare, and said, “Good luck finding content!”.

    When you are looking at the PMC, and a few other devices like the Smartphone, for failure. Don’t look inside MS, look to your content providers (or lack thereof) and partners.

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  24. Yeah, the PMC MAY BE better than the video iPod. But Beta is better than VHS. Which won that battle?

    MS has had the PMC out for how long and did we ever see NBC shows at msn.com to download for it? Heck, MS never even had MSNBC content available for it. You guys didn’t drop the ball by making an inferior product, you dropped the ball by not providing CONTENT for a superior product.

    Remember when DAT drives came out for home audio use a few years ago? Superior format. Could I walk into Best Buy and pick up a the latest Bon Jovi DAT? Nope. Heck, consider a more recent example, Sonys minidisc. Superior format, superior device to CD players. But where was the content? If the MS Media center had a way to rip DVD’s to WMA and load them on a PMC maybe you’d have a shot. But try getting WMC to rip DVDs and see how far you go.

    Apple consistantly kicks your ass because they don’t announce or launch until all the pieces are in place. They didn’t just launch a video iPod. The launched a video iPod and pointed you to their music store where you could download episodes of two of the hottest shows on TV for less than the price of a latte. MS launched the PMC, to little or no fanfare, and said, “Good luck finding content!”.

    When you are looking at the PMC, and a few other devices like the Smartphone, for failure. Don’t look inside MS, look to your content providers (or lack thereof) and partners.

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  25. I held off from buying an iPod for the longest time. There were better models out there, it was too expensive, yadda yadda. I have and love a Treo 600, and I have pTunes for it, but it was always kind of akward to run/bike/walk with and use for listening to music. It could even play internet radio, sometimes.

    When the nano came out, it was just too sexy. I couldn’t not buy it. I’ve realized something now that I own one — sometimes it’s better to have a simple, dedicated device. Preferably one that weighs less then two ounces.

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  26. I held off from buying an iPod for the longest time. There were better models out there, it was too expensive, yadda yadda. I have and love a Treo 600, and I have pTunes for it, but it was always kind of akward to run/bike/walk with and use for listening to music. It could even play internet radio, sometimes.

    When the nano came out, it was just too sexy. I couldn’t not buy it. I’ve realized something now that I own one — sometimes it’s better to have a simple, dedicated device. Preferably one that weighs less then two ounces.

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  27. Apple will release in 1-2 years their own smartphone powered by mobile Mac OS X… but then this naive sentence of Scoble “you can’t compare that to the iPod” will be not valid, but it will be too late for Microsoft and their smartphones.

    By the way: there is no RealPlayer for MS Smartphone (but it is for Pocket PC) so listening to streaming of many stations is not possible in MS Smartphone 😦 … however since Microsoft has partnership with Real lately but is not trying to convince Real to release version also for MS Smartphone.

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  28. Apple will release in 1-2 years their own smartphone powered by mobile Mac OS X… but then this naive sentence of Scoble “you can’t compare that to the iPod” will be not valid, but it will be too late for Microsoft and their smartphones.

    By the way: there is no RealPlayer for MS Smartphone (but it is for Pocket PC) so listening to streaming of many stations is not possible in MS Smartphone 😦 … however since Microsoft has partnership with Real lately but is not trying to convince Real to release version also for MS Smartphone.

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  29. Tetra – How is EVDO or Bluetooth crippled on my Sprint PPC-6700?

    Oh wait, it’s not.

    The “sound thing” is not laughable. Look at any review ever that compares Creative’s portable players with Apple’s and you’ll find that there’s no question the Creative players sound better. They have a significantly better Signal-to-Noise Ratio, better amps, and they even come with better headphones.

    You say the PMC’s battery life is “horrendous” – but it’s easily 4x longer than the video iPod.

    You say the DRM is a pain. That’s got to be some kind of joke, considering the Apple lock-in that comes with every iPod.

    As for storage, my Pocket PC Phone has a 1GB miniSD card. But the only time I need that is on a plane. Anywhere else, I can just stream my music and videos from my home PC using Orb.

    Who needs storage? I’ve got a network.

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  30. Tetra – How is EVDO or Bluetooth crippled on my Sprint PPC-6700?

    Oh wait, it’s not.

    The “sound thing” is not laughable. Look at any review ever that compares Creative’s portable players with Apple’s and you’ll find that there’s no question the Creative players sound better. They have a significantly better Signal-to-Noise Ratio, better amps, and they even come with better headphones.

    You say the PMC’s battery life is “horrendous” – but it’s easily 4x longer than the video iPod.

    You say the DRM is a pain. That’s got to be some kind of joke, considering the Apple lock-in that comes with every iPod.

    As for storage, my Pocket PC Phone has a 1GB miniSD card. But the only time I need that is on a plane. Anywhere else, I can just stream my music and videos from my home PC using Orb.

    Who needs storage? I’ve got a network.

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  31. Content is king, which is also why HD-DVD is DOA, now with Warner and soon Universal. Sony dropped the ball on the new Walkman, mono-cultural format slavery, nearly a Sony trademark, and let Apple take over a subsection of consumer electronics, but Sony won on BluRay, and that’s really the big picture war. And in the Beta fight, Sony still won, with BetaCam at least, and BetaCam is out living the VHS of the consumer space. People always miss that, Sony didn’t lose the war, just the battle.

    PSP needs 60 gig and a non-game format. The 60 gig Video PSP with BluRay 12.5 gig small discs? Ideal. Video iPod is quite nice tho. And oh Jobs believes in it, catcalling is just his strategy, gotta read between the corporatespeak lines. (And Microsoft in things CE a joke, need not pay attention, everything will fail).

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  32. Content is king, which is also why HD-DVD is DOA, now with Warner and soon Universal. Sony dropped the ball on the new Walkman, mono-cultural format slavery, nearly a Sony trademark, and let Apple take over a subsection of consumer electronics, but Sony won on BluRay, and that’s really the big picture war. And in the Beta fight, Sony still won, with BetaCam at least, and BetaCam is out living the VHS of the consumer space. People always miss that, Sony didn’t lose the war, just the battle.

    PSP needs 60 gig and a non-game format. The 60 gig Video PSP with BluRay 12.5 gig small discs? Ideal. Video iPod is quite nice tho. And oh Jobs believes in it, catcalling is just his strategy, gotta read between the corporatespeak lines. (And Microsoft in things CE a joke, need not pay attention, everything will fail).

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  33. Hahaha, just had to comment on Brandon’s post…

    Wow, a Scoble stand-in, Silicon Valley geekish clueless as all out. On BluRay it is not the ‘format’ it’s the content and Sony hasn’t failed. They won. Game over. Streaming and having a SAN of music is a geek-only market, storage is important, people want to take it with them, and play it pure without the usual stream jerkiness and not worry about signal fades. Geesh. And it’s not about DRM really, people WILL pay for content if you make it easy for them to do so, but pot calling kettle black on DRM is hardly something onto which to hang an argument. Blame MPAA and RIAA for not accepting a blanket cover, blaming Microsoft or Apple misses the real issue.

    No matter what techincal arguments you come up with (some may actually be right) the Video iPod is much than that. Personally I find the Video iPod a weak first attempt, but I can’t argue with the market and all of Hollywood and Burbank. Pump your Creative, PMC and Pocket PC Phone as much as you wish, but it won’t take.

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  34. Hahaha, just had to comment on Brandon’s post…

    Wow, a Scoble stand-in, Silicon Valley geekish clueless as all out. On BluRay it is not the ‘format’ it’s the content and Sony hasn’t failed. They won. Game over. Streaming and having a SAN of music is a geek-only market, storage is important, people want to take it with them, and play it pure without the usual stream jerkiness and not worry about signal fades. Geesh. And it’s not about DRM really, people WILL pay for content if you make it easy for them to do so, but pot calling kettle black on DRM is hardly something onto which to hang an argument. Blame MPAA and RIAA for not accepting a blanket cover, blaming Microsoft or Apple misses the real issue.

    No matter what techincal arguments you come up with (some may actually be right) the Video iPod is much than that. Personally I find the Video iPod a weak first attempt, but I can’t argue with the market and all of Hollywood and Burbank. Pump your Creative, PMC and Pocket PC Phone as much as you wish, but it won’t take.

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  35. I have two windows mobiles and I think they show great promise. I wouldn’t put it head to head with an ipod though because I don’t think they are ready for the mainstream. While I can do more on my phones than on an iPod they are both rough around the edges. The speed of them means lag in the ui, and at times it can be quite bad. There are also little quirks when it comes to usabiltiy. While I am thoroughly pleased with my purchases I will wait until things are a bit more mature before recommending them to my non-technical friends.

    The iPod may do less but those features are very easy to use.

    FYI I have an SPV C500 and an O2 XDA Exec, one WM2003 and the other WM2005.

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  36. I have two windows mobiles and I think they show great promise. I wouldn’t put it head to head with an ipod though because I don’t think they are ready for the mainstream. While I can do more on my phones than on an iPod they are both rough around the edges. The speed of them means lag in the ui, and at times it can be quite bad. There are also little quirks when it comes to usabiltiy. While I am thoroughly pleased with my purchases I will wait until things are a bit more mature before recommending them to my non-technical friends.

    The iPod may do less but those features are very easy to use.

    FYI I have an SPV C500 and an O2 XDA Exec, one WM2003 and the other WM2005.

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  37. I just a video ipod and like it, but I can’t still see the appeal in watching a video on such a small screen, I bought my 30 gig just really for music, I still think the jury is out out portable video.

    As for sound quality, it sounds much better on my 5G ipod than my 4G, but who knows, it could be many different factors.

    Joe

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  38. I just a video ipod and like it, but I can’t still see the appeal in watching a video on such a small screen, I bought my 30 gig just really for music, I still think the jury is out out portable video.

    As for sound quality, it sounds much better on my 5G ipod than my 4G, but who knows, it could be many different factors.

    Joe

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  39. No-one else finds it amusing that the iPod (not the Video iPod, no such thing. It’s just the “iPod”) a device that:

    a) only plays video as an afterthought
    b) is produced by a company whose CEO thinks TV is stupid
    c) is produced by a company whose CEO thinks mobile video is stupid
    d) only plays video in a tiny selection of formats, sizes and bitrates

    is absolutely killing the competition?

    What a bunch of maroons they must be, to be accidentally trampled by a 2-bit operation like Apple, that doesn’t even *want* your target market.

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  40. No-one else finds it amusing that the iPod (not the Video iPod, no such thing. It’s just the “iPod”) a device that:

    a) only plays video as an afterthought
    b) is produced by a company whose CEO thinks TV is stupid
    c) is produced by a company whose CEO thinks mobile video is stupid
    d) only plays video in a tiny selection of formats, sizes and bitrates

    is absolutely killing the competition?

    What a bunch of maroons they must be, to be accidentally trampled by a 2-bit operation like Apple, that doesn’t even *want* your target market.

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  41. Irony abounds. 🙂 The iPod phenom I still don’t quite get in full totality, leave it to the ‘we hate mp3’ bumbling clueless Sony, the clunky not-very Creative, the dead Rio, the deathly boring Dells and Toshiba’s, the $ and no-name Archos and the forever-incompetent Microsoft. CE dropped ball, Apple and Microsoft saw an in. Microsoft crashed and burnt. Apple didn’t.

    It’s a cultural trendy chiq thing, something Apple can nail with the style over substance hits. But that CEO, only hates everyone ELSES mobile video. Don’t take him too literally. Tiny selection of formats? Meaning .wmv? Hah. But then H.264 and MPEG-4 pretty much all you need, really. The PMC is more a pure video player, the video iPod is an audio player FIRST, with video as a mere add-on, and yet that will win the market.

    Buncha maroooons? You betcha life. Apple should not be here at all.

    (last post I promise, already sick of said topic).

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  42. Irony abounds. 🙂 The iPod phenom I still don’t quite get in full totality, leave it to the ‘we hate mp3’ bumbling clueless Sony, the clunky not-very Creative, the dead Rio, the deathly boring Dells and Toshiba’s, the $ and no-name Archos and the forever-incompetent Microsoft. CE dropped ball, Apple and Microsoft saw an in. Microsoft crashed and burnt. Apple didn’t.

    It’s a cultural trendy chiq thing, something Apple can nail with the style over substance hits. But that CEO, only hates everyone ELSES mobile video. Don’t take him too literally. Tiny selection of formats? Meaning .wmv? Hah. But then H.264 and MPEG-4 pretty much all you need, really. The PMC is more a pure video player, the video iPod is an audio player FIRST, with video as a mere add-on, and yet that will win the market.

    Buncha maroooons? You betcha life. Apple should not be here at all.

    (last post I promise, already sick of said topic).

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  43. “Microsoft doesn’t really make a big deal about a lot of things. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Portable Media Center ad on tv.”

    Umm, Microsoft doesn’t make them, and Microsoft wants its partners to advertise them but they don’t do the reverse.

    And they made a HUGE deal of it!! They pimped them at two CES shows as the next big thing before they were available. They claimed they’d kill the iPod within the year (back in 2001-2002)!! There couldn’t have been more hype!

    “Second of all, Microsoft has years more experience in portable video than Apple.”

    Apple was developing QT and was playing video in the eighties! Microsoft only got into video after it started buying some crappy products in the late 90s!

    “File sizes are better, the streaming experience is better in WMV vs QuickTime.”

    No, file sizes aren’t better and no, the streaming experience is not better. Maybe you have an older version of QT and download files poorly sourced, but I can certainly show you better, smaller files that play better in QT than WMP is capable of.

    “He has been playing with it all day. Says “why didn’t you make a bigger deal about this, if you had, I would have considered one of these instead of an iPod.”

    That’s just hilarious!!! You pimped the iRiver U10 on him at the time (it didn’t exist until just recently; see below). You pimped several other devices on him too! (Unfortunately, your comments crash so frequently there’s no evidence to point to…)

    http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/2005/06/20.html#a10433

    “iRiver announces new music players
    I4U News: Three new iRiver Players. Heh, I was in the Apple San Francisco store just yesterday. My son really wants an iPod. I told him to start looking around cause there’s a slew of new devices coming out that he should at least consider. It mostly fell on deaf ears due mostly to Apple’s marketing and momentum. “All the cool kids at school have iPods,” he told me.”

    And let’s note: you didn’t let your son buy the iPod for two more months!!! That’s a whole lot of you going: “Look at this, I swear it’s better than the iPod! Please don’t buy the iPod! Please don’t! Look at Creative, look at iRiver, look at ANYTHING but the iPod!”

    So either your son’s had a brain injury, you are completely nonpersuasive (in fact, not even memorable), or these products really just aren’t compelling and can’t be sold by a key marketer employed by Apple’s main competitor!

    Ha, ha, ha!!

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  44. “Microsoft doesn’t really make a big deal about a lot of things. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Portable Media Center ad on tv.”

    Umm, Microsoft doesn’t make them, and Microsoft wants its partners to advertise them but they don’t do the reverse.

    And they made a HUGE deal of it!! They pimped them at two CES shows as the next big thing before they were available. They claimed they’d kill the iPod within the year (back in 2001-2002)!! There couldn’t have been more hype!

    “Second of all, Microsoft has years more experience in portable video than Apple.”

    Apple was developing QT and was playing video in the eighties! Microsoft only got into video after it started buying some crappy products in the late 90s!

    “File sizes are better, the streaming experience is better in WMV vs QuickTime.”

    No, file sizes aren’t better and no, the streaming experience is not better. Maybe you have an older version of QT and download files poorly sourced, but I can certainly show you better, smaller files that play better in QT than WMP is capable of.

    “He has been playing with it all day. Says “why didn’t you make a bigger deal about this, if you had, I would have considered one of these instead of an iPod.”

    That’s just hilarious!!! You pimped the iRiver U10 on him at the time (it didn’t exist until just recently; see below). You pimped several other devices on him too! (Unfortunately, your comments crash so frequently there’s no evidence to point to…)

    http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/2005/06/20.html#a10433

    “iRiver announces new music players
    I4U News: Three new iRiver Players. Heh, I was in the Apple San Francisco store just yesterday. My son really wants an iPod. I told him to start looking around cause there’s a slew of new devices coming out that he should at least consider. It mostly fell on deaf ears due mostly to Apple’s marketing and momentum. “All the cool kids at school have iPods,” he told me.”

    And let’s note: you didn’t let your son buy the iPod for two more months!!! That’s a whole lot of you going: “Look at this, I swear it’s better than the iPod! Please don’t buy the iPod! Please don’t! Look at Creative, look at iRiver, look at ANYTHING but the iPod!”

    So either your son’s had a brain injury, you are completely nonpersuasive (in fact, not even memorable), or these products really just aren’t compelling and can’t be sold by a key marketer employed by Apple’s main competitor!

    Ha, ha, ha!!

    Like

  45. Hey Scoble – just saw this thread on your referral and wanted to say that I updated my Blog with my full name etc.. 🙂

    Anyway, I suppose for a real hard core music fan, 1 gig of music is not enough to get by on. However, as far as videos and stuff – I can hold 3-4 full lentgh movies on my phone and watch them in with no hiccups whatsoever. This is one of the things I was commenting on… everyone makes such a big deal about the video iPod and its nothing new ( at least to me )

    Music is a different story, I am not one with a huge library, so it works for what I need it for.. 2-5 CD’s at any given time.

    Anyway.. now anyone can contact me via email 🙂

    Like

  46. Hey Scoble – just saw this thread on your referral and wanted to say that I updated my Blog with my full name etc.. 🙂

    Anyway, I suppose for a real hard core music fan, 1 gig of music is not enough to get by on. However, as far as videos and stuff – I can hold 3-4 full lentgh movies on my phone and watch them in with no hiccups whatsoever. This is one of the things I was commenting on… everyone makes such a big deal about the video iPod and its nothing new ( at least to me )

    Music is a different story, I am not one with a huge library, so it works for what I need it for.. 2-5 CD’s at any given time.

    Anyway.. now anyone can contact me via email 🙂

    Like

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