4 ms·

I was hoping for some key engineers or product managers. I had a similar peak into the iPod, a key stepping stone to the iPhone. There was a time when digital

by ozten 8y ago

I was hoping for some key engineers or product managers. I had a similar peak into the iPod, a key stepping stone to the iPhone. There was a time when digital music players like the Creative Nomad were gaining adoption, but people were still absorbing the shift to digital music. I worked at RealNetworks/Rhapsody music and there was a mysterious meeting where a guy pitched what would eventually come to market as the iPod. The deal didn't go through and he was latter employed by Apple. I understand that sometimes inventions will be invented nearly simultaneously by several distinct groups... and Apple may have already had a prototype device for years in their labs waiting for the BOM to hit the right size, price, and capabilities... But who were these visionaries that Apple organized, packaged their visions, and helped delivered their wares? Apple does an amazing job of marketing their myths and we've got the well known brands of Woz, Jobs, Ive... It's hard to pierce that veil.

startupdiscuss 8y ago
For the ipod, I don't consider the device to be the invention. There were many music players around at the time. The invention was itunes -- an easy way to buy music. And that invention required cutting deals with all the music studios to put their catalog online. That was new. Of course it had to link up with a nice ecosystem, sound, software etc.
- macintux 8y ago
  iTunes made the iPod huge, but the iPod itself was pretty remarkable. The UI was entirely new and more intuitive than similar devices, and it was the smallest large-capacity device thanks to Steve seizing on the idea of using the new tiny hard drives Toshiba(?) had created. Firewire also made it much faster to upload music.
  - mc32 8y ago
    Rio had, PMPs, I think. They had flash storage. UI was okay but managing files and transfers left a lot to be desired.
- basch 8y ago
  The interface, the clickwheel. Lists, click, forward, back.
  - hi5eyes 8y ago
    ipod hardware and software was such a level up compared to the competition (zune by comparison was a joke) and the range of choices from 160gb to a shuffle or nano
chaostheory 8y ago
I'm trying to fix this with a user editable IMDB for everything: https://theymadethat.com/things/6wy/apple-macintosh https://theymadethat.com/things/6wy/apple-macintosh It's a hard problem to solve. Currently, I still haven't found product market fit yet - with TheyMadeThat's most apparent weakness being the lack of data, but I still can't fully let go because making people aware of who made their stuff matters. People know it's a problem and they like the idea of solving it. Unfortunately, people do not love my solution. Not enough people loved other higher profile solutions like Makerbase from Anil Dash and Gina Trapani either. I don't know to fix it. Interesting features aside from associating people with contributing to the "iPhones" of the world: * Seeing the relationships between different things i.e. -- evolution (predecessors/successors), -- variations (https://theymadethat.com/things/6wy/apple-macintosh/show_versions#focus_this https://theymadethat.com/things/6wy/apple-macintosh/show_ver...), -- parts (https://theymadethat.com/things/l1t/reddit/show_parts#focus_this https://theymadethat.com/things/l1t/reddit/show_parts#focus_...) * Who used what as tools Feedback is welcome. Feel free to not be nice. It tends to be the most useful feedback. Currently I'm using it to build a Ycombinator Census
- synotic 8y ago
  Since you're looking for feedback: 1. Seeing a list of people associated with a product is kind of useful, but I specifically want to know what their role was / what they did, vs. just a generic quote. 2. I like the idea of having versions under a larger high-level product (like Mac → Apple Macintosh 128K) but this doesn't seem to be expressed in the navigation anywhere when you're on a specific version. There should be some form of breadcrumbing / indicating the parent. 3. I'd reconsider the tabs as distinct pages vs. a single page, Wikipedia style where the tabs just act as anchors. Possibly use an accordion pattern with a preview for each section. Right now I have to click through 8 different tabs to see if there's possibly content which is usually pretty sparse. 4. Product pages should look distinct from the homepage. The hero section with the tagline / search field is really prominent (and autofocused) when you're looking at a specific product / version. The main focus should be the product title, and the header should be secondary. 5. Not crazy about the quotes as the lead-in for the product pages. It feels like it should be a succinct summary of what the product was. Information like release date, size of team, etc... should be above the fold. I think Wikipedia is again instructive. 6. As a more meta comment, lack of data is definitely an issue and at the same it seems tough to encourage people to contribute data to a (sorry) unknown entity. I tried to edit an article to see how the data's being captured but didn't want to create an account — are you familiar with Wikidata, RDF, Linked Data, etc...? If you can't find this data already in a structured way, I've spent some time parsing wikitext somewhat successfully and if you look at e.g. the Credits section https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_128K#Credits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_128K#Credits you might be able to bootstrap some data (or at least provide draft pages that someone can then vet / fill out). 7. From what I understand, scraping LinkedIn is pretty challenging, but could you gather data from there / cross-reference to infer who worked on what products? LinkedIn specifically has "Projects" and "Creators", but I don't know what its adoption is like. Basically vs. just expecting me (the general user) to crowdsource this for you, what initial work have you put in.

by ozten 8y ago

startupdiscuss 8y ago

For the ipod, I don't consider the device to be the invention. There were many music players around at the time. The invention was itunes -- an easy way to buy music. And that invention required cutting deals with all the music studios to put their catalog online. That was new. Of course it had to link up with a nice ecosystem, sound, software etc.

macintux 8y ago
iTunes made the iPod huge, but the iPod itself was pretty remarkable. The UI was entirely new and more intuitive than similar devices, and it was the smallest large-capacity device thanks to Steve seizing on the idea of using the new tiny hard drives Toshiba(?) had created. Firewire also made it much faster to upload music.
- mc32 8y ago
  Rio had, PMPs, I think. They had flash storage. UI was okay but managing files and transfers left a lot to be desired.
basch 8y ago
The interface, the clickwheel. Lists, click, forward, back.
- hi5eyes 8y ago
  ipod hardware and software was such a level up compared to the competition (zune by comparison was a joke) and the range of choices from 160gb to a shuffle or nano

chaostheory 8y ago

I'm trying to fix this with a user editable IMDB for everything: https://theymadethat.com/things/6wy/apple-macintosh https://theymadethat.com/things/6wy/apple-macintosh It's a hard problem to solve. Currently, I still haven't found product market fit yet - with TheyMadeThat's most apparent weakness being the lack of data, but I still can't fully let go because making people aware of who made their stuff matters. People know it's a problem and they like the idea of solving it. Unfortunately, people do not love my solution. Not enough people loved other higher profile solutions like Makerbase from Anil Dash and Gina Trapani either. I don't know to fix it. Interesting features aside from associating people with contributing to the "iPhones" of the world: * Seeing the relationships between different things i.e. -- evolution (predecessors/successors), -- variations (https://theymadethat.com/things/6wy/apple-macintosh/show_versions#focus_this https://theymadethat.com/things/6wy/apple-macintosh/show_ver...), -- parts (https://theymadethat.com/things/l1t/reddit/show_parts#focus_this https://theymadethat.com/things/l1t/reddit/show_parts#focus_...) * Who used what as tools Feedback is welcome. Feel free to not be nice. It tends to be the most useful feedback. Currently I'm using it to build a Ycombinator Census

synotic 8y ago
Since you're looking for feedback: 1. Seeing a list of people associated with a product is kind of useful, but I specifically want to know what their role was / what they did, vs. just a generic quote. 2. I like the idea of having versions under a larger high-level product (like Mac → Apple Macintosh 128K) but this doesn't seem to be expressed in the navigation anywhere when you're on a specific version. There should be some form of breadcrumbing / indicating the parent. 3. I'd reconsider the tabs as distinct pages vs. a single page, Wikipedia style where the tabs just act as anchors. Possibly use an accordion pattern with a preview for each section. Right now I have to click through 8 different tabs to see if there's possibly content which is usually pretty sparse. 4. Product pages should look distinct from the homepage. The hero section with the tagline / search field is really prominent (and autofocused) when you're looking at a specific product / version. The main focus should be the product title, and the header should be secondary. 5. Not crazy about the quotes as the lead-in for the product pages. It feels like it should be a succinct summary of what the product was. Information like release date, size of team, etc... should be above the fold. I think Wikipedia is again instructive. 6. As a more meta comment, lack of data is definitely an issue and at the same it seems tough to encourage people to contribute data to a (sorry) unknown entity. I tried to edit an article to see how the data's being captured but didn't want to create an account — are you familiar with Wikidata, RDF, Linked Data, etc...? If you can't find this data already in a structured way, I've spent some time parsing wikitext somewhat successfully and if you look at e.g. the Credits section https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_128K#Credits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_128K#Credits you might be able to bootstrap some data (or at least provide draft pages that someone can then vet / fill out). 7. From what I understand, scraping LinkedIn is pretty challenging, but could you gather data from there / cross-reference to infer who worked on what products? LinkedIn specifically has "Projects" and "Creators", but I don't know what its adoption is like. Basically vs. just expecting me (the general user) to crowdsource this for you, what initial work have you put in.