4 ms·

Then there's reason @ (@ comes before the letter A, right?) - @) iPod is a closed proprietary gadget that can only be accessed using closed proprietary softwar

by mojuba 18y ago

Then there's reason @ (@ comes before the letter A, right?) - @) iPod is a closed proprietary gadget that can only be accessed using closed proprietary software. If iPod was open and standardized, the rest of your reasons would probably magically disappear.

raganwald 18y ago
I don't understand. If iPod was "open and standardized" in 1991, how would Apple have built an iTunes Music Store that would have provided the same experience? Or are you arguing that instead, they should have built something using the "open and standardized" components of the day, precluding almost all of the functionality that made it successful?
- mechanical_fish 18y ago
  I think you mean "2001", not "1991". </nitpick> And I, too, find it funny that people are still arguing for Apple to pursue the business model that its nigh-extinct competitors were already pursuing in 2001 when the iPod came out.
- t0pj 18y ago
  iPod was "open and standardized" in 1991 1991 was a sweet year for the iPod and iTunes. I had no issues installing it on MS-DOS 4/Windows 3.1 but had a hard time with corrupted data when connecting it up via centronix cable (I think iTunes also used a dBase III back-end at the time). :)
  - raganwald 18y ago
    But you must admit, it looked great on a Hercules Graphics Adaptor.
  - Xichekolas 18y ago
    Yeah, I really enjoying listening to my iPod during SSR (Sustained Silent Reading) in the 2nd grade. But then my teacher took it away... muttering something about "kids these days and their technology from the future"
- mojuba 18y ago
  Not the gadget itself, but rather access to it. iPod/iTunes is an isolated system designed to lock you in, which makes sense from the business point of view, is legal, gives more confidence to content providers and after all, is beneficial to the company. That's OK. I'm arguing that Apple wouldn't have to be anti-Web if iPod was more open and allowed any software to connect and exchange content with it. That's against the grain for Apple, I'm sure, but that's their problem, not mine. (And the irony is that I'm typing this on a Mac)
  - deleted 18y ago
    [deleted]
  - pchristensen 18y ago
    How is that against the grain for Apple? Apple is known for design and quality but I never thought of them as especially open. Sure, they argued for openness where it served them as a 3% player in the OS space, but now that they're a 70+% player in music, more openness would hurt them. Openness hurts the big boys, so you hardly ever see the big boys pushing for it. Google is happy to be open with the contents of the entire Web, but not with any aspect of their own business (hiring practices, pictures of campus, PageRank formula, infrastructure, etc).
    - raganwald 18y ago
      > Google is happy to be open with the contents of the entire Web, but not with any aspect of their own business (hiring practices, pictures of campus, PageRank formula, infrastructure, etc). IIRC, Joel Spolsky called this "commoditizing your complement."
    - mojuba 18y ago
      Google is happy to be open with the contents of the entire Web I'm not sure what you mean. Google is gradually opening its technology - you see one announcement after another these days. And here lies the difference between Google and Apple: both benefited from the open-source world big time, except the former contributes back as an acknowledgement, and the latter contributes nothing.
mechanical_fish 18y ago
Ah, you mean that Apple should release a system based on completely open standards, so that it can be easily cloned by former employees of Apple's own Chinese manufacturing partners and brought to market at a lower price? A process which, when iterated, will eventually shave margins down to razor-thin levels, lead to an erosion of good design and the proliferation of generic, bad design, and threaten to drive Apple out of its own industry? That sure worked out well for IBM in the PC industry. Whereas the folks who specialized in selling closed, proprietary PC operating systems didn't do well at all. Not that I wouldn't love a completely open music player that provided the same user experience as iTunes and the iPod. But, oddly, despite the existence of lots of cheap MP3 players, the majority of them have a kind of generic, bad design -- and those that don't sell at low enough volumes that they have trouble competing in price with iPods. And their market is fragmented enough that they don't achieve the kind of dominance that -- for example -- leads to podcast pages having a special button just for them, the way many pages have a special "listen with iTunes" button.
- icey 18y ago
  news.YC: May contain capitalism. (p.s. You're totally right)

by mojuba 18y ago

raganwald 18y ago

I don't understand. If iPod was "open and standardized" in 1991, how would Apple have built an iTunes Music Store that would have provided the same experience? Or are you arguing that instead, they should have built something using the "open and standardized" components of the day, precluding almost all of the functionality that made it successful?

mechanical_fish 18y ago
I think you mean "2001", not "1991". </nitpick> And I, too, find it funny that people are still arguing for Apple to pursue the business model that its nigh-extinct competitors were already pursuing in 2001 when the iPod came out.
t0pj 18y ago
iPod was "open and standardized" in 1991 1991 was a sweet year for the iPod and iTunes. I had no issues installing it on MS-DOS 4/Windows 3.1 but had a hard time with corrupted data when connecting it up via centronix cable (I think iTunes also used a dBase III back-end at the time). :)
- raganwald 18y ago
  But you must admit, it looked great on a Hercules Graphics Adaptor.
- Xichekolas 18y ago
  Yeah, I really enjoying listening to my iPod during SSR (Sustained Silent Reading) in the 2nd grade. But then my teacher took it away... muttering something about "kids these days and their technology from the future"
mojuba 18y ago
Not the gadget itself, but rather access to it. iPod/iTunes is an isolated system designed to lock you in, which makes sense from the business point of view, is legal, gives more confidence to content providers and after all, is beneficial to the company. That's OK. I'm arguing that Apple wouldn't have to be anti-Web if iPod was more open and allowed any software to connect and exchange content with it. That's against the grain for Apple, I'm sure, but that's their problem, not mine. (And the irony is that I'm typing this on a Mac)
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
- pchristensen 18y ago
  How is that against the grain for Apple? Apple is known for design and quality but I never thought of them as especially open. Sure, they argued for openness where it served them as a 3% player in the OS space, but now that they're a 70+% player in music, more openness would hurt them. Openness hurts the big boys, so you hardly ever see the big boys pushing for it. Google is happy to be open with the contents of the entire Web, but not with any aspect of their own business (hiring practices, pictures of campus, PageRank formula, infrastructure, etc).
  - raganwald 18y ago
    > Google is happy to be open with the contents of the entire Web, but not with any aspect of their own business (hiring practices, pictures of campus, PageRank formula, infrastructure, etc). IIRC, Joel Spolsky called this "commoditizing your complement."
  - mojuba 18y ago
    Google is happy to be open with the contents of the entire Web I'm not sure what you mean. Google is gradually opening its technology - you see one announcement after another these days. And here lies the difference between Google and Apple: both benefited from the open-source world big time, except the former contributes back as an acknowledgement, and the latter contributes nothing.

mechanical_fish 18y ago

Ah, you mean that Apple should release a system based on completely open standards, so that it can be easily cloned by former employees of Apple's own Chinese manufacturing partners and brought to market at a lower price? A process which, when iterated, will eventually shave margins down to razor-thin levels, lead to an erosion of good design and the proliferation of generic, bad design, and threaten to drive Apple out of its own industry? That sure worked out well for IBM in the PC industry. Whereas the folks who specialized in selling closed, proprietary PC operating systems didn't do well at all. Not that I wouldn't love a completely open music player that provided the same user experience as iTunes and the iPod. But, oddly, despite the existence of lots of cheap MP3 players, the majority of them have a kind of generic, bad design -- and those that don't sell at low enough volumes that they have trouble competing in price with iPods. And their market is fragmented enough that they don't achieve the kind of dominance that -- for example -- leads to podcast pages having a special button just for them, the way many pages have a special "listen with iTunes" button.

icey 18y ago
news.YC: May contain capitalism. (p.s. You're totally right)