5 ms·

Jobs's focus on the customer experience was useless because he judged the customer by himself. "Be like me and you will have a good experience" is not clever m

Jobs's focus on the customer experience was useless because he judged the customer by himself. "Be like me and you will have a good experience" is not clever marketing; it is abuse.

ratelimitsteve 1y ago
for something useless it worked very, extraordinarily well
pclowes 1y ago
I dunno, for a while it was the most valuable company on the planet. While you might not like his judgment it seems plenty of people did.
- eviks 1y ago
  So you approve of ads then since it makes the company more valuable?
bsimpson 1y ago
This might be the worst take I've ever read on this website. I'm a lifetime Mac user who has bought exactly one iPhone (the 3G S) before switching to Android. I'm definitely not in the Jobs reality distortion field. But I do remember how the iPod was better than every similar thing at the time, and how people spent _years_ clamoring for Apple to harness that same focus to make a phone. Apple had to go out and buy the iPhone name because that's what it had been colloquially called for years before it was announced. There are plenty of things Apple has done wrong, many by Steve personally, but you can't seriously claim that his taste was only applicable to him. Don't denigrate the meaning of the word "abuse" to make your hot take spicier.
- ratelimitsteve 1y ago
  as someone who bought the creativelabs mp3 player back in the day, the ipod was absolutely better and I was just being some combination of cheap and contrarian
  - thaumasiotes 1y ago
    I had a Zen Stone, which was made by... Creative! It was much, much better than an iPod. I had an iPod first. I gave it away, because it was too heavy to carry around. The Zen Stone was essentially weightless and could be operated without looking at it. The only problem I ever had with it was that it couldn't charge and play at the same time.
    - ratelimitsteve 1y ago
      googling, I think I had the nomad zen extra first then the zen vision w the built-in divx player for watching videos (which I never did, and it was an expensive way to learn that I'm not gonna watch a movie on a handheld screen) I loved them both very much, much more than I love any gadget I own now
AlexandrB 1y ago
Saying it's abuse is quite the overstatement. It's certainly opinionated design. Contrasted to Microsoft's philosophy where no one is allowed to have a good experience, it's a breath of fresh air.
hylaride 1y ago
Use an MP3 player from before the iPod existed and then try an iPod classic. Same with smart phones. There is no way you're going to convince most people that what you say is true in any general sense. Sure, simplification means having to have some opinionated ways of doing things because you're removing options, but there's a very real benefit that can come out of it. If anything, it makes the current state of Apple that much more sad.
- cyberax 1y ago
  I had an MP3 player before the iPod. It was a CD-based player, and it was pretty good. I think, iPod was really one of the first users of 1.8" hard drives, so it was better than the competition simply because Apple had access to better hardware.
  - hylaride 1y ago
    I disagree. Apple had no monopoly on 1.8" hard drives nor most of the other components in the original iPod (except maybe the scroll wheel itself?); they were merely among the first to apply it into a media player. It was the UI that was groundbreaking. You could switch from an album, to and artist, to a playlist, to a specific song all within seconds with your thumb. CD-based mp3 players were ok, but were battery hogs and updating playlists/music/etc was a hassle as one had to burn CDs. The UIs for most were "useable" at best. Apple did have clever, original, and good marketing, but the product (iPod) was so clearly better than anything that came before it, either way. And that was my original point against the prior comment that the customer experience was just "be like Steve Jobs" and then it's good.
    - cyberax 1y ago
      The first Apple iPods only had FireWire which was exotic here, so they were not at all popular. I had a Rio (Nitrus, I think?) that was released within a year from iPod's release. When I first interacted with an iPod a couple of years later, I was not at all impressed. I didn't have a NOMAD, but Slashdot's "no wireless, less space than a NOMAD, lame" tagline was pretty much on point. Its marketing was great, however.

Jobs's focus on the customer experience was useless because he judged the customer by himself. "Be like me and you will have a good experience" is not clever marketing; it is abuse.

ratelimitsteve 1y ago

for something useless it worked very, extraordinarily well

pclowes 1y ago

I dunno, for a while it was the most valuable company on the planet. While you might not like his judgment it seems plenty of people did.

eviks 1y ago
So you approve of ads then since it makes the company more valuable?

bsimpson 1y ago

This might be the worst take I've ever read on this website. I'm a lifetime Mac user who has bought exactly one iPhone (the 3G S) before switching to Android. I'm definitely not in the Jobs reality distortion field. But I do remember how the iPod was better than every similar thing at the time, and how people spent _years_ clamoring for Apple to harness that same focus to make a phone. Apple had to go out and buy the iPhone name because that's what it had been colloquially called for years before it was announced. There are plenty of things Apple has done wrong, many by Steve personally, but you can't seriously claim that his taste was only applicable to him. Don't denigrate the meaning of the word "abuse" to make your hot take spicier.

ratelimitsteve 1y ago
as someone who bought the creativelabs mp3 player back in the day, the ipod was absolutely better and I was just being some combination of cheap and contrarian
- thaumasiotes 1y ago
  I had a Zen Stone, which was made by... Creative! It was much, much better than an iPod. I had an iPod first. I gave it away, because it was too heavy to carry around. The Zen Stone was essentially weightless and could be operated without looking at it. The only problem I ever had with it was that it couldn't charge and play at the same time.
  - ratelimitsteve 1y ago
    googling, I think I had the nomad zen extra first then the zen vision w the built-in divx player for watching videos (which I never did, and it was an expensive way to learn that I'm not gonna watch a movie on a handheld screen) I loved them both very much, much more than I love any gadget I own now

AlexandrB 1y ago

Saying it's abuse is quite the overstatement. It's certainly opinionated design. Contrasted to Microsoft's philosophy where no one is allowed to have a good experience, it's a breath of fresh air.

hylaride 1y ago

Use an MP3 player from before the iPod existed and then try an iPod classic. Same with smart phones. There is no way you're going to convince most people that what you say is true in any general sense. Sure, simplification means having to have some opinionated ways of doing things because you're removing options, but there's a very real benefit that can come out of it. If anything, it makes the current state of Apple that much more sad.

cyberax 1y ago
I had an MP3 player before the iPod. It was a CD-based player, and it was pretty good. I think, iPod was really one of the first users of 1.8" hard drives, so it was better than the competition simply because Apple had access to better hardware.
- hylaride 1y ago
  I disagree. Apple had no monopoly on 1.8" hard drives nor most of the other components in the original iPod (except maybe the scroll wheel itself?); they were merely among the first to apply it into a media player. It was the UI that was groundbreaking. You could switch from an album, to and artist, to a playlist, to a specific song all within seconds with your thumb. CD-based mp3 players were ok, but were battery hogs and updating playlists/music/etc was a hassle as one had to burn CDs. The UIs for most were "useable" at best. Apple did have clever, original, and good marketing, but the product (iPod) was so clearly better than anything that came before it, either way. And that was my original point against the prior comment that the customer experience was just "be like Steve Jobs" and then it's good.
  - cyberax 1y ago
    The first Apple iPods only had FireWire which was exotic here, so they were not at all popular. I had a Rio (Nitrus, I think?) that was released within a year from iPod's release. When I first interacted with an iPod a couple of years later, I was not at all impressed. I didn't have a NOMAD, but Slashdot's "no wireless, less space than a NOMAD, lame" tagline was pretty much on point. Its marketing was great, however.