

Straight Dope on the IPod's Birth - jdc
http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/commentary/cultofmac/2006/10/71956?currentPage=all

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csmeder
> _''Steve made some very interesting observations very early on about how
> this was about navigating content, '' Ive told The New York Times. ''It was
> about being very focused and not trying to do too much with the device --
> which would have been its complication and, therefore, its demise. The
> enabling features aren't obvious and evident, because the key was getting
> rid of stuff.''_

I remember back in 2002 or so I had bought an ARCHOS because it had a camera,
video camera and played movies. I then saw non technical friends starting to
talk about the iPod. I honestly felt it was like hearing non technical people
discussing recursion. I knew the iPod must be different. Sure I had plenty of
friends that new what MP3's were and downloaded them, but they were my
technological friends. So to hear these non techies talk about the iPod, I was
like "Whoa".

I took a step back to compare the ARCHOS that I bought with the iPod. And I
realized wow Steve Job's is very smart [1] and at that moment I realized Apple
is going to be bigger than Microsoft. As Jon Ive says in the quote above: "It
was about being very focused and not trying to do too much with the device --
which would have been its complication and, therefore, its demise." I had
already realized this works very well for In-N-Out Burger. So well that when
Chipotle came out I knew it would be a success.

It has really surprised me how Steve Jobs laid out the winning model for
making a product 9 years ago and few companies have followed. It is actually
rather frustrating. Every time Apple comes out with a new product (for the
most part), a few people are like "Yes, this is amazing" and everyone else
complains "It doesn't have enough features. It sucks."

[1] The ARCHOS had a bunch of features such as a camera, camcorder and it
could play videos. But I never used the thing. The interface sucked and the
battery life sucked. When I bought an iPod I used it constantly. I still use
it. It is much better to have a product that does one thing extremely well
than a product that does a bunch of things mediocre or not well at all.

~~~
graywh
And now the iPod nano _has_ a video camera, can watch movies, play FM radio,
etc.

Maybe it's more about the gradual introduction of all these things to the
masses.

~~~
maxharris
No, it's about delivering the essential things first. If they wasted effort
doing all that other stuff first, all of those features would be badly
integrated into the product. This means that they would be hard to learn about
and use. And if they're jammed in before the technology is ready, they'll make
the device ugly because they'll add so much bulk and heft that the _essential_
feature of the device is hampered or lost entirely.

------
wvenable
> _While describing the player, Jobs constantly referred to Apple's digital
> hub strategy: The Mac is a hub, or central connection point, for a host of
> gadgets._

I wonder if this will ultimately be downfall of the whole iPod/iPad/iPhone
experience. Apple is still working around the idea of the computer as the
central hub (requiring you to sync with iTunes before you can use an iPad, for
example) rather than the hub now being entirely in the cloud.

So far, Apple has failed miserably at cloud computing experiences.

~~~
masklinn
> So far, Apple has failed miserably at cloud computing experiences.

So far, Apple has barely showed any interest in it. How can they fail at
something they never even tried?

~~~
generalk
What about MobileMe? I'd say they've tried, and they've been an also-ran since
the beginning.

~~~
dsspence
Maybe the purchase of LaLa will change that.

------
rayvega
>> _...Ive told the Times that the key to the iPod wasn't sudden flashes of
genius, but the design process. His design group collaborated closely with
manufacturers and engineers, constantly tweaking and refining the design.
''It's not serial,'' he told the Times. ''It's not one person passing
something on to the next.''..._

Perhaps this and the rest of the article provides some insight into pg's
question about Apple's culture: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1596767>

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jsz0
I highly recommend Steven Levy's book, The Perfect Thing, for a more in-depth
look at the iPod. Levy did a mini article-ized version of his book for Wired a
few years ago:

<http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.11/ipod.html>

------
wallflower
Cross-reference with this classic story from Cabel Sasser of Panic

<http://www.panic.com/extras/audionstory/>

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panacea
No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.

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dsspence
The other kicker about the original use of firewire was that it could charge
the iPod simultaneously while syncing. I don't recall usb 1.1 being able to
charge a device.

