Well around where I am, the iPod is definitely something everyone has. From walking on the streets, waiting on trains to doing gardening. I have a funny feeling I live in an iPod driven country because other players just don't compare.

I have heard of other players such as the creative zen. Sure it has better sound but for some reason everyone preferably buys the apple iPod instead. I guess it's kind of balancing the looks as well. And all these new iPod's are coming out like iPhone, Nano 3rd generation and iTouch. Everyone's raving about the new releases of apple and the other players are like in the back water. Talk about a monopoly.

Do you see the apple iPod the same way?

No I most certainly don't think thats its a fashion statement although i think that almost everyone where I live has one. Well I've heard about this new "iPhone" but i've also heard that it has really bad battery life. I'd much rather buy the motorola V3xx... its slick and i like the feel of it. I've got one right now and it has pretty good life battery.

Ipods are the most used mp3 player on the internet i've heard and i don't think it'll be out soon. Although i really think Sony and creative and competitive contenders to the business world. I'd much prefer the sony's though. Like you said in another thread, the sound quality differs very much from different players.

Syler

I'm not fond of apple marketing. They make it sound like their products are revolutionary and hip and if you use other products your square and boring. I find their imac commercials insulting, showing a boring middle aged salary man to represent PC users and some younger one to represent their imacs. Considering that 97% of computer users aren't on macs, thats a bold statement. The whole apple user base has a cultist feel to it. Elitist in attitude as well. As a computer engineer I've always found talking to mac addicts difficult. They are quite biased towards anything mac related.

They do come out with some innovative products. Not so much in their feature list, but more so on integration. Like the iphone for instance; it has nothing new. But it bundles all it's features quite nicely. It also has some common apple flaws like the battery fiasco and its binding to a single service carrier (either at&t for the phone or itunes for other products).

I'm not saying that apple is all crap. I personally feel that the company thrives because of its marketing and the hype they create. Like was said previously, the ipod sells because it's a fashion statement, not because it plays music.

Well to start off, I hate it when people buy computers, well okay, maybe not hate, but I'd probably go "meh" if someone mentioned they bought a Dell desktop PC. I'd much rather prefer a custom built one, for reasons I'm not going to bother explaining simply because it's self-explanatory. One reason I hate apple is because they build those computers that prevent people from learning about computer hardware by letting them purchase a ready-to-go one. If you build one for the first time like i did over this summer, you will learn a lot. So apple making computers kinda pisses me off, but what really pisses me off about them is they try to differentiate between a mac and a PC. My personal experience, they're all the same. Your iMac is your Personal Computer. Trying to differentiate between the two is like trying to say "I got a Dell, not a PC". The macs that run at my university run on WinXP and they don't run very differently from other PC's. I just don't get what apple is trying to do here. All that hate just prevents me from getting an iPod. Everybody has it - an iPod, just like everybody drives a Honda Civic. if you own an iPod and you drive a Honda Civic, you're not very different from a majority of the people out there. To me, a part of life is being able to accomplish something to differentiate yourself from the crowd. Getting an iPod which everyone else already have doesn't really make me feel any different. I'd rather use a diff MP3 player, even if it's crappier and uglier than the iPod.

Just one simple reason for that. Because iPod has been known before Zen series. Beside, people just know that Apple is a good brand, and Creative is a speaker or sound card brand. So that's why people more prefer iPod to Zen. But myself, I like iPod better, not because it's brand or what, it's because it's scrool wheel is so comfortable for me, better than Zen's up down(don't know the name ^^)

[X]-iLw

I have an iPod. It really isn't that good, and I don't use it anymore. If I could go back in time, I'd punch myself in the face and tell myself not to buy it. But people love iPods because everyone else has an iPod.

You can't really blame Apple as the ipod was the device that sparked the flame in the MP3 player market to what it came to be today. Before the ipod the digital audio player market, mainly the MP3 players were underground. Not much marketing and advertising, majority average people did not know what a MP3 player was. I would give props to Apple since they brought the MP3 player market into the upper mainstream.
Though, the ipod is an excellent product and likely the cleanest designed as in appearance; But that is not my focus here. There are a lot of other players out there with better sound quality, durability, battery life, value for the price, etc. (Sony, Samsung, Creative, etc.)
People chose the ipod because it is the "thing" to have and in their mindset precieve it as being "cool" to have one and using the white ipod earphones. Also think that the ipod is the only MP3/media player out there on the market. This is because Apple keeps on marketing it, though the product has not really gotten that better of the improvement.

Ye ipods are fashion accesory. I love it! Nothing compares to it!

Everyone where i live has an iPod except for me, I can't afford that shit

Everyone I know has one, except for me. I don't even own an MP3 player at all and I don't want one. I try to stay away from things that are popular...I'll stick with books.

@Longbow I feel the same way when someone says they bought a Dell or whatever.

Minty mp3 Player.


Solder together your own and stick it in an aluminum Altoids box with holes for all the ports. It's awesome, except I don't have the time nor resources to try.

The iPod is single handedly the worst mp3 player I can think of out there on the market. It's buggy, requires that TERRIBLE resource hog and over all crappy piece of software in iTunes to be installed on your computer (basically the iPod gives your computer AIDS), and won't even read most media file types. A Zune or Rio is by far the way to go. I mean let's take a look at the file formats iTunes supports beginning with the .mov. Who in god's name supports video in an .mov format anymore? I'll tell you who, NO ONE. The .mov cannot support multiple chapters like .mkv or .ogm and the .mov is a huge file size compared to the .avi which streams a better quality picture ans sound than the .mov in the first place. Second, the .mp3. The .mp3 is like the staple of the music world now, but streaming the .mp3 is nothing special because every other music player like: Rio Music Manager, MusicMatch Jukebox, Real Player, Winamp, Windows Media Player, VLC Media LAN, and Nero Media Center all stream it too. Third, the .mp4. The .mp4 for both audio and video encoding is a good format, and a lot of media players also support it. In fact the only previously mention ones that don't are Rio Music Manager and MusicMatch Jukebox. Fourth, required a manual DivX update the .avi. It's not the fact that iTunes is willing to run the .avi now, but it's the fact that at launch it couldn't, and that you manually had to install a DivX update to run an .avi on that crappy .mp3 player in the first place. Now let's look at the file formats that are missing from iTunes. First, the .ogg. The .ogg is still a really useful file format. It's more space than a .mp3 audio wise, but it is easier to encode music into, and used by a lot of games today including Epic Games and their Unreal series. The .ogg is also used for encoding video as well, but in particular small videos due to the increased file size that comes with encoding into .ogg. Second, the .wmv/.wma. Of course Apple needs to compete with Microsoft, but a lot of companies that want to release a video onto the web do it in .wmv, with audio being the .wma. Of the 500 Forutune 500 companies, 99% of them use windows, so when they want to release a conference call or major announcement over the web, they're doing it in .wmv/.wma. Thrid, the .mkv + .ogm. By far the best client to use for video is VLC Video Lan because it is the only media player out there that streams the .mkv and .ogm. These two file types are used because of their ability to use a minimal amount of disk space with the sacrifice of a little quality to compress lots of episodes of shows into a small format. The .mkv and .ogm is also nice because of its ability to hold multiple chapters in the file, supporting duel audio. Let's finish up here by simply saying that Apple survives of the un-knowledgeable consumer who just wants the latest "trendy" item, when in reality you're wasting almost $200 buying one. Apple has failed in the computer business and so is basically surviving off their iPod right now. My suggestion is to go smart, but a CD player that can read .mp3s, take a CD and burn 400 some .mp3s on it with Nero. That should by far be enough for any trip, and if you get tired of that CD then burn and take a different one along with you on your next trip. The cost of the CDs and the CD Player should equal no more than $40. Piece of cake.

My opinion about ipods is that its mainstream. No offense to those who dished out hundred+ for an ipod, but there are better and more reliable companies that make superior and cheaper portable media players. Creative and iRiver for instance. The only fasion statement made by most iPOD holders is that they have no taste in electronics, or have no knowledge of how to shop.

My opinions Ipod is apple computer accessary...



Not bad functions.....

If the ipod were a fashion accessory then that is just sad. its like saying a cellphone is a fashion accessory. and when the day comes that we do say this then i would probably have to shove a fork up my nose to distract me from the pains of hearing about cellphone fashion.

ipods are just everywhere because people can't seem to enjoy walking without listening to music. i blame the entertainment industry for bombarding us with none stop flashy things to catch our attention so that we are on a non-stop addictive pursuit of something to entertain us while doing the most mundane things in our daily lives. this is where ipod falls into place.