Tue Aug 22, 2006 11:20 am

yes and no

different war, different strategy.

just happens to be the same two companies.

it's just a case of the "big" chief always falling.

Should have Microsoft really worried too.

Tue Aug 22, 2006 12:44 pm

A disappearing MP3 player could be a good thing in some situations. Like if you were being mugged for your MP3 player. The MP3 player would just disappear and you could tell the mugger he can have your headphones but that you don't actually have an MP3 player. You were just trying to look cool. Maybe offer him your Bapes hoody instead... When the mugger is gone, your DJ Ditty would reappear and you could go on listening to your Best of Supertramp playlist.

Tue Aug 22, 2006 1:54 pm

I suspect that if a mugger saw you with headphones, went after your MP3 player, and found out you had a DJ Ditty, he'd kick your cheap ass.

Tue Aug 22, 2006 3:23 pm

I suspect that one problem with Dell, Creative, Sony and others is that they have tried to apply "PC marketing" to the music player field, with dismal results. Dell has done well (well, DID well; they're not doing so well, now) by marketing PCs based on a combination of price and "features." At the low end, they've gone after consumers (and enterprise customers) with low-cost but reasonably useful desktops and laptops. Higher up the market, they've taken those same basic low-cost designs, slapped in a faster CPU, a better video card, etc., to go after gamers and other "niche" markets.

Their poor-to-pathetic industrial design follows that same philosophy. For most people (and businesses), a desktop PC is an appliance like washing machines, which haven't changed in basic design for 40+ years and which are also marketed on price and features. Like the washer, the PC is tucked away out of sight in a bedroom or office, often under or beside a desk: it's not on public display. Who cares very much what it looks like? (About the only PC buyers who do seem to be concerned with appearance are gamers who buy Alienware towers and others with flames, red cases, etc. They do want to impress each other by having an instantly-recognizable computer, even if they're the only ones who see it.)

The Apple design philosophy, at least since the first iMac (and harkening back to the original Mac), has seen the Mac not as an appliance, but more like a piece of furniture, suitable for public display as well as to use. The current iMac is probably the supreme example, so far. Even the keyboard and mouse look good enough to be on display.

Design, which costs a lot of money, time, and focus, has also been a way to differentiate Apple's products and establish a brand identity, even going back to the Apple //c, for example, which led the way as the first white/non-beige PC. All the iMacs, iBooks, PowerMacs since the blue-and-white G3, the Cinema displays and now the MacBook/Pro, Mini, and Mac Pro have had distinctive designs that make them instantly recognizable, even without the Apple logo. Even the PowerBooks--the closest in appearance to "generic" PCs, had that distinctive back-lit logo on the lid. Think about how often you've seen a PC--desktop or laptop--on a TV program or in a movie. It's pretty much only the Macs that you can instantly recognize.

Design matters the most in products that are intimately connected with us and our identities: clothes, shoes, jewelry, cosmetics, accessories (bags, wallets, etc.) and cars--things we wear, carry, or ride in/on. For many (probably most) people, these products are seen as expressions of themselves. (This is not new, by any means. Ornamentation has been a way of differentiating tribes, cultures, and classes for thousands of years.) Those of us older than 40 might remember that the first digital watches were sold based on design, not functionality: you had to press a button to see the numbers.

Apple's genius with the iPod was to recognize that music players, which had been around for quite a while (tape players, CD players, and MP3 players), are really "wearables." Once, it was only geeks and professionals who wore electronic devices--pagers, cel phones, Blackberries, etc., but, now, many people, especially the young, carry and wear them. (The height of absurdity, though, are the people who wear Bluetooth headsets all the time, looking a bit like the Borg.) The iPods are wearable in their own right and have spawned a huge market in cases, armbands, bling-bling pendants, and the like. They're often not hidden away but displayed. The iPods have been simple (down to the extreme of the Shuffle), instantly recognizable, and attractive. Even the colors have been chosen carefully. (The Zume will be available in brown, fer Chrisakes!) Apple also recognized the importance of feel--rounded corners, just the right size, easily operable with one hand, nothing to catch in a pocket, instantly recognizable solely by touch, and basic functions easily operated without looking at the iPod.

Dell, Sony, Creative, et al, have, instead, concentrated on price and "features" (at least their idea of what people want, probably unsupported by market research), rather than design. Some of their designs have required two hands to operate. Others have projecting bits that catch fabric in pockets. Many are clunky-looking. Quite a few are downright ugly. Look at these products and ask yourself, would I--much less a 16-year-old--want to wear that thing so that everyone sees it? (Again, a brown Zume? Brown is OK for a nice leather case, but it looks like leather, not fecal-brown plastic.)

Worse, in the face of Apple's huge dominance of the music player market (few other markets are dominated by one line of products to that degree) and their obvious failures, other manufacturers have generally responded with more of the same: lower prices and/or more "features." None seem to offer the ease of integration with PC song management and online music store that iTunes and iTMS provide.

Creative seems to have gone the way Apple did with the original PowerPC Macs--too many models with minor distinctions. Apple, on the other hand, has 3 models, each with two or three capacities. One of Steve Jobs's first priorities in coming back to Apple in 1997 was to reduce the product line to a few simple, easily understood products, rather than the confusing array of PowerPCs that had been invented by the sales people who were running Apple at the time. One of Jobs's favorite adages is about saying no to 1,000 things to focus on the really great stuff--er, the "insanely great" stuff. See this Business Week article.

Even Apple's retail business shows the effect of design and distinction. Every electronics "supermarket"--CompUSA, Circuit City, Best Buy, etc.--looks the same except for the color scheme and logos. The Apple stores are, well, different.