I-Pod Scuffle
I walked into the new Apple Store at the mall today. Immediately I notice the hoards of people hovering over the I-Pods. I find it amazing how this little contraption has brought a company from the depths of financial ruin, back into the forefront of American consumer prominence.
So how has this product turned Apple around?
I gave it some thought...
What is an I-Pod? It's basically an over-glorified walkman. OK, so it digitally stores hundreds, even thousands of songs to rock to all day long, with no skipping or wear or anything. It also acts as an external storage unit for your Mac or Windows PC, which is a neat feature. I-Pods run anywhere from 99 dollars to over 300, but the standard model is 200 dollars. Given, the high-end ones store up to 20GB of stuff, which is really quite amazing... but again, you're paying over 300 dollars for something to listen to tunes on. Yes, you can store stuff on there, but why would you? You can't really do anything with the files that are on there right? I mean, you store them, and you transfer them... you can't really do anything with them on the I-Pod. You want a storage drive to transfer your data from one source to another? Go to a store and buy a thumb drive for under 20 bucks.
MP3 players abound, they are all over the place, and have been for years now, and up till now, they've been relatively cheap. How come I-Pods have completely stolen the show? Simple. Marketing.
Apple has done an amazing job of targeting the youth of America on every level. They have the young kids, with the sweet-ass commericals and their favorite pop music. The colors and sleek design look very cutting edge, and more importantly, THEY LOOK VERY EXPENSIVE. I-Pods have become as much of a trendy fashion statement as they are an mp3 player. "How do you like your I-Pod?" "Which one do you have?" "Would you like a whisper of cinnamon with your Starbucks coffee sir? oh sorry, I see you're listenning to your I-Pod..." Apple has claimed the ranks of the college-goers as well, with the file transfer feature. How many times have we burned whole CDs just so we could get that one word file from our dorm computer to that desktop in the computer lab? I know that's what I did, cuz I didn't have one of these I-Pods when I went to school.
Now I know what you're saying... "but Arian, what about the cool little screen, and the nifty controls, and the cool colors, and the sound, oh the sound quality???!!!" OK, I admit it. I think I-Pods are really neat. They look cool, they are great tools for work, they store a lot, and yes, the sound quality is very good. But if you want one that really does something, you're spending more than 200 dollars. There are MUCH cheaper mp3 players out there that also sound wonderful. Why do you want this one so bad? Cuz just like when we were kids, everyone around you either has one, or wants one. Hell, I even want one. I just don't have 200 dollars to spend. Hell, If I do want something like that, I'll buy what I almost bought today. A 200 dollar cell-phone that I can talk on, take pictures with, surf the web with, read and write e-mail with, schedule events with, share and write documents with.... shall I continue? The fact is this... I-Pods, while really cool fad-thingies, are horrifically overpriced. And just like those jeans you bought for 80 bucks that won't last much longer than the ones on sale for 20, you want the I-Pod cuz it says something... it says "Hey, I'm cool, just like you."
I-Pods are not about the music. They're not about the file storage. They are about you looking good. Not saying it's a bad thing... we all do it, I do it all over the place. I just wanna be realistic about it. Congrats Apple, you are the latest super-industry to use our own psychological desire for conformity against our ever-decreasing checkbooks....
So how has this product turned Apple around?
I gave it some thought...
What is an I-Pod? It's basically an over-glorified walkman. OK, so it digitally stores hundreds, even thousands of songs to rock to all day long, with no skipping or wear or anything. It also acts as an external storage unit for your Mac or Windows PC, which is a neat feature. I-Pods run anywhere from 99 dollars to over 300, but the standard model is 200 dollars. Given, the high-end ones store up to 20GB of stuff, which is really quite amazing... but again, you're paying over 300 dollars for something to listen to tunes on. Yes, you can store stuff on there, but why would you? You can't really do anything with the files that are on there right? I mean, you store them, and you transfer them... you can't really do anything with them on the I-Pod. You want a storage drive to transfer your data from one source to another? Go to a store and buy a thumb drive for under 20 bucks.
MP3 players abound, they are all over the place, and have been for years now, and up till now, they've been relatively cheap. How come I-Pods have completely stolen the show? Simple. Marketing.
Apple has done an amazing job of targeting the youth of America on every level. They have the young kids, with the sweet-ass commericals and their favorite pop music. The colors and sleek design look very cutting edge, and more importantly, THEY LOOK VERY EXPENSIVE. I-Pods have become as much of a trendy fashion statement as they are an mp3 player. "How do you like your I-Pod?" "Which one do you have?" "Would you like a whisper of cinnamon with your Starbucks coffee sir? oh sorry, I see you're listenning to your I-Pod..." Apple has claimed the ranks of the college-goers as well, with the file transfer feature. How many times have we burned whole CDs just so we could get that one word file from our dorm computer to that desktop in the computer lab? I know that's what I did, cuz I didn't have one of these I-Pods when I went to school.
Now I know what you're saying... "but Arian, what about the cool little screen, and the nifty controls, and the cool colors, and the sound, oh the sound quality???!!!" OK, I admit it. I think I-Pods are really neat. They look cool, they are great tools for work, they store a lot, and yes, the sound quality is very good. But if you want one that really does something, you're spending more than 200 dollars. There are MUCH cheaper mp3 players out there that also sound wonderful. Why do you want this one so bad? Cuz just like when we were kids, everyone around you either has one, or wants one. Hell, I even want one. I just don't have 200 dollars to spend. Hell, If I do want something like that, I'll buy what I almost bought today. A 200 dollar cell-phone that I can talk on, take pictures with, surf the web with, read and write e-mail with, schedule events with, share and write documents with.... shall I continue? The fact is this... I-Pods, while really cool fad-thingies, are horrifically overpriced. And just like those jeans you bought for 80 bucks that won't last much longer than the ones on sale for 20, you want the I-Pod cuz it says something... it says "Hey, I'm cool, just like you."
I-Pods are not about the music. They're not about the file storage. They are about you looking good. Not saying it's a bad thing... we all do it, I do it all over the place. I just wanna be realistic about it. Congrats Apple, you are the latest super-industry to use our own psychological desire for conformity against our ever-decreasing checkbooks....