Apple is firmly entrenched in the MP3 player market because of their huge early success and the fact that it has taken a very long time for anyone else to release a product that could reasonably compete in the mainstream market. Apple also has a hugely effective marketing team that shoves more self-praise for their products down your throat than should humanly be possible. A funny and sadly true statement I once heard:
Fortunately for Apple, Apple has a great marketing team.
Unfortunately for Apple fans, Apple has a great marketing team.
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so what is it you find so wrong with apple products such as iphone?
I can understand the angst from an audiophile perspective (just installed rockbox on my ipod tonight, and have to agree the available options are so much better), I seriously can't see much negative about their products.
for a company, they are doing exactly what all others would like to do with their marketing and branding.
ipad - a great device if you want tablets. looks, design, apps, touch screen etc. what does the competition bring to the table? I personally dont have one myself and am not that interested in it but from what I have seen they are pretty nice and handy.
macbook air- pretty much beats all netbook competition. more powerful, slim, regular keyboards and fast as hell...
iphone - surf the web (probably best in hand held device), apps for those who like it (which btw, seems like people are finding useful and enjoying), widgets, syncing ability, music, video etc. and face time, which is great for skype as well..
as for computers, thats pretty much a personal thing. some want better hardware for gaming etc., others like simple, integration. I personally prefer macs. just to install rockbox and format my ipod, I borrowed a friends vaio which is sitting beside me. to be honest, just playing around with it makes me realize again how distasteful and ugly the windows OS is. not saying mac is perfect, as my example of need to borrow friends computer to install rockbox..
I'm not saying they (the products above) are the best at everything they do, and with some things others do better, but overall I think they do meet most peoples requirements of what they are asking for in their gadgets..
edit**
hell, I'll even throw in the itunes in to this. just loading and creating files structures for the rockbox made me realize how bloody easy I tunes make for the average joe out there. yeah, I now prefer to organize my music better and manually, but seriously, most people couldn't give a toss how the files are structured and bitrate quality of their itunes downloads. yes, apple uses propriety codecs, but your average joe couldn't care less if they were using spaghetti magic to make their music files work. or could care less that they will be stuck with apple products, coz they actually like the sound and are not looking for something better audio wise..just better functionality....and if you think because of this people are sheep, man you really need to getter a better understanding of your surroundings. we all care about different things, have different interests and place different importance...
I was in the middle of typing out a somewhat involved response describing my disgust of Apple, but it was turning into a lot more of a rant than I really wanted it to be. Suffice it to say, Apple comes across as being one of the most arrogant companies around and is more than sue-happy enough to back that up. They also try to maintain absolute control by keeping their products as closed-off as possible, despite their claims of championing open platforms. All that before even touching on their "premium" prices.
I hate the company, not necessarily their products. In fact, there's a lot I like, even love, about Apple products. For example, I love how almost every Apple device today feels like a solidly-built, high-quality item. I wish every MP3 player felt as nice and solid as the all-metal iPod Classic. I wish more companies would stop slapping on all manner of cheap, garish glossy plastic over every surface of every laptop, and instead opt for a much better-looking and better-feeling aluminium construction. Not every product needs to look ugly and feel cheap as dirt. In regards to laptops, I also wish more companies would stop cutting every possible corner and put in a nice quality screen for once. I've passed up many a laptop because of the almost industry-wide 'standard' low-resolution, low contrast, crap color quality screen that can hardly even be viewed properly from straight-on. Personally, it doesn't matter a whole lot to me what hardware is in the computer when it all looks atrocious through the display, anyway.
I commend Apple for their attention to design and build quality, but the sort of price premium they expect for many of their products is far beyond what I think is reasonable. Using their laptops again as a prime example, Apple doesn't just start with a good computer and give it a premium feel and a bit of a bump in price. Rather, they cut all sorts of costs in the hardware, wrap it in a nice shell, and expect you to pay the same high price. The MacBook Air you mentioned is only the more powerful 'netbook' compared to the slew of tiny Atom netbooks. It also costs two-and-a-half times as much, and that's just the
starting price. As is always the case with Apple laptops, you can buy much greater performance for the same dollar. The same thousand bucks could get you the Alienware M11x with a faster processor, double the RAM, five times the storage capacity, and faster dedicated graphics card; the only thing is it wouldn't be thin enough to slice bread.
Anyway, Apple does a lot of things with regard to design and build quality that I find sorely lacking from a great many other companies. I personally find a great deal of fault with Apple's practices and pricing. I think this has been enough of an off-topic discussion from me.
Back on topic:
I've been following the D3 with immense interest for only about a week now. I don't have a smartphone or the like and have been desiring a device like the iPod Touch for a while now, both as a music player and a powerful app and internet device. Having already ruled out the Zune HD, I basically had but one choice - the iPod Touch. Unfortunately this would mean I'd be giving money to Apple that I'd really rather they didn't have....and be stuck with iTunes, as well. In all my experience with iTunes, it has never been anything other than a sluggish, buggy piece of crap. Rockboxing my iPod Video allowed me to forever free myself from the constant annoyance that is iTunes, and needless to say I would not be all too thrilled having to come back to it for use with the iPod Touch.
If Cowon has made the D3 an excellent Android DAP, then I can easily see myself making it my primary DAP for many years to come.
And what did the chipset (Telechips is a comforting ... just not sure if 8900 or 8800;; I expect, Angry euron Bud is as good way things should never think it's gotta be 8800) and several maps of RAM do not know.
