I switched to PC audio before most people had net access. I have been using the pc as a source for over 15 years. Honestly, I cannot remember, but I did always wonder why people paid more for the closed apple platform. Even in music production and mastering. Besides the point, but a valid example of why it makes less sense to tether to a closed and tightly controlled ecosystem.
I could do what I wanted with my PC, even built, several bit-perfect PC sources, currently having two, a modest speakers system with a tubed NOS Dac, A USB S/pdif out, monarchy DIP, and I restored the last "loose" NAD poweramp with new caps and such, keeping nearfield and towers on the a/b posts one for listening, one for movies that I use my PC to play and send to the TV panel. I built for speed and quiet. I generally, as of late, tend to use it more as a host for serving my music from the RAID5 setup I use to store my music, and play it on a laptop outputting to another s/pdif out for bit-perfect into an older NOS dac and a separate tubed output buffer, onto the headphone amp. I have thought of involving a better pre than the pre section in the headphone, "Integrated", but I am not sure if I want to make the switch over to this new obsession yet, in full.
I predicted mp3s would change the recording industry before winamp was out of beta, and I am currently, very actively involved in pushing FLAC as a universal standard. I would have liked to use DSD, but that is Sony for you. PC audio is not just plg in and go. The software chain is as important, often as the hardware, but iTunes certainly does not represent the direction any of us should be hoping to go.
Before I go on, I will say, for the record, that I would have been disappointed had B&W tethered themselves to any platform so exclusively. I am not so much anti-apple on that issue, as I am bothered by the worship of any closed platform as a major selling point of a product. This is because these look well engineered, well thought out, but I hate to say it but Creative, Microsoft, Sandisk, etc... they are as much, or more, associated with PC and digital audio as a whole than apple, so that argument doesn't fly. Creative was, quite literally, one of the reasons apple released the ipod in the first place. How soon do we forget that apple did not invent portable digital audio. Creative didn't either, but they were first with a product on the shelves, first with the "clout" you speak of. Their mistake was, interestingly, exactly what apple does. I always wonder why apple fans accept restrictions as features, where on any other platform, it kills a product. The Rio, killed by the obfuscated process of managing music on the player, then the same with anything Sony tried to do. Sony had a 20gb player the size of a nano, years ago, but why buy it if the only way to get songs onto it is by using it's proprietary software? Wait, so why DID that product fail then, if apple makes you jump through as many hoops. I never worry about this with a netbook and a good usb s/pdif out, besides, itunes, to get it to output bit-perfect audio, takes technical ability, not much, but some, and the funny thing is, the difference between apple and PC users can be summed up in the way either approaches a technical problem.
If something on an open platform dies, we just replace it. If we want a feature, someone, even one's self, may write a program to do whatever it is. When my battery fails in this laptop, I buy another. I have a higher capacity battery for all day computing, but how can I do this with a macbook? Iphone? Ipod? Apple designed each product from the first gen ipod on, for planned obsolescence. It is not like you cannot get a new battery, but you have to bring the laptop to the store! You have to mail out your player! You go to the "genius bar" and let them do something that was artificially put in place to get you to go to the "genius bar".
I don't like when any company aligns themselves with a company that has such poor ethics. Grado's flagships are hand made, and ipods are well known for being built under sweatshop conditions in China. China has created a lot of good hifi, it is not as if there are no sweatshops elsewhere in the world, but in an industry that really is niche, like it or not, no matter now many people are toting iphones around, a very very small % care about more than lady googoo's next 128k aac file.
This is why I said what I said. Regardless of whether apple can compete, of course they can, but it isn't the hardware so much as the software and culture. Apple users accept as standard, things that would certainly piss off anyone else. There is a very valid reason the iPhone was jailbroken so quickly, and it is dirty pool not to give the 3g the 3gs upgrades beyond copy and paste... The hardware in the 3g could support every one of them. Even the egde phones could support all non 3g features, but that would prevent people from buying a 2nd or 3rd phone in just a couple years. (seriously... you talk about market domination, and they just mastered the art of copy and paste)
I stand by what I said. Apple does not own the DAP market. Like it or not, there are more players of other brands out there than apple branded products, and these players have no issue playing LAME 320 or FLAC at any bitrate. There are boxes made to rout audio to your speakers system, and you get bit-perfect output, but we are not talking speakers really. B&W made a product for the Shaper Image, not even the white earbud crowd. Purposefully complicated, and planned obsolescence, a closed system that allows no open development, and like my SACD example, only apple can approve an application. While DSD may sound better than redbook, the innovation took place with redbook and other open formats. The same will happen with apple. Devs all over are choosing platforms like android, or winmobile, symbian, and while these may not be as polished as OSX, coverflow, whatever, it doesn't matter. There is only one iphone, but there are countless open platforms. I would be a fool to place my eggs in apple's basket. Just look at the iPad and how pathetic a device it is. My netbook is not even current gen, yet it was much cheaper, runs an OS with open development, and has a battery that lasts longer, with true wide screen, and a real keyboard, x86 processor that has no trouble with FLASH, nor being the platform for the source of a headphone system, using wifi to pull from my main box in the other room.
Now, B&W can tether themselves to such a closed platform where artificial limitations are features, or, they could drop the apple talk, no pun intended, and just associate themselves with digital audio IN GENERAL. It doesn't matter what the white earbud crowd does, really, the digital music revolution was not began by apple, and it won't be lead by apple. It began with people like myself, and it will be lead by open platforms that have no nonsense UIs, while apple remains "the niche" product. If B&W really did want to break out of a niche maket, they would not attach themselves to a niche product. No matter how trendy they are, Apple products, most users, are not going to be using a software/hardware chain that could drive these to their full potential. The same can be said about other platforms, except there are a hell of a lot of other platforms, each with a similar issue, but as a whole, easily eclipse the market B&W appears to be going after if you read the marketing copy.
I am going to stop ranting and say, after working briefly in a marketing department, I left to advance my career, and also out of frustration, because a well engineered product that comes with standard connectors, or interfaces, (known as HIDs), is engineered to work with everything that supports that standard. Apple did not invent a single part being used here, so why tie to such a closed platform, when clearly, the product was engineered for all DAPs, but even more important, is the mic.
Look at all the posts about gaming here! Where is that gaming going to be taking place? I think everyone here knows the answer, and it is not what the marketing copy would want you to think.
Sorry it took so long to respond, and that is also why this is a little ranty, time constraints. I did, however, write this on my netbook, that has a battery life with windows xp, that is greater than the iphone, or what the ipad is currently measuring atm. This is playing music or movies as well, winamp running in the background with a good input and output set of plugins for ASIO, bit perfect output, and easily connected to my system. Please explain to me why it is smart to tether one's self to an inferior platform? B&W could simply market the digital audio market as a whole. They could place themselves in gaming, in portable computing, DAPs of all kinds, and so forth, and yes, *WE* know these things to be true, but does the average customer that sees B&W as the "bose" of audiophililia?