Comments on: Rant: What the hell, Apple?

By: JarOfSonicMen

JarOfSonicMen — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 01:47:26 +0000

You’re right. You do come off as an entitled dork.

Year ain’t over yet…

By: xander

xander — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 20:05:22 +0000

Pro-tips for you wannabe journalist types:

#1 don’t believe the hype.
#2 don’t whine about getting duped when you do buy into the hype.

By: Ted

Ted — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 20:03:18 +0000

Perhaps you should ween off the caffeine! You seem awfully upset about really, a non-issue. It’s Apple’s job to promote any new product with the utmost enthusiasm. That’s what companies who want to make money, do. Sure, the new Zune has some nice features, but it’s Microsoft’s job to promote it, and they’re just not as good as promotion as Apple is. And with a market-share of 2.x%, they’re going to have to work much harder to get the word out.

It’s just a music player for God’s sake, it’s not like this greatly affects your life somehow… well, hopefully it doesn’t.

By: Art

Art — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 16:09:42 +0000

They’re keeping the buzz alive with all the Apple-lemmings. Apple never has done anything ground-breaking. They’ve just packaged shiny pretty software into shinier prettier hardware. Whether anybody admits it or not … nothing they’ve done is a technological breakthrough. However, their hardware has always been gimpy and sub-standard in developmental quality.

They hold these events because the public expects them to and all the drones will oooh-and-ahhh for The Emperor’s New Clothes.

By: chris

chris — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 14:57:16 +0000

ps – the zune still SUCKS!

By: chris

chris — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 14:56:42 +0000

“Meanwhile, Zune rolls out actually awesome updates and no one looks twice. You can hear a song on the radio, hit a button and it downloads it through the freakin air? That is space age, people!”

i’ve been doing that on my iphone using “SHAZAM” for months.

By: marcus

marcus — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 12:49:57 +0000

(oh and please ignore the poor spelling and typos ;))

By: SwissFreek

SwissFreek — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 12:46:26 +0000

So I’m trying to understand exactly why the tech blogs are all upset about yesterday’s announcements. It was written in several different places that yesterday was speculated to be a “non-event”. It turns out that for once the predictions were right on the money as to what would be announced and released, but even before it happened, you can look at the rumors, listen to Apple (calling the even “Let’s Rock!” and saying that it would be music-centric), and say “yeah, no new laptops today.”

Then, THEN, Apple comes out and says “hey guys, don’t forget about us, this will actually be big contrary to what EVERYONE else is saying.” *WARNING BELLS* They are doing damage control. To me that right there was the proof that yesterday wouldn’t be that big, even by Apple standards.

And now you’re upset because you let yourself be duped?

By: marcus

marcus — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 12:42:13 +0000

“But when they invite like TWO THOUSAND people to the thing, hang posters the size of BUILDINGS, and urge all the press to come because “it’s gonna be big!” then it’s not us blowing it up.”

The last time they really did that they wanted to push the Macbook Air. Which was if not innovate then at least pushing the envelope (no pun intended).

And really, They didn’t make such a big fuzz out of it this time, had a smaller auditorium than usual, and quite clearly pointed out that it was all going to be about music, so itunes and ipods.

I don’t think that they usually, in any way, try to communicate that something is “gonna be big” or game changing. They have done it basically once, and you know what that was? The iPhone.

The reason people respond so strongly to Apple is really because they exhibit a passion and commitment to their products that is unrivaled. Not because Apple employees are genuises, but simply because most other companies are quite soulles and not led by inspiration as much as by boring business strategies.

One other big reason is also that Apple has for a long time been focusing on user experience and usability, and now they get to enjoy the spoils for that.

Microsoft is also a magnificient company in terms of innovation or market cap, but they don’t prioritize usability or user experience in the same way. Nothing wrong with that, but clearly it’s not a path that gets consumers excited.

By: David

David — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 09:01:08 +0000

Exactly right

Still no folder monitoring in iTunes, how can they justify the version change for music suggestions and a grid view that was in media player 11 beta but pulled for some unknown reason?

By: JonV

JonV — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 05:20:38 +0000

You speak the truth. Today’s event was a joke of a big event. The Zune had amazing features that most of us wished for but didn’t get the buzz. WTF is going on with Apple these days? I think a Zune120 is in my future even if I have to run it in VMware on my MacBook Pro or iMac.

By: gi joe

gi joe — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 04:20:19 +0000

Agreed – these updates are nice, but didn’t warrant all the usual Apple hoopla. I guess I can always go back and watch all the old keynotes on youtube tonight at least…

By: AlexNC

AlexNC — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 03:40:37 +0000

don’t get me wrong, Microsoft deserves a big slap in the face for once again releasing a line of Zunes with no Xbox 360 integrated. But they new features are nice. It’s also great to see Microsoft continuing the support its back models, like the Zune 30. That means a lot to customers.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 03:23:22 +0000

k, tissue now?

By: Devin Coldewey

Devin Coldewey — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 02:22:34 +0000

yep.

By: Peter Ha

Peter Ha — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 01:43:32 +0000

I agree 100 percent. The new Zune features are killer.

By: Peter Ha

Peter Ha — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 01:42:49 +0000

fanboi :)

By: thebonafortuna

thebonafortuna — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 01:31:53 +0000

That was pretty insightful.

By: Luis

Luis — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 01:26:01 +0000

Dude, you are out of your mind. What do people expect, flying cars? Is Apple, they sell iPods and this was an iPod/Apple event. Get over it.

By: Devin Coldewey

Devin Coldewey — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 01:19:53 +0000

I hear where you’re coming from, but still: The idea is not that they didn’t show much. Like I said, if they don’t have much, don’t make a big deal.

But when they invite like TWO THOUSAND people to the thing, hang posters the size of BUILDINGS, and urge all the press to come because “it’s gonna be big!” then it’s not us blowing it up.

If they had just said “Oh, we’re having a press release on Tuesday, we’ve got some good stuff for you” and we all jumped on them for releasing nothing, that’d be different. But that’s not what happened.