Apple faces iPod patent dispute aka Creative SUCKS!
Creative's CEO has said a lot of very stupid and arrogant things lately, but it just seems to be getting worse. Someone should put this guy on a short leash before he offends all of Creative's potential customers. I have a Creative mp3 player which is nice except for the fact that the software is a flaming piece of worthless bits (and it hasn't gotten better as I think they are using Windows Media Player now which is an even more useless software interface for an mp3 player than what Creative used to use). Oh, and did I mention that at least 50% of the mp3 player is experience is software and iTunes ROCKS!
So Creative is going to aggressively attack other companies that violate its incredibly obvious interface patent. Yeah, whatever...I hope you spend a lot of money and get your patent invalidated. Patents like that are stupid and should never exist. I think my 2 year old would consider that patent nonobvious. The icing on the cake is when he refers to Creative as a technology company and calls Apple a branding company. Why you ask? Well, Creative is focused on technology b/c they have an FM tuner and a microphone in their new player (which looks suspiciously like an iPod I might add Mr. Technology company...if you are a technology company do something innovative and don't copy...hey, I have an idea...come up with an interface that is so novel that you can actually patent it...oh wait, Apple already has the scroll wheel...oh well, just go away Creative...and don't come back!). Right, I see..technology, you mean that FM tuner that tunes in commercial laden free radio? Does anyone listen to that stuff anymore? I mean that is why I have an mp3 player...so I don't have to listen to the trash on the radio. I guess that there is always NPR or AM talk radio except that it is only an FM tuner and I can get my NPR content via podcasts. So why again do I need an FM tuner? And a microphone...great...a low quality microphone so I can record what? That is some useful technology you have included on your player Creative. If you are a technology company then you aren't a very good one. Just stick to sound cards where you do make a quality product.
Edit: As I was out for a morning run and cleared my head a bit I realized that I should give credit where credit is due. I think that the one real advantage of the Creative player is that it supports the a la carte download services (other do so I presume this one does as well). I think that this a la carte model is a great way to listen to music. This is the "technology" innovation that Creative should be promoting. Not useless FM tuners and microphones. So the moral of the story is that Creative should wake-up, forget wasting money to enforce their "patent", and start promoting the a la carte download services like crazy. There a "balanced" view on the subject.
Apple faces iPod patent dispute aka Creative SUCKS!
posted by devFalse @ 5:32 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Great point about the FM tuner and microphone.
You can get a tiny FM radio at the grocery store for less than five dollars.
My opinion is that the secret to the iPod was that it did the one thing that people wanted it to do--play music--and it did it flawlessly. As a former advocate of the Swiss Army approach to technology (I had a Palm Tungsten that was a PDA and a photo viewer and an MP3 player, etc., and it sucked), I have found that quality goes down dramatically when a device tries to do too much at once.
I use "was" when speaking of the iPod because I'm not impressed by the video iPod. I went and checked one out at the new Apple Store here in Salt Lake, and I wasn't impressed.
The best thing about the video iPod is that it has driven the price of the older iPods down--slightly. Too many computer geeks are snatching them up now to run Linux on them, so the older ones are still higher than I would like.
http://ipodlinux.org/Main_Page
I am going to have to disagree with you on this one. I think that the iPod video is a good device, but it is a niche device. I also think that it is helping to enable a very disruptive technology. When I was in Tokyo two summers ago I was amazed to see folks watching video on their phones. I couldn't figure it out. Then I realized that these people have long commutes and they were just chilling out on the train basically watching TV on their phone. I think that this is where the iPod video will work well. There are a few people that travel like crazy or have long commutes who want an ultra portable way to watch TV. This is it. Oh, and there aren't really that many people buying the iPod video to put Linux on it...
I think that the big deal about the iPod video is that it has gotten the broadcast companies thinking about how to deliver video content via the Internet. I hope that the day will come when I don't pay for cable anymore. I simply pay to watch the shows I want to watch when I want to watch them and of course pay a small amount for this privilege. My watching device will just stream high quality video quickly enough that I can basically watch TV on demand. I can watch this on a regular TV or on my computer. That is what the iPod video is slowly enabling. I think it will be a much better end user experience as well.
The iPod video certainly doesn't appeal to everyone, but I think it is a very useful device in more than one way. It doesn't have the large audience appeal that the regular iPod has...but it may just change the way we get video as much as the iPod changed the way we listen to audio.
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