unclebuck

LOL I think I'll just stick with my unfashionable piece of crap from the 'dark side' that cost £60 less and has twice the memory capacity and longer battery life, even though it doesn't have the 'correct' label.

**** I don't have an afro or wear baggy pants either, I must be a *real* loser.

angrynorth

Bitter about something are we, ub?

CooperS

I've just got a 20GB 4th gen iPod, and it's pure quality, would definately recommend.

unclebuck

Nah... but I do get hacked off with all this "Apple products are better than anything else" rubbish. It's patently untrue, as are the arguments people use to try and justify buying what is basically over priced and underspecced hardware.

If you like paying a premium to have a particular logo on your kit, and you've bought into the marketing, fair enough. But don't try to justify a subjective decision by making false claims that Apple products are 'better' than everything else on the market 'cause they're not.

UB

angrynorth

Look UB, for the one hundreth millionth time I did not buy this because of the marketing or the logo. I bought an Xbox because it was the best thing out there for what I wanted and that's got an MS logo on and looks like a pile of ****!

Overpriced and underspecced? Come back when you have done your research and quit with the name calling it does you no favours.

unclebuck

Well, I work in the games industry and I go on site visiting developers all over the world from tiny startups to the global giants such as Electronic Arts. I've never ever seen one single person, that uses an apple mac for development. Why? Because price and performance wise they are not up to the job plus the software support is just not there.

I know they have their little niche markets in publishing and music production, but that is more to do with legacy and loyalty than practicality. I believe that is what makes Apple devotees so defensive. They are a slowly but surely becoming extinct.

UB

imlach

The thing with the iPod is that it is an object of beauty, and gadget lovers love that!

It looks average until you have one in your hand and you can feel the quality. Apple are fantastic at creating objects of beauty.

PS I don't have one.....

angrynorth

And I work for one of Britains largest newspapers and we are Mac based completely at our London office (I am in the Manchester office where it is mostly PC). There are many large scale enterprises that use Macs in all areas of all kinds of business due to low maintenance costs. Initial hardware is expensive undoubtedly but thats it, once its in it costs little.

The video production world is now shifting over to Macs, you are right in the music industry and design worlds being there already.

You might be interested to know that there are a lot of supercomputer clusters coming up soon (including a top 3 entry by the US army) because guess what? Nothing gives more bang for buck Check it out its happening, even cnet are reporting it and they hate Macs.

I know the gaming industry is mainly PC because I used to do freelance for some developers. One of the major factors is the X86 hardware that the industry is based around (except GC) and the fact that there is no 3DSm for OSX. Whether the rumours about "Xbox Next" putting its SDK on dual G5's are true I guess you will find out for sure soon enough.

Once thing is for certain though Apple are certainly not on the verge of extinction. They are one of only 2 hardware companies making a profit, have 8 billion in cash in the bank, have investors screaming for a piece of the action, and in figures posted today, Apple were placed 2nd in terms of who sold the most computers last quarter. Up from seventh the year before.

Not exactly the typical signs of a company on the bring of disaster, MS on the other hand...


Apple users get defensive because people shout their mouths off without knowing the full facts about Apple, just relying on hearsay and rumour to base their opinions. Then being chanted down as a zealot for making corrections to false statements. Very, very annoying.

I think you may have me all wrong. In just Feb of last year I was just like you, laughing at anyone who used a Mac, as it was just an expensive, inferior toy. I know my PC's and I know what they can and can't do. I also know that I vastly underestimated the Mac and it took a months use to truly understand how good it actually is.

imlach

Also, with OSX having it's roots in Unix, it can only get stronger......think of Linux, but with support, and you have OSX

unclebuck

Agreed. On that level the iPod works. I have the Creative Labs equivalent. Maybe it's not as slick looking, but the quality and sound are equally good plus you get far more 'bang for your bucks' (especially if you purchase in the States ). It's a no brainer for me.

UB

angrynorth

MacOSX: Because making UNIX user friendly was easier than fixing Windows ...

unclebuck

Ahem, I couldn't possibly comment.

We all know Windows is far from ideal. XP helps though. Personally I don't like the feel of OSX at all.

UB

unclebuck

Isn't Apples recent success due to large iPod sales?

angrynorth

Some of it will be down to that, but the majority of it is down to OSX, Apple have been profitable since pre-iPod days.

Admittedly though, the iPod is helping things along as people are seeing how user friendly Apple can be and how well put together things are. Previously many iPod owners wouldn't have even thought about OSX as an option when considering a new machine, where as now they will.

angrynorth

Cool, personal preference and is what separates us as human beings.

I just like OSX because its really easy to use if you want it to be, or really really powerful at the other end. It also gives me no trouble at all, even when I run Windows on it through an emulator.

Here's a (admittedly long) video of me messing around with OSX the other week. Warning, I keep spelling things wrong

Remember that not only is all the stuff happening with the graphics, OSX is also capturing full screen video at 30fps - for those who think macs have no graphics power and its a crappy nVidia 64mb card running this!

www.homeinfo.co.uk/sc/demac.mov

*quicktime needed*

unclebuck

LOL - Quicktime!!! There you go again!! I *refuse* to install (bloody) Quicktime on any of my machines.

What's wrong with .mpg file then?

UB

angrynorth

mpg can't be streamed, and wmv is awful.

unclebuck

But I don't want some .mov video streaming onto my machine and eating all my bandwidth. I'd prefer to download it and watch it off line.

UB

angrynorth

Can you read .mp4?

unclebuck

DivX?

angrynorth

not got the DivX encoder, keep meaning to install it too... Just when you need it, typical

angrynorth

actually, you should be able to play mp4. I will convert and upload.

unclebuck

np m8 - the latest build of DivX is a bitch to download anyway. The only server that hosts the only build around never seems to work.

UB

angrynorth

LOL, well the mp4 is there (I went out and forgot to post the URL)

http://www.homeinfo.co.uk/sc/demac.mp4

I could put an avi up but that doubles the file size again!

ILA

Back to MP3 players, I had a Creative (and felt like UB about it) before my IPod which I bought with the refund I got from the Creative after it had broken for the umpteenth time...

Anyway, anyone want to buy a Betamax video

Dracoro

Now now ILA, the Sony device is the new betamax At least all the others (iPod, iRiver, Creative etc.) play mp3 which everyone has.

unclebuck

You must be a skateboarder (with an afro and baggy pants) that falls off a lot!!

Respekt

UB

druddle

Havent read through all of this but i would like to point a couple of things out about the price drops on the iPod.

3G iPod 20/40Gb included docking unit, remote control for headphones and carry case.

4G 20Gb iPod has no docking unit, case or remote and 40Gb unit has no case or remote.

To buy them seperately is quite a bit, so its not really that much of a price drop for the overall package.

I now have upgraded my 3G 40Gb iPod to a 4G 40Gb one. There are subtle differences in the software, screen backlight, battery and the design that make it far better i think. I did a bettery test and set up a playlist to play 13 hours of music continuous. The iPod didnt run out of battery before it finished (it was almost dead though !)

Dave

JackClark

The 4G has the shuffle setting easily accesible, I was hoping this months firmware update would put that feature on the 3G, but it didn't. It's almost a good enough reason for me to upgrade.

druddle

Oh yeah and the shuffle !!! But, with the shuffle on the top level menu, it only shuffles your entire iPod library, not particluar albums or playlists - you still have to go down into the menus for that. Which is a bummer if you have an iTrip as you get short 5 second bleeps every now and then !!

Another bug found is that if you turn the clicker off, and the iPod goes into deep sleep (36 hours inactivity) the clicker is enable once it comes back on again. Apple are aware of this one.

Dave