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A Prototype Original iPod

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Re: A Prototype Original iPod

#81

Post by robocat »

adamgordonbell wrote: post #45
etaioinshrdlu wrote: post #3

Was this used to effectively silo developers from each other? Ie, don’t let the hardware team see the real software UI, and don’t let the software team see the real hardware UI. It looks too ridiculous to be real, I suspect it was ugly by design. Apple did this on the iPhone design, the ugly software UI was called “skankphone”.

It's so cool to see these pictures. It does seem to match David Shayer's description: So they make what Apple calls a stealth case, which is just a big plastic box. So our stealth case was so ugly. It looked like they went into an old Russian medical equipment leftover warehouse and just took some plastic boxes, and stuck it in. It was horrible. They said basically, “ You’re writing the file system for this thing. Yo…

Later down the article is another story:

David: So, my guess is they were making some sort of secret Geiger counter and they wanted to be able to take it around and look for, I don’t know, people making dirty bombs maybe? But not have it looked like a Geiger counter.

David: if you wanted to go and check if there’s any signs of radiation in some place where you’re not officially supposed to be checking, you’re on a tourist visa in Tehran or something, this would be a very useful device. If you’re arrested with a Geiger counter you’re in trouble, but if someone looks at your iPod and the iPod works and it plays music and it’s totally normal, you’d be much safer, right?

Adam:Yeah, totally. So, they built this and then?

Re: A Prototype Original iPod

#82

Post by mywittyname »

macNchz wrote: post #21
macNchz wrote: post #17

Hard to believe it has been 20 years. When talking about the impact of the original iPod on the last two decades of Apple's extraordinary success, I like to jump back to this forum thread from October 23rd 2001 (it is always easy to find because it is thread number 500!) and see the reactions from the time: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apples-new-thing-ipod.5...

Replying to myself as I reread the thread: I found a comment a few pages in about Apple's stock being down $1 on the day. So what if you'd skipped the iPod and just bought $399 worth of AAPL? According to this site which seems to use real data, it'd be worth... $211k today. http://stockchoker.com/?s=AAPL&d=20011023&a=399

I always find it fun to think about what the biggest companies in the world will be in 10, 20, 30 years. There's a good chance that some haven't actually been founded yet, but I'm sure others are household names even now. FWIW, I think media will displace tech on the top spot and Disney will lead the pack in 2040.

It's also fun to do with future presidents.

Re: A Prototype Original iPod

#83

Post by crate_barre »

moron4hire wrote: post #78
crate_barre wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple takes the Nintendo approach. Myamota/Iwata mentioned that they always try to imagine what it’s like for a non-gamer to play the game. The way they simulated that in their testing was by playing their games with their non-dominant hand (left handed). That’s what it feels like to a casual user or non-gamer. They optimize for that. The guy that needs MS Exchange is actually a niche market (hard to believe). It’s t…

I hate this "your mother can't..." ageist and sexist bullshit. Maybe your mother can't. Nobody tells my mother (who is now also a grandmother) what she can and can't do. Honestly, lots of people were able to figure those devices out. People aren't really as stupid as programmers make them out to be. But coddle them and keep beating them over the head with this and they likely just give up from being treated like shit…

It’s a manner of speaking, don’t get so woke on me now. Many people can’t figure out tech. Here comes another cliche, have you ever been the IT guy for everyone around you? Why was that? We really didn’t take User Experience seriously until about the iPhone/Apps age. That’s when people didn’t need handholding, the apps were designed well.

Re: A Prototype Original iPod

#84

Post by _jal »

amelius wrote: post #80
_jal wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is imho a better way of building things than having everything completely integrated in a single company. Sounds like you should run your firm that way, then.

How would you feel if (hypothetically speaking) Samsung bought TSMC and thereby pushed Apple and other smartphone/laptop vendors out of the market? Wouldn't you agree that it is better if all companies have equal access to TSMC's services?

Why don't we remove all firm advantages completely and have a fully open playing field? Ban companies entirely, everyone is a free agent! Everything shall be an arms-length transaction with lawyers at every step.

Re: A Prototype Original iPod

#85

Post by AceJohnny2 »

0des wrote: post #62
ceejayoz wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See also HN's reaction to Dropbox: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224

Poor fella's never going to recover from this, is he?

Could be worse. Could be u/sanj who tried shutting up u/cperciva with a Putnam reference:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079

(they've both been gracious about it since)

Re: A Prototype Original iPod

#86

Post by jolux »

amelius wrote: post #80
_jal wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is imho a better way of building things than having everything completely integrated in a single company. Sounds like you should run your firm that way, then.

How would you feel if (hypothetically speaking) Samsung bought TSMC and thereby pushed Apple and other smartphone/laptop vendors out of the market? Wouldn't you agree that it is better if all companies have equal access to TSMC's services?

> Wouldn't you agree that it is better if all companies have equal access to TSMC's services?

It’s certainly debatable, which is why we have antitrust regulations.

In the specific case you suggest of separate software and hardware companies, the reason that Apple has succeeded where others have failed (in large part) is because of their vertical integration. To wit: the equivalent of Apple (ignoring communication overhead, which is also huge) would be software and hardware companies that Apple has an exclusive contract with, who spend all of their time working on what Apple asks them to.

When they start serving other customers, their operational overhead increases, because they have to figure out how to schedule production schedules fairly across multiple contracts, and probably start to divide up their production functions by product area and customer.

They also typically end up having to make concessions to multiple customers, and risk ending up at a lowest-common-denominator product that fits the limitations of other customers more than it fits Apple’s specific set of capabilities and limitations. This is the market effect that drives standardization: agreeing on the lowest-common-denominator for everyone before production and product development starts.

In sum: they become less good at delivering specifically what Apple needs, whenever Apple needs it.

Re: A Prototype Original iPod

#87

Post by bryans »

gwbas1c wrote: post #53
bryans wrote: post #29

To me, this makes it so much more obvious that the only innovation they were even aiming for was a scroll wheel. Everything else is just a Diamond Rio with a hard drive attached. That's not to diminish the effectiveness or novelty of the scroll wheel, but the larger capacity seems to be the only thing that actually mattered here.

Syncing music with iTunes was so much easier than the junk sync apps that other players had.

You mean copying and pasting files that already contain metadeta? That was difficult? Because I'm pretty sure everyone universally hated the formats and auto-renamed files that iTunes forced.

Re: A Prototype Original iPod

#88

Post by ubermonkey »

happytoexplain wrote: post #69
ubermonkey wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes.

Your comment (especially the colloquial use of the word "literally" as emphasis) implies that I didn't address the existence of that photo, but I did when I said "scroll down to see photos that actually demonstrate its size". Your comment and subsequent lack of clarification ("Yes.") is confusing and has the appearance of rudeness, but I can't guess why you would want to use that tone (if it's on purpose).

K.

Re: A Prototype Original iPod

#89

Post by moron4hire »

crate_barre wrote: post #83
moron4hire wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate this "your mother can't..." ageist and sexist bullshit. Maybe your mother can't. Nobody tells my mother (who is now also a grandmother) what she can and can't do. Honestly, lots of people were able to figure those devices out. People aren't really as stupid as programmers make them out to be. But coddle them and keep beating them over the head with this and they likely just give up from being treated like shit…

It’s a manner of speaking, don’t get so woke on me now. Many people can’t figure out tech. Here comes another cliche, have you ever been the IT guy for everyone around you? Why was that? We really didn’t take User Experience seriously until about the iPhone/Apps age. That’s when people didn’t need handholding, the apps were designed well.

At best, this is ignorance. At worst, it's willful revisionism. It was the iPhone apps that drove setting HCI back almost 2 decades. Hiding functionality behind skeumorphisms, coupling file access to apps, tiny screens, reinventing the accessibility wheel. Both Apple and Microsoft had very well-regarded UI design guidelines that, if followed, made apps that afforded the same metaphors as all the other apps on the system. Then one day the tech industry decided to throw it all away in the name of graphic design and branding, not usability.

Re: A Prototype Original iPod

#90

Post by [deleted] »

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #24
macNchz wrote: post #17

Hard to believe it has been 20 years. When talking about the impact of the original iPod on the last two decades of Apple's extraordinary success, I like to jump back to this forum thread from October 23rd 2001 (it is always easy to find because it is thread number 500!) and see the reactions from the time: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apples-new-thing-ipod.5...

My favorite remains Slashdot's Editor-in-Chief CmdrTaco's "No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame." (shared with <3, it really shows how us geeks had/have no sense of the popularity of a tech product)

[deleted]
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