Cheers for that info. I tried to do a bit of googling but there's actually not that much history of the non-iPod mp3 players available. I used to be pretty active on mp3 player forums back in the day but that's far too long ago for me to remember
My first MP3 player... LOL. Oh man. Something like 1998... I was a kid, it had 32MB of space, I'd load about 6 songs onto it in the morning. It'd not start up sometimes because it was cold. Little LED display, used to bleep when pressing the buttons... It wasn't long before I went back to using discman. Used a discman again for years, it wasn't until the iPod Nano with the size, 8GB storage and iTunes sync that I found MP3 players to be worthwhile and convenient enough. Even then I used a Sony Ericsson phone. Once the 8GB ran out and I started losing work for not being able to pick up e-mails when out and about, I made the leap to iPhone. Anyway, onto responses! Let me just make it clear that I'm not any kind of fanboy - arranged around me on my desks I have, from left to right: ADVENT Windows 7 laptop Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 iMac The moment I buy an Apple product, I always replace the earphones with Sony ones (always love Sony earphones, they're the best!!). My games consoles are a hacked Nintendo Wii and an Xbox 360. Got a SEGA Dreamcast kicking around somewhere and up until SEGA released all their old stuff on Xbox and iPhone, I had a Mega Drive (Genesis). My TV is Samsung (I love their screens, amazing!!). If I wasn't an iPhone developer, the mobile phone I would upgrade to would be Samsung Galaxy Nexus, because I absolutely love the thing. I don't own an iPad any more (though I loan one now and again for testing the iPad versions of my apps) because I liked the Galaxy Tab better in almost every way (minus the App Store). I prefer the Android Honeycomb OS for tablets, I think Google have done better to overhaul their OS for tablets rather than continue to roll out an enlarged mobile phone OS with all of its limitations. So I go with brands who have given me good stuff in the past. It was the iPod Nano combined with the use of Macs at college (every time I forgot my laptop and had to use the Macs somehow I got so much more done, thanks to the way the OS works) combined with Windows Vista (hated that thing!) that eventually convinced me with Apple, and I've not yet been dissatisfied by a product I've bought from them. Similarly, Samsung have never let me down. ADVENT are a name I always look out for when I'm looking for value for money. I really like to mix and match my brands to get the best possible experience, but I do like to get a sort of 'brand relationship' so that I can know what I'm getting for my money. And yet, out of all of these (looking for the Samsung logo when I want a good LCD screen, following ADVENT or ARCHOS whenever I want to save money, always getting Sony earphones/audio equipment) people only seem to have an issue with me when I buy Apple products, and I don't get why, especially since many of the best non-Apple products I have exist solely as other brands' responses to Apple products. In other words, they wouldn't exist without them. But it was the funny sounds and cartoon characters that sold the game. Gamers love to act all righteous but nobody was playing Crush the Castle before AB. But what I'm trying to say, about this entire thread, is that MS wouldn't have been moved to make WP7, Zune, W8 Tabs etc. if iPhone, iPod and iPad weren't on the market. I'm a bit of an Android addict myself, but it's stupid to act pissed at the competition when they started the damn thing. I could argue with you ALL NIGHT about that. Nobody who has ever owned a Mac would agree with that. I've been using Windows computers all my life, and an iMac only for the past 3 years, and my workflow is on a whole new level, and that's nothing to do with any aluminium. I still use Windows on my laptop (got it to save money) and any time I'm working away from home nothing gets done anywhere near as quickly or efficiently, and that's due to the fundamental nature of the OS (and in part the hardware supporting it). This is what I'm talking about, everybody gets their favourite product and thinks they know everything without trying it, and for some reason single out Apple and Apple users and just bitch away, as if they're some kind of threat to them, but Apple products are the reason the competing businesses are pushed so hard to create amazing stuff. You're here going on about 'the only difference is the casing' when you don't own one... I just don't get the point that people are out to prove. I don't ever see my fandroid friends making fun of each other's HTC vs. Samsung vs. whatever else phones, even when they have the real awful ones, ya know, the LTE devices not powerful enough to run the OS built into them etc., but it's "you enjoying your TOY?" every time I pull my iPhone out - yet I can find more useful functionality in the apps available for this thing than any Android device I've owned, and these Android devices only came to be to combat this 'toy'... Well, I wasn't aware of that, so thanks for correcting me, but still, 'a fashion accessory' isn't a bad thing either - tech moves forward when it starts to make money so devices which were seen as geeky techno gadgets became popular and therefore music started it's mainstream transition to digital media... I dunno how much nicer you need me to make my messages sound... I'm not remotely angry. And if I was, it'd be at people and not a company... I don't get this sentiment either... All good Android tablets cost more than the iPad, and yet I still can't stop finding Android fans having a go at the iPad's price... When paying for the handset (rather than having it included in your contract) any capable Android phone costs the same as an iPhone, no Android equivalent of an iPod Touch is available (well, Samsung do one, for twice the price of iTouch), and Win 8 tablets have four-figure price tags. What do we have left, iMacs? Well... I used to build PCs, I think my father still uses the one I built for him even, but for the price I paid for my iMac, I could build a PC of slightly better spec. It'd be in a bigass tower which I don't have the space for, have tangled cables pouring out of the back, use up 2-3 power sockets (tower, monitor, sometimes speakers) thus far more electricity, then I'd have to pay £70 for Windows, and the biannual fee of an anti-virus. I'd need to buy a microphone for recording, a webcam, speakers of the right quality... Point is, I shelled out a grand and got all premium components all there in one unit, wireless mouse and keyboard included. If I built a PC and then bought all of these components, at the quality of the ones built into the Mac, it'd probably cost about the same, and take up 3 times the space on my desk. I've used it for 3 years and it's still behaving the way it did when I first bought it. How can I argue with that? A few years back back I remember defending Microsoft in the same way. I had an Xbox, and the red ring of death thing was terrible, admittedly. However people would be chatting away on MICROSOFT messenger, via a MICROSOFT Windows computer, about how terrible Microsoft were. Now, similarly, people are using products and technology pioneered/started/spurred on by Apple. It's just... retarded.
@DistantJ I didn't feel like quoting and a rearranging everything. I think you missed my point about the Angry Birds thing. I was agreeing that it was good for something. It did build the bridge to more consumers, but it wasn't a better game than CTC. It was mostly a re-skin. And CTC 2 destroys all thing Angry Birds. I'm not pissed at Apple for igniting (not starting) the competition. But to say what they offer is superior or good is ludicrous IMHO. I've used both OSX and Windows. How efficient you are on the OS is extremely subjective. Hell, I see Mac users use the d@mn thing like a Windows computer half the time. And you're right, I don't own one but I have 3 close friends that have Macbook pros. I've also used the iMac in the library quite a few times. Again, is Apple using the high end Foxconn laborers? And telling someone, like me, about all the wonderful apps is useless. I dislike them on both iOS and Android. I will only use very select apps on Win8 tablets and try to use as much of what's built into the phone OS as possible too. What tech was pioneered by Apple? They are the company that may use a lready created idea (iPod for instance) or the company that glamorizes an already existing technology. But Apple is not the only one. About building: I have no idea what you're talking about because all of these can be built into a laptop d@mn near the same size - if not the same - as a Mac. If you're talking about the iMac then, yeah, I'm not a ton sure because owning a desktop is pointless for me. I wouldn't be surprised if the all-in-one PCs are just as capable. And if my memory serves me correctly, Apple computers crash, overheat, and have battery problems. --- Anyways, I never saw the point in tablets until Windows 8. I've been extremely happy with my laptop, but I do see the potential. I never said Macs were bad, but superior, I think not. I never bought the early iterations of Windows phones and don't regret my choice. The iPhone was superior even though there is a mountain of things I didn't and still don't like. But times have changed. Android is trash, IMHO, unless you have a Nexus phone or like to mod. Once I get out of my contract, I'm never going back even though I really like the Galaxy Nexus. And I'm tired of Apple. If it wasn't for the indie devs, I'd have bounced a while ago.
You can find some solid info about the history of MP3 players here: http://anythingbutipod.com/2008/03/10th-anniversay-of-the-mp3-player/ The iPod's competition didn't start to surpass it until 2003 when Apple was focused on getting the iTunes store deals solidified and the program ported to Windows. By that time it was already too late, Apple's marketing machine coupled with the first legitimate download service to see any kind of success made it ubiquitous with the entire concept of an MP3 player.
