Making it easy to be different – iPod, iPhone, Apple TV

I just bought an iPhone, it’s amazing.

I’ll probably end up buying an Apple TV in the next 6 months.

And the iPod changed the game before the game needed changing.

It seems that some people resist change, longing for the old days while few have the vision and the chutzpah to make that vision a reality.

Allow me to share with you a few quotes from macrumors.com in which the first news of the iPod was leaked back in 2001, which cost 399.00 for the 5gb model.

major hat tip to @Aadom

All that hype for an MP3 player? Break-thru digital device? The Reality Distiortion Field™ is starting to warp Steve’s mind if he thinks for one second that this thing is gonna take off.

I’d call it the Cube 2.0 as it wont sell, and be killed off in a short time…and it’s not really functional.

I still can’t believe this! All this hype for something so ridiculous! Who cares about an MP3 player? I want something new! I want them to think differently!
Why oh why would they do this?! It’s so wrong! It’s so stupid!

Great just what the world needs, another freaking MP3 player. Go Steve! Where’s the Newton?!

And there are plenty more where those came from

I was reading an article today that said Blockbuster and Netflix is better than purchasing an apple TV because it would cost less.

Netflix and Blockbuster Video have a clear advantage over these services: [apple TV and HD cable

Here is why they are wrong. First they assume you already have a blu-ray player which most people don’t. A good blu-ray player will run you 200-400+ dollars.

But here is why apple TV is better and will take off like the iPod

Blu-ray and renting from blockbuster isn’t different
Blu-ray doesn’t make your life easier, it’s just a fancy DVD player
Most people are perfectly content with their DVD player, some still have VHS players *gasp

listening to music is a shared experience
watching movies is even MORE of a shared experience

when you watch a video on someone else’s apple TV you WILL talk about it. You WILL want to use it and you most likely will buy one when you decide you want HD on your HDTV. It gets to be even more social when you show people your photo collection, listen to music and watch YouTube in your living room instead of huddled around your computer in the other room.

Now us geeks already have cool setups, for example I have an older mac that is my media server and is hooked up to my TV, I can view pictures on it, listen to music and rent movies from iTunes (though not HD) but my setup is “geeky” because you need training to run it. You couldn’t walk into my house and easily figure out how to turn everything on and get it running.

Sure the technology exists to do all this without an iPod or apple TV but it’s not easy, the early mp3 player were complicated, other video streaming hardware is complicated and by complicated I mean my mom couldn’t use any of it.
So in conclusion people like change and they like to be different but people are also lazy and don’t want to work hard at being different.

Apple TV and the iPod make it easy to be different

p.s. Barack Obama is using the same marketing style – it’s easy for regular people who don’t know about the issues to support Barack, people want change but don’t want to work for it. Hence the people who do work for it and make it easy – make the money, get the votes.

The rest of us just blog about it