Why did the Ipod become such a meme being an overpriced mediocre mp3 player...

Why did the Ipod become such a meme being an overpriced mediocre mp3 player? Especially since by that time you could get no-brand Chinese players for less than 1/4, or just as good ones for half.

Not only did this POS sell like crazy, it actually made Apple THE status symbol it has become.

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Branding.

because Steve Jobs knew how to talk the talk

But Apple is a shit brand even from the beginning.

>you could get no-brand Chinese players for less than 1/4, or just as good ones for half
>it actually made Apple THE status symbol it has become

Apple was already a symbol before the iPod, and the iPod became popular because it wasn't one of those "no brand Chinese players" you're talking about.

Because it had an easily recognizable brand with serious marketing. Are you actually this dense?

>by that time you could get no-brand Chinese players for less than 1/4
from where?

expert advertising that catered to the normie culture of the early 2000s

ok, I get it
you weren't old enough in the early 2000's to remember the tech landscape or care about the internet

but you are slightly out of your depth here

sweatpants and turtlenecks

>overpriced mediocre mp3 player?
stupid nigger, dedicated players today can't even beat ipod.

i bought that Sansa Clip and has the worst fucking UI I've ever used.

As to why it won, it won because it was:

1) Easy to use
2) Nicely designed
3) Had a store and you could legally buy high-quality legal tracks to fill it with

Nice design.

ITT: Everyone realizes OP is underage

well lets see, for ~$200 you could get one of these bad boys

and then add your own 2.5" hdd for some actual storage

yea
I'm sure this is a really easy interface for the common consumer to spend hundreds of dollars on

Because unlike the competitors it was actually good and had a solid warranty, including retail support.
>something goes wrong
>walk into apple store
>replaced on the spot

Those chink shit models you're referring to break at a higher rate and you're SOL.
>muh 1/4 price
get a job, these are inexpensive luxury electronics

youtube.com/watch?v=kN0SVBCJqLs

this explains it all

Greatest of all time mp3 player coming through

or you could pick up a slim archos jukebox with a massive 6 gb hdd for a mere $400

What the fuck OP
You are literally too retarded

It was the hard disk
At least a that's how I remember the iPod being such a big deal
"TEN THOUSAND SONGS!!!"
"And look how tiny it is!"
"no flash drive or gigantic HDD!"
That's why it was a big deal

>can't recognize sarcasm

I was referring to your image, user-san ; _ ;

>open image
>think to myself "wtf is this pos cheap ipod ripoff--"
>see creative logo
me want

Psychologically-guided advertising.
Mindless conformity.

you are like a little baby

>90's
>everyone had black earbuds with the cable hidden under clothes
>2000's onwards
>everyone has white earbud cables on the outside, being a fucking walking advertisement

Walking with them out has died out. People have realized that if you're wearing white earbuds, chances if they yank em and run, they'll probably have a $500+ toy to resell.

Lol everyone here is doing mental gymnastics to rationalize having spent so much money in the biggest normie meme ever.

For all those saying shit about how it was actually innovative, maybe the first revision was, but nobody bought it because it had a FireWire connection only. Only from 2004ish onwards was the ipod actually popular, when they put an USB and -you can't make this shit up- Windows compatibility ONLY through MusicMatch. Yep, that peace of shit software for organizing your mp3s.

And don't get me started on Itunes. The whole reason of having an mp3 player back then was to pirate music.

>Windows compatibility ONLY through MusicMatch

Dayum, you just reminded me of this obscure, vague memory. I used to use MusicMatch back in the day. Winamp was and will ever be my fave.

Because when the iPod came out, and for a while after, almost every other MP3 player was shit.

iPod ruled
excellent product

>MusicMatch
oh lord, I had this on every XP install

why would you want something made by a bunch of fucking cunts who sued a guy for writing unofficial drivers for their broke-ass soundcards?

>Walking with them out has died out.
not in the shithole where I live in
people have cheap samshits or other chinkphones and $10 earbuds, but they're still white and still out

original ipod (when they soid 160gb original) was way better than anything else at the time.

But like the pyramids, the subsequent generation ipods became shittier and shittier...

>when they soid 160gb original
The first gen was like 10gb

cuz the original iPod was godly. theres a presentation by Steve that precisely explains what the iPod does that others dont, and for those reasons he believed it would succeed. and it did. plus the software was miles ahead of the competition, which also led to the iPhones success. apples software, though it might be tied down to shitty hardware, is universally accepted as godly.

branding had nothing to do with it, what brand? apple was nothing before the iPod.

160gb was like 5th or 6th generation.

Even my 4th gen Photo was either 60 or 80gb.

>doesn't fit in pocket
>slow ass ui
>requires a modification the vast majority of people won't/can't do

>Apple was already a symbol before the iPod
It really wasn't, how old are you?

>who sued a guy for writing unofficial drivers for their broke-ass soundcards?

Not him but I've never heard of this. Care to elaborate? The only creative sound card I owned was the Audiogy 2.

it was well marketed, looked nice and people liked it more than whatever obscure mediocre piece of shit whose cock you nostalgically suck

It had an over all better feel than other devices as well.

I has the Samsung YEPP and some "Creative" MP3 players before my firs iPod.

I found the iPod's interface to just be better at the time.

>IBM hard drive

It's called advertising you dipshit.
Apple as a company is 80% marketing, 20% product development

Greatest MP3 player coming through. I still use it. It's also an excellent recorder.

The question is more how old are you? They had already made a pretty big splash with the iShit devices that you can see from cracking open pretty much any consumer tech centric magazine from the time period.

Literally because of itunes. This board is retarded

Because it wasn't a piece of shit.

\thread

>Especially since by that time you could get no-brand Chinese players for less than 1/4, or just as good ones for half.
I can recall iPods being expensive, but I'm fairly sure the differences weren't that fucking big if we compare truly comparable models. All the hard drive players were pretty expensive, etc.

Also the iPod user interface was fucking great, the controls etc too. I always preferred Creative or Sandisk otherwise but I'll admit, the iPod was the one that looked and felt the best. The no-name Chinese players were all very horrible in my experience.

Because they didn't get one of these bad bois

Gaze upon it, the Toshiba Gigabeat. 60gb HDD mp3 player back in 2005. It was the fucking best until having an actual HDD in your pocket did what HDDs that get bumped do and fail.

>People have realized that if you're wearing white earbuds, chances if they yank em and run,
those of us who don't live in the actual asshole of the world don't worry about such things.

> dat fuck ugly D-pad

The 90's called, they didn't want anything back, they just wanted to call you a cunt.

clickwheel. its the best try it

iMacs bro

>I still use it
Get a job faggot

This shit was amazing.

Has sansas and chibk shit before, all broke down on me. I still have an ipod video and classic somewhere. They were actually really well built.

the ipod was massive back in the day. 15+ GB storage, easy as fuck to fill, endless battery - it was goat.

>Especially since by that time you could get no-brand Chinese players for less than 1/4
[citation need]

ipod video was the best. still use one in my car.

This.

To be honest i have iPod shuffle and it's great. Been serving me well for 6 years and counting.

It wasn't actually mediocre. The sound quality is quite good when compared to what you could find in your average store (ie. chinkshit). I still enjoy the sound on mine.

I can't speak for higher-end competitors, and mind, not everyone had reliable internet nor good internet skills when they became big. But I remember most options being the big, clunky shits that have been posted in the thread.

I'm not saying the smaller form factor was good in terms of what it meant for the hard drives, but it was what we had at that point in time. Gradually, Nanos became a thing with cheapening solid state storage memory.

Mine has a broken HDD, but still functions at a fraction of the storage capacity. They were hardly paragons of build quality, but I don't think they were planned to be made obsolete in the sense of breaking down.

iPod is so pleb, Jam it in with P〇N〇S

but user the ipod was the best mp3 player ever created.

no brand chinese players were GARBAGE.

I still have the model that came after the one he's holding, the one that looked the same except it had a color display. Regardless of what people think, it still works like it's brand new, still syncs with iTunes on Windows 10, and the battery is still crazy strong.

I had a 120 gig one that lasted me almost a decade and that's with some rather punishing treatment (retard high schooler who'd drop it a bunch). Battery managed fine but I got to the point at the end where even using rockbox couldn't get me more than 2 gigs of the drive.

>2001
First gen iPod had 5GB and sold for $400 USD

>2002
Second gen iPod had 10/20GB for $400/$500

>2003
3rd gen iPod had 10/15/30GB for $300/400/500


Here's the 2003's edition of "MP3 players"

>money.cnn.com/2002/12/20/pf/saving/techguide_mp3/

The Nomad Jukebox was going for $500, the iPod was going between $300-$500, the Archos Jukebox was going for about $400.

Even the shittiest mp3 player was going for about $200 with 128 MB.

At the time, iPod really was a game changer. It had a short memorable name and clean intuitive user interface.

I got one because it had large storage + ease of use + fairly priced (given competition).

Apple later build this brand/name into a iconic one.

>160GB
>original

Unity. They unified everything in a time where piracy was a concern. Apple branding were always strong and they nailed with the iTunes Store fucking up with every single major record label wich were struggling with piracy.

I had thus, epic device. Makes the iPod look like the overpriced shit it was.

It was released in 2006 for about $250, had 30GB storage.

In 2005, 5th gen iPod (20GB) was released for about $300

In 2007, 6th gen iPod (80GB) was released for $250.

You're mis-remembering things? iPod in the past had been competitively priced for what it offered.

Look how big and chunky it is! Why would I want a player that doesn't even fit in my own pocket? The controls look like they're a pain to use.

It was convenient and simple to use. The touchwheel was refreshing.

i can only talk for myself
after trying out several no brand chinese players that died had a shit interface or both i went with an ipod that works flawlessly for about 6 years now