I am getting awfully sick of tech trends.
As of lately, iPods were the latest measure of how cool you were. The bigger the space, the more gazillions songs it could hold, and the slimmer it was, the cooler you were. They were, if not still are, somewhat of a fashion statement. “Match your iPod with your outfit!” was the subliminal message the cult of Mac was screaming at its devoted followers and prospect converts.
I almost go sucked into it. When I was shopping around for an MP3 player around Christmas time, the lime green iPod Nano was looking rather delicious—Looking being the keyword here. All my friends, many of them already devote members of the Cult of Mac, were gunning for me and my lime green iPod Nano soulmate. But then I started thinking with my brain instead of my eyes.
Has anyone ever bothered comparing the features of an iPod to other competitive MP3 players? Once I started doing my research, I soon discovered that my engagement with the lime green iPod nano was going to have to end. It just didn’t cut it. I found true musical love with the Sansa. For the same price (or cheaper) it had more space and more features than its comparable iPod relative. Why on earth would you buy an iPod Nano when you could own a Sansa e280 and get FM radio (& recording), Music, Movies, Pictures, and Voice recording for almost the same size and a cheaper price? It even has a scroll wheel!
They say that sales is 20% logic and 80% emotion. I read that in a book somewhere. Are we even truly aware of how the sales industry is approaching sales these days? It is interesting to note that the best salespeople are the ones that never seem like they’re selling you somthing, but rather, subliminally manipulate you into selling that product or service to yourself.
And then there is the latest mobile phone craze. What do RAZR, KRZR, SLVR, PEBL, and RIZR all have in common? Well, aside from being a set of arranged characters a couple letters short of actual words, they’re also outrageously expensive phones nobody actually needs but everyone wants.
I was recently at a high school grad showcase (fancy word for grade 12 only talent show) where I happened to witness just a prime example of what I’d consider the mobile phone companies’ prime targets: overtalkative teenagers.
Girl: “Oh my gosh, this is a THREE MEGAPIXEL CAMERA!”
(I dryly remark that my first digital camera wasn’t even that)
Guy: “Forget that, I have a SIX megapixel camera on my phone at home”
(I silently wonder just how many phones he has?)
Girl: Runs thumb over glass screen Wow, this phone is amazing.
Guy: (Looking smug now)
One out of every three or four kids there had their mobile phone out and were looking at it. How did I know this? Simple. The auditorium was poorly lit until they starting pulling out their phones—It was a safe guess judging by the blueish glow the room took on.
I’m not old. I don’t consider myself majorly “out of the loop” when it comes to technology. But somehow, just somehow, I missed the cinching point where mobile phones went from “a cordless phone I can use anywhere” to “a slim, slick, thin, sexy sliver of technology that not only happens to be a phone, but also mp3 player! and a high-quality camera! and a video camera! and a PDA! and everything else you could ever dream of but will probably never use!”
… And by the way, since when did cell phones have six megapixels?
“Why on earth would you buy an iPod Nano when you could own a Sansa e280 and get …”
iTunes integration, iTMS, and an entry angle into a different world of computing. When you look at the bigger picture, the iPod is Apple’s way of giving everyone a taste of the Apple “experience”.
Have a read: http://www.technologyreview.com/printer_friendly_article.aspx?id=18621
Reply: … “Apple experience”? Apple has corrupted ur brains. =\
(Reply)
May 30th, 2007 at 9:25 pm