Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Gap between iPod and Mac universes growing or shrinking?
So in amongst the latest shipment of new iPod accessories today from Speck Products was the new SeeThru for MacBook. I don't request samples of Macintosh accessories, nor do I normally review them, but from time to time the companies who make both iPod and Mac accessories like to send along their Mac stuff as well for good measure. I've seen the SeeThru in action before, but at that time it was only available for the MacBook Pro, so I didn't pay a whole lot of attention. Now that it's available for the MacBook, and now that I've got one sitting in my office, I figured "why not" and went ahead and snapped it onto my MacBook this evening.
Seeing as how the SeeThru they sent me is translucent blue, I suppose there are cosmetic motivations behind the product in addition to the obvious protective ones. In that sense I'm not entirely sure what to make of it. In the nine months I've had my MacBook I've tended to carry it in a traditional shoulder bag when traveling (or more recently a backpack with an internal laptop sleeve in order to balance the weight across both my shoulders), but I haven't hesitated to grab my MacBook and carry it around sans any protection when the occasion calls for it. This far into its lifespan I suppose it's too late to keep my MacBook scuff-free, and since it's the black model the scuffs and scratches don't really show anyway. For that matter, the blue hue isn't highly visible against the underlying black surface unless the lighting is strong. What is highly noticeable right off the bat is the fact that the white backlit Apple logo on the lid is now glowing blue. But the cosmetic aspects of the product would stand out far more if my MacBook were a white one.
I'll have to spend more time with the product before I can evaluate its protective aspects (so far I've been using it for about eight minutes), but I find it intriguing that a long-time ipod accessory such as the SeeThru has been adapted for a laptop like the MacBook. Maybe it's some small sign that the space between the iPod and Macintosh universes isn't as wide as it sometimes seems.
Of course that depends upon which side of the fence you originally entered the iPod universe. Several iPod accessory companies started off as Mac accessory companies and just followed what they considered a natural progression into the iPod space. Other companies targeted the iPod as an electronics device that just happened to be an Apple product. It always surprises me when I sit down with an iPod accessory company executive who proceeds to show me something on his or her Windows laptop. It only happens a minority of the time, but it's frequent enough to be reminded of the fact that it's been a long time since the iPod universe was a subset of the Mac universe.
Nowhere is this more clearly highlighted than in the fact that by all accounts, more than eighty percent of all iPod users are Windows users. Sure, plenty of them end up switching to the Mac in due time, but they end up getting balanced out by the fact that most of the people just now buying their first iPod are coming from the Windows side. In fact, one of the main reasons why we don't publish full-on reviews of products like the SeeThru on iProng is the fact that the majority of our readers are in fact Windows users. I find suitable irony in the fact that an outspoken Macintosh blogger such as myself ended up publishing a website that gets frequented mainly by Windows users, but I see it as an opportunity to enlighten them when the time is right. After all, every iPod user is either a current Mac user or a future Mac user, right?
One of the more interesting arenas in which to observe the iPod and Mac spaces rub up against each other is in the world of podcasting, a universe that by and large originally found its roots independent of either the Mac or the iPod (although Apple did later manage to largely attach podcasting to the latter by the hip after the fact, at least on the consumption side). As a general rule content creators tend to find their way to the Mac out of necessity if nothing else, as that's where they're usually going to find the best tools for the job. There's a tendency on the part of someone like me to almost automatically assume that a podcaster (or a musician or a filmmaker) is a Mac user, and that usually ends up being a valid assumption. It's funny, though, to go to an event like PodCamp and see a fair number of Windows laptops in tow.
What's more intriguing is the attitude that some podcasters take toward the iPod space, some seeing it as a necessary evil and a few even seeing it as just plain evil. Not all of those original podcasters were pleased to see Apple add podcasting to iTunes a couple years back, and in fact some of them are still harboring a level of resentment to this day. Just look for the ones who introduces themselves with "I have a podcast but you don't have to listen to it on an iPod" all in a single breath, trying hard to make their point as early in the conversation as possible. They do have a point, as there are some folks out there who are sufficiently clueless that for instance will use iTunes to manage their music but have never ventured into the iTunes Store because they're under the mistaken impression that purchased songs will only play on an iPod and not on their computer.
What I've never understood is why at this point in the game anyone would still want to manage their podcasts with anything other than iTunes. One might argue that it's all too typical for someone in my position to be making such a case, but I believe it's just reality. I think it's important that we all keep in mind that podcasting was not invented, imagined, or engineered by Apple or iTunes, and we should continue to recognize the folks who did in fact make all that happen. Let's hope those folks don't ever stop contributing to the evolution of podcasting, as Apple's not always going to get it right. But from a consumption standpoint, as far as I'm concerned, podcasting is a function of iTunes these days. I know some other podcasters will disagree. And I know why.
But putting podcasting aside, there are other signs that the iPod and Mac universes are indeed getting closer than farther. AppleTV is a product that's so tightly tied into the iTunes universe that it's a no-brainer for a publication like iProng to cover it, even though it looks less like an iTunes companion and more like a Mac Mini. And then there's the iPhone, which while I can be synced with either a Mac or a Windows PC, the iPhone essentially is a Mac, right down to the (admittedly stripped down) operating system. On the other hand, the iPhone also is an iPod, by any measurable we can apply.
So nearly two months after first posing the question, I think it's every bit as valid as it was on the day of the iPhone's release: can Windows-using iPhone users be legitimately counted as also being Mac users? I guess we'll find out soon enough.
So in amongst the latest shipment of new iPod accessories today from Speck Products was the new SeeThru for MacBook. I don't request samples of Macintosh accessories, nor do I normally review them, but from time to time the companies who make both iPod and Mac accessories like to send along their Mac stuff as well for good measure. I've seen the SeeThru in action before, but at that time it was only available for the MacBook Pro, so I didn't pay a whole lot of attention. Now that it's available for the MacBook, and now that I've got one sitting in my office, I figured "why not" and went ahead and snapped it onto my MacBook this evening.
Seeing as how the SeeThru they sent me is translucent blue, I suppose there are cosmetic motivations behind the product in addition to the obvious protective ones. In that sense I'm not entirely sure what to make of it. In the nine months I've had my MacBook I've tended to carry it in a traditional shoulder bag when traveling (or more recently a backpack with an internal laptop sleeve in order to balance the weight across both my shoulders), but I haven't hesitated to grab my MacBook and carry it around sans any protection when the occasion calls for it. This far into its lifespan I suppose it's too late to keep my MacBook scuff-free, and since it's the black model the scuffs and scratches don't really show anyway. For that matter, the blue hue isn't highly visible against the underlying black surface unless the lighting is strong. What is highly noticeable right off the bat is the fact that the white backlit Apple logo on the lid is now glowing blue. But the cosmetic aspects of the product would stand out far more if my MacBook were a white one.
I'll have to spend more time with the product before I can evaluate its protective aspects (so far I've been using it for about eight minutes), but I find it intriguing that a long-time ipod accessory such as the SeeThru has been adapted for a laptop like the MacBook. Maybe it's some small sign that the space between the iPod and Macintosh universes isn't as wide as it sometimes seems.
Of course that depends upon which side of the fence you originally entered the iPod universe. Several iPod accessory companies started off as Mac accessory companies and just followed what they considered a natural progression into the iPod space. Other companies targeted the iPod as an electronics device that just happened to be an Apple product. It always surprises me when I sit down with an iPod accessory company executive who proceeds to show me something on his or her Windows laptop. It only happens a minority of the time, but it's frequent enough to be reminded of the fact that it's been a long time since the iPod universe was a subset of the Mac universe.
Nowhere is this more clearly highlighted than in the fact that by all accounts, more than eighty percent of all iPod users are Windows users. Sure, plenty of them end up switching to the Mac in due time, but they end up getting balanced out by the fact that most of the people just now buying their first iPod are coming from the Windows side. In fact, one of the main reasons why we don't publish full-on reviews of products like the SeeThru on iProng is the fact that the majority of our readers are in fact Windows users. I find suitable irony in the fact that an outspoken Macintosh blogger such as myself ended up publishing a website that gets frequented mainly by Windows users, but I see it as an opportunity to enlighten them when the time is right. After all, every iPod user is either a current Mac user or a future Mac user, right?
One of the more interesting arenas in which to observe the iPod and Mac spaces rub up against each other is in the world of podcasting, a universe that by and large originally found its roots independent of either the Mac or the iPod (although Apple did later manage to largely attach podcasting to the latter by the hip after the fact, at least on the consumption side). As a general rule content creators tend to find their way to the Mac out of necessity if nothing else, as that's where they're usually going to find the best tools for the job. There's a tendency on the part of someone like me to almost automatically assume that a podcaster (or a musician or a filmmaker) is a Mac user, and that usually ends up being a valid assumption. It's funny, though, to go to an event like PodCamp and see a fair number of Windows laptops in tow.
What's more intriguing is the attitude that some podcasters take toward the iPod space, some seeing it as a necessary evil and a few even seeing it as just plain evil. Not all of those original podcasters were pleased to see Apple add podcasting to iTunes a couple years back, and in fact some of them are still harboring a level of resentment to this day. Just look for the ones who introduces themselves with "I have a podcast but you don't have to listen to it on an iPod" all in a single breath, trying hard to make their point as early in the conversation as possible. They do have a point, as there are some folks out there who are sufficiently clueless that for instance will use iTunes to manage their music but have never ventured into the iTunes Store because they're under the mistaken impression that purchased songs will only play on an iPod and not on their computer.
What I've never understood is why at this point in the game anyone would still want to manage their podcasts with anything other than iTunes. One might argue that it's all too typical for someone in my position to be making such a case, but I believe it's just reality. I think it's important that we all keep in mind that podcasting was not invented, imagined, or engineered by Apple or iTunes, and we should continue to recognize the folks who did in fact make all that happen. Let's hope those folks don't ever stop contributing to the evolution of podcasting, as Apple's not always going to get it right. But from a consumption standpoint, as far as I'm concerned, podcasting is a function of iTunes these days. I know some other podcasters will disagree. And I know why.
But putting podcasting aside, there are other signs that the iPod and Mac universes are indeed getting closer than farther. AppleTV is a product that's so tightly tied into the iTunes universe that it's a no-brainer for a publication like iProng to cover it, even though it looks less like an iTunes companion and more like a Mac Mini. And then there's the iPhone, which while I can be synced with either a Mac or a Windows PC, the iPhone essentially is a Mac, right down to the (admittedly stripped down) operating system. On the other hand, the iPhone also is an iPod, by any measurable we can apply.
So nearly two months after first posing the question, I think it's every bit as valid as it was on the day of the iPhone's release: can Windows-using iPhone users be legitimately counted as also being Mac users? I guess we'll find out soon enough.
Comments:
Post a Comment
