Apple hits the news again
Apple has just released their new line-up of iPods. The media attention around anything Apple releases these days is incredible. Professor Yoffie at Harvard estimated that the free publicity Apple has received with the launch of the iPhone is around $400 million dollars.
How does that happen?
It helps to sell 100 million iPods before you release a cell phone. Apple knows how to make products that are user friendly. So user friendly that they have always had a genuine cult following since the first Apple Computer was released back in 1976 (my Apple Mac Plus helped me through university). The cult following exists because Apple is an expert at making revolutionary products (most personal electronics companies know how to make evolutionary products).
So the new iPods look incredible and the hype is happening again.
Over the years I have owned windows computers and (for the last 3 years) a Sony digital music player. Sony just announced that they are closing their online music download store. Sony forced Customers to convert their music to something called ATRAC (Sony's version of mp3's) and use a software package that was not easy to work with. To make matters worse their music players (up until more recently) would not play mp3's.
I've spent the last couple of days reloading my CD's onto iTunes and will soon be drinking the Apple kool-aid when I purchase one of the new iPods for sale at the end of September '07.
I would love to hear stories from others about whether they've joined the Apple craze (most have I assume) and if not, how come?
I admit that I should have been there all along. After all, that excellent Apple Mac Plus I had back in 1989 should have been enough to keep me in the cult from the beginning.
