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Comment by ideas101 | Hacker News Reader

well apple products are most of the time trendy .. for example ipods are just trendy - there are mp3 players out there in the market which has lot more features (such as radio, voice recording etc.) than ipod does... so there are users who look for value (by getting maximum features) and there are others who just go with the trend (i would call marketing trap). This is the reason why apple is having hard time in increasing ipod business in value driven markets like India.

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I've seen other players that do more, but nothing I really need and they lack the iPod's killer feature: ubiquity. Seriously, it's great that any time I want to use my iPod with any high end electronic I can plug it in and the device's manufacturer has already provided an interface. My Xbox360, TV, stereo and car all came ready to work with the iPod - how many other players can say that?

this is another oft-repeated misguided statement. yes, you can buy a music player with more features than an ipod for less money. that's irrelevant. the reason ipods are popular is because they're fun and easy to use. they give their owners a warm fuzzy feeling you don't get from the junky pieces of plastic sold by creative, et al.

the same is true for apple's computers. it's not nearly as easy to switch computing platforms as it is to switch music players, or else macs would be even more popular than they are.

> they give their owners a warm fuzzy feeling you don't get from the junky pieces of plastic sold by creative, et al.

Warm fuzzy feelings turn into rage and hatred relatively quickly.

My girlfriend: "OMG, a cute engraved ipod! It's so pretty!"

Later: "I can't copy music from your macbook onto my ipod without nuking my music? But they are both apple! How come your cheap chinese knockoff ipod works better than the real thing?"

yet it's apple that owns something like 80 percent of the portable music player market, rather than chinese knock-offs. go figure!

macbook does have bells and whistles and stability worth buying ... but not the ipods but it is so funny that macbooks doesn't have 80% market and ipod does ....

design wise it is always a good product - but feature wise ipods just cant copy - if u look around there are many mp3 that have good design and tons of features .... u dont need to be blind folded by marketing.

The Sony Mp3 players are superior--and I wouldn't have any other--for one little feature: Built-in, active noise cancelling.

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