MORON ALERT
Thanks to Phil for this one:
Job's gave an interview to Newsweek regarding the anniversary, and talk about the competition the iPod has and will see, such as the Zune and its ability to share music files wirelessly. "By the time you've gone through all that, the girl's got up and left! You're much better off to take one of your earbuds out and put it in her ear. Then you're connected with about two feet of headphone cable."
Thanks Jobs, for arguing against an intelligent technology that could potentially prove to be a valuable investment for Microsoft (and dangerous to your company), by appealing to sex and objectifying women. Nevermind how the iPod is a glorified piece of overpriced hardware with potentially the lowest featureset in the entire industry (my iRiver plays FM radio and records both radio and voice) or how you always rip your customers off by baiting them into buying your products simply because they are "cool" and "new." This is beyond that. It's insulting to women how you feel that you only need to convince male, playboy customers that wireless music sharing is a bad idea (as if women don't make up a significant portion of the customer base), and even more insulting that you think a woman interested in hearing what a male friend is listening to is somehow welcome to the idea of being treated as a sexual object.
This is just one more ounce of proof that Steve Jobs is an idiot. I'm this /)(\ close to buying a Zune just to show my distate for Steve Jobs, but in the meantime I'll just link you all to the latest deal on a hot iRiver jukebox… you can get the iRiver H10 20Gb MP3 Player/Recorder for just $159.99 at Amazon.com.
Hmm. Personally, I like my iPod Shuffle for the precise reason that it doesn't have a lot of features. I get out of my car to begin my hike to campus, pull the iPod out, put my earbuds in, turn it on and hit the big "play" button. That's it.
I'm sure that by the time you got the Zune to sync; most people would have gotten up and walked away. I'm betting that there will be thirty confirmation boxes, five disclaimers, no less than three micropayments, two crashes and one big headache in between you and sharing that song of yours.
I'm not a Microsoft bashing Apple lover; but when they make software… it never seems to work right until a few years of bug testing and ironing.
Sure Jordan, but how do you feel about what Jobs said? The point of my post is not an iPod vs. Zune competition (and Zune vs. Shuffle is apples and oranges)… I'm just angry at Jobs' comments. A little disgusted too.
I bet Steve is already regretting those remarks. Now he can't release a wireless iPod since he already dissed the technology.
I'm actually completely failing to see your point, i'm normally pretty good at spotting sexist remarks but I just don't see it here. Sure it's an irrelevant argument against the technology, hopefully meant more in jest than a serious criticism but I don't see anything particularly offensive.
I think it's clear that Jobs is saying, the only reason why anyone would want to share music with their mp3 players would be to hit on girls. Hardly a broad argument in supoprt of his outdated technology and sexist too.
That doesn't seem very clear to me at all, it seems like quite a leap of judgement in fact. But I can't really explain my perspective better until I understand how what he is saying is sexist.
Well, I explained my reasoning. Anyone who doesn't see it as sexist just has a different understanding of sexism (which is fine, since this is not intended to be argumentative).
The start of the quote was :
I think Steve was simply trying to say that it is a lot easier to call someone over and let them listen to your music rather than waiting a while to share the song with Zune. I just don't see anything in that quote suggesting that the only reason people try to share music is to pick up women.
It's all about this: "You’re much better off to take one of your earbuds out and put it in her ear. Then you’re connected with about two feet of headphone cable." Maybe I'm just speaking as a guy who knows how young guys think, but getting to put your headphone in her ear so you can be less than 2 feet away is not about making acquaintances. After all, he didn't say "your friend's got up and left." He said girl, because he was being chauvinist. Making it a guy-girl issue is sexist in itself… he's leaving his female constituency entirely out.
In the end, the quote is not saying that "the only reason… is to pick up women." The quote is saying that the iPod is much better than the Zune for picking up women. Still a sexist argument.
I think it is not wise to put other people's ear buds in your ear. It is not very hygienic.
Excellent rant!
I'm also sick of the smugness that Steve Jobs and his cronies (Apple and Mac Fanboys) disseminate.
I'm selling my video iPod to get a Zune.
Johan: Ha! Thanks for injecting some humor into this discussion
Andy: It does have a bigger screen, after all!
Maybe I'm missing something again, but I don't see it as sexist. I guess if I read it more in context I'd get it, but really, that's just one possibility of a downside.
It may be dumb, but it wasn't offensive to me….
I waited a while to comment on this, in case I'd missed something obvious, but now I see I'm not alone in thinking that there is absolutely nothing sexist about that remark.
He's arguing the merits of wireless vs. wired, and he used a perfectly acceptable argument to illustrate it. If you're with a girl, it's nice to listen to music together. What's sexist about that? You appear to be implying (that Jobs is implying) that if I want to listen to music with a girl I automatically have some sinister ulterior motive…
What's a more convincing argument: "It's just easier, ok?!" or using a real life example almost everyone will be able to identify with?
Mountains out of molehills. Mountains out of nothing, in fact.
Well at least most of us can agree that it was a dumb argument, and that the term "moron" applied in Jobs' direction might be justified.
Christian, ah. I realize that I really didn't comment on Jobs' comment. I had originally had a paragraph in there about it… but didn't want to be one of the first commenters and get lambasted for it.
I'm not really sure that I agree that it's a sexist comment. I mean, it includes language implying a sex… but that's about it. I mean, sure it's about a guy presumably hitting on a girl by having her listen to his music - but I don't really see how that's sexist. It's not implying that the female was somehow technology daft, it was just that this situation involved a guy hitting on a girl.
I think that the sexual objectification portion of his comment is trivially minor. True, the person is referred to as an object with a sex of female but the only action taken based on that is "the boy likes her". There are no trappings of "the boy will now beat her, take her home with him, have his way with her and make her cook him supper or he would see to it that she never got a raise in her career" that typically comes along with sexual objectification.
What would have been a better way for him to state that? "So, you're sitting around and you see this girl. You think, man I'd like to get to know her. You go over, say 'Hey… do you have a Zune? Would you like to sync?' But then it doesn't work, so you fall back on putting your earbud in her ear (I giggle every time) to prevent her from getting bored with you and walking away. Now you're so much closer than you were before."? I mean, sure it's more PC - but it takes so much longer to convey the true meaning - while the original phrase took one or two sentences and the recipient imagined the rest of what was going on.
Maybe I'm just thick skinned or a little burnt out on PC from being in a University (can we say "only white people can be racist" fifty times in a row?).
Now, as to the tactical qualities of his statement. He has now painted himself into a hard spot. He'll now have to go crazy pointing out how simple the iPod's syncing is when wireless syncing finally comes to them. Odds are though, that he won't be able to. As soon as "sharing of files" comes into play, the battery of lawyers will force Apple's "simple" scheme to fade into "legal and not offending the RIAA" - deluging the user with configuration woes.
A quick technical note Christian; Can you make the comment boxes taller? I mean, unless you're trying to encourage shorter comments - it's a bit annoying to have such a small viewport to work with.
A better way to put it? Well, if I was Jobs, my product wouldn't be so lousy. After all, one could argue that this "headphone sharing" technology is available on the Zune as well. Has anyone thought about that?
As for the comment box, I could do that in a few hours. Thanks for the suggestion.
Heh, my example statement actually included the Zune user giving up and using the "headphone sharing" techonology with his Zune. I ended up assuming that Jobs wasn't saying "headphone sharing" technology is the end all be all of sharing, but that the Zune's implementation of wireless sharing is so bad that nobody will use it.
Interesting… I'm not sure I would have picked up on that.
Jordan: Well, the question now is, how long before Apple rolls this feature into a next-gen iPod? It's bound to happen eventually right? Any guesses?
Seems there are at least as many fire-ball feminist in this world now-a-days as so called chauvinist. Of course it seems to me that only a female whom is feminist or lesbian or both would be insulted by the idea of any man coming on to them, with an I-Pod or a rose. I met my current wife of four years with the help of an I-Pod on a bus, thank you very much. And she agree's that it just may be you, Ms. Montoya, whom is the Moron? Why have women (american) become so defensive when it comes to those of the opposite sex showing interest in them? It is my opinion that defensive feminist wankers are in fact no different than true chauvinist - and that they are all idiots. And no, I do not believe that Jobs comments in any way pointed to him being a chauvinist!!! Just my input.
Ms. Montoya? Ms. Montoya!? Have you seen my about page? Who is the real moron here?
Huh. Even without reading the about page, I picked up on the fact that Christian was not a female.
To followup on your comment from October, Christian; I really don't know if Apple would do something like that. The run-ins with DRM would probably be too difficult to fit in with their simple and usable philosophy. We'll just have to wait and see though.
Yeah, I have to somewhat agree Jordan, after seeing the problems with the WiFi sestup on the Zune, I can see that it's very unlikely that other companies will try to copy it. If/when the iPod and others get WiFi, it will be for other features, at least until some company smart enough to enable the feature freely for license-free music comes along.