Some replies to Jimmy Neutron about the iPod. Let me begin by saying that while I've owned many mp3 players I don't own an iPod, but I have listened to and used it along with many other players.
I also own a few different players, my niece owns the iPod and I transfer all her music to it on my computer, so I'm real familiar with it.
1.iPod contained no innovations, it sold solely based on style.
The iPod did have one enormous innovation, and that was ease of use.
True, but this was more "evolutionary" than "revolutionary". As more powerful players would hit the market, so too would better and faster software.
2.Any compression will make things sound worse
This is a mistake, there are many forms of compression that result in no sound loss within certain defined boundaries, this is the essence of sampling theory really.
Wrong. Any compression, by it's design alone, will throw out information to make data smaller. "Music" data, unlike "data" data, requires much more sophisticated decoding to be done correctly. Anytime you compress music, what the Error Correction System reconstructs is only it's best guess as to what should be there. I don't want a computer telling me that part "A" should sound like that when I know that it should sound like part "B" (because I've heard it several times on my analog turntable with no compression).
Here's a simple lossless compression algorithm. Lets say I've got a bit of a CD file, and it goes AAAAABBBBBAAAAABBBBB, I could compress this into 5A5B5A5B or maybe even 2[5A5B]. Both of these compressed formats can be converted exactly into the original but both take far fewer characters to express.
Decoders are revisioned all the time, as frequently as every month. This proves that there is no decoder that is accurate enough to decode and reconstruct data back to it's full originality. Manufactures also have several versions of the encoders/decoders, due to poorly written software - thus proving, once again, that no decoder will do the job better that using no compression can do.
So yes, MP3 does accomplish extra space savings by throwing away data which it thinks most people won't notice, but no, not all compression schemes involve throwing out data.
But people DO notice this, thus compression schemes do have one thing in common: they don't sound as good as no compression.
3. Built in batteries are bad.
These batteries are custom shaped to fit into the smallest space possible in the player, and allow the manufacturers to shave off a few ounces, and a few fractions of an inch while still having a decent battery life.
3rd party vendors have begun selling consumer replaceable iPod batteries. You don't think Apple could have mentioned this in their users manual instead of REQUIRING consumers to ship their units back to Apple for replacement, at a substantial price increase? Shame on you Apple.
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