I didn’t think much about Apple products until I bought my Ipod a couple of weeks ago. I thought they were overrated and overpriced for the value you got out of it. As soon as I started playing around with the Ipod I quickly saw why people are raving about it. The ease of use is simply simple in it’s own way, however, I am sure there are other mp3 players that are just as simple or copied off of Apple. I am also sure that many mp3’s and Apple Ipods have similiar features ranging from 1 gig to 80 gigs, but that is where the similiarities end.

My Past Experience With My “Old” MP3 Player

My old mp3 player was a Creative Zen Sleek Photo, which is a 20 gig without video capabilities. I bought this mp3 player from my brother because he was upgrading to a new mp3 player. I have to tell you that I didn’t know much about mp3 players about a year ago and rarely used mine when I had it. The Creative Zen was easy to use and there were tons of features that I didn’t utilize. I used a freeware called Media Monkey in my opinion is shitty because of the way you add media files onto the mp3 player. They may have updated to freeware to make it alot easier to use. There was one day that changed the way I lost hope in the mp3 player and most of it is my own fault. Well I locked up the mp3 player and couldn’t get it to turn off, the mp3 player went into recovery mode and I started to delete everything including the filmware. I tried a couple of times to bring the player back to life, but just gave up and bought an ipod.

Why the Ipod?

Well the next thing for me to do was to get another mp3 player and I wanted to get something I truely wanted. I started to ask around like my other two brothers, one had an Ipod Nano and another had something else I forgot the name but he was happy with the it. So I then went to the Apple website and starting comparing what they had and was overwhelmed with all of the choices. In the end I decided on a 30 gig Video Ipod and am quite happy with my choice. Like I wrote in the beginning the ease of use was great and had tons of features that I probaly wouldn’t use but they were there whenever I wanted to try them out. I believe what seperates Apple from other mp3 player makers is itunes and here are the reasons why:

1. Easy to add music albums and audiobooks.

2. Itune Store– Can look for a large selection of podcast and like the ease of downloading them and updating with new podcast episodes. I don’t have to download a podcast reader onto my computer and can find similiar podcast with the search function. I can also buy music/audiobooks/movies/tvshows/etc and all of it can be downloaded onto my ipod instantly.

3. Apple Website– If I wanted to buy accessories I can through the Apple online store. This isn’t rocket science, but just the ease of being able to get what I need from one source is a time saver and less headache and actually kind of fun finding things.

We can learn a couple of business concepts from Apple who weren’t the first company in the mp3 market, but became #1. They simply helped their customers get the most usuage out of their product by providing a place to get that information. Also, there are tons of different Ipod models that everyone can buy depending on their needs and/or wants. I am not saying that Apple is perfect, hell they could have atleast included a power adapter with the Ipod, but it works for a large demographic of people, which is being able to enjoy the “ease” of entertainment whichever form it may be in.