HANNA CHU
A&E Editor
Jon Rubinstein, Tony Fadell and Michael Dhuey, developers of the iPod, are geniuses. In fact, inventors are the smartest people in society because they make something out of nothing.
One day, a man decides to put some bits and pieces together and voila! You have your first iPod. From this tiny box in your hand, music comes out, and photos are stored. With the newest version, the iPod video, you can watch not only music videos, but you can also watch your favorite movie or television show, all in the palm of your hand.
Along the same lines, iTunes is another example of creative genius because it makes it so easy to find, download and most importantly, buy music. Just click once, and the newest song by Rascal Flatts is now in your possession. Click again, and now you have Green Day’s greatest hits compilation.
There’s a saying that the Internet offers the world at the click of a mouse. However, we all know that it takes much more than just one click to find what you are looking for. With iTunes, it’s a literal single click to purchase and download music.
Click. Click. Click.
Those people at Apple are sneaky, with their 99 cent songs and $1.99 videos. With their system, users end up spending a lot more money.
According to a recent article in BBC News, iTunes actually outsells some of America’s biggest music retailers, like Tower Records, Sam Goody and Borders.
Maybe this isn’t a big surprise since it’s common knowledge that people are buying things online more often these days. But there are tons of different outlets online to download music, including LimeWire, Amazon and KaZaA.
But according to NPD, an organization that tracks people’s buying habits, more than 7 out of 10 digital music sales through PCs are through iTunes, and this doesn’t even take into account Mac users.
CD players are going to disappear, just like cassette tapes. Remember what those are?
Only the cool kids owned tapes of New Kids on the Block or Boys II Men in the early 90s.
These people are geniuses (not to mention rich). Pretty soon, they’re going to come out with an iPod that talks back.
“Pod, why do you think Nick and Jessica broke up?”
“Well Hanna, these things are complicated, but I’m guessing they just fell out of love.”
“Pod, when do you think the weather will be warm again in Malibu?”
“It has been pretty gloomy these days hasn’t it?”
Unfortunately, there are a lot of wannabe-inventors in the world, and they have all come out from hiding to be on Simon Cowell’s new show “American Inventor” on ABC.
When the show premiered on March 16, over 10,000 applications had already been submitted.
I wonder if the producers really expect to find the next iPod-esque invention on this show.
Clearly, if there was an invention with iPod potential, they certainly wouldn’t give away their idea to the public on a show whose sole purpose seems to be to ridicule stupid inventions and make a mockery of the hopeful entrepreneurs.
03-23-2006
