An Apple employee (at least he claims to be an Apple employee) is over on Slashdot saying some interesting things…
Link: Slashdot post
1) “A video iPod would be a dumb idea for lots of reasons, some technical, some psychological.”
2) “What’s a much bigger thing is the gradual shift, over the past two years, in the way we as a company do business. We are very serious about IP.”
3) “And unlike video, people often do want to carry photos around with them.”
4) “So there’s basically zero reason for video to be portable. You’re not going to carry it around with you. You’re going to watch it at home.”
5) “See, the “alpha geeks” are not our market. We don’t sell to them. The “alpha geeks” are defined by one key characteristic: they’re irrational.”
This guy sounds a lot like Steve Jobs. I don’t believe he’s an Apple employee, though. Why? Cause generally the Apple employees I meet are smart and this guy doesn’t sound smart at all.
Let’s look at this again. I wonder if this guy would have voted to fund the original Macintosh. Or, even worse, would have turned down Woz and Jobs when they were trying to get the initial funding for building their first set of computers, which were definitely aimed at alpha geeks.
As to a video iPod. That idea has already happened. It’s called a Sony PSP. I’m seeing people all over the place watching videos on their PSP’s. And every plane I’ve been in lately has people watching videos on portable devices, many with screens not much bigger than exist on a PocketPC.
In fact, what I look at the hardware trends. You MUST check out the 640×480 screens on the new PocketPCs to know that portable video devices are coming over the next couple of years and that there’s lots of demand for them.
Heck, I love showing off videos on my little phone, which has a tiny screen.
And just watch the videobloggers that come. You don’t need a 30-inch screen to watch this stuff. Some fun new videoblogs today: mobuzzTV. Hey, isn’t that a Rocketboom copy? Hawaiian Times
Speaking of Apple. Visit this Apple site (for OS X dashboard widgets) and look at where the radar image of a storm is located. Heh, it’s always storming in Redmond. I love a marketing department with a sense of humor!
Robert Scoble is the founder of the Scobleizer blog. He works as PodTech.net’s Vice President of Media Development.
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