“‘I guess Steve’s kids just listen to Bach and Mozart,’ Businessweek quotes Microsoft’s Bill Gates when asked why his company is making handheld gadgets that play video as well as music, while Apple has so far spurned the idea to stick with its music iPods.
BusinessWeek reports, “‘We don’t think people have a burning desire to watch video on tiny little screens,’ Apple’s Steve Jobs, a longtime Gates nemesis, was quoted as saying earlier. Gates retorted that his kids ‘want to watch Finding Nemo,’ which of course was made by Jobs’ Pixar Animation Studios. ‘I don’t know who made that, but it’s a really neat movie,’ Gates was said to have quipped.
Gates also was quoted as saying, “There’s nothing that the iPod does that I say, ‘Oh, wow, I don’t think we can do that.'”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: “Oh, wow, I don’t think we can do that.” Bill Gates has billions upon billions upon billions of dollars at his disposal, but after over twenty years of trying, comparing Windows XP to Mac OS X today is like comparing Bea Arthur to Heidi Klum. Sorry, Bea. We loved you in Maude. So, now Bill’s going to just whip out a tightly integrated solution like Apple’s iPod/iTunes/iTunes Music Store? Good luck, Bill, you master of kludge. The first time Microsoft produces something that doesn’t suck will be when they start making vacuum cleaners.
Ok, that’s one of the better MDN takes I’ve read, and that’s saying something. That one had edge. Why do I get the feeling it was behind a glass of wine (or two)?
I wonder what percentage of iPod users are kids, anyway? Kids may use a vidPod, but adults use their iPods while they are doing other things: working out, riding a bike, running, cutting the grass, doing housework, commuting. None of those are places that a vidPod would work well. Kids have a lot of time on their hands. I bet they would rather watch Nemo on a big screen TV in the living room than on a 5 inch screen in their hand.
The one thing about the iPod Microsoft definitely couldn’t do is come up with the idea themselves.
That’s why Billy Boy just never gets it.
What Bill meant to say. “I don’t see anything there that we can’t copy”
Kids do use mobile devices with tiny little screens such as the Gameboy. But those are sub-$100 gaming devices. How many kids can convince their parents to buy a $500 portable video device?
I don’t recall a big market for the portable DVD player market and they were in the same general price range, but had 5″ to 7″ screens, as I recall. Part of the problem is that anyone can listen to a favorite song over and over. But few adults care to watch the same video over and over.
Back to the portable digital video device – the key issues are going to be the screen size, device size and weight, battery playing time and the method by which you transfer the movie into said device. Can you upload Finding Nemo from your DVD collection or does Bill expect you to buy it from M$ iVideo?
PMC (the vidPod as you call it) has a similar market to that of the Gameboy. As kids get older and into the teens they’ll want an iPod. And they’ll keep buying iPod’s until they are deaf!
I’m 18, I’m proof.
Now, I don’t have an iPod (yet), but will say, from everything I’ve heard it works flawlessly with iTunes and the Mac. Yet, Gates can’t get anything to work in harmony on Windows. And he has the cajones to say iPod doesn’t do anything they can’t do. Bull crap.
What a jokester.
i still don’t see how you can watch video while jogging, walking down the street, working, reading, trying not to get mugged on a late night train. it’s a different experience. bill is such a dipstick if he thinks that it’s a horizontal choice between video and audio.
VidPod – sorry, but watching TV is so out.
And watching it on a postage stamp size screen is so stupid.
Let�s see, it is so small to watch a movie you have to hold the thing in your hand for 2 hours.
Who wants to hold that thing for 2 bleeping hours?
Is it me or is vidPod going to ruin lots of people�s eyesight? Probably not since few will buy it.
Microsoft – we only make money if we have the monopoly.
Still it would be nice to be able to download say music videos or movie trailers from iTMS and play them on a viPod (video iPod). Just to show them to people who don’t have viPods. Of course by the time that technology is practical everyone will have iPods.
By the way you can buy a Dick Tracy TV wristwatch for $200 at ThinkGeek.
The screen is so tiny it’s a joke.
What Gates is doing is locking the online video and music formats in his hard core DRM format.
By the way Stevie found “Nemo” it was shoved way up Bill’s ass.
Bill Gates can’t think of anything about the iPod that Microsoft couldn’t do?
Then why didn’t they? And why are they so late to the party?
The guy’s RDF makes Steve’s look pretty lame.
Alright, let’s face reality. Jobs is wrong on this one. The ADDED option of a video iPod would sell like crazy. Screen size is not an issue. Turn the current IPod sideways and you have enough space for a 4.5″ screen. Put the controlls on the side or the back and you are in business. And file size is also not an issue. Use MPEG-4 and you can fit hours on a current model iPod. Then lastly the third party guys come in and bring us an iCam and we have an actually cheap video / still camera. Kids and adults alike will love it. “Yea, I interface this with iLife and I have it all!” Jobs seems to be using his Pixar head on this one not wanting kids to pirate “Finding Nemo”.
In this case, yea, I still think Gates is a copy cat but if he motivates Steve to have to compte on the video end, maybe we can all get what we want.
Oh, and yea, who said you couldn’t use your vidPod to just listent to music???
Yeah, I can just picture millions of 15 year old boys with these things downloading and watching porn in the back of school classrooms.
they haven’t been able to copy mac os.. that’s a pretty big one
Why does Gates always talk about how great things are gonna be with such and such Microsoft tech, yet never deliver on it?
What a tosser.
I had one of those portable casio TVs once – never used it, ended up seling it on eBay. Once the novelty wore off I accepted that the screen was just too small to be comfortably viewable. I think you would need at least a 10″ screen for it to be usable on an ongoing basis – but given the price of these things you would be better of with an entry level iBook.
And that is my point – folks who want portable DVD use a laptop.
Putting video on an iPod would be silly – it would not be usable and it would just push the price up. Just watchh M$ loose money on their portable vid players.
Oh yes, almost forgot – M$ could never have come up with the iPod.
I hope that Microsoft will be ready for the lawsuits that follow from fatal accidents caused by a kid watching a video device instead of watching where he was going.
I have no desire to watch video on my iPod. When I want to watch something I want a bigger screen – not smaller. I bought the 17″ PowerBook over the 15″ for this reason. I watch plenty of TV when I am seated at home, the last thing I need is to be glued to a screen when I am out and about.
Y didn’t microshaft do a music store 5 years ago? Y didn’t microshaft decide to use the graphics card to animate the gui 4 years ago? it’s pathetic how they chase after apple.
I own an iPod, it’s great… and it is about the music. For-gods-sake why would someone spend ~400 for a 2.5 inch screen when I could buy a TV instead?
How many movies do I want to have “on the go” anyways. I can find enough time to watch a movie during the week let alone sneak 2hrs from my day to squint at one under my desk.
“Alright, let’s face reality. Jobs is wrong on this one. The ADDED option of a video iPod would sell like crazy. Screen size is not an issue.”
Sorry gearhead,
I disagree completely with you on this. The absolute beauty of the iPod is the simplicity of the interface and the focus on the core function i.e. it’s not the most featureful music player available, but it’s by far the best. Attempting to shoehorn video playback capability would be a catastrophic mistake in my opinion, especially given such a necessarily small display, even if, as you suggested, they increase the size so you can watch it by turning the iPod on the side. Then what would you do with the killer selling feature, the scroll wheel? Putting it on the side or the back is not an option; usability would suffer. The scroll wheel is what distinguishes the iPod from pretenders to its throne.
Your idea that the iPod could be used as a DV recorder in conjunction with an iSight is actually an intriguing one, and if they came up with some sort of plug-in or snap-on LCD viewfinder, they could be on to something. Watching movies on an iPod would then be like watching movies on the viewfinder of a DV cam. Sure you could do it, but why the hell would you want to? And what about acceptable battery life? And size?
Jobs is correct, people don’t watch movies like they listen to music. The latter can be done as an adjunct to other activities; not so with video.
MacBeth, Will the ‘Zen Portable Media Center’ be any good for porno? For like when I�m at an airport or Greyhound.
Perhaps I’m just not innovative enough, but I just don’t see any possible reason to have video on an iPod. I can’t imagine watching a movie on a little screen. I have a 9 inch televison that I watch some regular tv on, and that’s pushing too small to handle.
So if you don’t watch a movie, what else is there? Are people really sitting on a bus thinking “You know what I wish I could do right now? Watch that AVP trailer I saw on iTunes.” That makes no sense.
Oh yeah, Bill – video on a 3″ screen – I can just imagine huddling ’round the old iPod to watch Lord Of The Rings with the missus’n’kids. What a great User Experience!
And while you’re at it, as a designer, I’d just love to be able to run Photoshop and InDesign on my iPod as well. You know, retouch a few pix while while jogging, layout a 24 page catalogue too.
No really, I’m with Jobs on this one. Music is an aural experience that can be enjoyed while performing many other tasks, video requires a whole new set of parameters. As usual, poor old Bill has not one clue about what End Users really want. That’s why his products are so User-Hostile.