And people who don't have an iDevice, probably won't buy a service from them. Because when you have an iDevice, you are a first-class civilian.

Nobody wants to be a second-class civilian.

My 2 cents, so a personal opinion. Would appreciate disclosing if you have a "iDevice" or not, if commenting :). I don't have one now, did buy the 3GS when it came out.

Edit: as I thought. Downvotes and no comments :). Nobody obviously remembers iTunes on Windows...

On the idea of a 2nd class civilian:

Would that include level of support? If something goes wrong in any Google product for me, I am almost certainly SOL. If my scenario doesn't fall under automated support or is something that requires human logic/cognition, there is effectively no support. It's either post on Twitter and hope someone from Google reads it (P = < 0.0000000005) or off to call the credit card company for a chargeback and pray that Google does not decide to ban my entire account for it.

If something goes wrong in any Apple product, the support ranges from stellar to acceptable, regardless of if I'm using Windows or MacOS.

So in that regard, I would rather be a 2nd class Apple civilian than Google's favourite civilian.

No, in the products directly. Eg. Bad ux for Windows, not allowing innovation on browsers and force developers creating an app instead of a html site, no usb-c, ... That's what i mean with "second class civilian" when you don't have/want everything from Apple.

I actually love the Chromecast integration ( it works with everything) and Google Docs (any browser), which seems to be more on topic.

There's a big difference between paying the Apple premium and using free/cheap products of Google though. Didn't had any issues with enterprise support in the past. Can't say anything about the Pixel line-up.

Don't take my word for it, here's a comment from someone else in this thread:

> I still think the nicest media player I used on Windows post-iTunes 7 was a music playing gadget from Google in my Google Desktop sidebar.

I am a long-standing Mac user, entirely in the Apple ecosystem, and gave you an upvote, because I do remember iTunes on Windows and it was always kind of a trash fire. :)

Having said that, though, the moves Apple is making right now are almost certainly about laying the groundwork for their new video service, which they are absolutely going to be pitching to people who aren't in the current Apple system -- which means they need to have player apps on other platforms, TVs, Roku, wherever they can get it.

iTunes wasn’t always a trash fire on Windows. iTunes 7 on Windows was definitely a trash fire that bundled in some version of Apple Software Update but I couldn’t tell you if the fire ever got put out because I bought my first MacBook shortly after and moved my whole library to it. I do remember the hellishly long update process from 6 to 7. I think I started it, went through the prompts and then crossed the street to the supermarket for a few minutes figuring it would be done by the time I got back. Took another two hours after my return for the process to finish.

To be fair, I still kept my PC around for some stuff and I remember every version of Windows Media Player I tried (9 to 11) being something of a trash fire in its own right, so in a sense, it was with iTunes 7+ that Apple first conformed to the platform standard. I still think the nicest media player I used on Windows post-iTunes 7 was a music playing gadget from Google in my Google Desktop sidebar.

I have iTunes for windows. It's still a piece of junk. It has a hard time communicating with iDevice and has a lousy interface for managing playlists and purchases.

Too bad there doesn't seem to be better, especially for someone completely uninterested in any kind of streaming service. (among other things, there seems to be no alternative for purchases .... or very few. Bandcamp I suppose)

Well, your comment feels negative and not balanced. I think readers on HN like balanced views. I guess you knew ;-)

PS: I do

Not all comments can be positive, didn't knew this was a requirement. I hope you don't read the comments when Google has there next privacy related topic...

My view was balanced, based on experience of the past.

I had no Apple warranty/support when there seemed to be a iPod hard drive bug.

iTunes was a requirement for iPhone and hell. My desktop was no Apple, I felt like a second class citizen.

Ps. You didn't argue why my comment was false. I like second opinions. Which is why we are here, seeing another perspective or learning something new.

I guess you knew :)

But perhaps I'm just here a bit longer than you ;)

I guess you are! ;-)

Sad to see your comment downvoted.

You'd think iOS device and Mac fans would understand well the sentiment of 'not wanting to be a second-class citizen'.

Frame the discussion around Material design in iOS apps, Electron apps vs native apps, and I'm sure all your downvoters would emphatically agree: no one wants to be a second-class citizen.

This. Jobs and Co. brought iTunes to Windows (reluctantly) because people were not willing to buy a Mac just to use their potentially new iPod. The underlying philosophy was that people who used the iPod would be more likely to buy into Apple's ecosystem in the future (such as buying a Mac). Seemed to work pretty well, but a million other factors can also be attributed to increased Mac sales post iPod. I mean how could you see anything but beauty in that magical little MP3 player :-)

> I mean how could you see anything but beauty in that magical little MP3 player

I was given an iPod when they were new. I used it once and gave it to someone else. They were the opposite of "little".

Later, I had a Zen Stone ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Zen#ZEN_Stone ). That was exactly what I wanted -- tiny with no screen. I used it to play music in the car, where I didn't want to have to look at the device in order to control it.

The "tiny" form factor is still around (though... not for iPods, where the Shuffle is discontinued). It's not so easy to find one with no screen though.

Interesting. I just use a thumb drive in my car with a ton of MP3s on it (which would achieve what the Zen Stone did), but cars didn't have USB inputs in 2007 so I see how the Stone could be useful.

For standard music listening though, I have not been able to find anything that beats the iPod's touch wheel. Load rockbox onto an iPod classic (swap out the HDD with an SD card), and it is hard to beat IMO. You can store FLAC/Vorbis/MP3/WAV whatever it is you have, and you then have a device that is just for music with none of the distractions that smart phones bring. It has really transformed how I listen to music, because I am connected to a device that is designed for just playing music with no bells or whistles.

The book "The Inner History of Devices" (https://sherryturkle.com/books-research/inner-history-device...) talks about the anthropology of how we connect to our devices, and how this connection is of course associated with everything that we do with our phones. Music blends into web browsing that becomes numbing, which blends into phone calls, which blends into messaging, etc ...

I can now leave my phone at home, and just carry my iPod with me, and the fact that the device I have on me is for music, and nothing else, changes how I experience it. It is super easy to navigate throughout your music collection with the touch wheel, whereas most other MP3 players have a mediocre touch screen that is laggy/unresponsive (https://www.sony.com/electronics/walkman/nw-a30-series/buy/n...) or buttons that are just as cumbersome to use.

Pretty sad that Apple discontinued their iPod line and how most enjoyable music solutions require a device with an IP stack. The "essence" of the devices that play music seem to distance us from the music, because our music falls into the category of all of the other apps, like Netflix, our internet browsers, or social media if you use it ...

> cars didn't have USB inputs in 2007 so I see how the Stone could be useful.

The car had been purchased by my grandmother and its only methods of playing sound were (1) the radio and (2) the cassette deck.

Prior to the Stone, I used a portable CD player with an audio-cable-to-cassette-tape adapter. The audio cable plugged into the Stone just fine.

I find this an interesting example. If my car had had the current-generation technology (a built-in CD player), I would have been stuck with CDs. But having past-generation technology meant that I could use the existing tape-to-CD-player compatibility shim to plug in the Stone.

Take the iPod Shuffle then. It came out 2 years before the Zen Stone and defined the tiny, no-screen market. Even today you can buy knockoffs at Primark for cheap.

I think the Shuffle is a great form factor.

The Stone did have one other significant advantage -- from my computer's perspective, it was just a flash drive. I believe iPods really, really want you to interact with them using iTunes.

> I mean how could you see anything but beauty in that magical little MP3 player :-)

They had the blandest form-factor of any mp3 player out at the time. I miss the variety of that era.

So, Halo Effect 2.0?