and she said.. "how you interpret the dream is probably more important than the dream itself"

I'll admit that maybe I never would have tried iTunes if it wasn't for the fact that I got an iBook for a laptop and I started in with my CD collection the day I got it and a few weeks later it was all in there and after two straight weeks of cd ripping the last thing you wanna do is trapse around the internet looking for a good freeware mp3 player for the mac because god knows we don't have any _really_ free shit on the mac..

Which brings me to my point here. Apple has been showing people how to get your money for years and still people don't get it. Create a superior product, and they will come. It's just the way it is.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm under no confusions here. Apple has had some technical support issues. Apple has some warranty horror stories. Apple, even, can put out a flawed piece of hardware. What they do right, though, is give a better user experience. They stop and think about how people use and abuse the information we're inundated with everyday. So when your iPod breaks you buy a new one. You eat it. You accept that your money was spent on something that broke but you liked the user experience so much that you went right out and bought another one. I think that says something right there for apple.

So when I got my laptop and I spent two weeks ripping every CD I owned to the harddrive I figured I'd give iTunes a try because it was right there in the dock and I'm lazy. I fired it up and imported all the songs and I was immediately impressed with the search feature. Type anything in the search and it'll find it. Song titles, Albums, Artist.. what have you. A simple idea, a simple interface, a simple thing to do really.. but somehow I'd never run across anything as easy to use in a mp3 player before.

So I was hooked. All cause a simple search feature. Now my listening habits weren't completely random. I started listening to things based on groupings. Albums. Artists. Genres to match my mood. All of a sudden I was not a slave to the random button. The repeat button took on a whole new meaning (repeat means shit all when you're playing randomly from 2000 mp3s.. you're never going to through them all in one sitting anyway). The rest of iTunes I could take or leave. It's just a music player, afterall.

So now that the new iTunes inserts little arrow icons after every song and artist and album in your library that allows you to jump directly to the iTunes music store, it's okay. I mean, I personally hate it. The icons are eating up valuable screen space. It's pushing me to use apple's music store. Fine fine, they gotta make a buck I guess, but fuck you for not making it an option..

But back to my point: the users will take this in stride. They'll grin and bear it. They'll even, *gasp*, use it. People won't run screaming from iTunes to the nearest knockoff replacement. And why? Because Apple sat down and developed a better user experience. They will be rewarded with brand loyalty.

Ducati is a perfect example to brand loyalty. Talk to almost any ducati owner and they'll freely admit that the brand is known for somewhat high maintenance costs and prone to some unique "italian character" when it comes to build quality. They'll admit that you can get more horse between your legs for a heck of a lot cheaper if you head down the street to your local suzuki dealer. They'll admit, in fact, that the likes of gsx-rs, cbrs, and ninjas - japanese inline-4s - are great bikes. Decently priced with good dealer support and lots of juice.. what they will also say, though, is that those bikes lack the soul that Ducati carries. They'll tell you that a Ducati might not be able to win in a straight-line drag race but that once you get the bikes up in the twisties of a mountain pass then a Ducati can hold it's own, if not more, against much more powerful bikes.

So it's all about user experience, in the end. I'll keep suffering the direct-to-itunes-music-store arrow icons and ducatists will keep suffering flaking rockers, poor electricals, and other common problems. We'll even pay more to do it.. cause in the end, it's all about the experience.