I love Apple

Several weeks ago I decided to buy a BluRay player. The prices had fallen dramatically, and even continue to fall. The player I bought for $229 now sells for $199. Oh well, that's technology. The Samsung player I bought came with NetFlix and Pandora access built in. I was very familiar with NetFlix instant movies as we own a Roku box on one set used for instant movies. Pandora was new to me, so I ventured to the Internet to find out what it was.

For someone who likes to listen, Pandora is fantastic. The site allows you to tailor a music "station" to the kind of music you favor. Skeptical at first, I set up a free account and started my own Internet radio station by selecting artists or songs that I like. I then added additional artists to expand the range of music that my custom station would play. I then found that I could give a thumbs up or down to individual songs as they played. This feedback to Pandora is used to further refine the type of music I like.

It's all part of the Music Genome project, that classifies every artist and song using criteria such as genre, harmony, instruments, key tonality, aesthetics, prominent musical components, and such. As I provide feedback to Pandora, the site bases future music selections to those that match what I have indicated I enjoy. I can also exclude what I do not like. The result is a station that plays the music I like with only an occasional brief commercial. I'm in!

One problem. I could only listen to Pandora from a PC, or the sound system attached to my BluRay player. That is kind of limiting. After all, I also have a Bose 3.2.1. system upstairs that I would love to use to play Pandora. So I set out looking for a solution. I expected to find a third party black box for Pandora, such as the Roku box is for NetFlix. I was willing to spend up to $100 for such a solution. No luck. In fact, all I found on the Internet was a lot of other people asking for the same solution. I did find several extremely expensive solutions that allow audio and video streaming from a PC to any audio or video component in your house. All were several hundred dollars and far too complex for what was trying to do.

Several months ago I replaced my iPOD-mini with a new iPOD Touch. I have never been an Apple disciple. I think Apple makes good, but not great stuff. In an effort to avoid converting my music library from the iPOD to MP3 or some other format, I stuck with Apple and bought the Touch. At the time I was not aware the Touch also allows access to the Apple App store over WiFi. It was this discovery that led to my Pandora solution.

Over the past weekend, I found a Pandora app on the Apple App store. It was free. I quickly set up my iPOD Touch to play my Pandora stations. That was great, but still did not solve getting Internet radio to my Bose 3.2.1. I then learned that my Touch was smart enough to determine if the headphone connection had headphones or an audio component connected to it. That was the final piece of the Pandora solution. Off to Nebraska Furniture Mart for a $14 cable that allowed me to connect my iPOD Touch to my Bose 3.2.1 auxiliary input connection. And it works great!

I have always been a PC guy. Not really by choice. It was just what I learned first and was the hardware and applications provided by the companies I have worked for. I am a creature of habit, so I use and buy what I know. iPODs are the only Apple products I have have owned. I have never used an Apple computer, but have played with an iPhone. I do admit that Apple is the best at developing user interfaces and making their loyal followers believe they are getting the best money can buy.

My experience over the past weekend leads me to believe that Apple deserves the reputation they have. They are brilliant marketers, and make the most usable electronics on the market. Apple lost big in the early days of the Personal Computer. IBM and Microsoft cleaned Apple's clock by discounting operating systems, and pre-installing them on the hardware. They also flooded the market with great applications that a single company (Apple) could not compete with. From that, Apple learned their lesson and have now turned the tables. The iPhone is a great piece of hardware chained to a crappy network (AT&T). Yet, Apple and the iPhone dominate the smart phone market. Why? Because they have the applications and made them easy to acquire. Guess who does not have a Pandora application for their handset? I cannot get a Pandora app for my Sprint HTC handset running Windows Mobile 6.0! It is the exact opposite of the early PC days.

Apple also has a seamless, comprehensive, and effective end-to-end business model that has been successfully executed over and over. I know that I was mentally willing to pay $100 for a specific solution, but because of the iPOD Touch capabilities and the Apple business model that led to a robust app store, I solved the problem for $14. I love Apple.