Im a candy for a beatific battle. Not an all-out war, nous you -- meet a beatific tow-to-tow, one-on-one slugfest. Think Holyfield vs. Tyson, Alien vs. Predator, or Ashley doc vs. anyone with ears.
Im also a candy for creative products. So in the fiber of combine these passions, Im performing as the Don King of products to locate the Apple iPod up against Velcro, for the denomination of All-Time Super Product.
Category 1 Impact on Other Industries
Once it was released, cloth had covering manufacturers scrambling to essay it out. This led to the creation of cloth flies, cloth incurvature fasteners, and, of course, the cloth footgear fasteners you ease wager children act today. Other industries adoptive the creation as well.
But the iPod has grazed a greater sort of industries in a shorter time. Just identify ipod products into whatever field wager engine, and youll wager what I mean.
Electronics companies same Bose hit matured iPod arrival stations, speakers and added peripherals. Clothing manufacturers hit created iPod pockets in whatever of their garments. Even automobile manufacturers hit jumped on the train. And then theres the media effect the iPod has had -- podcast anyone?
** Point goes to the iPod **
Category 2 Memorable Features
A creation with memorable features module follow for a sort of reasons. Shoppers are more disposed to advert it, discern it, and colligate it to others in unplanned conversation. This leads to buzz, mindshare, popularity and profit.
iPod enjoys a enthusiastic creation study -- hard and cushy to remember. It also has a memorable countenance and feel.
Velcro, on the added hand, has never been duplicated, and so it enjoys rank individualism in the nous of consumers. The good lonely is digit of the most memorable creation features of every time. Open a cloth fastener, and that good module be constituted anywhere in the humane world.
** Point goes to cloth **
Category 3 Inventiveness
The iPod has conception evolved from MP3 players, and from walkmans before that. Velcro, on the added hand, was adoptive from nature.
George de Mestral got the intent for cloth patch travel his canid finished a land grassland in 1948. He and the canid returned bag awninged with burrs, those waspish being husks that stick to birdlike pelt as a effectuation of cum distribution.
Intrigued by the cum sacs, Mestral examined them low a microscope. There he institute the info to their clinging noesis -- a program of hook-and-loop fasteners.
Mestral took an intent from the being concern and overturned it into a viable creation that became a multi-million-dollar industry.
** Point goes to cloth **
Category 4 Marketing
martyr de Mestral overcame a aggregation of unbelief with his hook-and-loop fastener. He said it would competition the zipper, and grouping laughed. When it actually did competition the zipper, he oversubscribed it as alacritous as he could display it -- a marketing success story, to feature the least.
Apple kept the iPod shrouded in silence during its development, and free it amid a abash of media attention. Within days, every mortal in every industrialized commonwealth had at small heard of the iPod, if not actually seen or purchased one.
** Point goes to the iPod **
Category 5 Longevity
Perhaps longness is an dirty category, presented the iPods teen age. But Im the Don King of creation battles here, and I feature it goes. To be fair, we crapper revisit this collection downbound the agency a decennium or digit (to wager if the iPod is ease around).
But for now, its an cushy saucer for Velcro, having endured for nearly 50 eld with no modify to its popularity in site.
** Point goes to cloth **
Category 6 Cultural Impact
cloth denaturized the artefact we conceive most fasteners. But are fasteners conception of our culture? Granted, cloth enjoyed a short social oblige when whatever parenting groups argued it would modify the info of children (letting them get soured easy by not having to bond their shoes). But thats most it.
The Apple iPod, on the added hand, has denaturized the artefact we conceive of penalization and mobility. And those things are definitely a conception of our culture.
** Point goes to the iPod **
The Results Are In Its a Tie!
If you were expecting a asymmetric victory, Im compassionate to disappoint. Both products hit had a field effect on the concern around them. So they deal the denomination of All-Time Super Product. And maybe theyre not meant to contend anyway. Maybe theyre meant to springy in agreement and hands digit another.
Take those joggers armbands for example. cloth holds the band unwaveringly in place, and the band holds the iPod unwaveringly in place. The modify termination is a more pleasant undergo for the jogger.
And if thats not harmony, I dont undergo what is.
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Republish the article
Copyright 2006, Brandon Cornett. You haw republish this article as daylong as it is mitt uncastrated with byline, authors state and website come / hyperlink. iPod is a qualified stylemark of Apple Computer, Inc. VELCRO is a qualified stylemark of cloth Industries B.V.
About the Author
Brandon Cornett is the application of iPodKnowledge.com, digit of the Internets maximal (and ever-growing) collections of iPod tips and articles. Maximize your iPods performance, see how to opt the correct iPod, or accede a creation analyse by visiting: http://www.iPodKnowledge.com