The iPod of spin

How far can the iPod "halo effect" be stretched? Whether the growing popularity of Apple's sleek music players is really boosting sales of Mac computers is still open to debate, although analysts and media seem to be reaching some sort of consensus around big numbers (CNN writes that over one million Windows users converted to Macs this year, pulled in by the iPod; Morgan Stanley puts the "conversion rate" of the iPod customers base from PC to Mac at 19 percent, and expects it to climb to 25 percent).
But can the iPod halo also help sales of chipsets, entreprise software, gaming devices, or toilets? On Sunday, I opened the Neue Zurcher Zeitung, a Swiss newspaper that's among the world's best, and certainly among the world's least prone to hyperbole, to find them raving about British designer's Ross Lovegrove and his last project, "Liquid Spaces". This is a series of bathroom furniture and accessories he designed for the Turkish company VitrA. The NZZ described Ross' commode (pictured at right) as the "iPod of toilets: so elegant, so chic, so smooth that it could easily make the list of must-have lifestyle products". (The article, in German, is not online).
True, Ross's design is unusually beautiful despite the dull nature of the object, and its whiteness and smoothness have certainly prompted the NZZ metaphor. But reading the article got me wondering: so I googled "the iPod of" and I found that there is at least one unquestionably powerful iPod halo effect at work: on product spin. The desire to appropriate the iPod's perceived values of modernity and hipness, and its status as an object of desire, has vastly spilled over into the whole landscape of technology, and well beyond.
So according to Silicon.com, Salesforce.com wants its new AppExchange marketplace for enterprise applications to be the "iPod of enterprise software", while Techdigest believes that JVC has just put on the market the "iPod of camcorders". And PC Magazine awards 4.5 out of 5 stars to the Sonos ZonePlayer, the "iPod of digital audio hubs".
In a raving review of PalmOne's LifeDrive PDA, Chicago Sun-Times columnist Andy Ihnatko wonders whether it could be the "iPod of everything, acting as an interactive electronic wrapper for all your PC or Mac's documents and media files, not just music". Jeff Pulver could not resist the metaphor at the VON Canada conference earlier this year when, introducing a speech by Niklas Zennström, he called Skype the "iPod of IP communications". Josh Peterson thinks that Basecamp is the "iPod of project weblogs".
Gaming consoles are a more controversial one: will Sony's PSP become the "iPod of gaming devices", as suggested by magazine Business 2.0, or is James Moore better informed when he attributes that title to Nintendo: "this might just be the iPod of gaming".
The chip sector seems equally competitive. Hardware Analysis thinks that Nvidia's SLI chipset may be the "iPod of the computer industry", while FPGA Journal wonders whether Actel's ProASIC3 chip could be the "iPod of FPGA families" (PDF), whatever that means.
Not to mention the car industry: is Audi the "iPod of cars, more intelligently designed", as Bill Joy puts it, or will the Smart realize its "potential to be the iPod of cars"? The jury is out.
A Clear Channel FM station in Seattle promotes itself as the "iPod of radio". Artist David Rees thinks that comics are "like the iPod of political commentary". A Rowenta coffee machine designed by Jasper Morrison is apparently "the iPod of coffee makers: "not only is it sleek and modern, but it also has all the functionality you could ask for". And of course there are many contestants for the title of "iPod of the cell phones" (which, despite having iTunes pre-installed, the Motorola Rokr definitely isn't).
There are still plenty of iPods to be invented, though. In a column on the MSNBC site, Michael Rogers says for example that he's waiting for the "iPod of digital books", which must be approximately the same thing Slate editor Jacob Weisberg is thinking of when, in a Cyberjournalist profile, he predicts that someone is going to invent the "iPod of reading" ("a dedicated device that will be created within the next several years, that will be used for reading electronic-based editorial content", spells out diligently the profile's author).
But maybe, just maybe, there is no need for all of the above, since we may well have an iPod already embedded in our heads, According to a report on NPR's Morning Edition of last March, "researchers at Dartmouth College find the "iPod of the brain". They've learned that the brain's auditory cortex, the part that handles information from our ears, holds on to musical memories. So even when that perky pop song isn't on the radio, you still hear it in your head".
I'm expecting the iPod of bike helmets and the iPod of teddy bears to make their appearance soon. In the meantime, if you see more meaningless iPod spin, send it in and I will add it to the list.

UPDATE (via TEDblog)

A Frog Design Mind column on Gizmodo offers another reading of the "iPod of toilets" anecdote:

The iPod has become - in the minds of most of our clients - the example of great product design. We found ourselves constantly trying to figure out why everybody we asked perceived the iPod as being "clean". Of course, we were aware of the obvious cues such as minimalist design; the simple, intuitive interface; the neutral white color. But these attributes alone inadequately explain this seemingly universal perception. (...) Everybody perceives the iPod as "clean" because (...) consciously or unconsciously (...) its materials reference a convention of "cleanliness" that everybody interacts with everyday - a bathroom.

Think, suggests TED blogger June Cohen, of the amusing loop of influence: bathtub inspires iPod, iPod inspires toilet. Or, as Frog would say:

We’re talking about human perception, and the system of conventions that shape our perceptions. Perception is essential to the process of design.

 

Comments

[jbelkin]

What you've done is showcase the shabbiness of journalism today. The real success of the ipod is two main points: the push portion:

That if you design a product that is actually designed for everyday use; you wrap it in an appropriately elegant package and with a little luck (right place, right time) and marketing - you have an ipod.

But the push aspect to make it the raging success for a sustained period is much harder to achieve: by inspiring third party accessories - Apple has achieved the near impossible - creating a mass market customized product. That is a contradiction but the closet product associated with that are cars but the cheapest car which you can then customize starts at $15k. The ipod starts at $99.

But a simpleton approach is if you design something cool, people will buy and we know that is so not the case.

But 95% of the allusion to the ipod when compared to another product only touches upon briefly the reason for the success of the ipod. They either don't get it themselves, don't care, or think readers are simpletons ...

[kevin kramer]

I agree that ipod is overhyped, or maybe it is the only user friendly product

[iPod]

Awesome read. Really handy info.

[Marcia L.]

There's no wrong if you want to put every technology made into your lifestyle. If you're really that hype with the new technologies coming out in the market, well then, no rules for that. As a tech person everything is possible.Right?