I am constantly disappointed by the people we call experts. Fast Company interviewed a bunch of experts involved in the digital music space (all of them very sensitive about the success of the iPod) and despite the apparent collection of intelligence, not one of them gets it. Henri Crohas comes close by saying “What Apple has done well isn’t the iPod, but iTunes” but then he also says “That’s because I define great design in terms of fantastic machinery. And if you look inside the iPod’s technology, it’s quite common and unimpressive.” HELLO? What does it take to get this simple concept through these “luminaries” thick skulls?

Repeat after me, “you plug it in and it just works.” “You plug it in and it just works.” “You plug it in and it just works.”

If you were to ask “How do I use this crazy new fangled mp3 player?” Which mp3 player wins?

a. Well you first install the drivers, here with this CD, then you need to download music match, opps, that didn’t work? Hmm…did you pick the right drivers? Maybe you need to reboot. OK, so now you install music match. Maybe you didn’t get the right version of music match. This device is only compatible with version 5.6.7545. OK, now select the “find external device controllers” and choose “15234CRTZX” from the list of devices (assume you bought the pro version of our mp3 player, if not, please see the other user’s guide). Now with the 4th dialog that has come up you will need to select the music service you want to use…

b. Install iTunes, plug in the iPod, listen to music on your iPod

I’m not saying that the iPod didn’t get other things right but none of it matters until you cross the it just works barrier. I bought every mp3 player released before the iPod came along (not an exaggeration) and they were so damn hard to use I would eventually just end up listening to the same 30 songs I had managed to get onto the device. The iPod on the other hand just worked. I installed iTunes and started using it…and never stopped.