Report: Bill Gates Won't Let His Kids Have iPods

[Prrkitty]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,504104,00.html

Quote: According to MocoNews.net, Gates may have also banned BlackBerrys from the high-minded halls of his philanthropic Gates Foundation, issuing Windows Mobile-powered smartphones instead.

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OMG... how childish <just shakes my head>.

I'd buy one (BlackBerry) just for spite and just let the Windows Mobile-powered smartphone be a paperweight for my desk (assuming I was one of the employees of Gates - which I *never* would be because I can't stand the man).

And as for his kids not being allowed to have an iPod... childish doesn't EVEN begin to describe it.

And yes I do understand that parents do have a right to say what they allow and don't allow their kids to have. But how childish for their kids to see their friends having iPods and they're not allowed to have something I'm sure most of their friends have.

[Shazza Dani]

Those kids are rich beyond belief; who cares if they can't own one little particular thing? They could buy every other MP3 player ever made.

[Beldaran]

I wouldn't let my kids have an iPod either, but only because they are over-priced symbols of an annoying sub-culture.

[Russ]

Well, he is the founder of the company that competes against Apple. Plus, he has every right to say they can't have it. Plus, they can have almost anything they want anyways. I don't see why it's so bad.

[King Aquamentus]

Bill Gates is making them use products that he actively knows suck.

[Masamune]

If my company purchased products made by a rival company, I'd accuse them of treason to their daddy.

[The_Amaster]

Eh, I dunno Bel, honestly? My iPod is more durable than any mp3 player I've seen. I've dropped it from five feet onto concrete repeatedly (on accident) and it still works fine, after two years of daily use.
Whereas most of my friends mp3 players last an average of three months before breaking, due to one thing or another, sometimes just general wear and tear.

Bill Gates...honestly, I respect his decision. He can do what he wants.
I'm more critical of the media here, its like that whole "Obama's Zune" thing.

[Beldaran]

Eh, I dunno Bel, honestly? My iPod is more durable than any mp3 player I've seen. I've dropped it from five feet onto concrete repeatedly (on accident) and it still works fine, after two years of daily use.
Whereas most of my friends mp3 players last an average of three months before breaking, due to one thing or another, sometimes just general wear and tear.

I paid $50 for my MP3 player. It's a Samsung. I've had it for 4 years. No problems. I've dropped it several times as well.

Why was it only $50? Because it's not attached to an ultra-gay hipster marketing machine.

[AtmaWeapon]

Poor kids; I've got a Zune and it kind of sucks. I mean, it accomplishes "stores and plays 30GB of MP3s" flawlessly, but doesn't integrate with last.fm thus doesn't contribute to me finding new music. Supposedly I can buy a ZunePass and get a similar service, but the stupid hipster MP3 player lets me use a free service I've already established a relationship with!

The only reason I don't have an iPod is because I look at the price tag then I look at the Zune I already have; it's just not enough added utility.

*Bonus "Fox can't get their facts straight" section*:

It's pretty clear Bill Gates is familiar with Apple products — after all, Microsoft Word was first written for the original Mac

Sorry Fox. The original Word was written by Charles Simonyi and Richard Brodie and was for the IBM PC in 1983. Word for Mac was ported by Ken Shapiro and released in 1985. It got a lot more support there, mainly because Macs had higher resolution displays and printers. I got that from Wikipedia and you'd think they could at least do a cursory search for details. Honestly from the looks of it BillG never had his hands in the Word code at all; he was probably a PM that stamped his name on the design docs and drove features. Plus it'd be stupid to think that a man who owned one of the strongest brands on Earth would be unaware of a device that turned one of his insignificant rivals into a serious threat. Dude's probably mad because he didn't think of it first. Of course if he had, it would have tanked because loving Microsoft isn't cool.

(Word then beat the snot out of every other word processor by being the first on Windows. It was already one of the only WYSIWYG editors on the market, and toolbars were killer compared to the byzantine keystrokes that word processors at the time used.)