I know we have a lot of Apple/Mac-lovers in our class, and I absolutely love my iPods (regular and shuffle), but I have noticed a couple of “flaws” lately. First, I have been traveling since I left for San Francisco, and I have noticed that I’m carrying around two different chargers for my regular iPod and my iPod shuffle. Since I already have several chargers for my cell phone, laptop, camera, etc., for me it would be incredibily useful to use one charger for both iPods. Also, talking about “thinking outside the box”, how amazing would it be to have only one charging device for all your electronic equipment…? Especially for business travelers i think it would be a great (but complicated) topic to research.
Secondly, after having visited the NikeTown in SF, I keep thinking about buying the Nike+iPod device. However, I won’t get it, because that would require me to purchase a third iPod (the nano). I’m not sure if Apple made the device only for the nano on purpose or not, but it would seem to me this would keep people from purchasing it. And maybe that would be Apple’s goal: To make people, who might already have the regular iPod, to buy the iPod nano. I actually feel the same way about the iPhone/AT&T deal, but again Apple probably has good business reasons for that decision as well.
I think these two points go along well with our repeated discussions of continuously improving a product/service/design, and never being done with it. I believe that even the most successful products or services can be improved over time, but only if you continue to use design thinking and attitude to figure out what the consumer really wants