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From the early days of iTunes in Mac OS 9, there has been support for plugins. And in those "good old days", there were plugins written in order to directly support syncing e.g. the RIO MP3 players.

Scroll down to the last paragraph at rioaudio.com/itunes/: there's still such an old plugin to support some RIO players under OS 9 (according to the website, newer iTunes releases do support all RIO players out of the box).

As at least to my knowledge, the itunes plugin interface hasn't disappeared or cropped down, I guess it's not that a strange issue to write a plugin to support the media player of your dreams or to import music the way you'd like to (even if it's raw filescanning).

And actually, the "well structured music folder" is something that has to be done "by hand", and as such, is prone to errors or mis-interpretation. If you're taking a look at how non-geeks do work with their computer, it is quite a luck that iTunes does take that part (by default). According to my observation, very many non-geeks save all their files under non-descriptive names into a single "documents" folder on their local hard drive instead of the backed up network share, Linux-Newbies save their files right into their home directory. After about half a year, those people don't find their old documents anymore.

Remember the early days of mp3?
What happens if you give such people the tools to create a dozen files by inserting an audio cd: track1-12.mp3 in some "music"-directory. Of course, there are no correct tags and those few even include spelling errors.

iTunes by default takes over that task and manages that data in an easily understandable way ("importing"). Of course, you can use OS X folder actions to automatically import mp3 files from your web browsers download folder. In my view, the download folder is merely some kind of scratch directory where new files arrive and need to be manually moved to the places they belong to.

iTunes also takes and writes metadata from and to mp3/aac tags and caches them into a local pseudo-database, as such enforcing "correct" tags. In case you're sending an itunes-managed file (e.g. from a podcast or your free indie music) to your friend, the file contains correct metadata. Your friend doesn't need to recreate the same filesystem structure on his own, she can simply drop it into the window of her media player and is done.

Compared to the early days of mp3, enforcing tags is actually a really cool feature. And auto-structuring the files isn't that bad as well, as it automatically gives you about the very same structure you're currently managing on your own.

Apple already provides SDKs (albeit under NDA to "bona fide" player manufacturers) that allow iTunes to sync to 3rd party players. Last I knew, the right contact was Patrick Woolsey, although that was some time ago. Before my iPod, I had a Rio that was supported quite well under iTunes. See http://www.rioaudio.com/itunes/ for a few examples (no endorsement implied, just a case-in-point.)

They don't support FairPlay on those devices, but that's back to the article's point.

Are there any portable music players that support .ogg vorbis yet? (and are they any good?)

Many; probably most (in terms of brands, obviously not in terms of number of units). All will also play mp3, most will play wma, many will play flac, almost all will play a range of other formats too. For starters try the iAudio and Rio ranges. Both offer both flash and HDD players. Also lots of mobile phones, even digital watches, support ogg playing (though in a few cases, only via a soft/firmware update). Just google. There's lots out there.

My personal favourite: iAudio. They've got some fantastic products, also including stuff like hand-held XviD/DivX players, etc. Sound quality: as good as or better than the iPod. Battery life: definitely better than the iPod. Price: not as cheap as older iPods, but still very well-priced IMHO.

Last I heard iTunes did work with other players.

Or did you mean the music store?

Rio has a whole lineup of iTunes compatible flash players... except it seems to only be compatible on the Mac side. Strange isn't it?

If you're looking for a portable FLAC player.. look no further than the Rio Karma from RioAudio.com ;)

P.S. For those who are partial to OGG, it also does them!

Executive summary: everything is copasetic.

Rio plans a comeback with a slate of new audio players

SANJOSE, Calif. (AP) -- Rio Audio, the pioneer of the portable MP3 audio player that lost luster under the financial woes of its former owner, is throwing itself back into the heated market. The Chiba, which has 128MB of memory, is among the seven new Rio models announced.

Under its new parent company, Digital Networks North America, Rio was debuting Monday a lineup of seven new music players that will begin shipping this month.

Most are sequels, including a 20-gigabyte hard-drive device called the Rio Karma that will compete against the popular Apple iPod.

One device, called the Rio Nitrus, is different. It is among the first portable players to use a quarter-sized hard drive that stores 1.5-gigabytes, or about 25 hours, of music. The small drive allows the gadget, priced at $299, to be slightly larger than a microcassette but angled like a matchbook so it slips easily into a pocket.

"We want to regain the dominance we had in the market," Jeff Hastings, Rio's president, said in an interview.

In 1998, Rio, then a part of Diamond Multimedia Systems, was the first to introduce a commercial MP3 player, just as music in the compressed MP3 format was becoming widespread on the Internet. The recording industry unsuccessfully tried to squelch the Rio 300, losing its lawsuit against Diamond in 1999. A week after the court ruling, Rio was sold for $173 million to a company that eventually renamed itself SONICblue.

Rio players, which relied on flash memory and did not have any moving components, fast became a common sight at the gym, or on joggers.

But as other flash-based portable players flooded the market, Rio struggled to fend off rivals, including Creative Technology, maker the Nomad line of players, and big-name consumer electronic companies like Samsung.

SONICblue's financial troubles limited Rio's marketing power and inventory. By the time SONICblue filed for bankruptcy protection in March, Rio players were rarely seen on store shelves.

Meanwhile, more contenders have entered the market with new kinds of audio products to tap the consumer shift toward digital music.

The portable music player market in the United States is expected to grow to 19.3 million units in 2007 from 5.5 million units in 2002, according to the market research firm IDC.

Apple introduced its iPod in October 2001, igniting a category of portable players with hard drives. Though it was bulkier than flash-based players, the pocket-sized iPod could hold hundreds more songs -- about 1,000 songs -- with its 5-gigabyte drive. The latest models now have as much as 30-gigabytes of storage.

RCA/Thomson introduced a player in June that uses the same 1-inch hard-drive as Rio's upcoming Nitrus. And, Gateway last week made its MP3 player debut with a flash-based gadget about the size of a pack of chewing gum.

Despite the crowded field, Rio "will be a worthy competitor," said Tim Bajarin, analyst of market consulting firm Creative Strategies.

"The Rio brand name really defined the flash-player category and the brand still has cachet with consumers," said IDC Susan Kevorkian.

The 20-gigabyte Rio Karma, which is squarish and roughly the size of a Klondike ice cream bar, will cost $399. Like many players, it can connect to a computer via a USB cable, but it also features a docking cradle that has an Ethernet port for connection to a home computer network with or without wires.

Rio says it is the first portable player to also support the compressed music format called Ogg Vorbis, created by the open-source community.

Rio's other new products will be five flash-based players with either 128 megabytes or 256 megabytes of memory, ranging in price from $129 to $199.

Rio is online at www.rioaudio.com

Obviously it doesn't play ogg :)

Rio Karma, iRiver, and Neuros all play Ogg well. I would definitely qualify my Rio Karma as a worthy iPod competitor; I won't post a review here because there's enough out there on the Internet.

Just to let everyone know, the Rio Karma's still alive and kickin', and so is the iRiver H series. Both play Ogg Vorbis files quite well (and as an owner of the former, I'm incredibly pleased with my purchase). IMHO, the Rio Karma's the closest so far towards a true ipod competitor (USB2/Ethernet, 20GB, easy menu system, easy syncing, MP3/OGG/WMA/FLAC), with the notable exception of USB2 not working on mac or linux yet (use the dock's ethernet connection to sync up).

As an aside, an engineer from Rio (name changed in the article) posted his unofficial postulations on why the iPod has yet to materialize with Ogg support to Gizmodo. Essentially, his answer is that the processor originally used in the iPods just aren't powerful enough for it. There's also a rebuttal from a xiph.org guy, so I suspect the answer lies somewhere in the middle. In any case, if the 4g ipods use the same processor as the mini (looking likely) then Ogg support just might be coming yet, though Apple still may not do it for the same political reasons as before (mp3 good enough, aac just the same or better, blah blah blah)

I went to their competition and have been singing the praises of the Karma ever since. I'm coercing a lot of friends that the iPod is overexpensive for the size, with less useful features and a few annoyances due to esthetics (I can feel around my karma blindly without accidentally skipping to the next track). Now I tell all my friends not to waste their money with Apple.

And to think that all that happened simply because I was looking for something with decent linux support.

The Rio Karma (extremely cool HD-based MP3/OGG/FLAC jukebox iPod killer) runs eCos, according to its developers- the same guys that created the Empeg/Rio Car players that run Linux. Here's Rio's site.

Just in time to compete with the new Rio, iRiver, and Philips hard drive players.