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Toshiba's iPod Competitor
a lonely moose writes: "It looks like Toshiba basically copied Apple's iPod. They got cheap on screen size and unit weight, and without iTunes, it'll be darn hard to handle as elegantly as the iPod. Anyway, check out
MacCentral's article and the smoking forum at the bottom."
Removeable 5GB HDD, that fits in a card slot...
That has potential... I see many options... Most of them along the lines of a decent replacement for the floppy disk finally.
The player itself seems no different from a host of others.
-- Jason
iTunes doesn't have a way to do it, but there are a number of freeware/shareware programs that will copy music off the iPod, including some that integrate directly into iTunes. Check out versiontracker.com for more info..
Now hopefully this will create better faster cheaper iPods and also have them a bit more open so many platoforms can use it. For me the fact the iPod only works on a mac isnt an insentive to buy a Mac or and iPod. It would actually be a turn off for both. Apple should put more concetration on open standards then making hardware that is incompatible for the reason "just because"
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Let's see how Apple responds to a *little* bit of pressure?
:)
I say a little because it's USB 2, meaning it won't work with Macs right off the bat (connecting at USB1 speeds is a horrible idea).
$402 vs $399 means that they are *exact* price competitors for each other, where one has FireWire support and the other has ejectable disc support.
I suppose this means I can plug into my PC card slot and use iTunes (or the Finder) to update it at PCI speeds. Of course the laptop or PC card drive is still the speed bottleneck.
I wanna see if Apple ignores it (possible, since it isn't cheaper or exactly platform compatible) or 'improves' the iPod. It's plausible that the pricing of the Gigabeat is because the market will 'bear' the price of a $400 iPod
GPL Deconstructed
toshiba can't afford *not* to sell drives at competitive prices to all other manufacturers (i'm sure apple has leverage here with their other drive purchasing), so i imagine that their price advantages are not significant to us the consumer.
plus, the work-arounds to using an ipod on a pc are well known. anyone who drops $400-500 on one of these is going to be at least a somewhat serious user.
and, in the end, the itunes interface with the ipod is simply superior to anything else out there.
i'm not so sure anyone is the winner-- except us as apple must have to lower the high prices on ipods now that they have direct competition on size and price.
just my two cents.
Yes, the iPod "prevents" you from copying the music from the iPod onto your computer, but it's trivial to get around it - all the data is there. The "prevention" is in iTunes. If you just plug the thing in and fish around on the drive, all the data is there in discrete files, and writing a perl script to extract it back into a music folder would be very easy.
I have friends who use PCs, and I can't recommend the iPod to them. This looks like a fine substitute. However, if you have a Mac, I think the iPod is a better choice. My wife has an iPod, and I _really_ like the user interface. The Toshiba's user interface looks like it would be hard to operate while rollerblading, which is when I usually use it.
The pc card is definitely a win on the system. Lots of time I've talked to people who would buy the Apple iPod if it could mount on a PC WITHOUT a 3rd party vendor util software. What were they thinking in Cupertino when they decided the format of the drive should be HFS? Even Linux doesn't have HFS support in the kernel. vfat would have been so much interoperable.
PPA, the girl next door.
-- I feel better now. Thanks for asking.
with the iPod had the in line remote though:( oh well maybe soon, if you inspect the headphone jack there appears to be three unused contacts arround it. rumors have been on the iPod sites that apple will release an external control for it but nothing official yet. maybe this will bring it to market sooner.
I want 2D games back.
First, Toshiba isn't the first to sell an "iPod competitor". We've already seen the Treo 10 ("...which is similar in appearance and function to the iPod...") and Nomad hit the market, with similar press responses.
Second, the iPod has a lot more going for it than 5/10 GB and a FireWire connection. That thumbwheel on the front makes it insanely easy to navigate through the music stored on it (you just spiiiiiiin and click, versus click-and-click-and-click-and-click-and...). Instant sync with iTunes means that you can organize playlists on your desktop with a full-size keyboard and download them perfectly into your portable. If you've never held one, you'd be amazed how small and light it is.
Bottom line: Apple's not the only high-capacity MP3 player on the market, and they know it, but they can sell theirs for higher prices because (a) they're selling to Mac loyalists and (b) they've got ease-of-use down to a science, to a degree almost no other company can match. Believe me, they're far from running scared.
But the bad news is towards the end of the article, when it comes to availability. Isn't it always the case with new products thatr look darn cool, and pre-announcements to make them even more desirable?
Dammit, why are none of my friends in Japan for the World Cup. If only ....
I agree. Toshiba's device isn't meant to steal Apple's thunder. It's just going to fill the enormous gaps outside iPod's market. I mean, what Apple user would buy the Toshiba? Also, Firewire and a kick-ass OS is still an advantage over USB2.0 and another goddamn confusing, cheap-o OS with a dolphin screen saver.
You've got 5GB of songs. An average 128-kbps MP3 file takes up, say, 5MB of space. That means you've got room for about a thousand songs on one drive. That's a thousand songs. Approximately the size of my entire music collection, including the ones I hate.
So, aside from swapping your entire music collection with a buddy -- why in the world would you care if you can take the drive out and replace it?
Toshiba was once at the top of the notebook computer industry because they are cheap, but people have caught on. You get what you pay for. I am an A+ certified tech, and have repaired hundreds of Toshiba laptops. Junk! Did you know a part has to fail in the field three times before they will accept that it is defective? Don't buy their i-pod rip off. It will be garbage.
I wouldn't buy an iPod then; they both use the same hard drive internally.
You did know that Toshiba make the hard drives for the iPod, didn't you?
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
I'd say that Apple definitely has the advantage here because:
1) The Ipod is smaller, lighter, and has a bigger screen.
2) The battery is a Lithium Polymer, which can support playback of up to 13 hours, by some user reports, while this hunk of junk may very well use AA's.
3) It costs, oddly enough, $10 more, even though Toshiba makes the hard disc, and it has *ahem* a smaller screen.
4) The backlight can't be nearly as good.
5) USB 2.0 can't power the unit, while firewire can, so I never have to bring an AC adaptor *anywhere*.
I think that you maybe didn't read the article?
It can plug into the pc card slot on your laptop. Pretty nifty, eh?
They were thinking it would work on Macs, which is what it does, and it does it well. When are you going to learn that Steve Jobs doesn't want grubby little nerd whiners like you in his club?
You can sure get it pretty, but it will undoubtably cost you an arm leg compared to a similar performing product... And Windows support strait outta the box ta boot. I might just buy one now...
You need a FREE iPod Nano
You mean like 1, 3, and 5, genius?
Oh, wait. We just read a product bragging page, and they didn't spend even a single line talking about their great battery life. What do you think that means, champ?
*yawn*
Main plus on the Toshiba seems to be swap capability on the drive. For upgradability reasons, mostly (which Apple never seems too concerned about). Sure, I can fit my entire MP3 collection on less than half my iPod's 5G drive, but then I filled the rest up with backups, documentation, etc.
The things the Toshiba seems to be lacking are:
a scroll wheel (which really seems like the ideal interface for navigation LONG lists)
recharging from USB cable(?)
The main reason I bought an iPod is it seemed like the first device I could actually use that would really take advantage of the Firewire ports on my computer, which I never ever used. The same seems true for this Toshiba and windows users. w/USB 2.0
You drank my drink, you drunk!
If the average CD-RW can hold approximately 650 MB of data, that comes out to needing just under 8 CD-RW's to hold what the single 5GB disk holds. A decent portable CD/MP3 player can be had for around $150, and let's round up to a 10-pack of CD-RW's for $20, plus a carrying case for the CD-RW's for $10.
So here's what I don't get...is the smaller profile of the device worth the extra $220?
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
Does this have a rechargeable Li-Polymoer battery like the iPod or do I have to buy AAs and a clunky charger that I'll have to carry around.
One of the beauty of Firewire is that the iPod or any device can charge off it. No need for an adapter.
Anyone know the battery life of the Gigabeat ?
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Ogg seems to take significantly more processing power to decode. The media player manufacturers probably don't want to spend extra money to handle Ogg when 99% of the market just wants to play MP3s.
--it's cheaper than the comparable sized Gigabeat (by about $3)
--it's available now. It's been available for over 8 months now. It's compatible with Windows, but requires a FireWire card and a program to read HFS+ volumes
--it uses Windows Media Player on a PC, strangely enough, and iTunes on a Mac. It takes about 5 seconds to load 4gb of music on my G4-400, but then again why close iTunes? 0% CPU usage when idle.
Apple will probably drop the price as it unveils larger versions (20gb models) since the design has already paid itself off, and maybe even unveil a cheaper 2gb version to accomodate Toshiba's 2gb discs.
Oh, and the iPod *is* smaller and lighter, as well as easier to use, if that means anything.
GPL Deconstructed
Dammit. Why can't someone come out with something that has Vorbis support. MP3's sound like shit on my car stereo, the bass distorts way too easily. Vorbis sounds great, but I don't wanna carry a laptop around my car to listen to all my vorbis files.
The second someone releases a decent player like this with vorbis support is the second I fork over a few hundred bucks for one.
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
Has anyone gotten Linux running on this yet? I'd really like to install Debian and be able to run X.
Or...look at it like Apple. Let's say a new iMac costs $1200. Let's say they price winTunes at $35. Let's not think about costs (like the hardware for the iMac.) Every sold iMac is worth 35 winTunes sales. If just one customer decided not to buy an iMac because he could get winTunes or winMovie or winDVD, Apple would have to recoup that loss with 34 more winTunes sales. It just doesn't make sense. Apple sells computers. They sell computers as a whole experience. It's just not in their best interest to sell bits of that experience separately and lose money.
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
Speaking from a Mac user's perspective, the Toshiba player isn't too useful. USB2 is only available on the Mac to tower users who spend extra money, and I saw no mention of Mac software anyway. The removable hard drives are a long term advantage, not a short term one.
:-)
Myself, my iPod just arrived in the main today, so I've put my money where my mouth is. I'm off to work with it now!
"Common Sense Ain't" -Unknown
The removable drives are $321!! At the Apple Store, you can pick up the same drive mechanism with a firewire interface for $99! Not sure if this link will work for everyone: http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/A ppleStore.woa/51/wo/0xQ0h03uOCgCTPRvcF2/1.3.0.3.30 . .3.13.13.0
Care about electronic freedom? Consider donating to the EFF!
I was a tad testy in my reply.
Anyway, yeah, it's an expensive proposition, and it's tough for some to swallow.
But really, iPhoto+Mac+Canon Powershot or iTunes+Mac+iPod or iMovie+Mac+Sony Handycam or iDVD+Mac+iMovie is really, really, really cool.
It's not worth it for just one of them, but all of them combined is really, really, nice.
GPL Deconstructed
I have 12GB of music (all legally ripped from my own CD's thanks...) so 20GB is the minimum I want from my mp3 player. you never know when you want to hear some Mozart or some Merzbow. I want it all on one player. Can't the device makers get that? Why not sell it it with no drive and offer a 5, 10 and 20GB option?
/b
[Please type your sig here.]
Please tell how, oh, how Linux was ripped off for OS X? Most of the ideas that are in OS X were released in 1988 with NEXTSTEP.
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
Uh, Apple invented FireWire. Have you ever seen the PARC GUI? Nothing like modern WIMP interfaces. Can you actually name one thing Apple copied? They licensed the GUI from the PARC, even.
Why bother with removable media when I don't ever want to remove the media. A 10GB drive need not be removed. And my interface is much more clever/robust than USB 2.
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
Add a more powerful CPU/ASIC, video out, firewire. Then you can load divx ;) movie rips or DV straight from your camcorder. Ignore copyright bits and you could swap movies just by plugging one device into another. Allow an optional color LCD screen of decent size so you can watch movies on the go.
Then you have a portable media library.
Scuttlemonkey is a troll
Now that Apple gave up and is using Unix now, I seriously considered getting one for a few months. But, the price/performance still isn't there, and there's Apple's damnably stubborn insistence on making its products look as cartoony as possible. I'm sure to those elites to whom price is no object find Apples appealing and "cute", but for serious work, where you have to justify spending cash? I'll check again in a few years.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
"Partly because of the hard disk slot and ejection mechanism, the Toshiba player is slightly larger but not by much. It measures 7.2 centimeters (cm) by 2.2 cm by 11.2 cm, which puts it around 1 cm wider and taller than the iPod. At 180 grams with no disk and 235 grams with the drive inserted, it also weighs more than the Apple player, which is 185 grams including its internal hard disk.
Other features include...."
wait, you just told me why NOT TO buy it, and then go on like you were telling me why TO buy it??
this article is retarded.
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
Don't let it bother you - there are people out there who could care less how much things cost. These people are very different from you and I. They would rather lick the snot off a man's hairy ass than perform such a vulgar act as eating Kraft Macaroni and Cheese from a box. If they ever eat mac-n-cheese, you better bet they can tell you which provinces in Italy and France the pasta and cheese hailed from.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Considering the the hard drive card alone is currently running about $350 (cheapest pricewatch price at a place called Googlegear), its hard to argue with the value of this device.
Buy it for value of the hard drive alone. The MP3 player is a bonus.
Could you define "better" with something more than Trillian. Everything I download has extra shit piled on. That's how they help recover their costs. In any case, there's no escaping bloat if you add or remove software from a windows machine every so often. You've never experienced "Windows Rot"?
As for the plethora of windows software...not that I want to get into the same old argument, but quality over quantity, dude. And there's this thing called the internet that lets you download all sorts of software without having to walk into a local computer store and pay tax/markup anyway.
I don't know the last time I bought shrink-wrapped software anyway...other than Quake3 for my Athlon.
There is no gravity...the earth just sucks.
I'd say that Toshiba definitely has the advantage here because[...]
I'd say many people are missing something that in retrospect may seem obvious.
The iPod contains a Toshiba drive (the same drive, or one twice the capacity.) Apple made a large purchase from Toshiba. There's probably more to that relationship than just one cash order. Apple may have given Toshiba cash to hold off selling the drives for other companies to put in other players, with a clause allowing Toshiba to sell their own version starting at some specified time, but holding off on the larger drive. I'm sure there's a relationship between the two companies we're not privy to.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
5) USB 2.0 can't power the unit, while firewire can, so I never have to bring an AC adaptor *anywhere*.
Hard to take you seriously when you can't even get simple facts straight. USB has always provided power to peripherals. Check their web site if you don't believe me.
This tagline is umop apisdn.
They already have.
Rhythmbox, which "takes its inspiration from Apple's iTunes application", is a direct rip-off of iTunes. It's also what I point at each and every time someone mentions open-source innovation.
With a CD/MP3 player I still have to:
a) Carry around a big CD/MP3 player
b) Carry around those 8 CDs
c) Swap between those 8 CDs
d) Find the CD with the album I want listen to
e) Whenever I get a new album, burn a new CD that includes it.
With my iPod, I drop it in my pants pocket and I'm done. No fishing for CDs, no carrying cases, no saying "oh shit" when my CDs get scratched.
Absolutely worth it.
spreer
Yes.
I'm a BIOS developer and spend lots of long hours in a very noisy machine room hunched over prototype machines will all sorts of fan and other noise around... My iPod is small enough to drop in my shirt pocket which is a good thing because the amount of hanging cable to my ears is much shorter than a larger device on my belt (think about hazard getting caught in fans, etc).
Also the battery life (10 hours) is long enough that I can go all day on a major debug bender and not worry about my tunes dying right about the time I get to an interesting problem.
Also having multiple CD-RWs means I've got multiple CDs floating around the lab that I need to protect from scratches or from other people clipping, etc.
I may develop PC hardware, but I love my iPod (and yes... the iPod was enough for me to go out and buy a G4 PowerMac)
--Rob
Well... To change the topic slightly, look at it this way:
:) Sounds like a "floppy replacement" to me!
The Apple iPod can be split between music and data. So you could, in theory, put your absolute favourite music on it, and leave the rest of the space for a system folder (and some utilities).
Apples can boot from Firewire drives.
The new Apple XServe has, on the front, a FireWire port.
So any responsible sysadmin that has to look after an XServe _needs_ an iPod as an *ahem* emergency recovery disk.
Given that the Unix way is to have a "boot floppy" and a "fixit floppy", I'll go with Apple on this one
- Oliver
The right to bear arms is only slightly less stupid than the right to arm bears...
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Ogg seems to take significantly more processing power to decode.
You're wrong :-)
I currently have my iPAQ sitting on the other side of the room playing an Ogg file. Ogg playing seems to take around 30% of the CPU time, while MP3 playing takes around 20%. That's with madplay - a high quality integer-only MP3 decoder - playing the MP3, and the integer-only version of the Ogg Vorbis reference decoder. Okay, the Ogg decoding takes more, but I'd guess that the Ogg decoder could be optimised a bit more as well...
Paranoia isn't an infectious condition, it's a way of life
unless of course you're using an unpowered firewire port, such as those found on most forewire pc-card adaptors.
-- D-23994, Muff#2613
There's one VERY important thing that nullifies the advantage the ipod gets. Apple doesn't have windows software for it. So, let's see here, Windows controls roughly 90% of the market. Apple controls maybe 3%. Now, let's say that all the apple customers buy an Ipod. Toshiba would only have to sell a player to 1 in every 30 PC owners to be matching apple's market share.
Apple's plan to release Ipod with only apple software initially may have made sense but it's going to kill them in the long run if they don't get off their high horse.
Also, add to this that the Toshiba has some features that make it, in my mind, superior to the ipod. The fact that it's hard drive is removable is a definite bonus. Not only can I speed up transfers by hooking it up to my laptop's pcmcia slot, I can also upgrade the thing later if I need more space.
We'll see when these devices finally come out, but it seems to me that overall these are similar enough to cut into apple's sales in the long term. If apple decides to stick to selling to a base of apple customers, then they will never sell as many Ipods as Toshibas take on it.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
I think I might too. Maybe you'll catch a cold from buttock-snot licking (?!?!), but eat Kraft Macaroni and Cheese straight from the box and you're likely to break some teeth.
USB provides power, but not _enough_ power. Less than 500mA at 5V. Firewire provides 12v to 16v at around 12W in most cases - far better than the 2.5W of USB.
So here's what I don't get...is the smaller profile of the device worth the extra $220?
Kind of a simplification of the features, eh?
- Smaller profile
- No swapping of 8 CDR
- No burning of CDR... just copy over and go
- New hard drives will be made with larger capacities.
- These hard drives are PC Cards, so they can be used for other things as well as this device.
Yeah, I think that makes it worth an extra $220!
"And like that
Apple's iPod hardware is entirely compatible. It's just a hard drive, with MP3 data stored in a particular sort of file tree. It's the software that Windows and Linux need to access it, and Apple hasn't bothered making that for the simple reason that they're not in the business of making PC products.
... but in the meantime their proprietary "we control everything and we interact with nothing" strategy means they deliberately cut off 90% of the market in a (likely vain) effort to make the other 10% look appealing.
This is the standard excuse Apple constantly uses for shooting themselves in the foot. "We are not in the PC business" [which is why we implimented a completely proprietary way of doing what everyone else has been doing using standard protocols/hardware specs for years now].
Apple keeps hoping to lure in new customers and then snare them with their proprietary hardware/software combination ("You can only do that with our stuff, switch to Apple"). What they do not understand is that anything sufficiently compelling will be implimented elsewhere, on people's preferred platform (whatever it may be), and that relatively few people are going to be compelled to switch platforms on the basis of such things.
Wintel, for all of its faults, is at least open on the hardware side (even if you're unlucky enough to be running windows), and if you're using *BSD or GNU/Linux, it is a completely open system. Contrast this with Apples growing list of "works only with Apple" peripherals, from their iPods to their proprietary LCD monitors. To be fair Apple's OS X is based on an open and free system (*BSD), but if all of their filesharing and other functions are implimented with proprietary protocols on top of that, it means very little in terms of the overall openness of the system, which in turn translates to virtual imprisonment of the customer. That may be Apple's goal (just as it has been Microsoft and Sun's goal), but customers do not like to be imprisoned, even in a gilded cage, and Apple is playing a game that, rather than taking advantage of the growing backlash against Microsoft, is likely to put them squarely in the same camp from their users' point of view.
Perhaps eventually Apple will manage to ensnare massive quantities of new people into their proprietary lock-in products
I have friends who are not GNU/Linux users, who have come to hate Microsoft with a passion, but are unwilling to switch to Apple because they know that then not only will their software be monopolized (by Apple), but so too will their hardware, putting them in an even worse (and even more expensive) predicament. What is interesting is that they, even without understanding all of their options vis-a-vis FreeBSD and GNU/Linux, still have managed to develope a sense of the entrapment proprietary hardware and software platforms imply, and they are sick to death of it (having experienced it first hand from Microsoft on the software side).
Apple's leadership will have to learn, sooner or later, to work with open standards and make their products able to interact and function with computers in general, not just their particular brand. Until they do so they will never be anything more than a niche player, and likely a small niche at that. It is interesting how many people, desperate to leave Microsoft, are unwilling to switch to Apple because they see Apple's proprietary nonsense as even worse.
And you know what? Even though they are relatively uninformed users, they are still absolutely right.
It is frustrating to see a company that produces so many neat things behave in such a destructive manner. Destructive to their customers, destructive to the computing community and marketplace, and most of all destructive to themselves. One would have thought they would have learned from the last time they engaged in this particular folly and nearly went bankrupt as a result, but alas it appears not.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Ummm.... he meant upgrade as in "increase disk size", not as in "update firmware".
Unless you'd like to suggest how you're going to replace your iPod drive with a 20Gb drive in a year or so?
Oh yeah. Without opening it up and voiding your warranty, you can't.
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Because having a viable alternative product has always made Apple strive for opening their platforms, and cutting the prices. And it's worked wonderfully for them. Look at how their market share has gone up and up with every new release of Windows.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
The closest analogy to using a CD-MP3 player versus an iPod is using a dozen different DOS boot disks to play a game versus having a dozen shortcuts on your windows desktop. Either one will let you hear the music/play the game that you want to...but one it noticable more elegant and workable, not to mention easier for the average user to handle.
± 29 dB
Perhaps. Here are the reasons I can think of to justify the cost:
So in short, I think it's just a bit more than profile.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
I find that Ogg sounds better, especially for bass (mp3's tend to sound a little flat in that area), and also seems to take -less- processing time (comparing mpg123 and ogg123). Perhaps you used an earlier version of Ogg Vorbis?
(for actually using the device in conjunction with your Linux based PC)
I know kernel 2.5.2 has USB 2.0 support, but does USB 2.0 have some kind of generic storage support like USB does? What filesystem does the device use? If so, would it be easy to simply mount the device as a generic USB 2.0 filesystem without writing drivers?
Hrm... some further google research found this on linux-usb.org:
Device: Disks, CD-RW, etc.
Driver: usb-storage
Comments: Linux USB 2.0 support seems to work pretty well for the usb-storage devices that now exist, though it's slowed down since the usb-storage driver does not queue its USB requests. (Some devices will run twice as fast when that's fixed.) Most devices seem to use the In-System Design ISD-300 part internally.
FOR THE LAST TIME -
The drive in the iPod USED to cost $399. TODAY, it costs $99, RETAIL. I imagine Apple gets them for way less. A FireWire hard drive incorporating the same Toshiba mechanism used in the 5 GB iPod can be purchased for $99. (The FireFly drive).
Makes you wonder why they never lowered the price of the iPod when the price of the drive went down, doesn't it? Perhaps some pressure from other vendors will persude them.
USB 2.0 is pretty much the same as 1.0 as far as I know, and largely backwards-compatible. Most of the advantages in USB 2.0 are at the hardware level, in terms of higher bit rates and such...
I haven't seen many unpowered firewire ports at all, even on PC's. The Creative Labs Audigy has a powered firewire port, and a powered firewire PCI card is literally $25 from CompUSA, and everything else on the shelf is powered. Either something really odd is happening, or unpowered firewire is actually pretty rare.
But I have to agree with this guy. I work on PC's and Apples for a living and Apple uses quite a bit of hardware that is industry standard. Hard drives? RAM? USB? If you look at a G3 for example, about the only things that aren't compatible is the motherboard itself (imbedded chip). I won't go into the analog board or CRT here. I could actually stand a G4 because they are SO much easier to work on.
What I can't stand is the disparity in software and support or price for parts. I know from experience manufactures gouge you when buying from them, but Apple positively rapes you. Need an Apple fixed? Good luck. The place I work at is one of the few in the area. Software? Games? You must be joking. Yes, they got a decent amount of the popular stuff and it's slowly getting better, but the parent is also right-- Their "we could give a shit" attitude is gonna kill em eventially and it'll continue as long as Jobs is at the helm (or is "Chief Politcal Officer")
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Mmmm... hot buttered troll.
Anyway, it weighs 25% more than the ipod. Cost more, smaller screen, and thanks to the laws of physics, whichever diety you identify with is pretty much the one who says that the tiny bit of power provided by USB 2.0 won't charge the unit until judgement day.
So, Toshiba pretty much managed to come eight months late to the party with an inferior product. I only wish I could be a fanboy like you and cheer them on.
Oh yeah, and I'm done responding to you. You couldn't argue your way out a speeding ticket if you were a hot chick.
You mean the kind of innovation where you find a product superior to yours and then copy it because you couldn't figure out how to invent it yourself?
Of course *Apple* and *Microsoft* tend to *pay* the innovators by purchasing the software, instead of copying it (iTunes was purchased, as was DirectX)
I couldn't tell if you were sarcastic or not when you mention 'open-source innovation'
GPL Deconstructed
Yes, but CD-RW media by itself isn't terribly useful.
You need, um, a portable CD device, with, um, USB, SCSI, or FireWire, and those, well, are pretty big.
And you don't get the storage capacity unless you have a portable CD-RW device...
GPL Deconstructed
Unless you'd like to suggest how you're going to replace your iPod drive with a 20Gb drive in a year or so?
I'm hoping that in a year or so, 3 solid days of music will still be enough to tide me over, and I won't feel a need to upgrade.
I can see where that would be a problem for your solution - I guess it might help if you had better software to manage what's on your player at any given time.
Well, given that I used to use a Nomad Jukebox with 6Gb of space on it, and I already filled that with half of my CD collection... and not to mention that I *don't want to shuffle crap onto and off of the player* -- I want to put it on there and forget about it -- I would already fill an iPod several times over.
Heck, these days a 20Gb might not fill it.
BTW: What sound quality do you store you MP3s in? I doubt you'd get 3 solid days of music if you recorded them at anything approaching high quality.
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Heh... There's nobody to alarm because nobody cares. Apple doesn't care. Their fans don't care because they're fanatically loyal and nobody on the other side of the fence cares because they're happy with the flexibilty a PC offers. The only person I appear to be alarming is you.
Honestly though, I really have mixed feelings about the Mac. On one hand they represent a tremendous creative force. On the other hand it's a proprietary dictatorship, which in my shrilly, alarmist opinion is The Bad Thing (TM). There IS a reason why the PC market has a huge share of the pie, regardless of how loyal or fanatical Apple users may be. Why ya suppose that is? Whatever the reason, maybe Apple could use a healthy dose of it. You tell me. Actually, don't. I'll probably just get more of the irrational fanboy crap.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
But the same could be said about Gateway or Compaq, though their plans aren't quite as generous. I've never had a problem replacing an in warrenty part or machine. Keep that extended warrenty action going and everybody is a happy camper, regardless of platform. Again, Apple does look at their products in the longer term though.
Of course, you're right about Mac licensing vs. Microsoft licensing, but then, Mac OS is your only choice.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
I hate to post this... but competition is a good thing. Even if you like the iPod better, the fact that it has a competetor (or several) will likely make it more affordable.
Amazing magic tricks
Must be the new math. If half your collection fits on 6G, fair guess is that all would fit on 12G. I don't understand how 12G is "several times" 10G (the large iPod size).
Reread the post.
Half my collection fit on a 6Gb drive about two years ago.
I buy music regularly.
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
The Toshiba actually looks interesting, with its removable drive.
Excuse me, I hardly think USB2 or Firewire is slowing down the transfers. The theoretical limit is about 50mbps; that's nearly 2x faster than *most* of the fastest IDE hard drives out there, much less a pidly little PCMCIA hard drive.
The funny thing is that in terms of competition, no Toshiba drive will outsell an iPod to *Apple* users because of lack of USB2... As for PC users, if I'm not mistaken there's still a larger installed base of FireWire than USB2, so until Toshiba makes a FireWire drive, Apple still has the advantage there too.
Well, with ephPod and XPlay
GPL Deconstructed
Er, so does the rest of the world.
But my work pc is a different matter entirely. I don't work for a software house and the IT support department (whilst being very clueful) would have hysterics at the idea of me opening my PC and sticking a card in.
So my only option is either find something like a firewire to USB adaptor cable or look at alternatives. I asked this question in the last ipod topic and everyone told me to buy a firewire card which, again, for my work PC is totally 100% absolutely without-a-doubt out of the question.
So unless there is such a thing, Ipod (for me) is out.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
Uh? By that point, I think the mouse was a commonly used thing in other places. Doug Englebart built the thing years and years before. I'd be hard pressed to say it was a copy any more than the use of a keyboard was a theft of innovation.
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
Or use an encoder based on LAME.
Personally, I use gogo - LAME plus 3DNow! optimizations. Great quality, and WICKED FAST.
My SCSI 8x reader couldn't keep up even on my old 800 MHz Athlon. (And yes, it rips at 7.5-8x, unlike my Creative IDE DVD drive which rips at 0.5x - Creative sucks!)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Easy enough. The iPod's included AC adaptor has a powered firewire port on it :)
GPL Deconstructed
A few hundred hundred grams is a big deal, you know. Especially when the iPod is *only* a few hundred (185) grams in the first place, so a 235 gram Gigabeat is nearly a quarter as heavy as the iPod.
So I can agree 50 grams isn't a deal breaker, but nor is it inconsequential.
Same with size; it's still smaller than the competition (Archos and Nomad), but the iPod is smaller still.
As per the FireWire charging, I own an iPod and I can tell you how it works.
AC adaptor has a firewire port.
iPod has a firewire port.
Plug iPod into any powered firewire port or the AC adaptor.
We don't really know how the Gigabeat charges.
GPL Deconstructed
Eh? That's talking about Mach, and how Apple engineers got their hands wet by porting Linux to it. Yes, look at the history, Apple started MkLinux specifically to experiment and learn.
As for this whole Unixy OS, recall that this all started in the late '90s when they were looking at Be and NeXT to buy for their technology. They made the decision to buy NeXT, and use NeXTStep as the basis for their next-gen operating system, in 1997 (the first version of MkLinux was released in 1996, and based on 1.2/1.3 versions of Linux).
You may recall that Linux wasn't exactly getting mad props as a server, or a desktop, in those days, BSD was just undergoing the Net/Open split and people were talking like it was the end of the world, and everyone thought Unix was finally dying.
--Matthew