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Pocket PCs Masquerade as iPods

Posted by pudge on from the i-smell-a-lawsuit dept.

agwadude writes "Wired News has a story about a British software firm called StarBrite that is selling a virtual iPod that runs on Microsoft's PocketPC operating system. It mimics the iPod interface exactly, including the unique scroll wheel. It's a mere $20 but this seems right considering it's only software, and it only supports MP3. MacDailyNews has a shorter story."

13 of 334 comments (clear)

  1. Missing something? by ArmenTanzarian · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Is the software really the selling point of the iPod?

    1. Re:Missing something? by mobiux · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think the ease of use is a selling point of it.
      I can play mp3's on my ipaq now, but it's a pain in the ass to switch the songs.

      I do agree though, that the battery life, and capacity is the majority.

    2. Re:Missing something? by Drakonian · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think if the battery life and capacity where the only key factors, then iRiver players would be outselling iPods.

      --
      Random is the New Order.
  2. software... by Spytap · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Software doesn;t change the fact that storage is still a problem, especially since you need to use some of it to install this program. For the price of the software plus a memory card you can just buy a real MP3 player...

  3. Say hello to mr. C & D letter... by SoTuA · · Score: 3, Insightful
    this guys will be getting a Cease and Desist shortly. Apple doesn't look kindly on this stuff.

    Besides, the beauty of the interface is how it is designed for your hands, not your pointing device. How do you get feedback and all that on a touchscreen, be it with your fingers or worse, with a PDA-pencil...

  4. ipod killer? hardly by m0rphin3 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    considering that 20 gb hard-drives for pocket pc's cost an arm and a leg, this is hardly an 'ipod killer'.

    $20 for mp3 player software? why? just make an ipod skin for some free software.

    --
    for great justice
  5. Re:Very Awesome by Nebrie · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Other than adding cool but useless features that do little more than drain battery life at an awesome rate is there any other point to the ipod having a color screen?

  6. Re:Very Awesome by Patik · · Score: 5, Insightful
    They need to move to a color LCD version... I already pay a lot for an iPod why not trick it out?
    Because it's totally unnecessarily. A color screen is useful only for graphics, and the iPod doesn't need that. Visualizations aren't necessary because you use the thing while walking so you're not looking at it, and they just waste CPU cycles (i.e., battery life). You could have pictures, but what good is it on such a little screen? The iPod is a music player. It's a bit different than with cell phones because of the lack of communication functionality.

    A better use for the money would be wifi (for bluetooth-like syncing, not for uploading songs), longer battery life, and more durable parts (it's durable now, but it couldn't hurt to stiffen up some parts).

    Besides, if I want my iPod to look prettier, I'd want it in the design of the case, not on the screen.

  7. It's the software + the hardware by blorg · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That's completely untrue. The iPod hardware is great, certainly (except the battery... grr) but it's the UI that really makes it - the fact that you can get to any one of 10k songs really really quickly and easily, with one hand.

    Lovely hardware working perfectly with lovely software is Apple's modus operandi - at a lovely price (for Apple).

  8. Re:too true by jkabbe · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The iPod is a slick but over-priced piece of hardware

    If it were over-priced someone would have come out with a copy that is the same storage/size/weight but cheaper. Can you point me to such a product?

  9. Increasing or decreasing sales? by System.out.println() · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I think this will have the opposite effect of what many people think. PPC owners can check this out, realize it's a damn good interface, and then they might decide that the iPod is worth the dough.

    Or, they go look for a CF hard drive for more space, learn about the iPod mini being much cheaper than the drives by themselve, and wind up buying a mini instead.

    However, I don't see many people using this *as* an iPod... it's just not cost-effective. I bet some people who only need a few songs will use it, but more than likely those people would not be in the market for a real iPod no matter what.

    I think pPod will actually increase iPod sales.

    --
    I've got more mod points and GMail invi
  10. Re:Very Awesome by cmdr_beeftaco · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Album art. Digitial photos. Portable porn. Fireworks visualizations. There is no reason it shouldn't have color, battery smattery.

  11. Re:Difference by laird · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "In order to really emulate the experience, it comes with a bottle of epoxy to glue your PDA's battery in place so you can't ever replace it."

    The irony of this comment is that the software is shown running on the iPaq, which has a permanently sealed battery that is, if anything, harder and more expensive to replace than the iPod's. So not only is the poster complaining about a battery problem that doesn't exist (the iPod's battery is fairly cheap to replace), the same "problem" exists in the PDA.

    And yes, I own both an iPod and an iPaq. The iPod's battery is fine. The (much older) iPaq's battery is dead. You wouldn't believe how tricky it is to replace an iPaq's battery...

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