Slashdot Mirror
Pocket PCs Masquerade as iPods
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."
Is the software really the selling point of the iPod?
or as we say in German: slashdotted. Darn.
-- Power corrupts, but PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.
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...
It's a mere $20 but this seems right considering it's only software, and it only supports MP3.
;)
Well, there's where the iPod emulation starts to fall apart. It should be $60+ if they want to emulate more of the experience.
A piece of software mimicing an IPod running on a piece of software mimicing an operating system.
MacCentral is reporting that "pBop's resemblance to the iPod was unmistakable, especially when the product first launched: It was originally called pPod, and featured an interface that was practically identical to third-generation iPods."
it was so similar, in fact, that Apple asked them to make some changes, including the name.
Starbrite has "cooperated fully to address Apple's concerns" but, if you ask me, it is still pretty much a rip off of the iPod interface (GUI and physical). Isn't this kind of thing legally protectable?
Tuus crepidae innexilis sunt.
MacSlash had this item on March 01st. See it: here.
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
Now I can get an iPod mini on the cheap:
$250 PDA
$400 4gb Hitachi CF microdrive
$20 for this software
and the Apple lawsuit?
Priceless.
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?
No extra functionality, MP3 only, not an iPod, and it only runs on top of MS software. Lame.
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
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.
And the difference between this and this with this. Or simply this.
Do people really want to pay $20 purely to get a skin for their pocketPC, that has less functionality(only mp3's) than something they can download for free.
Not trolling or anything, but to me, this just seems to prove (again) how well Apple has been doing things these past couple years. Would companies be trying to mimic their every move if Apple was on the wrong track?
I don't really like the fact that the software is a total rip-off of Apples UI design, and that it may (potentially?) reduce iPod sales (although probably to a minimal degree, if at all), but it does seem to very much re-inforce that consumers are generally extremely pleased with Apple's products, and the carefully thought out design that goes along with them.
Mikro$haft might get a Klew eventually, but probably not, and in the meantime, I'll rejoice in my Mac OS X bliss, and never look back. (Converted Mac user since July 2002)
java guy, tech blog...
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).
pictures
You've got it backward ^^
They make money on the hardware, not the music. Therefore the harm.
GPL Deconstructed
*YAAAAAAWN*
Hold still little pig. I just have some lipstick I want to put on you...
You know what?
Donate free food here
Well, you are correct in more ways than you realise.
Apple had their way with these guys and forced the renaming of the product (to pBop) and slight modifications to the interface.
Slashdot is behind the times. This story would have been meaningful a couple days ago.
-- Fighting mediocrity one bad post at a time.
You just keep on buying your $19 CDs for one song and don't mind what the rest of us are doing. But I'm sure you are just stealing hte music and you expect everyone to give you everything for free. Move out of your mom's basement and join the real world.
Prof. Farnsworth - "Oh a lesson in not changing history from Mr I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!"
I'm pretty sure you can sue for infringement on any of the claims in a patent. That said, the only thing Apple obviously mention as being patent-pending (that I can see) is their Auto-Sync technology.
In any case, the design would be covered by industrial design law - it was on this basis that Apple successfully sued Emachines over their iMac lookalike PCs.
wireless iPod to iPod syncing would be a cool thing.
Apple would be forced to prohibit it, of course. And we'd be forced (compelled, actually) to implement it.
---
- "So our philosophy is that traffic to the music store will lead to iPod sales and iPod sales will lead to the sale of Macs."
And the Seattle Times noted last October:Wow, a lot cheaper, than launching an international legal court case. Just get em slashdotted...
Think Different.
One has to wonder... being that you can now get the 4Gb CF hard drives (i.e. MuVo 2, mini iPod), you can now stick one of these in a PocketPC, and get an "iPod" that can store 800 songs, has wireless internet access, is an address book and all that, plays movies (wmv's, divx), and PLAYS QUAKE!? now that would be kickin, and would be worth the extra cash you would shell out for the form factor of a real iPod.
Skill is successfully walking a tightrope over Niagara Falls. Intelligence is not trying. -- Anonymous
Posted by pudge on 13:39 09 March 2004
from the i-smell-a-lawsuit dept.
Shouldn't that be the iSmell-a-lawsuit dept.?
Maybe you should educate the morons of tomorrow so they'll stop believing the leaders of tomorrow. - Dogbert
I installed the pPod demo last Friday mainly to piss off my roommate (big iPod fan) and I must say that besides looking kinda cool it doesn't do much else. Using a stylus as in place of your fingers worked haphazardly at best, and I am certainly not going to run out and buy a microdrive for it. It's mainly just a fancy skin for a MP3 only player (if it had support for alternate formats, then I'd reconsider). If I want to compete with my friend's iPod, I find it much easier to use programs like Net Use to create a network drive and stream the MP3 wirelessly to my PDA. Sure this limits me to staying within my network, but if I want to go out, a 256MB CF card has more than enough storage for any short trip.
Sadly, PS/2 was yet another victim of USB, which doesn't care what you plug into it, the electrical slut.