Slashdot Mirror
MSFTs "iPod Killer" Readied for Europe
rocketjam writes "Reuters reports that the first hardware to run Microsoft's "iPod Killer" software will be available in Europe in the second half of 2004. MS has been working with several manufacturers, and is expected to introduce a device which will play movies and songs as well as store digital photos through Microsoft's yet-to-be-unveiled Portable Media Center software. A spokesman said 'We think this is going to be one of the hot devices for Christmas 2004,' The players are expected to sell for between about $700 to $800. They will play MP3s as well as audio and video recorded in Microsoft's digital format. The player will be significantly larger than the iPod in order to accomodate a video screen. A Jupiter Research analyst, Mark Milligan said 'By definition, (the devices) just don't have widespread appeal', and he doubts the devices would change the consumer electronics landscape in any way."
I don't think the ipod needs to worry about any competition from this. People buying an ipod aren't going to pay a lot more for a device that is alot heavier, bigger, and plays movies in microsoft's proprietary format. Not to mention I have yet to see microsoft come out with anything that is elegant and easy to use.
//m
an ipod killer would have to be cheaper than an ipod.
It seems that MS is using the same tactics that failed for all the gameboy competitors. Try and add a billion features, and price yourself right out of the market.
Who gives a $700-$800 Christmas gift? I know a few people might get their spouse or children somethign like that, but the vast majority give gifts far smaller than that.
And besides, for that price you could get a laptop.
People always complain about Apple, but does Microsoft make anything that's not overpriced? Hardware, software, it doesn't matter. It all costs too much for what it is. $700 for one of these things? Even those little portable DVD players are down in the $300 range now.
For that price, one could get a low-end laptop.
Adherence to the truth is a form of disloyalty.
They will play MP3s as well as audio and video recorded in Microsoft's digital format.
What Microsoft apparently doesn't realize is that customers aren't going to spend $7-800 on a device only to have to convert every divx and xvid movie they have over to microsoft's proprietary format. Time really is money in this case, and it's just not worth it to have to spend days/weeks converting movie files.
I would expect such blatant racism on Fark, but on Slashdot? Mods please ban this asshole.
Is it me or is M$ forever obsessed with trying to 1-up Apple.
It's like Apple can't dominate any market for any lengthy period of time.
As an underdog Apple should learn to "Make their products affordable until they dominate the market".
It's not quite in the same target market, as it plays movies, stores photos, and most importantly it is FATTER than iPod (roughly three times as thick as an iPod and roughly twice as long ).
It's like callling an elephant a pet killer because it can carry luggages, push start your car etc, which your normal domestic pets like dogs, cats cannot do.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Maybe this will turn out like the Netpliance i-Opener, and we'll get a nifty little machine we can hack to do whatever we like. If it's going to play movies, it'll probably have a decent (4") screen, and it should have a competent processor in it, even if the video decompression is all hardware.
At the least it could be used as a remote mp3 player/picture frame/clock/bedside movie machine.
by beating the iPod with the MS device.
twice as long, 3x thicker? Doesn't exactly sound like a device I can put in my pocket and go.... and I don't do hip pouches....
I agree. Isn't this just taking the concept of "bloatware" to the digital media player hardware market?
There is a reason why iPods are so popular: they are relatively inexpensive, they are small and portable, and they do what the user wants them to do well: play music.
I am with the Jupitar analyst, I just don't see a market for this (especially against the iPod) unless the price goes down to iPod levels....
--Kobayashi--
It's called an iBook. It's priced at 20-ish precent more than the quoted device price for this new Microsoft offering.
;-)
It also has a bigger screen
The idea itself isn't a totally bad one - at a lower price, I could consider getting one for my kids for long drives or some such. (Then again, by the time they're old enough for me to do that, an iBook at nearly the same price will have the same effect.)
But my questions are these:
1. It plays movies in WMV and audio in WMA. So where am I going to get the WMV movies? WIll I be able to stick a DVD into my computer (assuming I want to get a Windows box, of course) and have it ripped to a format that the device can use? Or am I relying on having some other system (like a Tivo) to record TV shows and let me get that video on my device that way?
And if I have to rip the movies myself with an unofficial DVD, will I still go to jail/get fined?
2. Battery power? I'm seeing 3 hours - seriously? iPod killer with 3 hours of battery power? That's like the Sega handheld devices that were going to kill the Gameboy with 3 hours battery power.
3. TV out? Suppose I do pick it up and put movies on it so when I'm at a friend's house we can watch something. Can I have a TV-out so we don't have to scrunch around a tiny little screen?
Just a few thoughts. I'm sure there are more. Again, I'm not saying this is a bad idea, but I have serious reservations before spending $500 - $800 of my cash. I already spent $300 on an iPod....
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
I don't see anybody clamouring for a portable device that plays "video AND audio in WMP format".
Look at the huge sales of the ridiculously overpriced iPod Mini - the market wants smaller and sleeker and good looking, not huge, bulky and with too many features.
The only "iPod killer" is going to be something that looks as cool as an iPod, holds as much, but is smaller and cheaper.
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
I'd like to have a portable video-playing thingie as much as the next guy, but they are trying to squeeze into an incredibly small niche here: people who are willing to spend $800 on something larger than an iPod, but who don't want to spend the same amount of money on a DVD-playing laptop. Any larger than an iPod and you're quickly getting out of the fits-in-the-pocket category. What are they aiming for, the fits-in-a-glovebox market?
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
my question is "what market segment would that be?" people who want to pay almost as much as the cost of a laptop for significantly less functionality and a marginally smaller size? people who want to watch movies while jogging?
this beast reminds me of the newton. lots of features but too damn big and clunky. of course newton had the saving grace of being the first to market...
2 1337 4 u!
For the price of this thing, why not spend a little extra money and buy a laptop with a Centrino or equivilant processor??
It's not like the "iPod Killer" will fit nicely in your pocket anyway, so why not splurge and have all the features of a ultra-mobile laptop.
My 2 cents
The players are expected to sell for between about $700 to $800. They will play MP3s as well as audio and video recorded in Microsoft's digital format. The player will be significantly larger than the iPod in order to accomodate a video screen.
These things appeal to a different market (entirely!). Apple decided to make the iPod mini to take aim at the market that wanted a player even smaller than the iPod. They want an mp3 player--not something that will slice bread. This thing is huge and expensive when compared to other mp3 players--which is the only market that the iPod attempts to compete in.
Call this a "portable movie player" that's "aiming to repeat the iPod's success in a different market," but calling it an "iPod Killer" is a horrible misnomer. I seriously doubt that anyone would consider one of these things in lieu of an iPod.
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
When will these guys get it through their thick skulls that people don't want to watch pre-recorded news programs on TV. They have to stop trying to get it to be a "TV newspaper".
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Size.
If it doesn't fit comfortably in a pocket, sit nicely in my hand or it weighs too much, it isn't going to be bought at pretty much any price. I don't care if I can watch DVDs projected onto the wall from it and it only cost $100 - if it doesn't fit in my pocket, it's not going to be carried around with me on my person. If I need something more capable than my existing small gadgets, it'll probably be my laptop (carried around in a backpack) which sports considerably more function than any standalone piece of consumer electronics and costs a similar amount to the proposed "iPod killer".
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
I think the comments on this news item get the award for most repeated points. How many ways can we say "too big, too pricy" and get away with it? Looks like 92 times as of right now (well 93 now).
At $800 and larger than the ipod, who would want it? I've seen dvd players with LCD screens that also play cd's for less. So maybe thats the reason you don't see an apple media center that plays video in MS's proprietary format. No market! But I can store 2 dvd's worth of movies in most formats in my ipod and connect it to my ibook and play them with mplayer for OSX anytime, anywhere I choose, plus play my 500+ songs I've ripped from my CD collection.
Not at $700-$800. I can buy a smallish laptop that does the same thing for less. Heck - I could go hit eBay for a Toshiba Libretto and probably fare better than that.
While the economics probably aren't in their favor on this, if they wanted to make it an "iPod killer", the price would have to be significantly less than the iPod just to make up the difference from Apple's name recognition, and the size of this beast.
Sell the exact same piece of hardware for $150, and we'll talk about iPod slaying.
That green slime had it coming.
The obvious answer is that you won't pay $700 to get something that big for that much money.
Microsoft will eventually realize this and cut the price to the $400-$500 range (or possibly further). Just like they cut XBox prices from $300 (about breaking even) to $200 (lose $100 per unit). Of course, they may not continue producing them after that, as I don't know that they get the same benefit from this that they do from the XBox (the unit loses money, but the games for it are profitable; do they sell any content for these fake iPods? I don't think that they make enough from their DRM licenses to support this).
I don't which specific device the article is refering to -- but most of them support divx. And there are quite a few people clamoring for a device that is both portable and plays divx. Just look at archos, they've sold well over 100,000 units of their AV300 PVP -- and with it, you have to re-encode your avis because it can't support the resolutions most are encoded at.
That market overlaps with the ipod's market at some points, but not others. It wont' be until these devices become as small as ipods that they could really be considered "Ipod killers". So while it may be fair to say it's not an ipod killer, its not fair to say there's no market for it.
And 3 years from now, when these things are as sleek and small as an ipod, and do everything else an ipod can do, they will defiantely be ipod killers. Of course, by then I'm sure Apple will have probably added video to the ipod anyways (cost will be significantly less an issue by then, and battery drain only increases if you actulally use it to play video).
I personally was going to buy an ipod sometime back, but have held off deciding I might as well get something that'll do video too. I haven't jumped on the archos bandwagon because I don't want to reencode my files.
The new PVP's based on Microsoft's OS might be good, but personally I'll probably buy whichever is the first out that is reasonably well designed and can play 640x480 divx files at 30fps. Right now I'm keeping a close eye on the Mec Station and the Tight Taz.
Heh, I suggest a perfectly working, but used 12" iBook[1].
Actually I'm starting to "not get" this thing, even if it is aimed at a totally different market. I mean they've got to know the size of the prototype is prohibitive to coolness. They shouldn't have even shown it. Where are people going to carry this thing around in this day and age when most electronics are the size of a deck of cards at a maximum? I'd almost be embarrased pulling out that prototype to show photos or video. Imagine being in an airport or something with that. I can pull out the Clie[1] anywhere no sweat, I couldn't say the same with this cinderblock.
And all that needs to happen to rip this thing a new one is a PalmOS device with one of those new super-micro HDs. They can already do everything advertised by this, all they need is storage. Hell WinCE devices can do this, and are smaller. Ahh! What's the deal with this thing? Now it's like some sort of unsolvable riddle that I don't want the solution to...
[1]: Yes, I'm both an Apple and Sony Clie fanboy.
-- The unsig...
Forgive my ignorance, but how are you supposed to copy video onto this device if all DVD's have copy protections anyways? And if it's not a commercial movie you want to download onto it, why would you want to download, say, your home movies which would interest no one except yourself? And if your home movies DO interest other people (maybe you are the porn star next door), how exactly do you go about adding Microsoft DRM so you can play them on your "iPod Killer". Methinks Microsoft spends alot of time talking up lip service to a new device under the assumption that ANY press is better than NO press. Tablet PC anyone?
blue
I personally use 160bit AACs for most everything.
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
For what they do (and what they are) iPods are extremely expensive. Like all Apple hardware, you pay for the design (which is undoubtably nice) and the "cool" factor (helped by the marketing people). If fashion is more important to you than value and/or functionality then iPods are great (and I'm not criticising, some people value fashion highly and I have no problem with that). But if you want something which just plays music well, is functional, and is much better value, you should look else where.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
The problem with Microsoft's engineers is that they assume more features == more better. Implementing those features in an elegant way is entirely secondary, and there appears to be little (or at least, very bad) research to determine how much people want those features.
The classic example of this (apart from all of the products people here love to hate) is Bill Gates' attitude in "The Road Ahead." He focuses *entirely* on features, and not at all on usability or design. In the case of the "iPod Killer," it's pretty evident that Microsoft hasn't changed much since that book. People aren't interested in a clunky, unfashionable device -- Apple succeeds not only because their products are (fairly) simple to use, but because they're elegant and, in the case of the iPod, *fashionable*. Never underestimate the power of popularity. Microsoft- well, they need some good design engineers, and a general attitude that encourages quality over just-one-more-feature-itis.
This
it will have excessive DRM lockdowns and won't handle Ogg. Oh and it costs more.
Just like the ipod?
40GB iPod = $500
DRM
No Ogg support
Look at the huge sales of the ridiculously overpriced iPod Mini - the market wants smaller and sleeker and good looking, not huge, bulky and with too many features.
Don't forget the best part of the iPod: the interface. It's a work of minimal art. 4 buttons. wheel. I've never had to show anyone how to use it when they want to look at it. it's intuitive. how much new technology can we say that about?
Also, I just don't understand how someone can call something overpriced that is so popular that it's nearly impossible to get ahold of one. (trust me, I've been trying to order one for my brother-in-law's graduation) If there were selling it for $150, they would be making $100 less profit on each and every one, and since they are selling as many as they can make, that would be millions of dollars just *gone*. For Apple's shareholders, it's priced *just right*.
This also means that they can drop the price by $50 this fall after the people willing to pay $250 are satisfied, and capture another whole market segment. or keep the price point and increase the capabilities.
Marketing 101: If you can sell it for $10, what is to be gained by selling it for $5?
Of course, if by "overpriced", you mean, "costs more than I am willing to pay for what it is", that's different. Of course, that's a subjective thing.
It'll have to be more than cheaper and smaller and cooler looking to kill the iPod: it would have to work better, and be easier to use. No one has managed that, and I for one would be very surprised if Apple wasn't able to keep up.
m-
You catch enchiladas by picking them up behind the head and holding them underwater until they don't kick anymore -VeGas
The users want a PDA, so they pack in every feature they can think of and bump the price through the roof...
If the iPod is a good product as just an MP3 player, then if we jam in a video player, word processor, fishing tackle box, and dog whistle, then it's got to be a better product...
Such Deja Vu from the PDA wars...
/sig
really?
299 for an iPod...the bottom of the market is 250 for HDD players...that is not expensive at all, for the market.....
now, you might think that all HDD players are expensive for what they do, but that is the market price point, so live with it.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
> Besides, how many people keep Windows Media files?
I have to admit I used to, briefly. On devices where you're limited to choosing between WMA and MP3 and with little memory available, WMA sounded better than MP3 did at the really low bitrates. (Disclaimer: To my ears, anyway.)
Other formats can do well at the low end too (insert obligatory Ogg debate here), but the choice might not be available.
This thing's going to be three times as heavy as an ipod and twice as long - for 700-800 bucks you can just buy a cheap notebook instead.
What makes the ipod rock is that it's really small and offers more than enough storage. Who wants to lug around something twice as big three times as heavy?
WHY?
For $700 to $800, you could get a FUCKING AWESOME device that was a similar size but had better processor speed, better input options, better everything. I mean, there are SONY laptops that are about this size, with keyboards. This is about what you'd pay for a sweet 802.11b palmtop and a big CF hard disk to go with it. Things with which you could ACTUALLY USE WITHOUT A LOT OF HASSLES, installing Linux or not.
But instead, you'd prefer to buy a multimedia device, REMOVE the multimedia subsystem, and try and write your own?
That's nuts man. I love working on cars, and I like that I can customize my communter sedan if I want to, but I wouldn't go buy a new car with the intent of ripping out the engine and building my own engine from scratch. Seems to me you'd be better off buying an OLDER (read: cheaper) car and doing your restorations on that. Or buying the NEWER device, and just using it as is without putting in several hundred hours of work to get back to where you started from.
I just don't understand it. Oh no -- maybe I'm not a nerd anymore! What'll I do with all these ThinkGeek T-shirts?
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Marketing 101: If you can sell it for $10, what is to be gained by selling it for $5?
Marketing 201: Sometimes you can make more profit by selling more units at a lower price.
content will be an issue for these video devices. with music, you have folks with large cd collections with a rip-time of a few minutes per cd. apple added the itunes music service so theres more ways to get stuff to put on the iPod. And most people *like* listening to their favorite songs multiple times, and you can do that while doing something else.
but what will you put on your "video pod" ? ripping a dvd takes a lot of time and disk space, and there's no movie I like so much that I want to carry it around with me all the time and watch it over and over again. You could trawl the net for tv episodes, but there's really no legal way to get them, they're encoded in a bazillion different codec combos and most importantly, how many times will anybody watch the same Seinfeld episode?
I guess the new wave of tv season->dvds is a potential source, but whereas you can listen to music at work or walking down the street or whenever, watching TV is not as workable.
I'm sure there'll be a few thousand folks who will buy a bigger, heavier, expensive unslick brick with crap battery life for the sake of showing their friends movie trailers... over and over again.
now, when you get the Itunes Video Service going, and I can easily download a set of seinfeld episodes quickly, cheaply and reliably encoded, then... well then still maybe not. there are some hurdles to cross before anything like this "kills" the ipod, or even challenges mp3 players as a whole.
Marketing 201: Sometimes you can make more profit by selling more units at a lower price.
Not when they are selling as many as they can make. That's the point.
m-
You catch enchiladas by picking them up behind the head and holding them underwater until they don't kick anymore -VeGas
Of course, the problem with your assessment is this:
Back when WinCE devices were substantially larger and more expensive than Palm Devices, Palm outsold them.
But now that Pocket PCs are comparably priced and sized, they outsell the PalmOS stuff. Because you can do a lot more with the Pocket PC.
PalmOS is trying to catch up, feature wise, but since PocketPC has had things like multimedia and wireless for a lot longer, they work better than they do on the PalmOS. They don't seem as clunky. And therefore PalmOS is in a tight spot, playing catch up.
The demand was always there. MS pushed their devices out before they were cost effective, and by doing so, a lot of really great software was written.
It could be they're doing the same in this market. On the other hand, they could also be making another AutoPC...
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Faster than the iPod (Dual P3s vs. Arm7) Higher res screen than iPod (1280x1024 vs 160x128) More skip protection (512 MB vs 32 MB) More storage (129.1 GB vs 40 gb) It is a freaken workstation. So are the WinCE devices. The point of the ipod is that it is small and simple, that is why I have one.
t wont' be until these devices become as small as ipods that they could really be considered "Ipod killers"
I don't think that anybody wants a video device as small as an ipod. What, a 1" screen or something? These will always be entirely different segments.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The article calls it an "iPod Killer", but nowhere does MS even consider calling it that. Just because the market likes to name things silly names, doesn't mean MS is smoking anything or outright announcing that their product will kill another one.
Gosh, a $900 video player sells less than a $250 audio player? Who would have expected that? Wow!
I suspect that the iPod Mini is selling as a fashion item that happens to double as a music player, rather than selling on its merits as a music player.
Think of it as the Rolex of music players.
If you have the money get a Rio Karma
I really wish Rio would start selling extra docks for the Karma (which they've been promising since it was released, as far as I can tell).
I would buy a Karma today if they did, because I don't want to have to carry the dock between home and work.
Is it so hard to have their manufacturing team produce a few extra for sale on their website, given that they're already making them for inclusion with the players? It doesn't even have to come with a fancy box, they can put it in a ziploc with "Karma Dock" scrawled on it with a sharpie for all I care.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
I think the iPod killer won't be softwarre, but hardware. Specifically, i think it will be a windows update that "accidently" makes ipods no longer work on that system. This update will also be bundled with all the security updates so you have to chose between secure and iPod.
So for $150 more, I could get me a refurbished iBook G4 800MHz/256MB/30GB/Combo/E/56K/12"TFT from the Apple Online Store? Cool.
>"99 cent" stores struggle.
No, they struggle because everything they have sucks. Haven't you even been in one? It's not a matter of merchandise that lacks famous logos... it's just crap.
...and then when you actually try to use it you'll find that ripping DVDs to 3" size takes a half hour per movie, and that the reason the portable movie player only costs $50 more is that it maxes out at 8 fps because it has the same embedded CPU as the audio-only player, and that the battery only lasts 15 minutes because the audio player could power down the drive during songs but the video player can't, plus the color LCD takes lots more power than than the B/W one.
In reality, that $50 more color AV player with crappy battery life would never be put on the market, and instead it would cost $300 more and have a much better CPU and battery and would also be a PDA (since that costs almost nothing extra once you have all that hardware), and it's already for sale today from PalmOne and Sony and HPaq and Dell etc. etc.