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Microsoft, Sony Announce iPod Competitors
Pfhreak writes "According to the Denver Post -- Las Vegas section, a little over halfway down the page -- Microsoft will begin selling a $50 music player that will 'look and feel as good as the iPod' later this year. Yusuf Mehdi, a Microsoft VP, is quoted as saying that the player will give customers more choices than Apple."
In related news, Tetsugaku-San writes "The Register has the scoop on Sony's new portable audio/visual playback device. Impressively it plays MPEG2, MPEG4, BMP, GIF, PNG, TIFF and MP3 (finally they got the message Apple was gonna whoop em!) straight out of the box. Not as good battery life as I'd like to see, but real world tests remain to be seen."
this is going to have a similar capacity? If so, IPOD should be out of business with that price difference.
The safest way to approach lava is to have another person with you and he goes first.
That's just the way it is. I want my open-source, patent-free, DRM-free codec.
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7 / KB1JQO)
// IEEE 802.3: All 10base Are Belong To Us
Finally some competition in Apples handheld audio monopoly? Good to see the underdog(s) stick it to 'em.
What a coincidence. Apple's lawyers are already filling out a lawsuit with the very same title!
You know what?
...will anything ever beat the value of my 15GB, 16-hour battery life, personal voice recording, $200 Dell DJ?
Loss leaders like this are illegal in Europe. Why the Xbox is allowed, I don't quite understand. I presume it's because they argue that they make money through the software.
How this argument will work with MP3s when there are multiple vendors, I don't quite get.
i hear the sony player has terrible audio quality. that's why it's cheap. also the sony music service is plagued by technical problems. just something to consider... you might want to check around a little before getting one of these.
Ipods are over priced peices of shi%. but thats not hte point, the point is that everything in this area is over priced atm. We need someone to produce a "low" cost version, it might not last as long, but we wont care, for when it dies we will have one 10x the size. Plus this is m$ meaning it wont work on apple / linux ?
- http://www.milkme.co.uk
The Sony device will be quite good, and will compare favorably to the iPod. The Microsoft device will be a POS, but will sell like hotcakes despite that, and in a few years we'll have fanboys and pundits gushing about how Bill Gates "innovated" the personal MP3 player.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Well, was bound to happen some day. Hard drive is probably the most expensive part of the hardware, and one can assume Microsoft already has software development covered.
However, even Dell's digital jukeboxes start at $200, and beating Dell pricewise is something out of ordinary (possible, but few have done it).
I hope these players let us access the content normally through the filesystem, unlike the iPod :)
In order to let folks know just how cool Microsoft is, they always seem to pre-announce products by several months to years and invariably when they come out, they always seem to be somehow less than they promised. The iPod is good.....damned good. So I am certainly going to take a wait and see approach, but one usually gets what they pay for.
I likely will be sticking with the iPod I suspect.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
That Sony one looks really nice, and it does everything I need except one... I need OGG Vorbis support, as my entire audio library is on my server in Q6 encoded files. :)
So, does anyone know of another similar player, that does both MPEG4 (or compatible, like XVid) and OGG Vorbis?
-- sudo.ca
Get a better battery life span and i might consider one
Not trying to flamebait or anything, but haven't we seen this type of strategy before?
Dejavu is such a wonderful thing.
Look and feel are cheap. The question is whether it will work and sound as good. The principal attraction of the iPod is that it's intuitive and meshes well with iTunes. That's worth money to users.
I'm glad that iPod is getting some competition (it will make iPods better to) but I don't see that this is necessarily a death blow for them.
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
Alright, how many people actually have the need for a mobile video device. I mean, audio I can understand, but how often have you sat on the subway going, "I'd really like to watch a movie right now." That must be one long commute....
I mean the only use I can think of is for mobile pr0n needs, and if that's the case, I sure as hell don't want to be sitting next to them wthhout a raincoat.
It looks and feels just like an iPod! (of course, they don't mention it working, sheesh).
I can just see MS coming out with something the size of an ipod, but with a tiny flash memory instead of a hard drive. And if MS markets it hard enough and makes it ubiquitous enough, the uninformed consumers will just slurp it up and think they're getting a huge bargin (despite there having been flash players that cheap for a long time).
"The worst tyrannies were the ones where a governance required its own logic on every embedded node." - Vernor Vinge
With 1GB of flash memory, I have more than enough space for hours of songs. As for battery power, I easily get over 20 hours... plus I have all the added bonuses of having a mini-computer. I am not sure what I would do without my Axim X5...
Really? I can't wait to rawk to my
will it run linux ?
Actually it looks like a pretty decent device, I just thought it was funny that it "plays BMP."
...and I understand that part of thier cost is associated with making the technology so small, but really, from a consumer standpoint - for almost $600 what am I getting? A walkman that doesn't need CDs or tapes. For $600 (not to mention what you'd spend on accessories), it makes more sense to me to buy a laptop and "suffer" with my NoMad, which holds plenty of songs for use when I'm working out, or going on a run, or whatever else. I can't imagine needing the ability to store 4GB worth of songs (as the new Nomad will be able to).
:)
I think that it will take more time and much less cost to convince me to justify the price tag of these types of things. For now, they're still only for the really rich or those who just HAVE to have the newest stuff (that was me before I got married BTW)
I was in the park the other day wondering why frisbees get bigger and bigger the closer they get - and then it hit me.
...does the first reply in an article get modded "redundant".
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
The Microsoft model works great, it is truly a wonder of modern engineering. Microsoft again shows the superiority of their engineering and products.
Oh, and those rumors of subliminal messages, they're pure fantasy and Linus Torvalds is the devil and open source is an evil which must be stamped out.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Exactly. While I don't think it should be illegal for someone to sell below cost, if they think that is a wise business plan (Xbox is such a money maker.) But this is a sign that Microsoft wants to get into a market, get a dominant position, then exploit it.
Either that, or this player is a real piece. Them:"Wow, look what I got for fifty bucks!"
You:"Uh huh, it sucks don't it."
Could the justice department go after Microsoft for selling a product which facilitates unlawful music sharing?
Faith is the very antithesis of reason, injudiciousness a critical component of spiritual devotion. Jon Krakauer
Ours will be just like Apple's, only better.
This time we're serious. It's really cool.
Really.
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
Jobs may be right that portable video may not be all that great, but that doesn't mean that Apple shouldn't come out with a video iPod just to throw at the media. If Sony's and Microsoft's devices get too much attention just because of the color screens, Apple has to counter.
I wonder about how Microsoft's offerings will affect their effort to make WMA the "standard" for portable audio? Maybe other portable makers will look to a real standard, not one controlled by a competitor. If MPEG finally adds a standard DRM to AAC, I think we could see AAC take off.
Microsoft announcement of products before they are available are always 120% of the truth.
Their inability to get the gist of things they copy except for the superfical (i.e., I'm sure the MP3 Player will be a small white box) reminds me of the kid in school looking over my shoulder during a math test... copying all my answers onto his paper including my answer for the question "Name:"
I really fail to see what value is added with having a colour screen and video playback. I don't think many people have any need for video playback they'd be using a portable device. Unless they have other behaviours in mind like using it primarily as an audio player and a video player or data storage when you arrive at your destination. Just from the perspective of my own behaviours I'm definitely not sold on video playback as a must-have feature. For the same reason portable RF televisions or DVD players aren't terribly popular I see this Sony unit as being similar.
_nfotxn
It will be the size of a postage stamp and hold one song.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
Seriously, I like ogg a lot, and wished players were gearing towards it. Not that I expected MS to support an open source codec (but the should).
It's amazing how they manage this time and again.
A *music* player which they are designing to "look and feel as good". Which uses what? A PC speaker to play the music through?
Deleted
I'll bet it only plays Windows Media...
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= - The Celtic - =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
It's a fun game! Moderate the first mention of OGG Vorbis as a troll, because, you know, people aren't allowed to express format preferences... and then, moderate the second mention as redundant, because it is too politely worded to be a troll!
Yeah, I know "don't complain about moderation". Good thing this is an open forum and I can complain about retarded moderation if I want.
-- sudo.ca
While developing a competitive audio portable against the iPod certainly is a possible feat, there's more to the iPod's success than just the actual player. What about ease of file-transfers and syncing? The iPod killer has more to beat than just the iPod. It'll have to beat the iPod-Winamp combination.
While yes, existing portables have their own merits, very few of them are supported by an application like Winamp that can flawlessly sync my audio files (and ratings and playcounts) from my media folders to my iPod, or reverse-syncs my iPod so that my media folders match up with what's on my iPod. It'll have to beat Winamp's intuitive artist/album views, ipod-media library integration, mp3 transcoding, and other features...
Winamp and the iPod "just work."
That sony's playback device won't handle DVDs. With 20GB storage space, that's 3-4 DVDs in storage capacity. I wonder if the processor is just inadequate or the CSS is too much a pain...but $1000 for a portable dvd player is still far enough outside my budget that it would seem like a good idea.
Too bad for Sony that 'Digiman' is so close to Digimon.
The story so far:
Portable music player - useful device.
Portable video player - yes, that goes well with the music player.
Still photograph displayer - might as well, we already have all the required hardware.
Next episode:
Why settle for just looking at photos? We could add a camera to this.
Hey, it has audio, and takes photos - let's add a cellphone.
Whats the odds there are engineers somewhere in the world working on this right now?
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Microsoft will begin selling a $50 music player that will 'look and feel as good as the iPod' later this year
Please note thatt by "look and feel as good as the iPod" they mean they're selling a rounded green and blue plastic shell, they also threw a couple a couple beads inside which you shake, when they rattle it makes the shell a music player.
I stole this Sig
Microsoft, based in Redmond, Wash., will release a number of music players when it launches its online music service later this year, giving customers more choices than Apple, Mehdi said.
What exactly does that mean? The write-up here makes it sound as though MS will release one player that will give users more "choices" (which I would imagine to mean more codecs that will playback). But the article makes it sound like the "choices" will be between players.
Soon the iPod will be sold at a price that reflects its components, not its demand. Finally I'll be able to afford the iPod I've been waiting for.
.\.\att Clare
These articles shit me. The thing is, Apple is a fashionable company. They make fashionable computers and fashionable products and this puts them in a different league to Microsoft et al. Geeks do not, by their very nature, understand fashion. Microsoft's competing product may be cheaper, Sony's may have more features etc etc. That will mean nothing to a kid who wants an iPod. I doubt that Ferrari were worried when Kia/ Daewoo/ Hyundai popped onto the car scene; I don't think Armani is worried that you can buy shirts for $20 at Kmart, and so on. The Apple iPod is a fashion accessory. Paris Hilton ( or insert vacuous celebrity here) won't be caught dead using a cheap Microsoft rip off and millions of teenagers will feel the same way. Apple could double the price of their iPod range and they'd still sell them. Apples are desirable. They're cool. Microsoft has never been cool and never will be no matter what they do. Can you really imagine a company owned and run by Bill Gates producing something that teenagers everywhere go nuts for? Compare their interface designs to Apple's.... Sony are too sensibly Japanese to be cool. There is no iPod killer. When cool people start saying "Levis are dead - I can buy jeans for 1/5 the price at Target" then maybe, just maybe, Apple should start to worry.....
Putting syrup in coffee is some form of blasphemy.
Geez, not another one! I expect the Sony product to be well designed, a lot of attention to detail -- and high priced. And don't forget, Sony has built-in schizophrenia -- their music division -- MP3 is evil, remember? Sony could have owned the market with mini-disc, but their own paranoia crippled the product (no high-speed digital download, clunky proprietary software, etc.)
But a friend points me to the Sony announcement -- it plays movies, all these formats. Does it have a corkscrew, I ask? GPS?
What? Corkscrew? GPS? Yeah, if it's going to replace things, it should play my AV stuff, have a corkscrew, show me where I am, and be sturdy enough to pound nails...
Really -- what I want in a portable music player is to play music. I don't care about video, GPS, cell phone, or anything else.
As to the iPod killer? It's already on the market. It stores enough of my music, the battery lasts long enough, it drives my earphones (Etymotics ER4), and it's small enough to carry in a pocket.
It's the iPod mini. It does what I want, and I love it.
Personally, what I'm after is one that sounds as good as an iPod, or as good as my Rio Nitrus. For $50.00, how much storage do you get. Are we talking GB, MB, or KB?
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Look and feel are cheap. The question is whether it will work and sound as good.
Not on the iPod. Style is 80% of that player.. It is a piece of art. Even if it had mediore sound and the the tech sepcs was genarally bad, the iPod would still sell.
The Sony device is not even halfway there on style. It looks like any other portable player.
"Microsoft will begin selling a $50 music player that will 'look and feel as good as the iPod' later this year."
and the upgrade to 4 GB will cost $249! Duh, microsoft doesn't make hardware or the microdrive. Apple iPod sells cheaper than retail cost of microdrive and is only $70-90 more than OEM cost of microdrive. Apple charges only a small amount for iPod hardware/software.
All you have to do is sign up and buy 100 tracks at the regular club prices or sign up with MSN dial up for 5 years? :)
Classic Microsoft. There is no way MS could or would want to release such a cheap device but it sure as hell is great to FUD everyone out of buying an iPOD.
Well, for $300 you can get 15Gb of storage on the low-end iPod. For $500 you can get $40Gb of storage on the high-end iPod.
The iPod/iTunes combo has become the core of my audio system. I don't have a boom box or home stereo system. I hook my iPod into my stereo TV when I want to listen to tunes downstairs. When I want to listen to tunes upstairs, I listen to the tunes through my computer's speakers. When I'm driving in the car, I plug in my tape deck adapter and go.
When I go for a run or go to work out, I take my iPod and have all of my tunes with me. So in that sense it's not just "a Walkman that doesn't need CDs or tapes." A CD Walkman is fine if I just want to listen to whatever CDs I happen to have with me at the time. But when I'm mobile, the last thing I want to do is decide which tunes I think I'll want to listen to at some point in the future. I want the whole range of my music library available.
I'm not rich. Not even close. I like my music a lot, but I'm not the music freak I was when I was in my teens. All the same, the iPod has really changed my listening habits quite a bit. It allows me to listen to a broader range of my own music than I otherwise would, lets me listen to music pretty much anywhere, and eliminates the need to haul around discs or tapes wherever I go.
Prices will doubtless drop on these devices as they become commoditized. Someday they'll drop to a price that will be acceptable to you. In the mean time, the investment in my iPod has more than justified the cost several times over for me (and for my non-technophile wife, who is an iPod addict as well).
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
There's no mention of the technical details of the MS player but it's a fair bet it will only do MS-proprietery formats, and theres no mention of OGG support on the Sony specs either. ..And thats reason enough for me not to buy either one.
Pardon my cynical attitude but I cannot imagine an item that sells for $50 for 20G versus the Apple model for the same size at $399 looking and feeling remotely the same.
I have one of the original 5G iPods. I have used, abused and it runs beautifully. The design and looks are without peer IMHO.
This sort of reminds me of plastic surgeons who claim silicone breast implants have the same look and feel as the real deal.
Harpo Tunnel Syndrome--my wrist feels funny.
Odds are it will be an iPod shaped flash player, holding 128 megs or so. the "advanced" micro drive version will cost a lot more than $50.
look at feel aren't really tech specs. when this thing is actually for sale then we'll be able to tell how good of a deal it is.
I found this story wirtten on May 5, 2004 which states "ON THE VERGE. Still, if the iPod were a stock, I'd dump my shares. It's hard to imagine Apple maintaining its dominant position in digital music. Jobs had actually predicted 100 million in iTMS song sales in the first year, and he missed by a wide mark. Apple managed to turn in only a 10% quarter-over-quarter increase in iPod sales last quarter, implying the market is slowing. And several top executives dumped millions of their own Apple shares in late April, the first major sale by insiders in years" The article goes on to say that Apple w\should spin off iPod now and pocket the cash while the gettings is good.
Note: this has been posted by r.future (a person who spends way to much time on the internet!)
I'm a 3rd year student at Harvard Law, and as part of my business law course work, we have to put together a case against a corporation. I am a keen FSF and GNU/Linux advocate, so I started an investigation into the iPod, hoping to break their case against playfair.
We're all aware that Apple uses BSD licensed code extensively in their Mac OSX operating system. What we don't know is that the file system that the iPod uses is UFS, a file system that Linux can read. How did I discover this? I removed the hard drive out of my iPod, hooked it up to my IDE controller, and typed
It is clear that the iPod is using a Linux file system. My question is this:
I guess the only way to tell is to get the code out of the firmware, but that is a bit beyond my realm of expertise.
Does anybody care to pull apart their iPod and investigate this for me? If so, please respond with your findings to this comment and I'll build it into my report.
Thanks in advance
"Blue note of death"
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This is illegal!
MS cannot use funds from a separate section to flood the market in order to promote a standard for competition. Selling a product at a loss in order to undercut competition without relent for the purpose of creating a flooded standard is wrong. This is predatory pricing and is specifically and explicitly prohibited by the Sherman anti-trust act.
They've already done this with the X-Box which they sold at a loss in order to undercut and deprive smart companies (Sony & Nintendo) of their only source of income by using their deep pockets. Now they do the same thing in an attempt to push WMA over AAC as the standard DRM music file.
This is absurd. The DOJ has no balls if they let this pass. MS is getting out of hand.
However, even Dell's digital jukeboxes start at $200, and beating Dell pricewise is something out of ordinary (possible, but few have done it).
I would suspect that with a $50 pricetag, Micro$oft is losing some amount of money per unit. They want to make the money on the music sales. Like razors or cameras - make money on the blades/film.
The Archos Jukebox's failed because they were expensive, but alos because I really don't think that many people care about having video on the go. Those little portable DVD players are cheap now, and I still don't see that many of them.
When you're walking around school, or in your car, a music player is great for obvious reasons. Vidoe capabilities aren't going to be particularly useful considering you have to walk and drive, and at least attempt to pay attention to the current direction you're moving in.
Basically, portable music players are great because they are "On-the-go", which is a concept that doesn't apply well to video.
If Sony wants to turn a profit they should focus more on a really nice music player, not a video player.
And what's with all these Slashdotters saying "Ipod" instead of iPod?
Vonal Declosion
Yusuf Mehdi, a Microsoft VP... ...and former Iraqi Information Minister...
"Why Subscribe?" Good question...
I'm sure sony execs are all cowering in fear in a corner somewhere. After all, they don't really know anything about consumer electronics, so how can they hope to compete?
finally they got the message Apple was gonna whoop em!
Now before I get modded down, I be to remind whoever might read this that what I am saying is FACT. - bogaboga
MS is only going to use a hardware media player to push a wide-scale adoption of Windows Media. MS is not going to make a dime off of their MediaPlayer. They'll take a giant loss selling a $50 Media Player (even a good tiny flash player costs $100).
MS is going to shoot for long term profits from WM licenses. They are going to try to squish competition, and after that is done, they're going to raise licensing rates... which will make music more expensive.
I'm all for competition. However MS's concept of "competition" is the exact same as Walmart's. Slash prices, kill competitors, raise rates, and lower product/service quality.
I'm sure Apple knew this was going to happen. These are typical Microsoft actions. It'll be interesting to see how they're going to innovate their way out of this predicament... they certainly don't have the money to counteract stuff like this.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
I got myself Rio Karma instead of iPod and Iriver ihp120 because it's the only player that can play ogg and also capable of play gapless albums. It's pretty ennoying to hear a 1 second gap between songs that were designed not to have gab between them.
I haven't worn Levi's since my mom stopped shopping for me. I have two pair of jeans now that I bought at Target because they're cooler, and cut to fit just right - important since I'm NOT a fat guy. Target is fashion for the Everyman, like a cheaper Gap of Banana republic. Levi's and all the other Wal-Mart/JCPenny/Sears jeans are cut for rednecks and fat people. I can't find sizes that both fit my waist and wear comfortable. 5'11" and 145 lbs.
On the page reviewing the sony product, on the botton it say's that it will sell for $563. SO what is the author talking about $50? Is he doing the old bait and switch? Someone show me what $50 will buy me then i'll get emotional (either good/bad) about it.
People keep complaining that they're waiting for a DMP that supports vorbis and flac. Are you all not aware that the 20GB Rio Karma is 250$ and supports them as well as mp3 and wav? Check out Wal-Mart and Amazon.
'look and feel as good as the iPod' Great. It'll look like it, will it have the capacity. I could care less how something looks, if it doesn't store more than a few hours worth it's not going to be any good for taking on a long journey. If I cared how something else, I probably wouldn't have bought my Archos, whilst the pen-drive-esque units are too low capacity, and the iPods are too expensive for their pure pretiness. Also, portable HDDs are still pricy, I smell another XBox for MS here.
Do you see what I did there?
If they offer something similar in capacity and featurewise to the Ipod for a lower price they may have something. Since they are also are a recording label, they could offer something similar to ITunes but with a monthy fee for unlimited songs(DRM ofcourse, because you won't get it any other way), or different membership classes with a set number of downloads in each class per month, they may just be able to knock Apple off it's perch.
The Microsoft music player will feature a complete selection of air guitar tunes, encoded in the new MT format.
Remain calm! All is well!
Microsoft will begin selling a $50 music player that will 'look and feel as good as the iPod' later this year.
... That Sony player does look shweet! ;)
...
Well thats great, but id personally prefer a player that sounds as good, and performs as well as the iPod rather than one that "looks and feels" like one. With a 50quid price tag it will either be horrendously locked in (so that they can make money back from the songs) or the capacity will be so small that it becomes inconvient for people with large collections.
And i'd be very surprised if the "Gives more choice to consumers" part means anything more than WMA support, I would be prepared to place money on the fact that flac and ogg support are not included in that "more choice" line up...
However
nick
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
Is it just me or did I not wake up to a world where JPEG was still the dominant format for digital pictures.
And yet Sony's new product lacks support for the most widely supported graphical format. Does anyone else find this bizarre?
Something intelligent here.
From looking at the image it seems that Sony took the phrase "walkman of the 21st century" a little too seriously, as the only physical controls seem to mimic those of a tape player.
This seems like a serious interface mistake. What Apple has done is to realize that you need something really different to navigate 10,000 songs than you do 10. I don't think any kind of touch-screen interface like the Sony seems to have (with a mouse pointer? Perhaps just a mockup at this point)or a small set of buttons is going to provide an interface that is nearly as navigable.
It will be interesting to see how a new, more focused set of competitors from companies with really deep pockets fare. But you know what they say, the higher the blood pressure the faster you bleed.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yusuf Mehdi, a Microsoft VP, is quoted as saying that the player will give customers more choices than Apple."
How exactly is a Microsoft portable MP3 player going to give more choice to consumers than an iPod? Is he referencing that the end user can use all of the other commercial download services that are in competition with Apple's iTunes? (you know, all the ones that deal in WMA, and yes, I said "deal"). In that case, the "choice" is like Henry Ford saying the consumer could have his Model T "in any color, as long as it is black." I'm sorry, but unless the Microsoft player supports Ogg and "unencrypted" AAC, then again, its the illusion of choice on the part of Microsoft. In other words, more of the smoke and mirrors routine from Redmond. Considering this product will be another expense bankrolled by the ill-gotten gains of their operating system (and office applications) monopoly, they should (IMHO) instead invest the money spent on this ill-conceived project on further securing their bread-and-butter offerings. Or buyout Rockstar Games and break the exclusive PS2/3 contract they have for the next GTA title so the Xbox Next has a fighting chance against the PS3.
Regardless, I will lay down dollars or euros that Microsoft will include an (unencrypted) AAC to WMA conversion program, to answer Apple's tit-for-tat from last month's announcement. Just like I will bet green that Apple will be the first computer manufacturer to ship machines with Blue Ray drives as a way of spiting the DVD Forum for supporting WMP9 as the compression scheme for HD-DVD.
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
Naturally, loss leading to establish dominance of your other related products is an unfair practice.
Now, what is Apple's direct profit from the iTunes music store again?
not according to this article!
That's funny stuff!
they'll make it up on volume!
--
Anyone else notice that MS stock is going for less than Apple?
Faith is the very antithesis of reason, injudiciousness a critical component of spiritual devotion. Jon Krakauer
If Microsoft's strategy really is to sell these at a tremendous loss to take away market share from the iPod, it's going to backfire badly because people will buy them up only to harvest them for their parts. At $50, it will be the best price on the market for CF or miniature HD storage (if they are going to outfit them with capacity similar to the iPod). I heard that some digital camera users are already doing this with the iPod mini.
What he actually said was "Little ones [devices] that cost $50 bucks that you can go running with."
Details and audio of the talk here:
http://www.playerblog.com/archives/000150.shtml
finally, a device that allows me to play my BMP files anywhere I want!
---- Design. Invent. Cheese.
I doubt that Ferrari were worried when Kia/ Daewoo/ Hyundai popped onto the car scene;
Yeah, but a Ferrari is handbuilt, entirely custom engineered. iPods ain't.
iPods are more like Buicks -- a Chevy chassis (commodity hard drive) with lots of chrome and a digital dashboard.
M$ announces a new music player. It will be late, there will be bugs. Same story, different chapter.
I wish them the same success as the X-Box.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
So, it will have the "look and feel" of the Apple iPod. That's all fine, but hasn't Apple already done that? :)
The real question is, will it be as good as the Rio Karma??? Cross fade, 5-band parametric EQ, great bass, on-the-fly playlist creation, insert/append/re-order of current running order, Ogg, FLAC, WMA and MP3 support, gapless playback incl. with Ogg, VU Meters, twice the battery life of iPod, dual-line RCA outs and ethernet on docking station...
It's too bad Apple and Microsoft are more interested in how the package looks than what's actually inside the package. Guess there's a reason for that...
Can you really imagine a company owned and run by Bill Gates producing something that teenagers everywhere go nuts for?
Does Microsoft Game Studios count?
Does it automatically handcuff itself to the users when they buy it?
Microsoft has changed their ways and they can write a small efficient OS to run a small portable device. What a joke. they've made a lot of progress in many areas, but small and efficient aren't traits of microsoft.
from Microsoft - $50 will get you, most likely, 64MB of flash memory. Will be very surprised if this is 128MB.
of course, you can apply VERY HIGH COMPRESSION level, like 8Kbps. The quality of music will be roughly the same as played over the phone. I'm sure Microsoft will it call it 'CD-like quality'.
As to Sony - yes, finally they provide MP3. What still bugs me - how many people want to have a portable *video* player, and pay rather hefty premium for that. do I want to watch some movie while I walk? Hmmm, I don't think so.
Time to hire more janitors and double the amount of toilet paper in all public bathrooms.
Apparently someone got their grubby little hands on a beta version of Microsoft's iPod killer. I must say, it's very stylish, and I wouldn't mind losing the portability of my iPod to show off this baby. Hot!
"Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion." - Democritus
Jobs may be right that portable video may not be all that great, but that doesn't mean that Apple shouldn't come out with a video iPod just to throw at the media.
This is no way to do buisness at all. It takes a ton of R&D money to produce a solid product like the iPod, so making a video version without a real market would be a waste. And if Apple were to try to produce something cheaply to satisfy "the media," it would be crappy and ruin their reputation. Nope, if they're going to make something, they'll make it right and only if they think it will sell.
cat ~/background.jpg > /dev/dsp
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
Mac OS. Man, in some ways Mac OS 9 is still better than Windows XP.
NeXT Cube. What a sweet machine. There was nothing like it then and still respected today.
NeXTStep. IMO still the best OS made. So good Mac OS X uses huge chucks of it.
Newton. Bumpy at first but the last models released are still better IMO than any other pda.
Mac Cube. Very cool looking and quiet. They still get top dollar on ebay today.
iMac. The original iMac gave us style where style had been missing. Beige was dead and you were proud of your Bondi Blue machine.
... and of course the iPod.
I know I've missed a few other marvels and I'm sure there's some cool stuff they never released. With all that said don't you think that Apple already has a working video iPod prototype that could be in production in less than 30 days? The magic eight ball says "Yes".
I have yet to see someone scoop Apple in style and thunder, and IMO MS/Sony won't do it this time. I don't care how good it is, Apple will make their's better.
"And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'" - HST
Every console is sold at a loss at launch. I see nothing wrong with them setting low prices. IE for free? So much the better. If you don't like free or low cost, you must be what Penny Arcade calls a fuck tard
At that price they would hope the subscriber price
would offset it.
The iPod interface is unquestionably the easiest to use and most intuitive user interface of any portable digital audio player out there, with even the most technologically illerate people able to figure out how to use it in a few minutes with no guidiance.
Moreover, the sound quality of the iPod is excellent. Using completely objective and emperical tests of sound quality, Stereophile Magazine has concluded that the iPod is amongst the best there is in terms of sound quality, beating many high quality CD players in some respects.
Not only is it ugly but you can knock someone out with it.
Bít, zabít, jen proto, ze su liska!
In the vein that people have jumped on iPods in a big way. Most people think iPods are cool. They have almost become a symbol of hip-ness(or already are?).
For the new MS/Sony player to be successful it's going to have to be more stylish and at least a match in technical specs.
I can't see much room for improvement over the current iPods(other than storage capacity). A [very]low cost player is not going to compete.
There's a rumor that Xbox Next (Xbox 2 as the name suggests) will use a removable iPod like device as its harddrive. The main storage for save games and the like will be internal flash memory. It would be pretty cool to be able to download songs using whatever iTune clone MS will have all on a console.
Run-on sentence aside, did you notice that he didn't say that it sounds great.
Windows smells good to me, it is truly a wonder of modern marketing.
Microsoft will begin selling a $50 music player that will 'look and feel as good as the iPod' later this year.
AHAHAHAHAHAHA ahahahahahaha ha hah ahhhhh.... No, really.
The same aguement could be mad in regards to the current generation of consoles (XBOX, PS2, & Gamecub).
The XBOX and PS2 both came out at $299 and sold like crazy. But a lot of people still felt that they were very overpriced, and only coming with one controller and no free game made it feel even more so.
I myself only jsut recently bought all 3 consoles, simply because the price has finally come down to a legitimate level.
And with newer PCs being sold by Dell, Compaq, etc... in the $400-$600 range the console makers should be very careful at how they price the next generation. Because as more and more people buy computers at these low prices they will not feel like putting that much cash down for new toys.
Apple really, really needs-- not now, but sometime before the Microsoft "We can set rediculously low prices becuase we don't care if we make a profit on anything except Windows and Office Music Player" hits-- aggressively start licensing the FairPlay DRM and some kind of fancy "iTunes Music Store Compatibility" logo to other music player creators. I think if they do not attempt to do this they are in big trouble.
Microsoft has been really, really harping on this "choice" thing, by which they mean "iTMS purchases can only be played on the iPod". Meanwhile they're trying to push music player carriers to support WMA. At the moment WMA is still just an also-ran in this space but if this keeps happening that could change. Apple needs to get FairPlay support into everyone's hands in order to make AAC the new standard so that WMA doesn't grab that spot...
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
I'd like to know how replaceable the rechargable battery is in these units. This isn't mentioned at all in the article. Lithium-ion batteries charge great for about a year then rapidly go south. When the battery dies, you might be left with a stylish block of plastic and electronics to prop open the window in a rainstorm.
Getting screwed by Apple's wonderfully "engineered" virtually non-replaceable battery design, I'm loathe to part with more money on such products, even if it's only $50. Yeah, the iPod looked and functioned great. But it boils down to Apple selling me a $300 razor, telling me I need to buy a new one three months out of warranty, then eventually offering to sell me a new razor with blade (battery "replacement" program) for another $99.
Here come da fudge!
They should have a pluggable codec architecture. Because let's face it, in a few years there will be a format which nobody had heard of before, which storms the market and everyone wants to put on their device.
Nobody gave a flying fuck about AAC until the iPod showed up and started using it. Move back to before iPod, and see what people on Slashdot say when you ask for a player which supports it. I would expect the same sort of anti-OGG troll which you get at present to be bagging out AAC in exactly the same way. Yet where are we now?
In another couple of years some other audio codec which nobody gives a shit about right now will appear on another player, and everyone who buys these non-upgradeable pieces of shit will be incapable of playing it.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
Halo was made by a mac game maker called Bungie and had already been demoed prior to microsoft buying them out. Not a microsoft in house game, however they had the good sense to notice a good game. Also note the XBOX hasn't made microsoft any money, so in one way it is a large failure. This is easier to see now that microsoft reports on the earning of its divisions.
Will this new player have control alt delete keys?
You mean it plays PNGs? Even IE doesnt do those right, stupid microsoft.
Patent: from Latin patere, to be open
iPod
Cost: $400
Capacity: 20GB
Weight: 5.6 ounces
Formats: MP3 AAC AIFF WAV
Interfaces: Firewire 400
Battery Life: "Over 8 hours"
Extras: Games, Contacts, Calendar, Alarm, Sleep Timer, Clock, "20 equalizer settings"
LCD: 160x128 backlit
Karma
Cost: $260 on Amazon
Capacity: 20GB
Weight: 5.5 ounces
Formats: MP3 WMA OGG FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec making WAV not needed)
Interfaces: USB 2 and Ethernet
Battery Life: 15 hours
Extras: Dynamic playlists, Dual RCA Line-Outs, 5 band equalizer
LCD: 160x128 backlit
the article says $500, not $50
There was an unknown error in the submission.
You also have to take into account that MS will no doubt be selling them for a loss in order to get market share. Just like they do with the XBOX. It wouldn't surprise me if it would be something like the ipod mini's with their smaller storage too.
It's tactics like this that show MS should be broken up so that they can no longer use Office, OEM license profits for leveraging into other markets.
it said MS will be introducing playerS. presumably some will be flash based; you already see those for $50.
I dunno, Linux seems to undercut the competition in the same way. Seems to me everyone here likes the way Linux is(nt) sold. So why can't microsoft join suit? Also, both sony and nintendo sold their console at a loss at launch.
The real question here for Microsoft is can they make one *as* good as Ipod AND have a real battery that doesn't crap out in 1 year of hard use.
I've got to believe there a plent of PO'ed Ipod users ready to jump to spite Apple and the way the * handled* the battery issue.
It occurs to me that MS cannot make an iPod knock off for $50. If so, then they are losing money to build market share. It's been a while since my marketing classes, but it sounds to me like Predatory Pricing. And if I remember right, it is illegal.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
The demo's prior to the xbox version were all different kinds of games ranging from RTS to third person shooter. And Xbox software has made MS money, and brand recognition. And brand recognition makes a lot of things worth it.
Instead of gutting your own sales by talking up the next new product at the expense of the current one, do it to your competitors
It doesn't matter if it doesn't end up selling at $50, it will stop people from buying competitors gear at least until it's released
I doubt it will compete with the next gen of iPods.
They should have a pluggable codec architecture.
Bingo, thats actually dead on what they should have. The problem is no manufacturer currently produces a player that does that, and no one in the market has the option of buying one.
In another couple of years some other audio codec which nobody gives a shit about right now will appear on another player, and everyone who buys these non-upgradeable pieces of shit will be incapable of playing it.
Also dead-on (this is also why I won't buy DRMed files I can't convert later) but from the manufactuer's point of view (and tunes store in the case of the music files), they want you to be forced to upgrade your stuff. They can be sure to separate you from more of your cash that way.
Of course I'm one of those "behind the curve" geeks that'll be buying a karma in 3 years for 20 bucks to play all of my oggs on.
I like the iPOD and Apple products in general, but I have no reasons to believe that Apple can hold this market. But, I don't think MS is the company that will be the thread.
Music is more than a player, this IS the reason of the sucess of iPOD. You need credability as well, and this is something MS has to buy. For the same reasons they can't match Google (ever!) without buying Google, the same goes for iPOD.
Credability is something MS never can get, which is a big problem in this market.
Honestly, what is wrong with Ogg that these no one can support it? Not that I have any Ogg files, but if I had something that would PLAY Ogg files I would make a few...or is that what they're afraid of?
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
see the subject .. nuff said.
So who is working on a mod-chip to make the MS player as useful my xbox+mod chip is in my home theater?
I was thinking of jazz at the time that I wrote it, actually, as an added meaning - I'm sure you'll feel plenty blue when the player crashes and destroys your music library.
You're not the only one, I also would add Wierd Al to that list!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
ATRAC ENCODING ONLY!!! HOLY CRAP, its limited to 120kbps for copyright reasons. I have 2 sony minidisk portables one is NET the other one is old style but very sturdy analog recorder, and comparing the quality on the two... old one beats .net any day.. this rate restriction is insane, considering I can play analog recorded MDS on my .net ... I dont know what they're thinking, I guess this kind of half assed crap comes out when you are the manufacturer and the recording label.
More old thinking. The history of Halo is well documented by now. You make it seem like Halo was already done before Microsoft. That mythology (spread by those still angry that MS bought Bungie) is just that, a myth.
Point is: XBox would have flopped severely without Bungie and Halo. I'll even admit it: I hate MS but X-Box is a pretty good system, problem is it wouldn't have taken off had it not been for Halo.
What do they have on this front though? It's not liek the iPod has some killer app software company MS can scoop up, iPod IS the killer app... What is MS going to do, buy out Apple to make their MP3 player?
*sudders at thought*
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
I use mine to play music, not to stare at.
The next generation of Neuros looks like this.
Disclaimer: I have a Neuros and I love it.
MS could call it the pShit.
Actually, shit. Now that I think about it, I should've requested FLAC and SHN support as well. Perhaps other /.'ers would be so kind as to request those features in my stead.....or is it as I fear... that Slashdot is a haven for whiners and moaners. It would be nice to see more action and less words bandied about. But I digress - many members of any group should be willing to take action. Please support free & open source software with words....and deeds.
Oh, and it probably doesn't hurt to hint that your buying decision may hinge on that feature.
Electric Monkey Pants
your competitors, that is called "dumping" and it's illegal
they've already admitted to doing it with teh xbox, notice the DoJ still busy with shadowy "terrorists" without hands while king kong's monster nuts roll over every competitor in every other market
i wonder if these are the same people who want one world gov't also
when will walmart/M$/aoltimewarner merger be so i can sign up for my beast-marking discount card
the sad part is the most vocal people here will probably buy one.
disclaimer: no i dont' have any fucking handhelds for my music, i still burn cds to listen to in my car from mp3s, call me a luddite
which microsoft STILL is selling at a loss and is basically designed a stealth PC killing pill
and also has a 10 gb drive in it, i think they can pull this off easily and they're probably not even involved i bet they contracted it out
what i really want to know is what happened to bill gates
do you people remember when he included BASIC on every machine becuase he wanted EVERYONE to be programmers?
where is that gates? why can't i program the computer in english using my voice yet? are you out there bill?
I did my part and formally requested iTunes and iPod support for both encoding and decoding Ogg Vorbis.
Apple's response: we've already got AAC, which is functionally equivalent to and AT LEAST as good as OGG.
Actually, shit. Now that I think about it, I should've requested FLAC and SHN support as well.
Apple's response: we introduced a lossless compressor with the last release of QuickTime.
I don't mean to shoot you down. It's just that asking for a feature isn't sufficient. You've gotta build a business case for it. Which means you've either got to get 500,000 of your closest friends to ask for the same thing, or you've got to tell them why.
Come to think of it... why? AAC is as good or better, and it's there already. Apple Lossless is exactly as good (because, duh, it's also lossless) and it's there already.
So why?
I write in my journal
Actually iPod is only a monopoly in the US, in Korea, iRiver is the number one DAP manufacturor with like 1/3 of the market
the point is that its a status symbol, notice that you can buy a $50 cellphone and a $700+ cellphone
they do basically the same things give or take a camera or whatever
enter the ipod, they weren't first they aren't last, they're sleek and people are buying into a lifestyle so that people will see it and think "wow look how cool and trendy and rich they are, i wish i could be like that(have one of those)"
THAT is where Apple capitalizes on the Beat the Jones ticket
so yes M$ will sell a billion of these but no it won't be killing the ipod just like the pc didn't kill the mac its an IMAGE its more than a music player
The bad news is it will only play WMA files...
The good news is it will run Pen Windows!
No flac support. From Microsoft. And I already have a laptop that has a 10" screen and is half an inch thick -- it practically is my iPod.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I think microsoft has a suscription based service in mind - sort of like cell phones. Sell the ipod clone for $50 - but sign a 2 year contract to buy $10 worth of music a month from microsoft's music store.... or pay $200 for the ipod clone without the 2 year contract. it worked for cell phones...
Quite frankly I am at a loss for words. I really try to stay open minded and accept all arguments when people are talking about computers, however, I simply do not understand the need/want of an IPod. I mean firstly it has a battery that is a pain in the ass to change, and if you have no technical skills you have to pay Apple out the wazoo to get it changed. Secondly it has a very limited data capacity why buy something with 40Gigs when there are 60 and 80 gig devices out there? Now I know this thread is talking about a "new" microsoft device for under $50, pfft I believe that when I see it. I do however know that creative and sony are both making a PMC unit with microsoft, (creatives coming out first of course), http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?catego ry=3&subcategory=169&product=9882 now these units will undoubtably be alot more then $50 but they have video and audio, not to mention creative is coming out with 20/40/60/80 gig versions of these AND they have tv outs on them for the person on the move. Now grant it the one thing that seems to be seriously missing from players is really nice encryption, quite frankly ive been playing files in PCM 16 bit stereo for really good quality. My question is since PMC is just a spinof of windows CE it should technically have a registry that is accessible and everything just like a PDA running windows. This to me gives us the hope of being able to install any codec we wish into the unit, (possibly through a hack only). I know other people see different then I do and that is fine, but in my humble opinion the IPod is a piece of junk, other then the cool 3rd party extras you can purchase for it. I am by far not a huge microsoft fan but really how difficult is it to beat a player with a 40GB hdd that has limited codec playback abilities and has been known to have a fair share of hardware problems. Oh not to mention the lack of a AC port for us people who do not wish to charge off the firewire port. Ok getting of my soap box now.
Sony has a chance to make an iPod killer and their inclusion of video is a good start. However Sony more than any other company has been trying to make an iPod killer for some time now. They have yet to make one that even comes close to some of the bad iPod clones like the dell jukebox or as some of its users call it, the Hell Jokebox.
Microsoft on the other hand does not have a clue about making an iPod killer. With the price they are charging they only have two choices for their player. A cheap flash memory based player with 64MB to 256MB of memory or a large hard drive based player that they cannot make money on at 50 dollars. The second one might be possible if Microsoft comes up with its own music store and ties the player to their music store only. This could defray some of the cost of selling the player at 50 bucks.
Microsoft does have the deep pockets that allow it to under sell its hardware in hopes of capturing the market. The Xbox is a good example. I don't believe the Xbox division has made one dime of profit yet. They have gotten a lot of Xbox's on the market by selling it below cost but I don't think the market share they have now is as much as they wanted to have by this point.
The other hurdles Microsoft has to tackle are the design of the unit, Microsoft has had some good designs, like their optical mice and some really dogs, like their keyboards. This leaves firmware the device will run and the jukebox software that is needed to feed the device. Since Apple has patented the iPods OS design look and feel among other things, coming up with some iPod killer software may prove a challenge for Microsoft this time around since they will have to depend on their own R&D instead of Apples.
With the Market share that Apple has with the iPod and iTunes Music Store I don't believe they are quaking in their boots at Microsofts announcement. Microsoft has been doing some big talking these last few weeks with little to back them up. Even the PC magazines have been questioning Microsofts "breakthrough" longhorn features such as transparent windows, the 3D UI elements of Avalon, the expose-like window management features and the auto discovery networking technology as direct rip offs of Apples nearly year old Panther OS.
Time will tell, it will be interest to see what Sony comes up with and Microsoft should be good for a few laughs before we start feeling very sorry for them.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
will it be PC & Mac ?
:
Personnaly, I could be interested if
- it does firewire
- it can be used as an external hard drive
- it is compatible with iTunes on the mac
- the sound quality, with 192 bps MP3, is good
- I don't have to reencode my music (mp3 and some ogg) to another format
One can say that only the iPod is iTunes compatible, but if MicroSoft promise more choice, for me, it means choosing another player to work with iTunes.
"There are no iPods here. Never!"
Yusuf Mehdi - Microsoft Information Minister
Tough to beat iPod when it has the Apple name behind it. There will always be mac users who stay loyal to the Apple products. I have three macs and one iPod now and I use them all the time.
Browse the Information Directory
Can fit 3 hours of video on a 256MB SD card. That's 8 Episodes of the Simpsons. (22 mins each.)
6 hours battery life.
Music Videos are fun too- why not watch Britney dance around- beats listening to her music.
If you just want to play MP3 or OGG you can shut off the screen and play it twice as long before a recharge.
Can fit 3 hours of video on a 256MB SD card. That's 8 Episodes of the Simpsons. (22 mins each.)
6 hours battery life.
Music Videos are fun too- why not watch Britney dance around- beats listening to her music.
If you just want to play MP3 or OGG you can shut off the screen and play it twice as long before a recharge.
Man I cannot believe how lame you guys are, yeh lets argue about sony making their hardware opensource.... LAME LAME LAME LAME LAME!
"the player will give customers more choices than Apple."
Since when is MS so concerned with a customer's choice? Aren't these the guys who've been found guilty at antitrust trails for not giving customers choices?
I got a free IPod, you know what I did with it?
First I wiped my ass with it.
Then I dropped Anvil on it. Then I feed the remains of it to a group of pigs I had been starving for 3weeks. Hell I wouldn't be seen with an Ipod, much less with a powerbook. I would prefer to donate my testicles to medical science than have anything to with Apple.
I've been waiting for a device like this! Now I can convert my entire image collection to .BMP and bring so many fewer images along with me! (Unless, of course, the .bmp file format has evolved to support superior data compression. I'd look it up but I'm too lazy now. Anyone clue me in?)
What I really like though is the interesting other side of the story: The other formats are all de facto industry standards, and MS didn't invent them. Is this good news or what?
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
Going to have to call you on that--Sony definitely has solid revenue coming from their various enterprises, particularly hardware and media sales. And don't forget, Sony is a weighty member of the RIAA. Sometimes I feel like slashdot forgets that fact...
-- listen to interesting music, support independent radio... WPRB
(Someone please correct me if I'm wrong) I'm suprised nobody's yet started working on an embedded Linux MP3/Ogg/anything-else-that-might-be-useful device for people. It'd be opensource, powerful, cheap/affordable, a fun project, and unlike Microsoft, far from irony ("give the customers more choice than Apple", more like they want further domination) and a great project to show Linux as embedded system.
They should just "cut to the chase" ... and make it BLUE !!!
That and Ogg Vorbis hippies.
There ain't no rules here; we're trying to accomplish something.
Funny, BMP/GIF/PNG/TIFF are graphics formats. So it plays MPEG2, MPEG4, and MP3 audio. Isnt MP3 part of MPEG2 standard, and ACC part of the MPEG4 standard?
iPod plays AAC (16 to 320 Kbps), MP3 (32 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible, AIFF, Apple lossless and WAV; and can import via iTunes WMA (unprotected).
Whose got more choices?
Remember when the iPod Mini was announced, and Jobs was talking about the "$50 price difference" between the $250 iPod Mini and the 256M flash players?
:)
I still wonder where he was getting his figures, because the flash MP3 player I had just bought was only $60. It was only 128M, but I refuse to believe the other 128M of flash really costs $140 on the open market.
Oh, and it was significantly smaller and lighter than the iPod Mini, as well...
I hope that they were just holding back on an "iPod Micro" for marketing reasons, and will be ready to drop it on the market when they need it.
You forgot the small print:
Where We is at most a handful of people who read slashdot.
for 50$ for sure.
mod perant up.
it was demoed in a macworld expo running on a mac, about 6 months before MS bought them
I've hard both praise and complaints about ipod sound quality; which leads me to believe that it is a very subjective thing.
Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
They could call it the iDildo. Looks and feels like the real thing. Just don't expect it to perform like it.
I tried for 5 years to come up with a clever sig...only to realize that I am not clever.
Is a scroll wheel on the side, like my mouse. Perhaps in an appropriate place to be a thumbwheel. Add a simple tree structure user interface, with long click being the same as right click, and all you really need for directions are up and down anyway.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Or, how about purchasing a player that does support OGG files such as the Rio Karma. That will provide you with a portable player that does play OGG and you will be supporting a company that provides OGG playback. They are good quality players, I have one!
Mod this beotch FUNNY!
Well, of course it will only be $50.
It'll be released in 10 years along with their next "killer OS" using the same tech the iPod uses today
Yeah, a friend of mine bought the iHP-120 recently, and it's the nicest portable music player I've used yet. Not only is there OGG support in addition to other formats, but it just mounts as a USB(2) HD that you can throw files onto, no stupid DRM crap to deal with. Plus, the headphone output is practically distortionless when cranked to full volume, which is *really* nice is you own a good pair of headphones.
:)
Hrm, maybe we just need to pester them to make a portable movie player device?
-- sudo.ca
They have the Windows and Office divisions that have 90% + profit margins and all the other divisions are losing cash hand over fist (well, except the server division, they break even). They can probably afford to give those players for free if they so wanted. I don't think immediate profit is the first thing on their minds when they go copying competitors. They try to undercut them (while losing oodles of cash) and when the competition are dead, then they jack up the prices. Nothing like a multi blllion dollar monopoly.
Just so you guys know, the source of all this sound and fury was a Bloomberg article that crossed the wire on Wednesday - turns out the article was wrong and was corrected online a few minutes afterwards, but the original keeps getting picked up.
Can't find the links, but here's the before and after:
Before:
After:get it right here:http://engadget.com/entry/3463715371535682/
We're correcting our post from earlier today about a $50 ipod clone from Microsoft. Basically, it looks like the Denver Post got it really, really wrong when they published this yesterday....
I like microcars
Link still good though!
I like microcars
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!