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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."
"That's just the way it is. I want my open-source, patent-free, DRM-free codec."
Instead of bitching about the lack of OGG support on Slashdot where it won't help matters, why don't you email Apple and tell them that you would be an iPod if they'd ship with OGG support? That would be the more constructive argument to make. Here, I'll even help you out and provide the proper link to submit your comment:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/ipod.html
Happy codec hunting!
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
Have you ever priced buying one of the little drives in an ipod or ipod mini individually? The primary reason that competitors can claim similar features cheaper is that their players are a bit larger, thus able to use cheaper hard drives. The smaller form factor of the ipod and the hard drive inside does add value. If you don't value the slightly smaller size, thats a perfectly valid opinion, but some people do value it, and the smaller drives are legitimately more expensive than larger ones with the same capacity.
Most of Apples competitors have only been able to compete in form OR function OR price, or 2 of those factors, never all 3. That indicates that the iPods aren't as inflated in price as you think, or with all the competition out there, they wouldn't be so hard to improve on. Apple does have a higher markup than some companies, but if they knocked $100 off the entry level iPod, I doubt they'd be making any net profit, and they are not a charity. The markup is not that dramatic.
The Karma's a whopping 1.1 inches thick to the iPod's 0.62. It also appears to have been designed by someone with a terrible hangover from the late '90s.
After that, everything else is just quibbling. Still, I should point out that you neglected to mention the iPod's new lossless codec.
You forgot a few things on the iPod:
Width: 0.62"
Interfaces: FireWire 400 AND USB2
Extras also include Smart Playlists and auto playlist syncing.
Also, an interface that doesn't suck the balls.
- oZ
// i am here.