Slashdot Mirror
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
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.
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.
Yup, you get what you pay for. Dell makes some cheap laptops, but they have this tendency to fall apart in about a week. That doesn't happen with powerbooks.
:P Apple has earned my loyalty by making a great product; Microsoft's business practices (and OS) make me want to blow up their headquarters on a daily basis. I'm sure others agree with me :)
And as for their music player, it's rediculous. They make you pay extra for "enhanced" (i.e. non-crippled) software, and I'm sure the hardware isn't as good as Apple's. Apple, unfortunately (for their sales department), always adds features that are hard to market. For instance, read any review of MP3 players and you'll find that Apple's sound output hardware (DA converters, amp, etc.) is the best. But you can't really market that.
Oh well. The people who want a good music player will buy the Apple and the people who want a new toy will buy the M$ box. That's the way things have always been, and I don't see how it affects me if M$ makes a $50 music box. Whatever
My other car is first.
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.
There weren't really and HD-based MP3 players before the iPod. So the "Mac Zealots" are pretty close to the truth anyway. But BTW, I didn't see any zealots saying anything about this. You are putting words in their collective mouth.
:)
Anyway, I think it's great that microsoft wants to sell me $200 hard drives for $50 in a nice shinny box. Me buying a new mini hard drive == M$ losing $150. What a deal
My other car is first.
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.
Don't worry. It will cost $50 just like iPod Mini cost $100.
Unless of course they force you to use a Microsoft online music service to get music (and not let you play your own MP3s). Then it makes sense for them to sell you a $400 item for $50, and make a killing on the actual songs... (kinda like they do with XBox).
"If anything can go wrong, it will." - Murphy
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
I disagree. I think that if the pricetag is $50, then Microsoft intends to lose money on the units AND the music sales (similar to how the XBox, a current venture loses money overall).
Microsoft more likely than not intends to lose gobs of money overall on the entire music venture, with only two goals in mind:
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts