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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."
Of course it's not going to have a similar capacity. All he said was it's going to look neat. More Microsoft FUD and vapor.
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
What a coincidence. Apple's lawyers are already filling out a lawsuit with the very same title!
You know what?
"this is going to have a similar capacity? If so, IPOD should be out of business with that price difference."
Wow, I don't think anyone could come up with a more succinct statement that summarizes why the Slashdot crowd has absolutely no clue about the portable music player market.
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.
Really? I can't wait to rawk to my
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?
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
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.
Whatever happened to outdoing your competitors?
Way to go MS. Aim low.
My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...
"Blue note of death"
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I don't think it will have a similar capacity. I wouldn't even bet on it being a microsoft product, as that last bastion of journalistic integrity, as the apple turns has a linked story that has a bit more to chew on (but not much more) than the denver post article.
The quote about the $50 players was left out, but it does still contain the 'look and feel' quote, and he is obviously referring to third-party players that will be launched alongside a new microsoft music download service.
What kind of hard drive could a manufacturer possibly put in a player for less than $50 - none, maybe flash 128/256 - but that's already on the market, and has been for some time. Anyway, I choose to believe this to be just more Microsoft FUD until I see such a $50 iPod killer.
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.
Or even better, be active: Hop over to iPod Linux and join the hackers there - for OGG support (& more!) on the iPod. 'Tis beautiful, this open-source thing of ours *sniff*.
668.5
Operator: And our next question we'll take is from Arik Hesseldahl with Forbes.com.
Arik Hesseldahl: Hi, Steve. Always concerned about -- not concerned, I guess, but wondering -- one of the previous questions was about revenue. I'm wondering if iTunes has reached the break even point yet.
Steve Jobs: Yes. The iTunes music store had a small profit this past quarter.
Arik Hesseldahl: Had a small profit. OK. Any interest whatsoever, since in the open source OGG Vorbis format?
Steve Jobs: We're certainly not getting any requests from customers for it.
Arik Hesseldahl: OK.
Source: Conference call, April 29, 2004.
They clearly aren't overpriced; they sell like hotcakes. Apple has accurately judged the market's demand for the devices, and chosen the appropriate price point. If they actually *were* overpriced, a competitor would have long since come along and undercut them. There are cheaper players, yes, but none as small and/or well executed as the iPod (mini). What apple "should" be charging is what the market will support, looking also to make it difficult for a competitor to beat them on the combination of price/form/function. They've clearly hit the mark, as demand shows. I don't know, maybe you mean "should" in some weird moral sense? I mean, they "should" just give me one, in my ideal universe, but it ain't gonna happen. Other companies have been in the fray for quite some time, and they haven't forced down apple's prices yet; this is a good indication that they're right where they "should" be.
Microsoft doesn't aim 'high' or 'low.' Microsoft aims wide.
Nobody uses Microsoft products has ever been called elitist. MS isn't into selling to narrow niche markets.
resigned
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.