Slashdot Mirror
Sony, Walkmans And The iPod
yootje writes "A long story about Sony, and how Sony developed: from the first walkman, until the latest competition against the iPod. "
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
From the article...
"Customers who look to the iPod as the only advanced styling and fashion statement out there are going to take more than a second look at the Walkman.''
Possibly so, but most of the folks I know who have iPod's (including the Mini) don't just like the way it looks, but also like the fact that "it just works" in iTunes for both Windows and PC. Not to mention, of course, the hardware interface itself. It's simple enough that even my non-techie friends have figured how to use 90% of the functionality within 5 minutes. That's impressive design.
Perhaps Sony could make one that looks better...but can they make works better???
It's "no one," not "noone." Who the hell is noone anyway?
This new Sony iPod killer may be small, but on close inspection, it's kind of ugly.
Looks like the interface will be similar to the iPods as well, still feel Apple's way is kind of clunky for searching through large music lists.
I like everything I see about the Sony products including their attitude on the long-haul. Everything but one ... they still use their nasty-sounding ATRAC format (the same one used for minidiscs).
Sorry, but if you can't play MP3 OR Ogg Vorbis OR AAC, you're dead in the water. Yes, they bundle software to convert those formats (not sure about Ogg Vorbis, which is what I use) for loading onto the player as ATRAC files, but this is seriously not something that interests me.
Give me the same basic form factor, a higher price (but still under iPod), and the ability to natively play MP3, Ogg Vorbis and AAC (yes, all 3 ... I actually would be happy with OV but I'm not the mass-market ... I'll even admit that you could probably get away without including OV for the next couple of years with no significant market loss) and you've got me hook, line and tweeter.
Until then I'm sticking with my rather huge but very flexible Neuros. A shame, because until I found the blurbs about the ATRAC (that verbally sounds too much like 8-track :) file format I was seriously drooling.
And while you're at it, allow me to load files via USB Mass-storage so that I don't need a bunch of flaky software to load the player. Right now this and size are the only detractors keeping the Neuros from being the best thing out there. An Ogg player with USB Mass-storage loading (Neuros supports USB mass-storage, but won't play songs loaded that way because they are not in the database) that is small with a significant battery life and good corporate support ... is it so much to ask? Yeah *laugh* I guess so.
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
There is a reason Sony sells so well. They make some of the best electronics in the world. I own a Sony TV that has been working for 8 years and never had a problem. Everything I purchased from them has lasted and worked. I pay more for it, but I think it is worth it. Much better than paying 25% less for something that breaks in a year. With Sony I have never purchased an extended warrenty because I feel secure knowing the product was manufactured to last.
As for them opening stores, if they are doing this for marketing (and not profit) I think it is a very smart move. Apple opened a store in a shopping center near me, and it is cool to go and play around with their toys. Plus, the people they hired are trained to be friendly and more playful compared to the "computer store" with the small Mac section in the back and the over stressed salesman. By having their own store, they can have a different buisness model than a store (marketing and advertising their product versus sales).
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
I bought my very first Sony Walkman when I was about 13, after I had saved money for over a year. I was so proud of it, although it was big, bulky and made an awful whirring noise while playing. Still it survived water, dust, various people sitting on it and even being dropped the 4 fourth floor of a building. Actually, it works to this very day.
I prefer more fragile stuff.
Hack your mind out of its sandbox.
If someone could please pull that Consumer Reports list of the best Home Electronic companies and tell me where Sony ranks, that would be swell.
The last time I checked, Sony sucks. It has been nearly 10 years since Sony rooled in terms of quality. Now, I consider them to be the Wal-Mart of Home Electronics. Their TVs and PlayStatios may rule but that same craftmanship is lost on all the other stuff they choose to slap their brand on.
ChozSun
ChozSun.com
Perhaps more importantly (seeing as this conversion will be pretty much invisible to the user) the loss of quality in the conversion won't be popular. It's not just audiophiles with perfect pitch who can hear the compression artifacts in a tune subjected to two different compressions.
As long as magazines point this out, the Walkman is doomed to failure unless Sony do a U-turn and rewrite their ROMs to handle native MP3.
[That said, I feel obliged to point out that I quite like ATRAC. The time-based compression saves all the guessing over how big any given MP3 will turn out and the sound quality is better than most -- if not all -- of the MP3s that I've heard.]
HAL
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Still, an article on Sony gave you an opportunity to post that quote you've been saving up, didn't it.
We bought a few Sony MD recorders for academic use before we realize how difficult it was to get the recorded content off the minidiscs.
While the product description for new Walkman claims the software included with the Walkman can convert MP3 and WMA to the proprietary ATRAC format... there is no mention of how or if the files can be converted to use on a non-Sony product. In the 80's, I could move a tape from my Sony Walkman to my Magnovox boombox. Sony worked with a standard format for recording and media and they were successful. You'd think they would have learned from the MiniDisc's failure that open and compatible sells better than close and proprietary.
To get the best of Sony style but a less restricting DRM, check out RetroPod.
Wow, the thing is great! The new VAIO X505 has some very nice goodies and albeit it may be a little slow, it does use the ULV Intel chips! Low power, lower heat seem to be the way of the future...
Sony is banking on their assumption that iPod's are the "hip" device for the youth while the walkman will capture an ignored market share that was waiting for a familiar name before making an investment.
Their assumption is flawed because a lot of the first group gives technical advice to the second. I know that if anyone in my little world makes noises about buying one of these things, my browser will be pointing them to www.ipod.com before they can say "but I'm comfortable with Sony."
Open Source Sushi
Oh the heady days of auto-reverse and conserving battery life: rewinding manually by twirling the tape around with a ball point pen through the take-up reel.
I still have a lingering desire for tiny black rectangles with Dolby's DD symbol embossing the side.
A Partial Walkman History
I once bought a Sony Network Walkman - one of my bigger mistakes.
ATRAC exists to facilitate DRM - you can only "check out" your songs to the player a limited number of times before you need to check them in to allow you to check them out again.
If that sounds confusing, it is because it is confusing.
Don't buy Sony music players - it appears the record label has too much power over the people who make the consumer electronics.
When everyone else is using one format (mp3, compact flash...) you use another (atrac, memory stick...).
Exactly the point. Sony is so big they dont *care* if everyone else is doing X, because they can do Y and still make money.
Look at the memory stick - proprietary format, only Sony devices can use it. But look at how proliferated it is!
Look at it this way - You will be able to go to connect.com and buy an album from Columbia records, copy the ATRAC to a memory stick on your Vaio, play them on your Clie, play them on your Sony Reciever, play them on your deck in your car, play themon your walkman, play them on your TV, play them on your Sony cell phone... and Sony has made profit at every point in the chain, from production to distribution to consumption.
It's all about vertical markets. And Sony can drive the market how they see fit because they are big enough. Apple has no chance of doing this.
It is useless. First time I got my new walkman I thought "Hey, great, now I can fit my entire collection onto one disc" Then I discovered it would take ten hours to transcode all the files, with no way of pausing it or anything. Thankfully this one also supports data cds full of mp3s which is what I've been using ever since
Sony (whose name comes from a combination of the words - 'Sound Nippon') seems to be going after the wrong market. They should be pursuing the young and NOT rich, and leave the rich to Apple.
Approximately 75% of the world's people are under the age of 25 and don't have a whole lot of money. This is the market that Sony should be targeting. Instead they are using DRM, proprietary formats, and tie-ins to product from other Sony divisions to capture a chunk of the world's recorded music marketplace. Stupid, because the vast majority of people who would be buying Sony products won't because they can't afford them.
Myself, for example. I get CD audio recordings from the public library. Then I rip them using open source software onto a $20 5 gig hard drive on a $150 PC. The recordings that I would want to hear again at some point in the future I write to a $0.09 CD-R blank (that holds 100 songs in 192kbps MP3 format) using a $25 CDRW. Then I play them outside through a $20 CDR/RW capable MP3 CD player. Every device in the process costs less than an order-of-magnitude of the price that Sony (and Apple) charges for the same utility. If someone can make the equipment profitable for this price then Sony certainly can. And I live in the wealthy western first-world. Outside the US, the EU, Japan, and Canada, people have to work ten times as many hours for the money to buy the same level of equipment.
Sony needs to relearn that innovation is as much a process of getting new equipment affordable as it is a process of designing new toys.
By the way, am I stealing music? No, almost all of the stuff that I listen to I bought many years ago in different formats (45 RPM vinyl, or 33RPM LP). I bought it, I can listen to it.
Or, I listened to the songs so many times on the radio and listened to the commercials so many times that I own the right to have a copy of the song by having listened to the hundreds of radio commercials. That concept of ownership may seem unusual but it is no more strange than the various types of music ownership devised by the media companies. I absolutely, totally, and completely refuse to accept the legitimacy of the laws regarding music copyright because those laws were written by RIAA lobbyists specifically for the sole benefit of the media companies. When the media companies recognize the principle of fair use and limited copyright periods, I will negotiate the concept of music ownership with them. But they never will recognize these principles, so I feel no obligation to honor the legitimacy of the laws that they wrote to enrich themselves.
Okay, so it's been tough, but you've finally managed to stop yourself from taking Dell up on its kind offer to crush your iPod into a thin paste in exchange for $100 off one of its own stellar music players. Good for you. Only now you're finding yourself tempted by those new players that Sony introduced yesterday-- in particular the NW-HD1 Network Walkman. As faithful viewer Mike Scherer pointed out, MacMinute reports that the NW-HD1 (catchy name) has a 20 GB hard drive, but weighs only 4 ounces-- almost thirty percent less than a 20 GB iPod, and only about half an ounce more than a miniPod with a mere 4 GB storage capacity. Trust us, size does matter, as through-the-roof miniPod sales will attest; Dell's player is a clunky slab by comparison, and when we had the misfortune to encounter a 40 GB Nomad Zen last weekend, we mistook the thing for a brick wrapped in tin foil.
Oh, but the temptation doesn't stop at size; whereas the iPod claims 8 hours of use per battery charge, the NW-HD1 boasts 30. What's more, since a 20 GB iPod goes for $399 and Sony's minuscule new player will sell for "less than $400", pricing will likely be a dead heat. So let's recap, here; for the same price as an iPod, Sony offers a smaller and lighter player with gallons more juice per charge, the same size hard disk, and-- did we mention this?-- the ability to store 8,000 more songs. Really! See? Apple claims its 20 GB iPod will put 5,000 songs in your pocket, while Sony's press release insists that the NW-HD1 will hold "up to 13,000 four-minute songs." No wonder you're feeling tempted.
Well, it's cold shower time, kiddies. First of all, any sort of song capacity comparison is a joke, since a 20 GB hard drive is a 20 GB hard drive. Sony's drives aren't enchanted by a dusting of magical pixie dust before leaving the factory or anything. (At least, if they are, you'd expect Sony to play that up as a differentiating factor.) The difference in numbers here is that Apple bases its song count on 128 Kbps AAC files, while Sony's tally assumes "songs recorded at 48 kilobits per second." Yes, 48 Kbps. Considering how many people whine that even 128 Kbps AAC files don't sound good enough, we're going to go out on a limb and assume that 48 Kbps songs in any format are probably going to sound like a portable handheld AM radio playing from the bottom of a well while a few dozen people pop bubble wrap nearby.
And here's the real deal-breaker: about that format? Turns out that Sony's decided to go with its proprietary ATRAC3 format... and nothing else. While Apple pushes AAC pretty heavily (it's the only thing it sells at the iTunes Music Store), at least the iPod can also play AIFF files, WAVs, the new Apple Lossless format, and probably most importantly of all, good ol' MP3s. If you get an NW-HD1, though, you'll have to transcode your entire music library into ATRAC3 before you can carry it around with you, and believe us when we tell you that you're not going to want to do that.
See, aside from the time you'd have to invest, there's the little matter of the fact that, quality-wise, the ATRAC3 format apparently sucks eggs whole through a Crazy Straw. For evidence, we point you towards the results of Roberto Amorim's l
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
They will never learn. I used to work for Sony (in its research labs in Japan) and I can tell you that I have NEVER seen a worse case of Not-Invented-Here (NIH) syndrome EVER! I had begged them to let me buy a video card for some image processing research I was doing but since the card wasn't designed there I had to design and build a video card using static RAM(!) before they would let me work on algorithms. BTW, I had to use the NeWS workstations too....
I think it's a little early to proclaim that Sony will only support 48K data rates in this device.
RTFA. Sony only uses the 48k rate to come up with the magic 13,000 songs in your pocket figure. The normal rate of 132k (songs purchased on Sony Connect) will actually let you store less songs than you would be able to if you used a 20GB iPod.
Furthermore, one wonders if the magic "30 hours of battery life" claim is also derived using 48k files. Believe me, this makes a big difference, because battery life on HD based devices goes down in proportion to the size of your files. Larger filesizes means more time accessing the hard drive, therefore decreased battery life. That's probably why I only get 6-7 hours out of my 30GB iPod... most of my files are MP3s encoded with Lame's alt-preset-standard, which uses VBR from 128k up to 320k.
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
I think Sony are getting gradually closer, and Apple must be at least a bit worried. Let's imagine a world where Sony (finally) drop ATRAC3+ only, and their Hi-MD devices and new HDD devices support MP3 natively and ATRAC3+ at whatever bitrate you desire. Given that the low end Hi-MD ships at 140UKP Sony could wipe out the Compact Flash competition in months with their cheap 1GB removable media. Much higher capacities are in the offing for MO as well. They are the only other vendor to offer integration with a online music store, which is a serious advantage over vendors like iRiver (despite their excellent hardware). The Connect store may suck now in comparison with ITMS, but heh, it's software, it can change quickly.
catch (ModDownException mde) {post.modUp("Interesting")}
I was once one of Sony's biggest cheerleaders out there. I loved their products. They were reasonably priced, functioned well and came with great customer service. I would go out of my way to buy the Sony product over a competitor's in many situations.
No more. In the last decade, I've bought Sony products that have failed well before they should have and I've had several decidedly unpleasant dealings with their customer service people who seemed far less interested in actually helping me than somehow convincing me that it was pretty much my own fault and I should just accept it. Amazingly bad service and their products seem to have gone downhill. Not only have I started buying products by their competitors, but I now intentionally avoid the Sony product if possible.
No idea what's gone so wrong with what was once a great company, but I wouldn't buy a Sony mp3 player over an iPod at a quarter of the price.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
This is the engineering centric management style of Sony that gave rise of Sony in the 20th century and will be the cause of its downfall in the 21st century. As you said, Sony has been creating a lot of failures and out of the failures, two big successes: Walkman and PS. Sony allows its diverse groups of engineering to compete among themselves to come up with the best products and it creates the engineering powerness of Sony which leaded to its brand in the past.
In the 80s/90s, consumer electronics were more about whether it COULD BE DONE and we paid primium for companies who could DO IT. However, we are in the 21st century, a century is likely to be remembered as Wal-Mart century. We shopped for VALUE: products that give us the best VALUE: good functionalities at reasonable price.
Sony has become too big to pay such a risk game. PS was created in related low budget but look at the stake Sony is throwing at PS3. We are looking at Billions of dollars investments. It's really too big an investment to be put in the hand of engineers who just want to create neat things!