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Sony's "iPod killer" Fails to Draw Blood
Mr_Silver writes "Walter Mossberg (of WSJ fame) managed to review the new Sony NW-HD1 and was distinctly unimpressed. The upsides: it's smaller, lighter and has a battery life of 20 hours. The downsides: goodbye MP3 - hello ATRAC3, slow upload (and converting) times and the confusing user interface on the walkman, PC software and the music store. When will someone pass Sony the cluestick?"
I am curious why some of the other mp3 players out there comparable in storage and size to the ipod achieve so much more battery life?
Ideas?
If it's smaller and lighter, it still surves a purpose, albeit in another sense than that of iPod killer
That said, I think the slow transfer rate could really get people annoyed with the device, leading to bad mouth to mouth advertisement
How do the expect to compete with the iPod if the lowest model is $100 higher than the 20 gig iPod? The iPod is pricey enough for some people.
Cluestick...
non-MP3...
dead battery...
Sony R&D, try again. You missed the general populance.
Sony will continue to compete despite the market's lack of adoption. They're still working on the minidisc format even when it's poorly accepted in the American market and most people prefer solid state or hard drive players. Not just that but a lot of people are getting fed up with Sony's recent lack of quality since they shifted a huge amount of their production to China. The PS2's disc read error is one such error and it's put me off from purchasing the PSP until at least a year after it comes out just to be sure there aren't any similar issues there. I wouldn't trust Sony's products farther than I could throw them.
My heart really does go out to the hardware engineers at Sony. After all, they created a really nifty device that bests the iPod in two important areas (battery life, size). All they needed was workable software and no intentional crippling, and the NW1 would have been at least a strong #2. Instead, Sony intentionally crippled it by not enabling MP3 playback, over-promised what it really did (based on lousy, lossy 48kbps ATRAC3+), and provided mediocre software at best.
One of these days, the hardware guys at Sony will get the upper hand again, and Apple really will have something to worry about.
The hardware looks really nice -- smaller, lighter, longer battery, and a magnesium case. (it's also $100 more). The only drawback is the stupid file format choice. How long is it going to be until someone hacks this to play standard MP3's? Figuring that out may be enough reason for me to buy one (heh!).
Side note: it's pretty neat that they made it smaller. Assuming that it uses the same 1.8" drive, the ipod is already pretty close to that size, so there isn't much remove for improvement.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
Who sits in the company and makes the decisions about this product? Could they possibly hold one of these in their hands, use it on a day to day basis, and say its an ipod killer? Quit listening to the marketing execs for christ sake!
I suspect the cluestick will come in the form of crappy sales.
The cake is a pie
I haven't seen anything from them lately that hasn't been a (weak) attempt to lock you into their proprietary (now-)second-rate import electronics. Seriously, it's bad enough that nothing they make is at all above low-to-average quality, but now they want to lock you into it? No way.
funny munging
At least they won't have to worry about Real "hacking" their music player. Hah. I can see it now... "Click here to use your digital music player... *click* want to upgrade to the full version? *no, click* click here to use the regular version. *click* want to upgrade to the full version?"
Click Here For Free Music
Its interesting. Usually, after a few years, a computer product is considered obsolete. iPod seems to be one of the few exceptions to this rule. Its dominated the MP3 player market for ages now. I wonder how many years it has left to captivate the market.
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its quite amusing that Sony tries to promote its terrible formats but always fail, minidisc, ARTRAC, Betamax, MemoryStick the list of failures goes on and on
perhaps if they embraced worldwide standards instead of its own attempts people might accept them
do you think the PS2 would be quite as popular if they had used their own format of discs instead of DVD and CD's ?
perhaps they should take a leaf out of their own experiences
Why is this story in the Apple category? Sure, the iPod may be considered to be the "gold standard" for music players by many people, but Apple certainly weren't first, and although they have a sexy design and a great UI, there are plenty of competitors who are shipping thousands of units who do everything nearly as well, and some things better, often for a significantly lower price.
I'm not trying to bash Apple, I like their products (although my pockets aren't normally deep enough to afford their latest kit, I have a G4 cube next to my PC), but putting this into the Apple category just seems a bit odd.
Sony's iPod Killer
By WALTER S. MOSSBERG
Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod digital music player has fended off every rival product handily, not only remaining the most popular digital music player, but becoming a cultural icon and spawning an industry of accessories and of legal music downloads.
Next month, however, the iPod will face its most potent competitor. This latest challenger is none other than Sony Corp., the Japanese giant that revolutionized portable music with its Walkman tape players 25 years ago. Sony, which has lost its leadership in portable music to Apple, will try to regain that crown with its first iPod-type high-capacity, hard-disk-based music player.
My assistant, Katie Boehret, and I have been testing Sony's would-be iPod killer -- a sleek, slim, silvery, magnesium-clad gadget inelegantly called the "Network Walkman NW-HD1," which holds 20 gigabytes of music and is set to go on sale in mid-August for $399. Sony plans a massive ad campaign to back the new Walkman, and to try and revive the once grand, but now faded, Walkman brand.
The $399 Network Walkman NW-HD1 from Sony Corp. See a comparison of portable players.
A second Sony hard-disk player, a bulkier but more radically styled model that will sell for $499, will be introduced later this year by another division of famously Balkanized Sony -- the group that makes the company's Vaio computers. But Sony officials say they are placing their emphasis, and most of their marketing dollars, on the new Walkman entry, not the Vaio.
We've also been testing Sony's new online music service, Connect, which is designed to work hand-in-hand with both new players and to compete with Apple's wildly successful iTunes Music Store. Both the new Walkman and the Connect store, work only with Windows computers.
Our verdict: While the new Sony is smaller than the iPod and has much better battery life, it is markedly inferior overall. It has a confusing, complex user interface that makes it hard to use; weak software for the PC; an oddball music format that makes loading it with songs tedious; and a companion music download service that offers less than Apple's. The iPod wins this round, and remains champion.
For Sony, the stakes in this battle are high, especially in the crucial U.S. market.
When the online digital music revolution erupted a few years ago, Sony was missing in action, for two main reasons. First, it bet on the wrong horse, a technology called MiniDisc, or MD, which never caught on big in the U.S. Second, because it owns a music label that was initially hostile to music downloading, Sony's first memory-based digital music players were loaded with restrictions on consumers and turned off digital music enthusiasts.
Apple iPod mini
Apple, acutely aware of Sony's new challenge, isn't standing still. Earlier this month, it introduced its fourth generation of the full-sized iPod, with 50% more battery life and streamlined controls and menus. And it knocked $100 off the iPod's price, which saddled the new Walkman with a $100 price premium. Sony doesn't plan a matching price cut.
In two key areas, Sony beats Apple. The new Walkman, which looks sort of like a small digital camera, is shorter than the iPod, and a bit thinner and wider. Even though it packs the same hard-disk capacity, the Sony is about 10% smaller in overall volume and it's also a third lighter, at 3.8 ounces vs. 5.6 ounces for the Apple. It's not as small or light as Apple's iPod mini, but the mini is in a different category, with much lower capacity.
And the Sony trounces the Apple in battery life, which has been the iPod's main weakness. Even though Apple boosted the battery life on the latest iPod model to 12 hours from eight hours, Sony claims anywhere from 20 to 30 hours of battery life, depending on the quality level at which the digital song files on the Walkman were stored. Higher-quality files drain the battery quicker. Like the iPod, the Walkman uses a sealed battery that can't easily be
When will someone pass Sony the cluestick?
Sony has probably received many cluesticks...but they haven't been proprietary like the Sony memorystick, so Sony can read 'em.
From the article:
For my test, I used a very modest collection of 431 standard MP3 files. SonicStage 2 refused to transfer 15 of the files, posting a nonsensical error message. After that, it took an agonizingly long two hours and 13 minutes to transfer the remaining 416 tracks to the Walkman. By contrast, Apple's iTunes software transferred all 431 songs to an iPod in about four minutes.
What happens for the rest of us who have a lot more than 431 mp3s? Do we leave our computer running for a week just converting the files? Does anyone know if Sony has ripping software so that we could convert our cds into their format?
I think I'll pass. I love my iPod.
Dog for sale: eats anything and is fond of children
We've been passing them the cluestick for a couple of years now. It's time to start beating them with it.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
There is nothing revolutionary with the hardware (however i'm sure i'll buy one to replace my MZ-R700), their software sucks.
The SonicStage reached the version 2.1 and it still gives you random Access Violation at error while importing media into your library. Even a malformed ID3 tag can kill it. And it does NOT run on Windows 2003 Server only Professional. This is a big drawback because I will NOT install an XP Prof just to feed my player or MD. And they do not have Linux support either...
When they support other formats than ATRAC3 and they manage to write a much more bugfree softwer, then we can compare to iPods.
And another drawback: it doesn't have any kind of remote like the MD's have.
If Yoda so strong in Force is, why words in right order he cannot put?
For the same reason Slash still occasionally fails to render correctly under Gecko; Slash it broken and CmdrTaco apparently can't be ased, or is incapable, of fixing it.
That now, rather than describing the iPod as the "walkman of the 21st century", we're describing new Sony products as "iPod killers"...
And as far as when Sony will find the cluestick, maybe it'll happen after the PSP totally fails as a media device in the U.S...
How can Sony claim that ATRAC offers better performance than MP3 when the chances are it'll be converting songs *from* MP3? Lossy format to another lossy format? No thanks. When will Sony (and other companies) realise that people don't want weird, crippled formats?
You must think in Russian.
Screw them. Any player that doesn't support MP3 is doomed to fail. Count the number of MP3s that exist on hard disks in the world and I'm sure it's something like 100x Sony's stupid ACC3 or whatever format. Sony = gay.
Seriously, did anyone not see this coming? ATRAC3, while technically competent, is still a Sony-proprietary scheme. How many other manufacturers even bothered to license it? Three?
I got into an argument with someone the other day about this very unit. This person actually believed that Sony actually "gets it" WRT consumer gear. He honestly thought that Sony had some chance in hell of putting a dent in the iPod's dominance with this piece of shit. The truly surreal/funny part was that this argument actually took place in an Apple store.
Where the value of X-Mailer: is the true measure of a man...
Big surprise - ATRAC3 has DRM!
All I can think of when I see this kind of thing is that the media companies are building a case for a future lobbying effort to outlaw non-DRM-locked hardware.
Sony just developed an eBook reader - the first to use an e-ink display, and then castrated it with DRM, and a total library of 400 expire-in-2-months books.
Obviously products like these are going to fail, and I just can't see their existance as mistakes. Sony may be smarter than they appear.
I don't know, but it is extremely annoying.
ahhh, much better, now what were we discussing?
I smell a big fat rat. Why not include mp3 support? it wouldnt add a significant cost or technical problem? give the user the choice. Or is there something else going on here? pressure not to include mp3? but why? its not like it cant convert mp3 files?! This makes no sense, its the equivalent of selling a car that only takes petrol from a specially shaped hose that no station has. for no reason! Its totally utterly insane, its just so insane i cant even think! its like burning _all_ your money and then not even sticking around to watch it, its the sort of thing insane people would even think twice about! WTF is goin on in sony? an explination would be a great story.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
sony is a media company too.. why would they release a player that could potentially cut into their music biz revenue? At least that what I believe drove the bizness decision to use a DRMed format.
One major downside of the new Walkman is that it can't play MP3 files, or any of the other standard formats. It can play back only a proprietary Sony format called ATRAC3, or a variation called ATRAC3plus.
STEEEERIKE ONE!
This means that, when you transfer your MP3 files to the new Walkman, Sony's PC software must laboriously convert them first into ATRAC3 files.
STEEEERIKE TWO!!!!
To transfer MP3 song files from your PC to the Walkman, you first launch the software Sony supplies to manage the Walkman, called SonicStage 2.... ... the Sony software must grind away, converting all of them, one at a time, to the special Sony format.
For my test, I used a very modest collection of 431 standard MP3 files.... ...it took an agonizingly long two hours and 13 minutes to transfer the remaining 416 tracks to the Walkman.
STEEEEEERIKE THREE!!!! YOU'RE OUTA HERE!
WTF was Sony thinking? Let's see, right now, I have 8991 mp3s that eat 53.64 gigs of space on my drive. If it took him 133 minutes for 416 tracks, it would take me...ummm (open crackulator) 468 hours to convert my files to a Sony compatible format!!!!
that's only about Nineteen DAYS
I think I speak for many when I say:
Sony: kindly go FUCK YOURSELF - YOU MORONS.
think about it - RIGHT.... I'm going to let my machine Grind Away for what - the better part of a month, just so my mp3 collection will fit on their stupid little player?
Ummmm, No.
I'll take my iPod THANK YOU VERY MUCH.
Note to Sony: GAME OVER. Would you like to play again?
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
This is what happens when you rush your product out to the market!
I imagine that Sony has an uphill fight on its hand due to the differences between their corporate culture and Apple's. Apple engineers are, I bet, given more free reign to do things right, where Sony's engineers are probably in a Dilbert-like world of impossible demands by toga-clad marketing departments. And, of course, Apple's specialty has always been the end user software experience, an area where Sony has a lot of catching up to do. And don't forget about patents... it's easy to say, Why doesn't x-company's device do what y-company's device can do, when we don't have to worry about y-company filing an infringement suit, and don't have executives breathing down our necks to get this product on store shelves by July.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
With all this hype about HD-based MP3 players, people may has forgotten to look at other options.
Not everything Sony produces is outright bad. I recently purchased a Sony D-NE300 CD based MP3 player for $99 CAD. I can easily store more music on a single CD (128Kbps) than i can listen to in an entire day. Not to mention, that with some high capacity NiMH batteries (I use 1600 mAh) I get about 50 hours of playtime out of it. I remember my last (fairly old) Sanyo walkman only went for about 6 hours before it sputtered out.
Given this, why bother with an iPod or similar device at all? Blank CDs are cheap, and if I burn 3 or 4 I have more than enough selection to keep me going for several days.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
No. Actually you just help to make the parent's post's point. Look at the examples you gave.
The ones that Apple promoted as a cross-platform, cross-vendor standard (Quicktime and Firewire) have been runaway successes. (There now exist video formats which are less proprietary than Quicktime, but this was hardly the case at the time that Quicktime was conceived). The ones that Apple kept to itself (resource forks) or failed to get other companies to adopt (OpenDoc) are dead dead dead and Apple has been forced to abandon them.
Apple has realized how crucial standards are. This is why they, currently are succeeding in promoting the standards they embrace, and Sony, currently, is not succeeding in ANY of its "standards" initiatives. This is why if you look at OS X Server, or any of Apple's new technology (HyperTransport, Quicktime RTSP streaming, ZeroConf/Rendezvous/OpenConnect or whatever it's called now), it's all FIRMLY based around open, collaborative standards.
The only exception is the DRM wrapper on the AAC files from the iTunes Music Store, but this doesn't say much since (1) Apple firmly supports standards both with iTunes and the iPod and (2) no major-label commercial music stores exist that don't use a proprietary DRM solution, so it isn't like anyone can beat Apple out on the free-ness front...
Er, right. So this is a magic format that restores the information in the lost bits from the original mp3 conversion?
And, Sony marketing says, it'll give you a pony.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
Let me get this straight. Is Sony trying to say if I convert my compressed MP3 format directly to their compressed ATRAC3 format, my music will automagically sound better?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I know that portable cd players a while back used to optimize for battery life rather than sound quality. To that end they would under bias transistors and generally make choices to use too little electricity.
I understand that the Ipod is supposed to sound pretty good, so maybe they have chosen not to do that sort of thing.
Sony NW-HD1
Why not just call it the playstation 3, everyone would buy it then:P
I wonder why they just don't have PS2 connectivity for this Walkman?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
You need to recall that VHS is also a Sony developed format. They sold the rights to it after developing Betamax, which they felt was a superior system -- and still got Betamaxs to the market first.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
To transfer MP3 song files from your PC to the Walkman, you first launch the software Sony supplies to manage the Walkman, called SonicStage 2
Oh, man... SonicStage sucks so hard, I can't even begin to describe it. Even if SonicStage 2 is only half as bad as the version I recieved with my minidisc player, it's still enugh to keep me from even thinking about buying any player which requires it.
When it comes to terrible UI design, sonicstage has to be the absolute winner!
Obviously it doesn't play ogg :)
Rio Karma, iRiver, and Neuros all play Ogg well. I would definitely qualify my Rio Karma as a worthy iPod competitor; I won't post a review here because there's enough out there on the Internet.
Sony wouldn't be able to read the cluestick even if was passed to them, it's incompatible with the Memorystick technology that they're so in love with...
Sony is rarely about putting out good technology, they're more about putting out technology that consumers will buy despite a higher-than-usual profit margin on the price. Sure, every consumer electronics company has to make a profit or it won't exist, but Sony products are always higher-priced than technically equal models from other brands. Basically, Sony's profits come only from people too stupid to notice there's a better choice on most items.
I ranted about this a few weeks ago here:
The short summary, ATRAC and the McDonalds give away will turn people off, and turn them off to the concept of buying music on the net.
:) Sony has always been the assholes of the group, trying to bend you to their will throught proprietary standards. Memory stick, Betamax, and other leap to mind.
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=16999
To me, that is a win/win
The funny thing is that is simply doesn't work, again and again and again. Superior hardware, crippled by corporate greed and lack of vision. Gotta love capitalism.
-Charlie
Please don't pass Sony a clue in any way, shape or form. Comedy gold like this simply does not come along every day.
[o]_O
Sony's done some great consumer electronics stuff, but they've just been so damn stupid when it comes to anything having to do with computers.
They can't resist making everything proprietary, and they can't shake the Not-Invented-Here disease that used to plague Apple.
You know they could make a killer device - but two years late they delivery that POS. I'm sure they'll get some mileage off their reputation amongst non-geeks and the Walkman name, but what a dissapointment...
for it's own good. They seem to think that just because they are so huge that they will be able enter into an already well established market with a product that is not that innovative. if you want to make money you either a) start a whole new makret, like they did with the original walkman(portable music outside a car now a reality) or b) enter into a market with a bold new idea, like they did with playstation(cd based 3d gaming)
Though this seems to be a theme with a lot of Japanese companies, they end up trying to do everything, when they should only focus on a few core markets. In Japan, Mitsubishi manufactures a ton of things, from escalotors to trains to LCDs to automobiles. The red tape must be enormous. It probably ends up hurting them in the long run because it's easier to sweep a few small losses under the rug if you are such a huge company. But they will come back to bite you, just look at what is happening with Mitsubishi motors....
Actually, I believe it was Japan Victor Corporation (JVC) that came up with VHS in 1976. RCA Victor went head-to-head with Sony on that one, and it was only Sony's belief that technological superiority automatically equated to superior sales performance that allowed RCA to completely outmaneuver them, and foist VHS upon the world.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Actually, it sounds more like one of these
Apple has shipped around 4 million iPods in 2,5 years.
Sony has sold more than 330 million Walkmans worldwide since 1979.
I can't believe a megapowerful corperation like Sony could screw up as bad as this Network Walkman. The critical mistake, in my mind, is the proprietary Sony format ATRAC3 they're trying to pimp off on the consumer. Why are they trying to re-invent the wheel?
Which brings to mind the iPod and it's perfect design. It's clean form-factor looks like it was designed by God. The most brilliant things in life are simple in design and concept. Like the wheel.
If Sony can't beat the iPod, maybe nobody can.
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
Betamax is a better format than VHS but was overpriced (high priced royalty?) for consumer use. The Betamax marketing & sales now work in the mailroom and weren't asked.
The only thing new in this world is the history that you don't know.[Harry Truman]
I really love the phrase "mouth to mouth advertisement." I can just see a bunch of ad executives guzzling Listerine and going door to door.
I'm willing to buy that some people don't care what format their music is stored in on their player. But I'm curious as to how this "serves a purpose" for "something else." Pray tell, what purpose does an overpriced music player -- that transfers music slowly, in a dumb proprietary compression format -- serve anybody?
I'm not trying to be a jackass, I'm actually curious what you're saying...
MP3s are obsolete. Do any of these things support Ogg Vorbis files?
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
This is like MS deciding they want a piece of the Linux cake and coming out with their own distro but making it so that you can only install programs in a special MS-approved format.
I got a pretty sweet sony Atrac player, which used memory sticks. It was tiny, and although it could only hold about 2 hours of music, I liked it. But the requirement of ATRAC really made it much less usefull. It would take an hour or so to fill a memory stick up with music, when it would have only taken a few minutes to copy over mp3s.
Sony is shooting themselves in the foot here, I don't understand why they are so obsessed with ATRAC. Especialy given they cell CD players that can play MP3 files off CD-ROMs.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
When will Sony (and other companies) realise that people don't want weird, crippled formats?
128kbps MP3s are weird and crippled, but kids love 'em. Cassette tapes are weird and crippled, too, and they were popular for many years. Lots of people seem to think VHS was weird and crippled compared to Betamax (PS: VHS won).
The average consumer will tolerate weird and crippled formats if they're not too weird, and not too crippled. You can degrade the signal quality to a remarkable degree before the average listener (or viewer) will care.
Who cares what the WSJ thinks? They're not the target market for this device. The kids at whom the it is aimed may make purchasing decisions based on a lot of factors, some more rational than others (e.g. what their friends bought, etc.), but "it sounds like ass" is not necessarily on their radar screen. Ass sounds fine to them. As long as they can tell which song is playing, that's good enough.
"Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive" -- hey, that's me!
I wouldn't buy any "mp3 player" unless it supports ogg and mp3 formats. Ogg is really good at high bit rates (> 128 kbit).
If its anything like the MD players, you can convert MP3 to AT format, which is smaller and good enough..
Sure there is the conversion phase, but other then that i dont see a problem ( and its not THAT slow ).. Even apple has their own format on the iPOD ( though agreed, its optional ).
Cant comment on the interface, though again, the MD software ( simple MD burner ) is about as easy as it gets.. Insert disk.. press button.. wait.. done.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Sony's initial refusal to let betamax be used for porn majorly damaged it's adoption. When they finally realised that it was what people wanted, they had lost a lot of marketshare.
Forget about market surveys. Whoever signed off on this product didn't leave his office and just talk to normal people in years. Otherwise he would quickly learn what they think about a portable player without mp3 support and desktop jukebox without CD burning.
If Sony believes portable players hurt music business, well they can stay out of the field and miss out on the profit. If they really want a shot at locking people into ATRAC3, they should come up with a 4GB player for $100 and hope nobody manages to make a competing product with mp3 support. But what is the motivation to release a product that can not be sold? It looks like a company throwing a fit rather than trying to make money.
what about iRiver?
Sony demoed Beta to JVC in 1974, and came out with their first deck in 1975. JVC came out with VHS in 1976.
But before VCR or Beta there was U-Matic. It was apparently (officially, anyway) developed by Sony and JVC and is probably what the original poster was thinking of.
The "no Betamax porn" story seems to be an urban legend.
The fact was that the "superior" Betamax machine had a much shorter tapelength, so you couldn't record a 2 hour movie off television. By the time they fixed it, it was too late.
mtempsch is correct.
Someone probably already has said this about Sony. It is a corporation that needs to protect its right, I still own they NetMD product, there is nothing wrong with their product if you know how to use it. Sony want to protect its intellectual property and thats it because of all the music copying that is going on now.
3 cheers fo you. (My sentiments exactly)
I bought a car deck (MP3, with hard drive, and rip ability MEX-1HD I think) a few years back. Found out quickly that the deck would play MP3, rip audio CD's to it's ahrd drive, but would under NO CIRCUMSTANCES allow me to move my mp3 CD's into it's hard drive.
3 days later, after tech support let me know it's a design fetaure to dissalow this kind of useful functionality. I removed the drive, and upgraded a laptop with it. (full format) Sony's idea of fair use had made it worthless to me.
Hey Sony! I don't buy your products anymore cause of that one. None of them. I even refuse to resell Sony to my customers. Great job there guys....
...but everybody's so excited about their Gameboy Advance killer.
Sony needs to spin off their music division or their electronics division is gone. They haven't had a good anything for years because of all the DRM (think MagicGate Memory Stick and FUCKING SHITTY software).
:)
I mean, look at the PS2, for example. It won't play DVDs on component out!? That is not a feature. That's a reason to buy an xbox (although I'll bet the xbox does the same thing. Until you install Linux
My other car is first.
Your total misunderstanding of both the market and your parent poster are not a surprising correlation.
Weird: unusual, handled poorly or not-at-all by common products
Crippled: unable to do things that are technically easy (or at least possible) in an attempt to force more money into a company's pockets.
So no, mp3 is neither "weird" (EVERYTHING handles it!) or "crippled" (no DRM, no obvious missing features). VHS? Yeah, I know a couple devices that can handle that. Oh hey, look at that, I can easily copy it, too! I won't drag on this post by writing another two sentences about casette tapes.
Weird and crippled formats suck, almost always fail, and do not include any of the examples you provided.
No MP3, ATRAC only?
Come on now boys. I can't believe that they'd make a mistake that huge. Sony spends tons of money on market research. Whatever suit killed MP3 support needs to lose his or her fucking job. That is pure idiocy in action.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Is Sony really worth our time or are you still using Beta???
The XBOX does that fine, in fact it's doing it right now in my room.
I'm actually suprised the Karma hasn't gotten more press on slashdot. It's seriously the geek's mp3 player. The parent mentioned the webserver, but didn't mention that you can download a java app from the karma, and then upload music to it from any OS that has a working java implementation. I've been able to ass songs to mine from Windows, FreeBSD, and Linux this way. For me this is a HUGE advantage and shows a little bit of creativity/foresight on the side of Rio. Also the inclusion of open-source standard codecs like ogg and FLAC (For real audiophiles) is a huge plus. Yet, everyone on here is enamoured with the ipod.
Yes, this is going to start a flamewar on the same scale as WWII... But the iPod has been beat by several devices although Apple, and their loyal followers (or those who just want to be "in") don't know it.
iRiver has the iHP (now called the H series) which is around the same price for the same storage, has better sound quality, better battery life than the G4 iPods, recording and optical capabilities, LCD remote and connects via USB making it accessible to more machines. It also has a radio.
Creative has the whole line of Zens with has sound quality to rival the iRiver (they're both good, just read the reviews they do beat the iPod), great battery life and huge storage for the money. They're cheap, but they're also bigger but that's fine for many people.
You can argue they may not be as sexy or easy to use, but that's mostly opinion. And if you give either the iRiver or Creative players a few moments of your time you won't have any trouble using them.
Yes, they killed the iPod where it counts, but the iPod is stylish and sexy, and that's more important to people than sound quality, battery life and actual audio features. Why? Beats me, but it is.
(awaits totally unjustified and brutal beating by the mods)
Presently here, but not there.
The parent was complaining about the sound quality. He was barking up the wrong tree. As long as the sound quality is good enough to tell two songs apart, it won't be bad enough to matter to the average consumer.
That's a fact.
You can quibble about definitions all you like, if that's what makes you happy. We can parse the parent post character by character like lit-crits yammering about Hamlet's motivations (I've always been partial to Eliot's Gordian solution; how 'bout you?), but here's a good first approximation: If the either the parent poster or I had been talking about issues other than sound quality, one or the other of us probably would've mentioned them. We didn't. So simmer down.
The only crippled format that has ever "succeeded" was DVD, and that was only through a total absence of competition. It didn't succeed, it was imposed through monopoly power.
Um. Wow. Just in case you were actually serious, let's think about it for a moment: People like DVDs. Video stores converted to DVDs because they tried a few, the customers rented them, they tried a few more, the customers rented those, etc. If nobody had rented DVDs, I guarantee you that the neighborhood video store would not have shitcanned all the stock that the customers did want, and replaced it with stuff the customers did not want. Or are you under the impression that ZOG came along in the black helicopters and made 'em do it at gunpoint? Did the black helicopters come to your house, guns drawn, and force you to buy or rent DVDs? Is that what happened? Or was it more of an alien-abduction/anal-probe sort of thing?
With all due respect, I believe that the aliens who abducted you have your best interests at heart, and you should probably use whatever format they suggest. I'm in touch with the secret CIA monitoring station concealed in your neighbor's basement, and they tell me that the tinfoil you put on the windows is working fine. You've foiled (no pun intended) their best efforts! They haven't been able to insert any voices into your head for weeks now. I assure you, any voice you may still hear in your head is, provably, that of your dog. And your dog wants what's best for you. He didn't tell you to kill those people for no reason, did he? Of course not! He's got this all figured out. He knows who's really a dangerous alien in disguise, and who's merely a harmless mechanical automaton put here to fool you. He's immune to their Fear Transmitters and their Potassium Confusion Rays. Trust him and you'll be fine.
"Total absence of competition", you say? Nope! They competed against VHS, and against that ridiculous DivX thing (the other DivX, the Circuit City one). And DVDs won handily, because they sucked significantly less than the other two. Would it have been nice if there'd been a digital format without no arbitrary restrictions at all? Sure. But that misfeature didn't inconvenience enough customers have much effect on sales.
I solemnly pledge that I am not an employee of ATF, FEMA, NSA, Mossad, CIA, MI5, FBI, KGB, OSS, SAC, UMMO, the Bilderbergers, the Mukhabarat (any Mukhabarat), or OGPU, and that I am telling you the truth. I PROMISE!
"Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive" -- hey, that's me!
Hey, you inbred moron, he writes for the Wall Street Journal.
Wrong. The Karma plays mp3, ogg, wma and flac. So no need to use a lossy format, nor DRM...
Sorry, but mp3, ogg, and wma are *all* lossy formats. All three reduce the sound quality in order to achieve a smaller file size.
FLAC on the other hand is not a lossy format (Free Lossless Audio Codec.) Apple has developed their own proprietary lossless format that is usable on the iPod, and reduces the file size to about half that of an AIFF or WAV file.
There are two kinds of people in the world: those with loaded guns, and those who dig.
Why can't Apple (or Sony or someone else) make one of their MP3 players as useful as the Archos AV140?
It is not as small as an IPOD, being build on a standard laptop drive. But the Archos AV140 is $300, 40GB, MP3, USB 2.0 storage, MP3 voice and FM (add-on) capture, Video capture and playback.
It's a great MP3 player and so much more. It is a geeks delite! (and no I don't work for Archos).
Curious, I knew that about that without having to buy one. Sony did, after all, advertise that aspect of the design very plainly. You are to blame for buying into such a piece of shit.
All things being equal, it would take you roughly 40 hours to convert your audio, not 460. It's still a long time, but it's not completely un-doable like 460 hours.
Not sure how math works where you live..
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
ATRAC has been around for a long time, with their Minidisc players. And actually, ATRAC sounds pretty good. My minidisc player can record audio from an optical audio source and the result is outstanding duplication of sound.
The new ATRAC3 might not be as good, though (although I doubt it's worse) so the fault likely lies in two factors: Converting from one lossy format to another, basically you decompress the MP3 to uncompressed audio then re-compress to ATRAC. It's not going to sound even as good as the MP3. The other factor could possibly be that the software itself does not make a good implimentation of ATRAC.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
http://www.stereophile.com/showarchives.cgi?934 FYI.
If Sony made cars, they would run on benzene, have a 7-cylinder engine, 5 wheels, a steering square instead of a steering wheel and they would make it so that you could only park in special Sony garages.
Could Apple make an itunes for the PS2 or PS3. The PS2 has a hard drive and usb and firewire ports (unpowered I think). That would be cool.
Sony is the only electronics provider I can think of who, no matter what department, they always seem to try and adopt these industry non-standards.
I'm sorry but who the fuck do they have making decisions at Sony and why wouldn't they have gone with Mp3?
the byproduct of years of oppression by the white man
The best part about the iRiver is that they (intelligently) decided it should use usb-mass storage to get stuff on and off the thing. Which makes it like a glorified USB memory stick which can additionally play many types of audio formats.
Unfortuantely, you can't use the thing while it's docked... so the Karma wins in that respect (using it as a stereo system component). But it's got SPDIF optical in and out, and it can record to MP3 from the optical in; as far as I know, nobody has that feature.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
It's only good at high bitrates... Dolby AC3 has a more robust encoding scheme. Sony just can't let that turd go and use some other formats. I really don't understand it.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
I can't read "ATRAC" without thinking of "8-track". It's like they're subliminally telling us how crappy the format is.
Apple didn't invent any of these things:
-HyperTransport
-RTSP
-Rendezvous
That would be IBM, Real Networks, and some University dudes, respectively. However, Apple embraces the things it knows are a good deal. (It often gives them it's own name, however, but that's okay... it helps Mac users identify technology, i.e. "Airport", etc.)
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
$600... and it's worth it (especially if you get your company to pay).
Oh, and you _can_ get it to work, but you need to make sure you start the audio service, and you might need to break out the application compatibility toolkit.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
It's competent at a high bitrate. It doesn't use VQ coding, it doesn't even use full DCT. It's still a filterbank-based thing, like MP2, or AC3, which is fine for DVDs or Minidiscs, you know, higher capacity media. But you get down to the power-saving, space-saving levels that they are using for their marketing stats (like 96kbps and lower), and you'll wanna put your head through the wall.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
That's as absurd as saying that it's not the Army's fault we're having problems bringing peace to Iraq and the Middle East, it's the President's fault.
Yeah, I'm trolling. =)
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
I am thinking about buying an Ipod, but my whole music collection is in ogg-vorbis. Can I use ogg-vorbis with the Ipod either directly or through a third-party add-on?
And is there an easy way to move files to it from Linux? I heard about gtkpod a while back, but I don't know how well that works. Anybody using it?
There is no way that I am taking the time to re-encode everything to mp3 or AAC.
Pragmatism as an ideology is not particularly pragmatic in the long term. Keep it in mind when you dismiss Free Software
I was this close to buying a top of the line Clie a year ago, but I held off when I learned that Sony had intentionally crippled the mini-PCMCIA socket on the device so that it couldn't be used for compact flash cards, which would have been an obvious application for it.
Many digital photographers such as myself have large capacity inexpensive compact flash cards, and refuse to purchase stupid memory sticks which have less storage capacity for the same money.
This was such a glaringly obvious example of Sony regarding their own interests much more than the interests of their customers, and that ultimately made me not buy the otherwise fine product. (I'll probably buy a phone-PIM-PDA-gps-mp3 thing in a year or two anyways)
The pattern of Sony's schizophrenic boardroom screwing up their own products is becoming more and more obvious. Their DVD players initially didn't play home-burned discs, and I still haven't seen a Sony DVD player supporting SVCD, MPEG4 or MP3 content.
Their camcorders and digital video recorders have hyper-sensitive macrovision detection on their video inputs, and sometimes they "detect" macrovision falsely and accordingly refuse to record from a legit source.
The worst part is this ATRAC3 nonsense. Apple is showing the way by permitting the unprotected, popular what-the-people-want mp3 format to coexist with the house DRM brand. That's respecting their users and having business smarts.
If Sony tried the same, and perhaps included mp3 playback capability on all their products alongside ATRAC[3], people would have a choice.
For all I know, ATRAC3 is a better format, but I refuse to be forced to convert it to another lossy format in order to have the "privilege" of listening to it on a portable device. They must be out of their minds.
It doesn't have to be this way. Take Phillips. They have a music catalog (substantially smaller than Sony, granted), but they have repeatedly shown themselves as acting in the interest of people, such as when they refused Audio CD logo licensing to the crippled DRM-infested discs they sell in stores these days. Philips
It just acted like a native drive when connected to a computer. The medium itself is amazingly efficient and the new 1GB discs are a far better portable solution than anything else including CD. Even the size is about as small as an iPod and it doesn't scratch or easily deteriorate in harsh conditions. We all know the ways they screwed it up via DRM and cumbersome interfaces, but as to it's physical operation, if it was just like a ZIP disc, it would have been a huge success and given CD a big run for its money.
Those megacorps like Mitsubishi ('3 diamonds') are, I believe, called Zaibatsu. They're government-sanctioned co-ops that would be called monopolies or cartels in US law.
So now you know where that "Zaibatsu Monstrosity" name in GTAIII came from.
http://www.bartleby.com/65/za/zaibatsu.html
(zbäts) (KEY) [Jap.,=money clique], the great family-controlled banking and industrial combines of modern Japan. The leading zaibatsu (called keiretsu after World War II) are Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Dai Ichi Kangyo, Sumitomo, Sanwa, and Fuyo.
It wasn't belief in technological superiority. It was belief that you can control the content if you control the format. Sony wouldn't let questionable content (e.g. pr0n) be released on Betamax. JVC said, "eh, we don't care." Next thing you know *everything* was coming out on VHS because you didn't have to ask Sony permission to release stuff.
Yes, indeed it was a belief in technological superiority. You are correct so far as you go, but you have to look deeper. Why would a company that was well aware of its competition make such an (apparently) boneheaded maneuver? Why would they believe that they had a chance to control the market when they weren't in a monopoly situation? Sony knew what it was up against: VHS, and Sony's own product had significant technological advantages over that competition. Sony's management convinced itself that their technological lead (and their own good name) would guarantee them a de-facto monopoly for video cassette recorders, and that they could then dictate the terms under which pre-recorded media would be sold. They were wrong on both counts. Had they taken the path that JVC did, they likely would have owned the market and VHS would have been stillborn.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
urban legend.
Sony's failure was being too strict with licensing combined with low capacity of the tape.
You missed a point...
Sony is rarely about putting out good technology, they're more about putting out technology to lock the user in that consumers will buy despite a higher-than-usual profit margin on the price.
So not only do you pay more for the privilege of being screwed, but they lock you in so that you have to bend over in the future!
Funny you should mention the Karma...
I bought a Rio Karma last fall-ish (November? whenever they finally hit stores), at ~$350. I usually avoid being an early adopter, but in this case I'd been waiting for a small-size large-capacity player that handled Vorbis. When I purchased it, there were minor playback problems with Vorbis that needed a firmware update (available a few weeks later) to correct. I was pretty happy, all things considered.
The original unit died in May after many hundreds of hours of use (in my car, mostly, but also in an armband pouch while I bike). It had never been dropped, smacked, etc., but the HD apparently just up and quit. Past the mvfr. warranty, of course, but still within that damned "replacement plan" I opted for. Got a new player off the shelf - which just died this last week, same problem.
So now my Karma #2 is headed back to Rio for replacement. I don't know anyone else who has one - anybody care to chime in on whether they've had such issues with theirs?
Karma: Excellent, but still won't get you laid.
"but "it sounds like ass" is not necessarily on their radar screen."
Oh, but it will be if the rep the Sony gets is that the sound sucks. It doesn't matter if it actually sucks...if it gets the rep, the product is *dead*.
Also, the inability to do MP3 is as good as guaranteeing this product is DOA. If you can't do MP3, you're not anywhere. Kids have tons of MP3. Nobody passes along ATRACS.
Figure it out. If I was sony, I'd cancel now. What genius thought that removing MP3 ability was a "bright idea". If Sony has a clue, they'll fire the guy who thought up that little gem.
I just spent 2 weeks in Italy on vacation, in one pocket was my iPod, in the other was my Sony Cybershot DSC-T1 (you know, the tiny one). I think the T1 is a little shorter than the iPod, but it's a bit thicker due to the lens cover. Quite honestly, I couldn't even tell you which one is heavier. It doesn't matter, they both fit into my pocket. One of their biggest drawbacks is that I don't know they're there (which means you don't notice if they're not there, as in if you lost them). Obviously, smaller is usually better, but at this point, they both fit comfortably into your hand, so I'm happy. I like Sony, I have a Sony receiver (cheap one, but it has served me well for years), CD player, TV, and my new DSC-T1 Digital Camera. I love them all. I also love my iPod. And I will stick with it for a long time until someone else does it better. I have a 30 gb, and I'm VERY tempted to get the new 40.
A dog when taking a shit makes a distinctive sound.
Fresh "wet" anal mucous coated dog shit crackles and snaps as it is pushed through the rectum and out the sphincter muscle.
I admit I have good hearing... walk a dog... and you'll hear it. Try a 148lb Golden Retriever... oh yeah... a symphony awaits!
Ok, I can see that. It was hubris all the way around.
I bet it'll out-sell the iPod in Japan!
I'm trying to think of how this got posted as a front page news article, much more an Apple article. Seriously, folks, I like Apple and all, but if you've seen the Hot News section of the Apple website this very article's listed. Obviously this is some fanboy barking up the Apple tree -- although somebody really should pass Sony the cluestick.
I am not that sure if my source (an electronic gadgets importer to New Zealand) is reliable. But, his words can probably shed some light to this discussion... On one hand, you can find some Sony products which are unaffected by the move to China. On the other hand, some seems to be crap.... Workmanship may not be the factor to be blamed...
The reason is more related to Sony's business decision. In general, if Sony owns or jointly runs the overseas factory (may it be in China or elsewhere), there won't be a big problem. The off spec product may be up by a few percent, but the manufacturing cost may probably halve. Established QC process should pick them out easily... However, Sony has adopted a dirty practice of buying directly from OEM and stamped their logo onto it. It is nothing wrong, if again they guard their QC process to the same standard. They are a bit lax when the product is deemed not in their core market...
One example is CDRom. At a time when CDRW was still very expensive, the importer that I know spotted a sweet Sony CDROM deal. While Sony was new to the CDROM market, it is a big name. With a price tag on par of Samsung (considered to be inferior than the big name ones at that stage), he expected a good sale.... The initial sale was good, but the failure rate was horrific. In just a few weeks, he had to stop selling the item to protect his own reputation... After he told his engineers to analyse what went wrong, they discovered that Sony CDROM had a firmware identical to a very very crap generic product at the time... They felt being betrayed by Sony....
I've noticed that, actually. Take DVD+/-R drives, for example. Sony's drive is significantly more expensive than equivalent drives from the competition. Yet I never hear reports online about how much better those Sony drives are, or anything similar. They seem to be more expensive simply because of the name-recognition factor, i.e. Sony will hope that consumers will see the Sony brand-name, and think it assures a better experience.
Satan already invented Windows Media Player, so consumers can pay for a subscription to the privilege of listening to music. When the payments stop, your music all goes to hell.
TASCAM is the "pro" subdivision of TEAC. They are one in the same. Tascam/TEAC is better know for their tape transports more than their CD units. The station I work for uses a 122MKIII, which is arguably the greatest tape transport still in production. I have only used Tascam's dual CDJ players, and while I liked the feel and the features OK, I didn't find them to be nearly as reliable as similar Pioneer and Denon units. And for the record, the $1600 Denon DN951FA is the industry standard CD player in the radio business. Stations that can't afford that (like the one I work for) use the Denon DNC635. Have you ever used any thing from Denon's pro line? It's some of the best built studio gear in its class. Hardly "crap."
I read the title of this article as "Sony's "iPod killer" Fails to Draw iBlood".
*sighs and shakes head sadly*
Cthulu saves... in case he gets hungry later.
::helping geeks get laid since 1983::
Which uses MP3 natively, has an organic led video screen, and can play video. Currently on sale in Japan, UK next year. Dunno about Aus or the USA.
GIYF.
Damn but there are a lot of morons out today.
I thought Microsoft already announced they were developing a portable player for digital media.
Sony is rarely about putting out good technology, they're more about putting out technology that consumers will buy despite a higher-than-usual profit margin on the price. Sure, every consumer electronics company has to make a profit or it won't exist, but Sony products are always higher-priced than technically equal models from other brands. Basically, Sony's profits come only from people too stupid to notice there's a better choice on most items.
Sony=Apple
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
You've cited a number of quantifiable benefits, but your failure to take into account user interface and size except by dismissing them shows that you and the rest of the world value different things in portable music players. I just answered why the iPod is more successful; and you even did in your own response.
Note that this comes from someone who doesn't even own an iPod. But if I did want a portable music player, that would be my choice because I want the smallest device possible (so that I will actually use it and because it would be easier to run with).
The Xbox can't play DVDs out-of-the-box. To play DVDs, you have to modify it in some way: get a mod chip, install a different OS, or buy a "DVD Playback Kit".
I believe all this talk of "iPod killers" having failed and that Apple cannot be toppled in the market is vastly premature.
Don't forget Microsoft is planning both a music store and a hardware reference platform...
This, combined with Microsoft's marketing muscle (and just imagine what they have at their disposal: an ad in every Hotmail message sent around the world, an icon on the desktop from XP SP2, every CNet headline for 6 months, etc, etc) could blow a hole in Apple's music initiative as large as a dinosaur killing crater.
In case you think I've strapped on the Gates & Ballmer Live Rock Cafe headphones, I've had both a 1st gen iPod and a 3rd gen iPod, and am responsible for encouraging about 12 people to get their own (I take no credit, it was as easy as saying "look at this").
However, I'm also old enough to have seen what Microsoft did to the Macintosh once they set their nuclear powered submarine sights on it. I predict history will repeat: an inferior store and an inferior player will blast iPod into niche status.
The market will not be better for it.
it seems to be a real problem adding a ...
...
e nfinity /eCS/Store/en/-/USD/SY_DisplayProductInformation-S tart;sid=ghAX_5gRhFQXktkdYuUd9NcddBkrw-Gih5Y=?Dept =hp&TemplateName=item%2fsy_item_b&ProductSKU=MSX1G
ethernet chip, plus a mp3, wav, atrac#, ogg, etc.
music playing chip, a headphone jack and a
descent battery to a "1 GB SONY memorystick(*)"
reader-case
oh yeah. maybe a small LCD plus bluetooth so i
can share my resent COPIES of songs with my friend on the bus
(*): dimensions 21.5mm x 50mm x 2.8mm
http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.
Yes it will - I play DVDs on component out all the time with my PS-2. For some reason, the geometry is different, though, when you play games or dvds. I have the PS2 driving a line quadrupler and CRT projector - DVDs fill up the whole 120" screen, but games are about 12" smaller and shifted a little to one side.
If Sony would just make a standalone ATRAC encoder then we could create files as easily as MP3/AAC. By copying the ATRAC files to the MiniDisc drive you could essentially "burn" a CD. Hell, if they would make the hardware play AIF or WAV that would be even better.
Sony shot themselves in the face with Betamax. The JVC deck was cheaper to manufacture- and JVC licensed the technology to other companies, such as RCA.
Oh, and there was that little thing about length- VHS tapes held more.
If you could have jammed three two hour movies onto a Betamax tape, the format would still be around.
stereophile's ipod review
audiophile award
let me quote:
Best of all--and, to my ears, completely indistinguishable from the original CD--was AIFF. Dynamics were impressive, imaging was nuanced and detailed, and the frequency extremes sounded extended and natural. On my reference rig, I could listen with immense pleasure for hours on end to files ripped in AIFF. In fact, I did.
---
the ipod is an audiophile-quality product. now, where are the reviews of the rio players qualifying them as audiophile-quality?
note though, that they ran it through the line-out plug on the dock, that is probably why they got the best quality out of it.
btw, i live in australia and especially this year, i see ipods everywhere. hardly anyone owns any of the other players in comparison.
and here, ipods are seen to be the coolest mp3 player. actually, coolest consumer electronics device full stop.
It's due to the genius of Ives that his iPod design becomes simpler in every iteration. This is the cluestick that his competition should start beating themselves with: simple, simpler, simplest. Problem is, Ives has already pared everything down to its essentials...
You ever hear of the jack-of-all-trades, master of none principle? The iPod was designed for playing music. Completely. Apple went for the size/capacity sweet spot, with a sweet interface. You start bolting extra (mostly useless) crap on, and you'll increase the size, decrease the usability and give you more parts that can break.
:) But I would also point out that the iPod's Firewire interface allows you to use it as a boot volume. Yes, some motherboards are starting to let you boot off of USB, but not nearly as many as Firewire.
iRiver has the iHP (now called the H series) which is around the same price for the same storage,
True.
has better sound quality
BS. Just what is this based on? Both players support lossless formats.
better battery life than the G4 iPods
Under what conditions? Especially once you start using those extra features that have been bolted on?
LCD remote
The iPod has a remote, although its no longer an included accessory, bastards... And who cares about an LCD? If you absolutely must see what's on the screen, get off your lazy butt and look at it!
recording and optical capabilities
More useless crap for the vast majority of users. If you are one of the very few who can actually make use of those features, then by all means go buy an iRiver. But that doesn't mean that it "beats" the iPod. Not even in the same ballpark.
And if you give either the iRiver or Creative players a few moments of your time you won't have any trouble using them.
Oh, I'm sure we wont. But one of the great things about the iPod interface is not that "you wont have a problem using it", but that its god damn good. Can you say the same thing for the iRiver?
Yes, they killed the iPod where it counts
Ha! In reality, the iPod beats, and will continue to beat the iRiver "where it counts" because the only thing that counts is how good a music player it is. Extra things can be tacked on through software, like contacts, notes and calendars (can the iRiver's do that, eh?) without degrading the player, but as soon as you start bolting stuff on the quality is going to go down or the price is going to go up, or both.
sound quality, battery life and actual audio features
Crap, questionable, and crap.
It also has a radio
The one feature that might actually be useful. But consider for a moment how much radio sucks, and how many people buy portable music players to get *away* from the radio.
USB making it accessible to more machines
Um, the iPod has used USB2 since at least the 3rd gen. I'm surprised you didn't mention the iRiver's Ogg support.
http://www.freeiPods.com/default.aspx?referer=7574 325
5 74 325
http://www.freeiPods.com/default.aspx?referer=7
Of course we all know the ipod is in dire need of a competitor. We had hopes in Sony but their proprietary demons got the best of them again. Sigh. When shall they ever learn. Beta, Memory Stick, Atrac3....
The fact that MS's intent to enter the market have yet to quell any sort of iPod sales numbers speaks volumes. It's possible history might not repeat this time.
Do not touch -Willie