iRiver to Build In-Dash Digital HD Players

An anonymous reader writes "It looks like iRiver is going to take over where the Rio Car left off. Their CEO announced today that they are near completion on a new plant in China that will produce HD-based in-dash digital music players for automobiles. The new plant can push out 700K units a month. With the iPod dominating the digital portable market, iRiver sees this as a wide-open area they can move into. According to MacWorld iRiver is the third leading seller of MP3 portables with 5.6% of the market, following the number two seller Rio which holds 6.4% of the market. And the Apple iPod? No surprise, only a whopping 65.8% of all units shipped. 92% if you only count HD portables."

Comments

open markets

[cwebb1977]

Any market can be regarded as "wide open" if you have products of superior quality. Well, unless you face a big bad wolf-like company or state-owned monopolist that's giving you plenty of headaches and lawsuits.

Re:open markets

[iezhy]

i seriously doubt if new products from rio and other newcomers can be considered superior quality (in terms of audio quality) comparing them to products (usualy cd/mp3 players) produced by experianced car audio system manufacturers (like pioneer, blaupunkt and etc.)

Re:Misleading marketshare numbers

[HoneyBunchesOfGoats]

You're quick to knock Apple's statistics, but where do yours come from?

DAMN!

[red5]

iRiver is the third leading seller of MP3 portables with 5.6% of the market, following the number two seller Rio which holds 6.4% of the market. And the Apple iPod? No surprise, only a whopping 65.8% of all units shipped.

Reminds me of the old adage: "Second place is the first loser"

I always thought that was a rather annoying way to look at it. In this case I think it applies. 65.8 : 6.4 is just over a factor of ten. Damn Apple really does dominate that market. Hopefully this works out for iRiver. Otherwise there probably not going to last long. They're getting creamed (at 5.6%).

Though I suppose one can say by the same logic Apple is getting creamed in the computer market. Though I wonder how their numbers compare to other vendors (ei Dell, HP, Toshiba, Sony, etc) as opposed to apple vs. the entire PC market.

Re:In Soviet Russia....

[FinestLittleSpace]

fuck off.

Networking - The Missing Piece

[superid]

I don't want to yank my player out of the dash when I want to add songs. I want to drive my car into my garage and have it present on my home network. Then from my desktop I will drag/drop songs to the car.

Why the heck is it taking the auto industry so long to add simple network connectivity to cars? I know it's a price sensitive market, and potentially a security problem, but I've been anticipating this "no brainer" option for years....where is it???

ipod in car

[millahtime]

I bet if apple had an actual kit to put an ipod in a car rather than all the hacker mods that are out there it would help in that area.

Personally, I don't want a device just for my car. I want one I can have in my car, home and anywhere else I go.

Re:the problem is

[Inda]

That's nonsense.

Wiring up a car stereo is easy. It's no different than pluging in the speakers of a house stereo. Removing the trim to hide wires is the hardest part but even 'shop monkeys' can do this easily enough.

Are you also saying that my Alpine is worse than the piece of crap that came with my Honda? I don't think so.

Interface

[TrippTDF]

The user interface had better be clear, simple and easy to use while driving, or no one is going to get one of these. Based on my small iRiver experiance, I don't see that happening.

Re:usual double standard.

[ideatrack]

It's not a monopoly.

Monopoly:A business that is the sole supplier of a particular good or service. Regulated monopolies, such as electric utilities, are generally restricted as to the returns they are permitted to earn. Other monopolies such as firms with unique products or services derived from patents, copyrights, or geographic location may be able to earn very high returns.

Re:In-Dash?

[Technician]

From TFA: "One that pulls from the dash when you want to load a significant volume of songs and takes flash media when the user only wishes to transfer a few tunes."


I hope someday they will get WiFi. That would be ideal. Park the car, open a port with a password, surf to it with either a laptop or home network, start transfer... I'd also prefer it to be trunk mount so the in-dash DVD/NAV doesn't have to come out.

Input jack

[fossa]

Can someone please make a car with a stereo that has an audio input? Does such a thing exist even in aftermarket? Assuming I already have a portable music player, I could just plug it in to my car stereo. Instead, I'm stuck using some pathetic mini FM transmitter, or cassette adapter if I have a cassette deck, or buying a whole new HD car stereo.

*sigh*

Why doesn't apple do this?

[Raleel]

I mean, really. they are like 99% of the way there. They have a dock. they have the airport express with wireless. Make a deck that will show up on my mac, lemme drag my songs over to it, and you are good to go. Or make a deck that I can slot my ipod into. OUt of mind, out of sight.