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Virgin's New iPod Rival
iammaxus writes "CNET has the scoop on Virgin's new iPod killer. Favorite quote: 'Virgin said support for open standards such as WMA will let people select the music service of their choice.'" While this doesn't look like a bad player, it's the same price as an iPod mini (and incompatible with the most popular pay-per-download site), so calling it an iPod killer seems a bit premature.
I don't really like the design of the device... This shows why apple doesn't rush to market : they redesign and redesign and redesign until it's perfect. The Virgin player looks somewhat a quick & dirty design.
Their portable speakers on the other hand look nifty.
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
Every man and his dog is making an "iPod killer" these days. But none of em seem to get it.
:)
I am yet to see a better combination than iPod + iTunes for managing music. And the interface on the ipod is really nice and easy to use. I haven't bought one because they're a bit pricey and don't play ogg
-- The doctor said I wouldn't get so many nose bleeds if I just kept my finger out of there!
except, really, it doesn't do anything better than the king. Branson of all people should know that if you don't differentiate, you won't beat the incumbent. Especially when the incumbent has a flock of rabid followers and is singularly considered the coolest tech gadget in the past ten years.
Iran has endorsed
Since when is WMA an open standard?
I've already got my iPod and I hope it doesn't get killed by this device. Can I take Virgin to court if they kill my iPod?
Come on, this "iPod killer" thing needs to stop until the device is actually rated and used by someone, and is actually better than the iPod. Also, a key point: it needs to actually sell more.
Since when is WMA considered an open standard? How about FLAC or OGG?
iPod is cool, but its seamless integration with iTunes is what makes it the thing to beat. These iPod killers seems to forget that.
move along, nothing to
What these supposed challengers don't get is that the iPod is not just a nifty gadget. It's part of a system that includes an online music store, a desktop client, and the actual iPod device. An "iPod killer" has to take on the iPod on all of these points.
We have had so many "iPod Killers" that the term now just means "new mp3 player."
Not everything is analogous to cars. Car analogies rarely work.
There are good reasons to discount microsoft's media products as useless, but "they don't have the market share" is *not* one of them!
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Vote for your hopes, not for your fears - Vote Third Party
But does the end user care, as long as the music they want is available for purchase? Doubtful. With all the major labels, and a lot of the minors on all the stores most people will use the store that works for their device and not worry about anything else. It's when you try to track down a hard to find piece of music the problems arise. If you're a Beatles fan you're right out of luck.
Of course there's other "choice" available with WMA, you can choose a device from another vendor, you're no longer locked into Apple as controller of the format, seller of the music and only "manufacturer" of the portable device that plays it.
Songs downloaded from iTunes are not supported. It's their choice, not ours.
I'm glad someone has put it in such basic terms, rather than in small print.
creation science book
All rail in the UK seems determined to be as crap as possible.
Hey, at least you've *got* serious rail. I recently spent a couple weeks in the UK (mostly in Yorkshire) and was impressed by the rail system, overall. We had one delay coming back from London (the Leeds train was late) but in general, we never had any problems.
And the whole "walk a few blocks into town to grab a train to go the next major city over" thing was fantastic. Just £6.50 for a 1-hour ride to/from York? Incredible. That'd be like driving to the nearest strip mall here in Northern Virgina and getting to downtown Baltimore for, what, $10 or so? I can't even do round-trip to DC for under $7 during rush hour, and the nearest Metro (subway) station is a 15 minute drive away.
So, yes, there are probably many problems, and there will *always* be problems. But having a large, well-used, cheap regional/national rail network is something we chaps on the left side of the pond will always envy. We're lucky if we can get regional rail around a single city, let alone networked between 'em. (and we'll never have a subway as pervasive as the London Underground, except in New York, and that's only because it was built so long ago).
Man says iPod is too expensive and doesn't play ogg. HOLD THE FRONT FUCKING PAGE!
Score 4 and counting. Love those moderators.
If you want to dethrone a wildly popular product, you have to put one out there that is wildly better or quite a bit cheaper. Companies traditionally haven't been able to compete with Apple very much on the better part (perhaps clock speed, for a while), so they've come out with cheaper products. You are not going to derail the iPod with something that is roughly the same at the same price point. A little more capacity or being compatible with a different set of incompatible standards (WMA DRM vs iTMS).
I appreciate that the parent poster was joking but it is worth pointing out that if the Apple store starts to jack up the prices, there is nowhere else you can legimately purchase the AAC files that they sell.
On the other hand, if a WMA shop does the same, you simply shift to another one.
Finally, everyone likes to blame Microsoft for the DRM in WMA. However they completely forget that Microsoft just provided the capability - it is up to the content providers on whether or not they use it.
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Or legally rip your CDs into mp3 or non-drm'd aac (or wav or aiff or Apple Lossless!) and sync your iPod. No hacking and no "fees to Apple" necessary...
All of this talk about an iPod killer seemingly every week now is just wishful thinking. The insiders must know that the true iPod killer will be the device that does the following.
1.) Looks really good, like the iPod
2.) Plays _all_ of the major formats including OGG
3.) Works with whatever music store you like
4.) Is competitively priced and reliable
Technically this is all possible. Having a good looking player that plays all of the major music formats is well within reach. The other stuff is where it gets tricky primarily due to copyright issues. If encumbering DRM would just go away the market would explode. It is the need for DRM that leads to the current incompatibilities. Yeah, if there were a single standard it would be better (maybe) but that's not going to happen because there is basic disagreement on just what the end user should be able to do with music and how much and how often they should pay. Right now, the iPod plus iTunes offer what IMHO is the most end user friendly set of circumstances. Yeah, the iPod doesn't play OGG, but nothing keeps me from converting OGG to mp3 and loading it that way. I can even get unprotected WMA on my pod. Unfortunately a lot of the Japanese music I listen to is on copy protected CDs which are a bear to deal with, but after some work (no cracking involved) I can get these on my pod too. No extra fees or subscriptions! I can pretty much deal with music the way I did in the days of making compilation cassettes for my car or walkman. Heck, this is even easier than that was! Right or wrong, I feel more like Apple wants to help me DO things, rather than STOP me from doing things.
Bottom line, no iPod killer is likely to appear anytime soon because the fundamental problems are nowhere near resolution. Microsoft could do a lot to unify things on the Windows side, but ultimately competition among record companies isn't going to allow the kind of unification that could pose a real challenge for Apple's iPod+iTunes dominance. And of course, Apple isn't likely to be standing still either.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
It's probably not as clearly a factor as some would assume. The addition of iTunes for Windows boosted iPod sales, so a strong argument exists that the iTunes Music Store drives iPod market share more than the iPod drives iTMS market share. (I, personally, started using iTunes because I liked the interface, decided to buy a couple songs off the iTMS because it was integrated with iTunes, and only later decided to buy an iPod because it worked well with iTunes.)
But like I said, a market share number alone doesn't answer WHY. It's entirely possible that a growing number of non-iTMS-compatible devices will shift the market share breakdown. However, if most people buy digital audio players to rip and carry their own music, the music store is almost irrelevant. Most music is still sold on CD, and in that respect iTunes is compatible with almost every player out there.
tom