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Holiday Competition For iPod Dollars
An anonymous reader writes "MP3newswire.net is running a two part article on 15 new digital music portables or "iPod Killers" as the digerati have dubbed them. iPod Killers for Christmas Part I includes what I think is the coolest new player, the Olympus MR 500i with touch-screen technology and and sharp black-on-white color scheme. iPod Killers for Christmas Part II's most interesting portables are the new Epson MPEG-4/MP3 media jukebox and the SoniqCast Aireo 2 Wi Fi. Lots of photos and size specs. Also, Ogg Vorbis is picking up steam as more new players are adding it."
...is going to have to find something better than "an iPod killer" to label themselves.
Originality people!
"The worst tyrannies were the ones where a governance required its own logic on every embedded node." - Vernor Vinge
If ogg gathers support, Apple can create a firmware update for the iPod and it will be back to square one.
Look, the problem with these companies is that they are concentrating too much on physical design and low cost. They don't realize the fact that the reason why many people buy iPods, even if they cost more, is that they are much easier to install and use than their products. An iPod (on macs at least), there is only one step: Plug into firewire port. Thats it. No need to mess with drivers or install difficult mp3 players on your PC.
iPod Killers for Christmas Part I includes what I think is the coolest new player, the Olympus MR 500i with touch-screen technology and and sharp black-on-white color scheme.
...And cute little white "please mug me" earphones just like the iPod.
From the recent Apple conference call:
"In the US, Apple's iPod retains 65% market share of digital music players and over 90% market share of players based on a hard drive."
Shucks. 90% of the hard drive player market, and more than half of the market overall.
The Apple Product Cycle (I wish I came up with it, I didn't), which I've linked to in my sig for a month or two because it's hysterical- talks about this "stage" of the game.
Isn't it funny how people have been proclaiming the death of the iPod for...uh...years? iPod is on its FOURTH generation.
Please help metamoderate.
Why does everyone think that the iPod killer is going to be a new player?
That's not what an iPod is.
An iPod is actually a combination of things. First, it's a small, lightweight player. That's right where most people stop. They think "Hey, we can make a light weight player, and we can make it cheaper."
Second, it's an easy to use player. Too many competitors don't take this into consideration. There are far too many players on the market that gloss over this step. It's hard to demonstrate UI through press photos. Word of mouth is the key for this step, and it tends to destroy most other players. Lets face it, most people are idiots, and end up confused by the average mp3 player UI, and then they bitch about it. The iPod is so simple anyone can use it.
Now here's the sneaky part that everyone seems to forget about. The iPod is also married to the iTunes Music Store. It's an easy, legal way to get songs on your player. Both built from the ground up to work together with ease. Throw in 1-Click purchasing, and you've got yourself a nice little system.
To see a real iPod killer, someone will have to come up with an easier way to get music onto their player. Until that happens, everyone's going to keep selling their ideas in the boardroom, only to watch them fall apart in the market.
Ogg isn't going to kill the iPod, it isn't even a factor. Why? Because no one cares/knows what Ogg is except the nerd elite.. and I hate to break it to you, but the nerd elite are not the vast majority of consumers. You think my mom gives two shits whether or not her mp3 player supports Ogg?
Really. The majority just want to use iTunes together with their iPod seamlessly - something already being doen, and quite nicely.
No one cares about Ogg Vorbis. If I asked 90% of my friends "Hey, do you want Ogg Vorbis support on your iPod?", they would think it was some industrial band.
The idea that Ogg support matters at all in the general market is laughable. No. One. Cares. It seems to have done pretty well without Ogg, and that won't change.
My sig is blank, I typed this by hand.
Actually, a number of players work just fine with iTunes; they appear just like an iPod would, you get the same sync options, etc. Before I bought an iPod, I used it with my Rio500 until I got tired of trying to assemble mp3's on the rio's limited space (even wit a 32MB expansion card, whoa, a whole 32MB!). Straight from an Apple press release in 2001:
download songs to popular MP3 players from Rio and Creative Labs with plug-and-play simplicity with no extra software or complicated driver installations required.
Please help metamoderate.
So which ones have user replacable batteries?
With so many manufacturers, I'm sure that more than 50% of them will be bought or out of business in 2-3 years. Many of them use proprietary Li-polymer batteries (they are wonderfully small) that can only be replaced by the factory. Since the lifespan of these batteries are maybe two years, you better hope that someone still manufactures those proprietary batteries and is willing to change them for you. At what price? Did you choose the right model?
When I put my tinfoil hat on I can see it clearly; built-in batteries is a godsend for manufacturers since it allows them to create product that don't last for more than 3-4 years which will create more future buyers. You don't own your MP3 player. You just rent it on a 2-3 year basis.
)9TSS
Oh, and it's got to look really cool and sexy. I was gonna get a rio karma, but I heard the siren call of the sexy iPod and soon had one.
Though considering I recently bought an iPod, it will be a while before I have the money to buy another cool device. And my experience with the iPod makes it unlikely that I will buy any device which is not an iPod or made by Apple. So maybe this isn't being marketed to people like me.
Regardless, I don't want a video player. I don't want fancy graphics. I want an audio player, and that's what I've got. I think there are many like me.
I also want it to look cool, and my iPod definitely is that. I want an experience which is easy, and it is easy. And I'm running linux too!
I've got iTunes through cxitunespreview, and I've got management of the iPod through gtkpod (not as nice as direct management through iTunes, but still, it does what I want). Oh, and I can transfer the files off of iTunes with gtkpod, all I had to do was recompile it with this mpeg4 lib.
I also love the attachment by Griffin Technologies that allows me to record lectures. That has been a real benefit, and was one of the major reasons I chose the iPod over the karma.
That's true. I know that Apple's target demographic is definitely on the fence regarding Ogg support. Here's a sample polling question for someone in this key age group:
Q: So, what file types would you like to see supported in a portable music player? WMA? MP3? Ogg?
A: Like, I totally thought Billy was into Jane 'cuz they were all like making out last night, that's what Katie told me but she has like this like weird thing in her hair and ohmygod! was that justin timberlake on TV! ohmygodohmygod I mean OMGOMGOMG! G2g brb ttyl!!!!1111 Wait...what's like an "ogg", and like stuff, you know?
For the average consumer, I think the iTunes music store is more important than the iPod itself. I've tried most of the competition (Musicmatch, WMP10, etc.) and their technology is just awful, terrible, nasty. Have you looked at Microsoft Windows Media Player 10? I counted like 6 nested menu systems in it, all different kinds. Some look like browser menus, some look like windows menus, some weird tabs for the linked music stores. Grandma is supposed to use it as her jukebox software? HA!
iTunes is incredibly easy for the average consumer. Plug in your iPod, it copies the music to it. Put in an audio CD, the button on the top right says "import". Buy music off the iTunes music store, it downloads. All within the same app.
Is anyone else even close on the ease of use of iTunes? I haven't seen anything, and I think you need that kind of ease-of-use to be the consumer success that the iPod has been.
- "When you want something with all your heart, the entire universe conspires to give it to you" -Paulo Coelho
... solely due to the "click wheel" thing - no other player has this, no other player is as easy to use.
...
Paint them whatever colur you want, make them as small as you like - the competing boxes have lousy interfaces
Maybe somebody can help answer a question here: It would be very easy (my assumption) to add ogg support to iTunes and the iPod. Why exactly hasn't apple done this? Is it because they want to get people behind their weird compression format, or is it some kind of licensing issue? Something else I haven't thought of?
Well, one idea is that the iPod's processor isn't capable of handling ogg decoding.
Another idea is that Apple doesn't want to add ANY formats to their player. They support MP3, which appeals to Joe Average who illegally downloads music. And they support their DRMed iTMS AAC format for legal purchases from iTMS. Either one is also supported for legal/illegal (depending on your country or current senate bill bought and paid for by the RIAA, etc) ripping of music from CDs. Apple doesn't want ANY other format on an iPod as it may threaten their existing base of iTMS customers.
Which one you believe usually depends on whether you believe Apple is a benevolent company acting in its customers best interests or just another cash-happy ass-of-a-company that isn't more evil simply because it doesn't have the monopoly that Microsoft does.
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
If Apple really does have a new 60gb iPod waiting with photo support (http://thinksecret.com/news/0410photoipod.html) and the like then the ipod killer for christmas will be the iPod itself. With a high end (photo enabled 60gb), mid-range (20/40gb ipods) and 'economy' offering (the mini - which could use a price slash) Apple against all odds and logic can continue to own the mp3 market for at least the holiday season and well into next year. But, as we have seen repeatedly the real trouble Apple tends to have is actually making enough of them.
It will be hard and likely take years to break the stranglehold Apple has on the industry. A great music store built in to a free best-in-class music player/ripper/burner/organizer and coupled with the ipod family of players. The fad hasnt turned on Apple in the slightest and most likely it hasnt even _peaked_.
---- The real Slashdot is still here. You just have to browse at -1 to read the comments.
I have not yet seen it announced.
Watch out Apple!
(linked image is Safe for Work...)
I like microcars
It's very keen how you figured out that Apple secretly has a plan to stamp out consumer freedoms all over the globe.
Steve Jobs is rarely caught on camera crushing puppies with his bare hands, and to the average joe his justification for running a music store with a near-zero profit simply because it will make consumers buy more iPods usually makes sense, but you've really caught on to the unimaginable depths of nazi-supporting, devil-worshiping corruption that has become nothing less than unstoppable in the hateful underbelly of Apple.
Any sane person should realize that there is no reason conceivable by God or man for the iPod not to be compatible with Ogg Vorbis. Everyone uses it these days, and ultimately it wouldn't cost Apple a single cent (because everyone knows development and support are essentially free in a huge technology company with millions of customers) so the only possible reason for Apple to deny consumers their God-given right to play Ogg Vorbis files on their iPods is that Apple secretly wants to oppress music-enthusiasts all over the world with their murderous music store.
karma: ouch!
I've never heard Ogg mentioned except on slashdot and sites linked to from it. The average person couldn't give a shit.
If there's anything that's going to kill Ogg Vorbis, it's lack of iPod support.
That's nearer the truth.
Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
Mac users love to ignore the fact that Ogg Vorbis is more popular than AAC.
That might have been a factor if iTunes didn't primarily use AAC.
I don't even know if what you said is true (in fact I highly doubt it, given iTMS' popularity), but even if Ogg is more popular than AAC, you're still dealing with a very small amount of users that are going to be vehement about using Ogg.
More portable players support Ogg Vorbis than AAC.
Most portable players also don't have the iTMS, the most successful online music store out there right now.
How many non-nerds do you know actually have knowledge of Ogg's existence? How many of those people actually encode in Ogg as opposed to MP3 or whatever their music store throws at them?
Ogg is a cool format, but its lack of support on the iPod is most definitely not as detrimental as you're making it out to be for 99.99% of the market.
Microsoft, that's who.
What's your point? Microsoft is a big company that sells a lot of OS' and Apple has iTMS which sells the most online music, therefore Apple is as "evil" as Microsoft?
As you admitted yourself, they've sold more DRM infected files than anyone else.
The DRM in AAC allows you to burn CDs and convert those CDs back to whatever format you want without any hacks or trickey. This is something that most non-techy users know, though I doubt they really noticed in the first place since the DRM is as lax as it is. That's about as flexible as it gets, and you can bet your ass they had to put some form of DRM on their files to get these music companies to get onboard and thus get the whole thing rolling. If you want to buy music online legally right now from someone with a considerably large library, it's probably gonna have some DRM on it.
Remember, noone is forcing you into buying an iPod, noone is outlawing Ogg from portable players. If you don't want the iPod because you want Ogg that bad, then you're not in the market anyhow. Implying the product is evil because it doesn't cater to you when it quite obviously does so to the majority of other users is a bit silly.
good thing I disinfect my ITMS music. wow, that was really hard. try doing that with an encrypted WMA file.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
IF the nerds who care about ogg only shared files in ogg format then you can bet your ass 90% of your friends would care.
You want to increase the popularity of ogg? Then stop sharing MP3s, it will happen overnight.
evil is as evil does
Hmm, maybe some folks DO care about Ogg Vorbis support in their DAPs? Enough, apparently, that manufacturers are starting to notice.
No, you got it backwards. It's clueless manufactures that don't have the skills to produce an actual iPod killer who scramble for any little thing that they can use as a checkbox item in their favor or otherwise attempt to gain geek creds. It's just a plain bad business decision; right up there with Sony not supporting MP3 on their new Walkman. The reality is that once you do anything other than MP3, you have to do it in a way that is so slick that people don't have to think about it. Contrast that with the way people who support Ogg Vorbis are continually trying to shove the format itself down everyone's throats. If they just shut up and pulled an Apple they might actually get some real world traction on the format.