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40GB RCA Lyra: Apple Fans Needn't Fret
PaulEshoreLives writes "The Globe and Mail isn't taking too kindly to RCA's Lyra 40GB iPod 'competitor.' Amongst its gripes are a crazy-slow FFW. How slow? Like 6 minutes to get to the end of a 60 minute file. Gotta wonder how these things get missed at the beta stage."
I believe what is being referred to is a ridiculously slow "Fast Forward" function.
Will it make your iPod quit working? Or make you love your iPod less?
Why are there only 19 people folding@home for slashdot?
.. are conducive to rapid-scan indexing of frames.
..
Sure, on an uncompressed mpeg4, you can just fseek() where you need to go and pick right up, but some codecs (not gonna mention names) are designed with limitations that make faster-than-1x speed indexes exceedingly difficult for simple lower-power processors
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Might sell my iPod for one of these. Infact, I might start using Windows as well..
"Sweet llamas of the Bahamas !"
Why does every new hard disk mp3 player have to be labeled an iPod competitor? Some of these devices aren't even close to the iPod.
I have a Lie-ra too. The 128MB version. It claims to play MP3s but you must convert them to MPY format using a MusicMatch plugin!! (BTW: it plays WMA files too but without a conversion to MPY )
I wonder if this Lyra play MP3s or MPYs?
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
"Just another case of a geek trying to imitate the popular people and failing miserably."
In the software development world that would be the alpha stage. I can just see it now.
Engineer to Management.
We are trying to work on the fast forward function and we would like to do that before shipping.
Management to Engineer.
We must ship by this date, we don't care if the software is done correctly or not, just get us revenue.
Engineer to Management.
Ok, me must remove the FFW button from the machine.
Management.
No, leave it we have a great idea.
Management to end user and press.
"This is a new feature of the ffw button, we think that it should be a super slow function, for those times when you just have a little too much time on your hands."
Happens all the time
That every portable hard disk based music player is inferior to an iPod until we hear otherwise? We get the message.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Dear sir,
Your views intrigue me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
So the forward-scan button gives you a 10x speed ffw. And? Why is this bad?
But then, I'm not getting my head round having single mp3 files that are 60 minutes long either, so that might explain it. I mean, there's Eno's Neroli, but I can't think of any others off the top of my head.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Most cassette players and VCRs can go from start to end of a tape in about 1-2 minutes. That's sad.
It always strikes me as strange why a company would believe that simply jumping on the MP3 Player bandwagon, and not actually producing a superior product to the iPod, would yield better sales results than the iPod. Absolute insanity.
IGB: More fun than eating oatmeal!
Gotta wonder how these things get missed at the beta stage."
PHB: Beta stage? What beta stage?
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
I have a few that are MUCH longer then an hour..
And are not split up by chapter... so its one huge file..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Apple Fans Needn't Fret
What is that saying about a group of people, that a competitor's product to Apple might cause you to "fret"? I guess its implying that Apple users don't like competition? But beyond that, why should competition cause anyone outside of Apple cause any stress for anyone that doesn't make a living selling Apple realted products? Its just wierd thats all. I understand that we can all get caught up in fandom every now and then, but geez louise give it a break.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Gee, you'd think someone with views as meticulously thought out as yours would realize that the Globe & Mail is a Toronto paper. Perhaps you have a similar screed about consumenadians, eh?
I believe "apple fans" have a reason to fear iRiver and the Nomad Zen more then this.
since IMNSHO both of these give you far better bang for your buck, not to mention the iRiver has more features.
Just my two cents really.
Does the Lyra support the seek to xx:xx time function ?
Otherwise high speed ffw is not a very frequently used function... in winamp eg. i would directly click at the approx position from where i would like the play to continue instead of ffwding.
but as someone has already posted it depends on the codec also.
vik
[all generalizations are untrue except this one]
I really wonder sometimes why people make statements like this. I just got my free ipod from the freeipods.com deal and I love it. I am not fearfull of some other mp3 player any more that I am fearfull of of tin foil hats.
In that case: have a look at the Rio Karma. 1. It's cheaper 2. It plays Ogg 3. It has a better screen resolution 4. It has cross platform support (a java client that uses an ethernet connection to download/upload music from/to it)
"I Just Want You To Hurt Like I Do" - Randy Newman
How often do you fast forward when you use an iPod ?
BTW, besides Mike Oldfield Amarok, and a few Magma, Christian Vander or Offering songs, I do not have that much one hour long audio files.
I guess the reviewer wanted to say something bad about these because he felt so good about his iPod.
I understand this as I also am an happy iPod user but I do not have a problem with other's owning another potentially better player.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
I realize R'ing TFA is not in vogue, but if you did you would have seen that the reviewer uses his MP3 player for audio books.
From hell's heart I fstab at /dev/hdc
Sounds like a big minus for fans of Spock's Beard, Yes, Klaus Schultze, Brian Eno... and the many other artists who have escaped the bounds of single-digit minute compositions.
If I could have mass storage on my PocketPC it would be the best music player out there... because it uses a Windows CE port of WinAmp (still beta unfortunately)... what could be easier to use? For now, I have to settle with a 1GB SD card, but that's not bad... and I can play games or read while I listen.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
... with a CD or even a vinyl LP you can skip to wherever you want in seconds or less. This player is supposed to be the next generation of music machines and yet it appears to be a lot more awkward to use in some ways than the technology its supposed to supercede! For me thats hardly a selling point.
According to the article (sorry):
The 154 gram unit comes in at 8.5-by-13.8-by-7.2 centimetres and 2.5cm thick
Should we fret about the 4th dimension instead?
In other news, the phrase "ipod killer" has been replaced with a new foriegn phrase on slashdot: "ipod competitor."
Typical .. you think just because there is 'merican' in there that I'm only talking about Americans?
No. There are consumericans here in Germany too. That this particularly nefarious social disease started in America, with its 'our cars are bigger than your car' doctrine, is immaterial to the actual meaning of the word.
Funny, though, that you would think that Consumericanism is only an American disease, given that countries predilection for exporting such things...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
It seems the Rio Karma hasn't had a feature bump since it's introduction last year. Sure, it's pricing is on par with the 20 GB iPod (and the Karma comes with a dock, featuring an ethernet port, not to mention native support for Ogg Vorbis and FLAC), but I think Rio can do even better. =)
I think the article submitter must have meant a crazy slow Full Figured Woman.
meep
I didn't see anything about 17-minute file copying in the article. What's that about?
Aside from the author's pro-ipod bias, I only have one issue with the article:
With the original OS, my Archos Jukebox Recorder required me to hold down the On button for something like 5 seconds to turn it on, and I found that to be a real PITA. With the Rockbox OS I only have to hold it down for about 1/2 a second to power up the unit, and I've never had it turn itself on in my pocket (or anywhere). My point is: Don't make the user hold the button down for any length of time to avoid accidental power-ups; design and place the power button properly instead!
-Rich
While you can fast forward on an iPod by holding down the next track button, the best way to span long distances is to press the center button and then scrub through the song/book with the scroll wheel. I'm guessing this player offers no such option, which is part of the problem.
-JD-
Wow, that was blindingly ignorant.
The iPod can play mp3 directly, it is not dependent on only one format (AAC).
Now maybe you're thinking of the stupid 20GB Sony Walkman, which forces you to convert everything to ATRAC3 before loading it on the device.
Have you actually used an ipod, or are you simply repeating random crap that you've heard on /.
The ipod can play mp3s, aac, and apple lossless (if not more). Please know what you're talking about before you post random crap.
It's the Lyra RD2840. It's got it's faults but overall it's a great player for what I need it to do. Initially, it had lots of problems. You couldn't resume a track from where you left off if you turned the unit off and back on, the track would start over. If you had both mp3s and wma files on it, there was static when it switched between the 2 formats. Shuffle was buggy, etc... these were all fixed in a recent firmware upgrade though. FFW is slow on mine, but not as slow as the review says it is on the new model. Playback isn't gapless, but it's "pretty close." Battery life so far seems to be about 10 hours continuous play, 7-8 if I shuffle around, so that's not bad. It comes with an AC adapter, cigarette lighter adapter, carrying case, and the headphones are better than the typical stock headphones. The downside: For some reason, the line-out is a 1/16" jack instead of the usual 1/8" headphone sized. An adapter is included though. Also, it requires a 5.5v AC adapter, which I have had trouble locating online... so if you lose your adapter I'm not sure what you'd do. Occasionally, if you shuffle around to songs that aren't in order, the song will start about 1/2-1 second into the track. The one feature that sold me, over everything else, is that it's one of the few players that doens't require any special software. It's recognized as a standard external USB drive, you just copy files over to it like you would any normal drive (so you can also use it to store other files besides music). There IS a Windows system tray application that you use to "profile" the device, which scans all the id3 tags so that you can browse your songs by artist/genre/album/etc. But you don't need to use it, because the player has a profiling feature built in! It's just a little slower than using the windows app. In other words, this player is PERFECT for linux users. And, they're cheap. I got mine refurbished on ebay for only $160. At that price, for a 40 gig player that includes all the accessories and requires no software and runs effortlessly under Linux I don't mind the few faults it has!
Erm? The iPod doesn't convert everything to .aac, if you throw a .mp3 at it, it will gladly swallow it. If you import a CD wit iTunes, you can set iTunes to convert it to .aac, but also to .mp3.
1.) it's ugly
2.) no integration with iTMS
3.) too big to fit comfortably in a pocket
4.) doesn't play AAC
-mkb
iPod does not convert everything to aac. It plays mp3, as well as several lossless formats (aif, wav, apple lossless) without converting anything at all. It does not play ogg or wma, true. But that does not make it dependent on 1 format.
It's not surprising that it's crap: we've known for decades that RCA stood for Remarkably Crappy Apparatus.
See what I've been reading.
Initially, it had lots of problems. You couldn't resume a track from where you left off if you turned the unit off and back on, the track would start over. If you had both mp3s and wma files on it, there was static when it switched between the 2 formats. Shuffle was buggy, etc... these were all fixed in a recent firmware upgrade though. FFW is slow on mine, but not as slow as the review says it is on the new model. Playback isn't gapless, but it's "pretty close." Battery life so far seems to be about 10 hours continuous play, 7-8 if I shuffle around, so that's not bad. It comes with an AC adapter, cigarette lighter adapter, carrying case, and the headphones are better than the typical stock headphones.
The downside: For some reason, the line-out is a 1/16" jack instead of the usual 1/8" headphone sized. An adapter is included though. Also, it requires a 5.5v AC adapter, which I have had trouble locating online... so if you lose your adapter I'm not sure what you'd do. Occasionally, if you shuffle around to songs that aren't in order, the song will start about 1/2-1 second into the track.
The one feature that sold me, over everything else, is that it's one of the few players that doens't require any special software. It's recognized as a standard external USB drive, you just copy files over to it like you would any normal drive (so you can also use it to store other files besides music). There IS a Windows system tray application that you use to "profile" the device, which scans all the id3 tags so that you can browse your songs by artist/genre/album/etc. But you don't need to use it, because the player has a profiling feature built in! It's just a little slower than using the windows app.
In other words, this player is PERFECT for linux users.
And, they're cheap. I got mine refurbished on ebay for only $160. At that price, for a 40 gig player that includes all the accessories and requires no software and runs effortlessly under Linux I don't mind the few faults it has!
I'm thinking you kinda invalidate any right you may have thought you had to grouse about American "consumer marketplace economics" when you lazily request Hollywood warez sites be e-mailed to you in your perch in Germany.
Maybe we're just supposed to send you warez sites for those great German movies. Yeah, that's it, that's what you meant...
As far as America's "innate desire for fascism" goes, uhhhh, don't you think might be just projecting a teensy bit? Fascism is on the rise, all right. But we Americans are dorky amateurs at it. You guys remain the world-class professionals at it.
seriously, do you really believe the "myth" that lossy format makes that much of a difference in the real market after the success of iPod? the reason iPod is revolutionary and people are buying them in bunches is because it can carry a lot of songso. quality of music just isn't such a big deal as much as the fact hundreds of CDs worth of music can be accessed - while on the road, during the commute, while jogging, etc. (and would you really notice the quality difference from mini earbuds and with traffic noise in the background?)
if the quality of mp3/aac made that big of a difference, then how do you explain the success of iTMS? millions of songs downloaded a week - in (horror) 128 kbps aac!
money talks. and the success of iPod/iTMS says the majority of the dollars are being spent by those who don't care one bit about the "loss of quality" in their music because as far as they can tell, their songs sound just like it came from CDs.
Secondly, AAC can either be lossy or lossless, depending on which format you choose. AAC Lossless is, by definition, lossless (er...hence the name).
So apart from getting both of those facts wrong, you were almost right :-)
"This is why men never share their feelings; because women always remember." -Just Shoot Me.
I believe what is being referred to is a ridiculously slow "Fast Forward" function.
Yeah, and the article comment:
Gotta wonder how these things get missed at the beta stage.
Made me chuckle. Its pretty much been established that at least in the electronic/computer/gadget field that beta testing has been outsourced to those willing to _pay_ to beta test products instead of companies paying to do it inhouse.
...but it's dependancy on only 1 format is not.
If that were true (it is not), one could just as easily say that the iRiver has great ability to play multiple formats, but it lacks in interface and application integration. If the flawed formats argument is what makes you choose the iRiver over the iPod, that's your choice, it doesn't mean one is better than the other.
iRiver lithium batteries cannot be replaced by the user. They have an expected life of 3 years, after which you'd have to send the unit back for "repair" outside of warranty.
Thanks manufacturers, but try again. I won't buy ANYTHING which has a non-replacable life-limiting power system.
http://www.acronymfinder.com/af-query.asp?p=dict&S tring=exact&Acronym=FFW
Yeah, spending that much money on an iPod clone only to find it made my fully-figured woman slower would be a pain in the butt... I paid good money for that doll, too.
There's an old /. troll that attacks an OS (usually Linux or OSX) on the basis that copying a file of some large size takes 17 minutes. It's usually pretty subtle and gets a lot of responses if used correctly.
[...]as opposed to the ipod which converts everything to .aac.
;-)
.AAC. From the iPod Tech Specs: "Audio formats supported: AAC (16 to 320 Kbps), MP3 (32 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible, AIFF, Apple Lossless and WAV".
Hold on there a moment, cowboy.
The iPod does NOT convert everything to
AAC (protected) is the format used by the iTunes Music Store.
"All the darkness in the world can not quench the light of one small candle."
Uh, what, hello.. there are still some ME and African countries that practice slavery. We certainly don't have the lock on genocide. And our history, while bloody, pales compared to Europe and the Soviet Union.
No, the iHPs do not play FLAC.
Well, whereabout is ogg used and evangelized apart from inside /. readership (and not all of them, from the number of iPod users)
Can we get past this?
Ogg is certainly a good format, it just happens to interest very few people.
As open format we have Ogg, but nobody is interested.
As open-standard format we have MP4 (AAC), and that is getting some traction, surely (not ALL AAC are copy protected, you know?)
As closed-standard proprietary format we have WMA, and we know we cannot accept it.
So Ogg could be the winner, but AAC seems second best.
Could have been worse. You know?
=====
I lie all the time, including now
There are many MP3-Players available for the Mac. Every Player, that acts as mass storage kann be easily filled on a Mac by Dragging and Dropping of MP3s to it. It only has to support being FAT32 formatted, which all I know of do. For some players there are even iTunes Plug-Ins, that synchronize certain Playlists.
Who's this "we"? I'm a US citizen, but I committed none of those crimes. I am a peaceful individual, not an aggressor. I will NOT be held responsible for the actions of other individuals, let alone the actions of government.
I am exactly responsible for my own actions. No more, no less. I take offense that you imply that I somehow had something to do with those crimes.
I read that as RC Lycra for some reason (maybe as I grow older I am developing dyslexia)... I can't (won't!) imagine a whole bunch of Apple Fans running around with remote control Lycra pants/etc... in fact, the whole idea of Apple Fans in lycra/spandex is frightening (it is almost Halloween, though...)
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
The SDMI (http://sdmi.org/) specifies that portable music devices should only be able to fast forward at a certain speed (the reason for this escapes me). My MP3 player before the iPod actually stated this as a feature in the manual!
Rich
What are you talking about?
Apple fans WANT something to fret about because thats what makes thing better. The worst thing that could happen to the industry is for no one to bother challenging Apple.
See what happened when no one challenged Microsoft?
Apple fans WANT some one to beat the pants off Apple, 'cause it means that after Apple has gotten up off the floor and brushed itself off, it is going to come up with something freakin amazing to get back into the game.
Thats what makes healthy competition great.
Why would we Apple fans be upset if someone brought out a really cool portable audio player? Either we like the iPod or not. I know there are platform fanatics that confuse brand and personal identity, but most of us just like our gear for whatever it does. New products just drive prices down and give everyone more choices.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
We were the last country to give up slavery.
No. Brazil, for example, didn't abolish slavery until 1888 and Brazil had even worse conditions than the US. (And, no, I'm not saying this in anyway lessens how wrong we were to allow slavery exist. I'm just pointing out we weren't the last to do the moral right thing.)
"All the darkness in the world can not quench the light of one small candle."
First, give us non-proprietary batteries. Not only to keep it from becoming a paper weight after a couple years, but also to be able to toss in some other batteries if you forget to recharge it.
Second, give us an easily to use intuitive interface. In other words, TEST IT WITH REAL PEOPLE BEFORE YOU EVEN ATTEMPT TO SELL IT!!!
Third, allow us to sort and organize our music without any proprietary software crap. Simply let me transfer my MP3s by artist/cd name folders. If you want proprietary crap for newbies, let that be an option, not a mandate.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
(obligatory ad-hominem)
You're a dumb ass.
cr
Too bad you made a faulty statement about the iPod that pissed some people off. You should have kept yourself to the subject and the first line.
.aac (which it doesn't). But no-one is really attacking your actual claim that the iRiver iHP series players are better than iPods. (which they are).
The iRiver iHP players stomp the iPod in every area except maybe looks (depends on who your asking). Cheaper, longer battery life, lighter, better headphones, more supported file formats etc. Usefull accessories such as in car chargers are probably a lot cheaper and they supply more accessories with the thing too.
All responses to your post are about your claim that the iPod converts everything to
"You know, that White-Picket Fence "keeping up with the Joneses" agitated nervousness that comes as a result of being breast-fed consumerican ethics from the day you were born .."
Nothing of the sort.
The fact is, most other companies have proven that once they get to the point of being in a monopoly state, start building crap and giving the consumer shit they don't need, ignoring all their failings.
Apple, on the other hand, acts as if their market share nor do their users wishes and needs expectations exist. This is actually a good thing under the right influences. If you listened to all the fanboys, you'd have a 120G iPod that could play full motion pictures in Xvid and play Ogg and maybe hook up Mame and a few controllers and heck, we need a projection unit on this and otherwise. I have one of those things from Apple...its called an Powerbook. It doesn't need to fit in my pocket. I want something that makes music and nothing more.
Apple is one of the few companies that once its in a position of power, it isn't trying to shore up the power with artificial bullshit that no one needs for its product class. Instead, they focus on making the shit better. Personally, I don't care for the photo bit of the new iPod...but it was almost the least they could do considering color screens are nearly as cheap as the screens they current use (they'd had to mode to the 2 color screen on the cheaper model it displays Black and Blue as it was what the company that made the old screen moved on to). Its a nifty hack, but I really don't want more than that, even if it had power to do more.
Apple puts out good products. If others put out an inferior product that caught the attention span of the public, we'd all suffer. Its happened in the past. The iPod won't be at its 70% mark forever, and it will eventually happen again. The fact that Apple is at 70% and the next highest is at like 5% even though its selling for half of Apples price and 2x the features (what ever the fuck that means) probably means that its past the point of consumerism -- it means folks are buying it almost solely because they realize its the best of class and its worth just a little more to have.
And just to make certain this doesn't get modded up:
Fuck All Ya'll
I misread the post, I thought the complaints were about the speed of its FFTW, the Fastest Fourier Transform in the West! I thought the author wanted to criticize the quality of its fourier transform functions.
Go look at an old tape deck... Might be hard to find one nowadays.
The buttons usually used 3 letter shortforms for the actions: "rec" for record, "rew" for rewind and "ffw" for fast-forward. Oddly, play was always "play", I don't remember seeing "ply" or another shortform for it (other than the symbols).
IRiver Battery Replacement
I have an iRiver iHP-120 and like it overall. The joystick control is not as good as the IPod wheel and FWD through long files takes a long time - just like the Lyra. I like it over an IPod, but that is IMHO.
I have a Rio Chiba and it works perfectly with my PowerBook. Everything is done thru iTunes just like the iPod. I think all of Rio's products work on OS X.
Get past the beta stage. Simple it was a purely marketing decision. Either they rushed it to market before they completed a full beta cycle. Or they knew about the bug and figured they'd fix it later. This common in the industry. That's why the 1st I do when I get a product hardware or software I look for an update. Also why I never buy something when it 1st comes out.
IANALBIPOOGL (I am not a Lawyer, but I play one on GrokLaw.)
1 cm = 3,33E-11 seconds
This got moderated +5 insightful? The hell? Was someone blinded by the low UID and edgy sounding pseudo-postmodern claptrap? The first paragraph/sentence doesn't even end -- it's a goddamned fragment.
The whole comment reads like some frothy liner note from a Rage Against the Machine album. "Consumerican"?! Holy shit.
Glad to see that freshman Social Psychology class is going so well for you...
Did it ever cross your mind that he might be an American who currently is in Germany?
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
First, we do not live in a democracy. It is a democratic republic. If it were a democracy, your statement would be correct. There is a level of responsibility that the electorate has in the actions of the elected, but not to the extent you are suggesting. In a pure democracy, the actions of the government are dependant on the opinions of the people. In a representative democracy, people are elected to represent the people in the decision making process, to make the right choice for the people, not necessarily the popular choice.
This is more than an esoteric distinction, it is a fundamental difference. BTW, this is why character is essential, and not a secondary consideration. We are electing people to stand in for us, to make decisions for us, not just to merely parrot our own opinions. If I'm going to have someone assigned to make all my decisions for me, I want to trust that they have some sort of moral framework on which to base their decisions.
The big revolution from, say, 1973 to 1980 was making computers affordable, an activity which the IBMs of the world had no interest in whatsoever. They saw microprocessors as a direct thread to mainframes and sought use them in limited ways and protect products like the DataMaster from cannibalization by cheap general-purpose PCs. The result was that the personal computer revolution was fueled by technies and hobbyists.
From 1980 to 1990 it was all about making computers usable and seducing ordinary people who had no interest in learning how to program in BASIC or learn a traditional CLI. The result was a revolution in usability. The overall computer usability experience (not just the GUI shell, but quality, installability, and usability of applications, ease of adding peripherals, etc.) probably peaked in the Mac world circa Apple System 7.
Ever since then, it's all been slowly downhill, as user familiarity and "computer literacy" have increased the tolerance of the general public for complexity, crashes, and other things that are now accepted as "what computers are like." Usability has been in a slow but perceptible decline.
You can see it in all sorts of little things. The latest Dell computer we got has six USB ports on the back, two of which are totally unlabelled and four of which are in close proximity to the letters "A," "B," "C," "D" in circles which are spaced closely together and are not aligned with the USB connectors they are probably labelling. There are color-coded, iconically labelled jacks for speakers and headphones, and but no obvious clue as to where mouse and keyboard are supposed to plug in.
Meanwhile, every new gadget I buy has a microprocessor in it... and usability problems. The $10 thermometer I bought in a drugstore has several different measurement modes, all incomprehensible, controlled by two unlabelled buttons and an LCD screen which displays not only the temperature but smiley faces and pictures of a running stick figure while emitting incomprehensible beeps. I can guess that if it tells me my temperature is 98-something degrees it is probably in Fahrenheit mode and if it tells me it's 37-something degrees it is probably in Celsius mode, but I'm darned if I know how to set it, or what it is that I'm doing that causes the mode to change.
My cell phone comes with a 100-page manual but frequently emits strange beeps and displays messages that the manual does not explain. (In this case, the explanation is that the cell phone user interface as experienced by the user is a combination of what the phone itself does and what the specific set of services offered by Verizon does. But the user experience is one of a low-quality UI.
Thank goodness there is at least one arena in which the market is apparently still rewarding usable design.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Did it ever cross your mind that he might be an American who currently is in Germany?
Sure it did. And I figured he'd tell me so if he wanted to keep the conversation going.
Who are you, his mother?
The author was trying to get back to where he stopped listening to an audiobook file. As an audiobook listener, I can understand where he is coming from. Hell, the ones I download from Audible.com come in 6 hour chunks. You don't want to skip it, because there is still a fair bit to listen to at the end.
The iPod isn't perfect for audiobooks either. I can FF *VERY* quickly. But the bookmarks leave much to be desired. I sometimes have issues with it forgeting where I was. Apparently, the work-around is to play something else and when I come back to that file, it remembers. Annoying. It should be able to save when I power down.
Our puritanical heritige.
It's the same well from which we draw our religious tolerance. I'll take it.
We were the last country to give up slavery.
Wrong.
We committed genocide against the native americans.
We fought against many Native American nations, aided and abetted by many other Native American nations, some of whom "we" betrayed, some of whom betrayed "us." If you think of the hundreds of tribes that populated the N.A. continent before white settlers came as some kind of happy hippie commune of mystic warrior-poets bound together in love and mutual respect, you've been too-long Disney-fied.
We have one of the bloodiest histories of labor relations in the western world.
Compared to the UK? Italy? Australia? Please.
Hey, you missed one: America has the lowest per capita of weepy, self-flagellating, achiever-despising socialists in the world as well! Oh, how will we ever survive?!?!
Prove it.
You gain the benfits of shared resources, pooled security, and improvments that are greater than the sum of its parts.
Sounds like the socialist's laundry list. Force me to accept your "benefits" now, so you can blame me later on for your acts of agression.
I suppose if you had children you would expect them to take care of themselves
What exactly does this have to do with my refusing to take responsibility for the actions of government? You seem to be confusing voluntary support with forced participation in socialism. Then again, isn't that what socialism is all about? Blurring the line between voluntary association and force?
Which *is* a problem, as my mother found out, when you rip your CDs using their software the files cannot be moved off that computer. And so she bought a new computer.
Thank you magic gate.
So now she'll have to re-rip her entire collection again in a more open format.
I'm thinking you kinda invalidate any right you may have thought you had to grouse about American "consumer marketplace economics" when you lazily request Hollywood warez sites be e-mailed to you in your perch in Germany.
yeah, coz you know, all my points of view, over all time, are supposed to 'make sense' to each other. uh huh.
thanks for pointing out my hypocricy though, thats a sure-fire defeat for the argument that america is a consumerist-whore society that is eating the earth.
As far as America's "innate desire for fascism" goes, uhhhh, don't you think might be just projecting a teensy bit? Fascism is on the rise, all right. But we Americans are dorky amateurs at it.
No, Americans are seasoned pro's at the spread of fascism, I'm afraid. Not only that, but your economy (war machine) is dependent on the continuation of this condition. Americans are nothing without War.
You guys remain the world-class professionals at it.
-1 point for assuming that I'm German. Nice!
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
slashdot has been bought out by doubleclick.
I didn't notice. Doubleclick is in my ipchains...
The truth shall set you free!
I stand corrected.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Canadian (n): An American in all but name, who is proud that s/he doesn't have the name.
(Yes, I'm Canadian.)
The number one MP3 player happens to use proprietary batteries, therefore validating the concept that proprietary batteries aren't bad. People DO buy them iPods after all. That and the batteries are servicable and replaceable!
The iPod already has one of the most intuitive and time tested interfaces.
And the iPod uses a proprietary software interface to sort and upload music. That has NOT stopped it's adoption, so again this shows that users don't care. At least, not enough users care. You may, but not the rest of the world who buys iPods.
It's very unfortunate for you.
GPL Deconstructed
Go with the iriver. :)
Functionally, I don't see much of a difference between the two. I was able to pick up a 120 for about $200 on ebay, and given that it plays ogg, it was a no brainer for me, as that's what much of my music is ripped in. Paying list for each, though, I'm not sure there's much distinguishing them except for the file formats each supports and the wheel thingy.
Well, i just looked closer at the ipod. It has contact lists and appointment reminders. If you use those, that might sway the decision. I preferred the built-in microphone in the iriver, as I've been able to record some meetings without having to use an external microphone. Ipod also has a sleep timer to fall asleep to music without using all the battery - I think my iriver has something like that, but I'm not sure (not on hand to check).
Good luck - either unit would be nice.
creation science book
Who are you, an American?
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
So after they chose the iPod and they find the next week that XYZ company produced a better product or an equilvlant product at the same or less cost. Then the consumer feels like they have made a bad decision and have wasted their money.
The great thing about living in a consumer oriented society is that companies will take back ANYTHING in around thirty days. Didn't like the color? Back it goes. Sure there are downsides but the very liberal return policy most stores have is not one of them. Smile at the return counter people and you can return anything. And really, a lot of people do take advanatge of this so I don't see it as much of an issue.
So if a better player really comes along, people need not shed a tear - just return it, or head over to eBay where (for an iPod at least) you'll get almost full price anyway.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Who are you, an American?
Ya gotta ask?
Maybe we're just supposed to send you warez sites for those great German movies. Yeah, that's it, that's what you meant...
Actually there have been some great German movies.
What's the ugliest part of your body? Some say your nose, some say your toes, but I think it's your mind. -Zappa
More, eh? Maybe more that you care about, but that's not what you said. The iRivier iHP supports MP3, WMA, ASF, WAV, and OGG. That's 5 formats. The iPod plays AAC, MP3, Apple Lossless, AIFF, Audible, and WAV; a total of 6.
thanks for pointing out my hypocricy
Happy to help.
though, thats a sure-fire defeat for the argument that america is a consumerist-whore society that is eating the earth.
Dude, that's not an "argument," that's long-winded grafitti. For every mean, nasty American export you decry, whether it is Starbuck's, McDonald's, or those Hollywood movies you obviously crave, there is some cute l'il non-American country importing them for their cute l'il non-American consumer to consume. Change begins at home, son.
As for me, I'll keep buying those Japanese cartoons, British music, German cars, and Italian shoes, without begrudging the people or governments of those fine countries their creative and manufacturing skills.
Hey, I followed that link you provided, and boy, I must say, you really got me beat!! I mean, hey, I just provided a link to a globally-accredited newspaper's story about the growing threat of neo-fascism in Europe. But you, Bunky, you just Owned me! You prop up your argument with a link to a crazed screed by a lunatic jihadist whose parent organization recruits for fundamentalist Islam! Way to win a debate, bro!
No, I was referring to the fact that you can convert between any two SI units. Meters can be converted to seconds using the speed of light, for instance.
Congradulations, you are a model statist. (There's no point in arguing with you any longer, because I see now that you have been fully converted and programmed to believe in the process of democracy.)
Actually there have been some great German movies.
You're absolutely right, and I'm a big fan, particularly of Fritz Lang's work. But it's not like draws upon that vast vault of Great Teutonic Cinema is exactly burning up the P2P nets and torrents world-wide, is it?
First of all, I am not German (or European for that matter), so I'm glad you Americans kicked Hitlers ass. Thanks for doing that, mate.
.. the U.S. sure have committed a lot of war crimes by those same standards. For which its people continue to refuse responsibility for, just like happened with those Big Bad Germans (one last ta, America!!) ...
Second of all, were I to be German I would assume that my responsibility is to let the history of my now-democratic country to continue to serve as an example of the Cause of Justice, since Hitlers government no longer exists (thanks again, Americans) and had its crimes exposed in court at Nuremberg (thanks again America), and justice was actually served to all those whose crimes were disclosed by the free world (America, woowoo!), I would say that the issue of responsibility is entirely resolved in the case of the Nazi's. The bad guys went to jail, end of story. (Yup, America again!!)
Those guys ain't in power no' mo', they've been hanged and handled. The Nazi's got their dues.
50 years of continued American war, and countless U.S. War Crimes, however, have not been dealt with. U.S. War Criminals have not. The U.S. continues to aggressively invade, under whatever pretext it chooses, foreign nations, and looses its war machines whenever stock inventory (bomb shelf life) seems to warrant it. Completely ignorant of, nay flaunting, International Law.
But, coming back to Hitler (heh heh..), since the Nazi's were dealt with, justice served under International Law and by International Standards (thanks again America), well
You can compare the U.S. to Hitler, in fact you must if there is to be any value to the lesson at all. For the sake of those who died under his evil grip, those alive today, and those yet to be born!
There's video of U.S. War Crimes! Hitler didn't have video!! (pity)
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
You seem to be confusing voluntary support with forced participation in socialism.
You seem to be under the impression that you can withdraw your support from your government. Go ahead, try it. Stop paying taxes. Right now. Start today with sales taxes. Refuse to pay them. The fact is that you are NOT a free man, and there are precious few places on this earth, if there are any at all, where you could claim to be free.
Um, no. I agree with that 100%.
People like you are exactly the reason why I claim to be Canadian when I travel outside the country. Not because I'm unpatriotic, but because people like you have made it dangerous to be an American.
Well, y'know, we all serve the dialectic.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
What are you, the slashdot police?
#1: Low ID's mean nothing, sonny-boy, get that in your thick head.
#2: What do you think the word 'comment' means?
#3: Sig-Psych!!
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
People like you are exactly the reason why I claim to be Canadian when I travel outside the country. Not because I'm unpatriotic, but because people like you have made it dangerous to be an American
Oh, man, you mean you don't like me?
Now I'm going to be sad all day long, you big bully!
.. get vaginal ..
hey, geeze, don't make me look it up in the dictionary for you:
"consumerican" != "american".
there, you happy?
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Seven formats actually:
AIFF, WAV, MP3, MP3 VBR, AAC, Apple Lossless and Audible.
I guess VBR counts since some MP3 players don't support it? Not whoring here, I just get sick of people thinking they are locked into Apple formats. The list also reminds others of what their players can't handle... like audiobooks.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
Sorry, no. I voted for the other guy.
I helped campaign for the other guy. I talked to all my friends about voting for the other guy. I contributed to the other guys campaign. There's not a whole lot more I could have done unless I wanted to go to jail.
What the current administration has done does not reflect my beliefs in any way, shape or form, but there is a limit to what any one individual can do in the process. Now, if you want to say collectively, on average, the American people are to blame, you'd have more of an arguement (Though I'll remind you, the other guy got the more votes).
As far as the media goes, it's not mainly a responsibility issue. One of the main reasons we don't see more events from the world in our media has more to do with 5 megacorps owning 95% of the media outlets in the US, and the people who run them know which side their bread is buttered on. The other is the fact that the average American is woefully ignorant in geography and world politics ( Note I said average. Once again you can't say all of us are.), and so programs on those don't necessarily get great ratings. The most any citizen can do is try to make sure the right( well, we are talking politicians... make that 'better') guy gets in office. So no, I did not have 'everything to do with those crimes'. I tried to prevent them. Sorry.
If you are going to lay blame at my feet for what's going on, then the same blame is laid at your feet for being a 'world citizen'. What exactly are you doing to fix the problem?
>(Yes, I'm Canadian.)
My guess is that you are a Canadian who has never lived outside of Canada
I'm not saying one is better than the other, I haven't used either. My point is that his argument about one being better than the other because of his needs is flawed. If my mom wanted to get a portable mp3 player, I highly doubt she'd care to use rsync. But someone else, like yourself, may find that far more convienent. This is your opinion, and this the iRiver is a better choice for you. Does that make it better than the iPod for everyone? Hell no.
True. Just about everything in the "German" section you can find on torrent sites are German releases of Hollywood movies.
What's the ugliest part of your body? Some say your nose, some say your toes, but I think it's your mind. -Zappa
Democracy? Who said anything about democracy?
I'm talking about resonsibility.. but don't worry, we don't have to keep talking about it. I know you know very little about it, and have little interest. Perhaps there's something good on television?
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
I'm not a libertarian, because I dismiss completely the proposal that the initiation of force (government as we know it) can be moral and just. Even libertarians believe that some initiation of force is necessary to "secure" society. (Even the most limited government must collect its revenue through coercive taxing.)
The belief that it is moral and just for a majority to initiate force as a means to achieve the majority's objectives. I don't believe in that principle.
Perhaps there's something good on television?
I don't watch television.
I looks like some Apple Zelot Moderators got to this one. And Overrated it to oblivian, to help their egos with their product that they bought they decided to Mod the writter down because he doesn't feel that Apples are a good value. Just as the kid when he runs out of good comebacks on why his toys are better will often result in fighting with him or just instults. There will be people who don't care for apple products and people like the parent who have used apple but doesn't consider it a good deal for his use. Apple loyalist are not amune to the phenomenon proven by the action of lowering the parents mod. Because when they feel infearior they will often strick back in other ways to protect their ego.
Yea I am not going anonymous coward on this one and I am a Apple User and I like apple. But his post was valid and worth at least the score of 2 if not a 3 or 4
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Don't forget AIFF and WAV. So it reads 5 audio formats.
Go hug some trees.
Actually, the iPod doesn't convert anything to anything else. You can use iTunes or other software to convert between formats. The iPod just plays them. It can play AAC, MP3, AIFF, WAV, Apple Lossless, Audible, etc.
Go hug some trees.
There, there. I'm Canadian, and I like you :-)
Not everyone up here is a weepy, self-flagellating, achiever-despising socialist. (thank you for that one, BTW) Just most of us.
Unfortunately.
I suspect that for me, that "something better" might very well be this unit reviewed by Tom's Hardware:
x .html
Archos Gmini 400 - http://www6.tomshardware.com/mobile/20041021/inde
Which plays music (MP3, WAV, WMA), acts as a digital photo viewer (ala new iPod), but can also transfer those photos off of your compactflash card via the built-in CF interface (adaptors to other formats available), and can also view movies in DivX format (either on the screen, or utilizing the included video-out port for a regular TV set).
Oh yes, and it's also a portable gaming system...
And it's the same size as an iPod. 20gb version now, hopefully larger soon.
Is this an iPod killer? I don't know, but it's currently where I'd put my money.
N.
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
Or, like on my Rio Chiba, they could put a hold switch on the player so that even if you managed to get something pressing the power button for any length of time, it simply powers on the LCD for a few seconds to show a giant picture of a padlock, Mostly because padlocks are cool.
SRSLY.
I bought a 2840 around this time last year, for just over $450 cdn. This at a time when 40gb ipods were > $700 cdn. Hell of a lot of money saved for something that's still smaller than my old Walkman (but my ipod-owning friends insist my player is waaaaay to heavy and large to carry around...). But, same capacity, better features overall, for $250 less? That's a lot of extra ramen in my diet.
:) Playlists pretty much cover this for me.
It's a pretty damn nice unit too, as the parent mentioned. Ideal for use under Linux, and as a portable hard drive in general. I have to laugh when I want to borrow a song from a friend with an ipod and he/she tells me "um, you can't find specific FILES, they're just numbers". As I use my mp3 player as backup for my desktop's mp3 files, it's nice to know that I can just copy them back if I lose a hard drive.
One other cool feature is it supports the playlists that Winamp and XMMS use - so it's easy to make custom playlists for the thing. One issue with the built-in profiler that the parent may not be aware of - it can only handle about 1600 files. I imagine it's RAM-limited, so when it builds its tables they can only get so big. But who the heck browses by the old standard of artist/genre anyway?
Having said all that, if RCA is trying to compete dollar for dollar with the ipod, they don't stand a chance. Not enough people care about the USB hard drive factor, sadly (and no, being able to store only non-playable mp3s on an ipod is just not enough).
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
It's a hard disk based mp3 player with the same price as an iPod at the same capacity. If that's not a competitor, WHAT IS?
Advanced users are users too!
Be careful. Buyer beware, this product may not be as good as the specs say... if these build quality and durability issues haven't been addressed that these reviews mention.
GPL Deconstructed
Again, the only response is to a small error in the post rather than to the message in the post (i.e. iHP is better than iPod in a lot of ways).
But you're right, I should have checked my facts.. with the iHP supporting ogg, mp3 and some others and the iPod supporting "only" mp3 and some others I automatically assumed the iHP's "some others" would be greater than or equal to the iPod's "some others". So I'll restate my erroneous statement as follows: "more useful supported file formats".
The Lyra RD1071 128Meg Flash MP3 player (2003 model?) has a painfully slow FFW (5x) and the FRW doesn't even work unless you get the latest firmware patch (try explaining that to your grandmother who wants to listen to audio books). It has many other design flaws such as not remembering where in the file you were when you last stopped listening, and remembering which file was playing when the batteries fell out. All of this could be fixed in firmware by a single Indian developer working 1 month costing Thompson/RCA a huge $500.
But I have been dealing with Microsoft products for many years now and I expect to see bugs and report them. However, when you call their technical support, you get a neophyte that is only capable of reading the manual back to you. When you ask for the next level of technical support you will hear her say
"We don't have a technical support department, just a customer support", and
"We don't have an engineering department so there's nobody I can submit your feedback to", and
"The Lyra can't play audio books, just music", and
"You have an older model. Perhaps you should buy a newer one".
After writing a few emails and getting past the automated responses, I think I made it to the next level of hell because I got this response:
You may write to Manager, Consumer Relations at Thomson. The mailing address is: Thomson, PO Box 1490, Durant, OK 74702-1490.
Needless to say, Thompson's LYRA products aren't iPod killers, they are Thompson killers. I know Apple tech support isn't all that great either (2 personal experiences), but at least they have a tech support.
In the end, I downloaded a bunch of free software and wrote myself a perl script to convert large MP3 files (such as audiobooks) into 5 minute segments.
--NerdMachine
mp3splt (http://mp3splt.sourceforge.net/) is an awesome tool to split large MP3 files (audiobooks) into smaller ones and even can auto-adjust the break so it's at the nearest silent part. Alone this is a great tool:
.wav files, you need mpg123 and lame and a perl script like the one that follows to pull the whole thing off.
/\\ /g; ;
mp3splt -f -a auto -t 5.0 *.mp3
However, most audiobooks are a little slow, but with soundstretch (http://sky.prohosting.com/oparviai/soundtouch/sou ndstretch.html), you can increase the tempo without changing the pitch. The result is an audio book that you can "read" 50% faster without losing any clairity. Tune to your own tastes.
Since soundstretch only works with
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
# Speedsplit.pl
#
# Use at your own risk.
#
# 1) convert mp3 to PCM (wav)
# 2) speed up PCM file
# 3) convert it to mp3
# 4) split it into 5 minute fragments (at whitespace if possible)
#
use File::Copy;
my ($file, $glob, $path, @command, $tmp, $ext);
foreach $glob (@ARGV)
{
$glob =~ s,\\,/,g;
$glob =~ s/
@glob = glob($glob);
foreach $file (@glob)
{
next unless ($file =~ s/.(wav|mp3)$//i);
$ext = $1;
# print ("SpeedSplit: Splitting \"$file\"\n");
$file =~ s,\\,/,g;
if ($file =~ s,(.*[:/]),,)
{
$path = $1;
$path =~ s,:$,$/,;
}
else
{
$path = "./";
}
$tmp = $file;
mkdir "${path}${tmp}" || die "Cannot make directory ${path}${tmp}";
# mp3 -> wav
if ($ext eq "mp3")
{
@command = ("mpg123","-v","-w","${path}${tmp}/${file}.wav","$ {path}${file}.mp3");
if (system (@command))
{
print STDERR "command failed: ", join(" ",@command),"\n";
next;
}
}
else
{
copy ("${path}${file}.wav","${path}${tmp}/${file}.wav")
}
# wav -> increase tempo
@command = ("soundstretch","${path}${tmp}/${file}.wav","${pat h}${tmp}/${file}_f.wav","-tempo=50");
if (system (@command))
{
print STDERR "command failed: ",join (" ",@command),"\n";
next;
}
unlink "${path}${tmp}/${file}.wav";
# wav -> mp3
@command = ("lame","-mm","-b","64","-q","0","--tt",$file,"--r esample","22.050","${path}${tmp}/${file}_f.wav","$ {path}${file}.mp3");
if (system (@command))
{
print STDERR "command failed: ", join (" ",@command),"\n";
next;
}
unlink "${path}${tmp}/${file}_f.wav";
# mp3 -> split
@command = ("mp3splt","-f","-a","auto","-t","5.0","${path}${f ile}.mp3");
if (system (@command))
{
print STDERR "command failed: ",join (" ",@command),"\n";
next;
}
unlink "${path}${file}.mp3";
rmdir "${path}${tmp}";
}
}
--NerdMachine
The formats the iPod supports are the ones I need, so more/different ones are irrelevant to me, as I suspect the iPod formats are to you.
My opinion is the one place the iHP really loses to the iPod, though, is the interface. This is a subjective statement, dependent largely on preference, and so an opinion. YMMV.
I also like the iPod for the end-to-end integration it offers, via iTunes and the iTunes Music Store, but I can't really compare that to the iHP since I don't own one. If it has comparable services, so much the better.
I guess my point is (and I apologize for being so brief in my previous reply, I was just irked) that I don't and cannot consider the iHP superior to the iPod, nor the reverse. They are different, that's all. Vive le concurrence!
If your iHP meets your needs, congratulations. I hereby validate your purchase. My iPod meets my needs, and so your arguments about how iHPs are "better in a lot of ways" simply have no traction with me.
My +1 Sane moderation of the day goes to you sir.
.ogg so I'd need something like an iHP or a very very good reason to re-rip my cd's. And I guess I'm prepared to accept a crappy UI for that.
Different needs different gadgets.. indeed. I have no mp3 player (I borrow My friends iHP from time to time though). I ripped all my CD's to
I think I was implicitly accusing the other replies to the post I originally replied to of blind iPod fanboyism. At least in your case that wasn't justified. So please accept my sincere appologies.