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More iPod Killers Introduced for the Holiday
An anonymous reader writes "MP3newswire.net has just released part III and part IV of their iPod Killers for Xmas list. Standouts are a $1200 24K gold-plated player from Jens of Sweeden, a 137 Gig unit called the Xclef, Sony's first true MP3 player, and iRiver's MPEG-4 video jukebox. If you missed them, here are parts I and II."
It's Sweden, and not Sweeden.
It's Jens's and not Jen's. Jens is a name for crying out loud.
The iPod and the iTMS have entrenched themselves as the defacto standard of portable music (and music store). I go to The University of Texas at Austin and the campus is saturated with iPods. My estimate is that 80-90% of students with an MP3 player carry an iPod. You can tell because of the headphones... its becoming sort of a status symbol (like the Lance Armstrong - Livestrong wrist bands).
Other companies *wish* they had an iPod killer because they want a chunk of the media player pie. However, it's going to take a lot more than a bunch of bells and whistles on a bloated player. They need to create something that frankly... looks cool (stylish.. not StarTrek nerd).
Nothing on that list looks stylish... it all looks futuristic and some sorority girl won't want to carry that.
Anyone else notice on the "Jens of Sweden MP-400", that besides being nicely compact, it's got an OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diodes) display?
0 .j pg
http://www.mp3newswire.net/Graphics/Jens%20MP40
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
I believe the 24K is referring to gold karats...
"Audio formats supported: AAC (16 to 320 Kbps), MP3 (32 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible, AIFF, Apple Lossless and WAV". http://www.apple.com/ipod/specs.html
What bugged me most about the iPod is the not inconsiderable additional outlay I would have to make on cables, adaptors, etc.
;)
What the heck are you talking about? The iPod comes with the firewire cable, USB 2.0 cable, AC adpter, and headphones. You keep the headphones on your ears, and use either firewire or USB for connecting to the computer. That's IT. What not inconsiderable outlay on cables and adapters are you talking about? Methinks you know very little about iPods.
In my mind at least, the iPOd was dead.
See above. There is nothing wrong with the iPod. You walk over to the computer and plug in the firewire cable.
Over the last two months, I have picked up two Creative Nomad Muvo TX FM players - they are only 256 MB each - I actually like that because it gives me a constant chance to decide my daily playlist on my computer
You can decide your playlist on the iPod as well, except you wouldn't have to re-upload every day
Furthermore, The player itself converts effortlessly into a USB drive for those urgent file copy needs. Also, it plays FM, looks slick, has a single-button interface and the wife loves it - two players for $160 total.
Single button interface? See click wheel.
Finally, WMP 10 killed my constant usage of iTunes as well mainly because of the Sync List feature.
Windows Media Player 10. Over iTunes. *snicker*
The news that Apple is willing to turn off features in its iTunes, a la 4.7, is not surprising
What are you talking about? iTunes 4.7 adds Photo orginization for the iPod Photo.
and I, for one, am glad I do not have an iPod.
So am I. You obviously don't know enough about iPods to use one, no matter how simple the interface. Sorry for being a bit rude, but this post was so know-it-all and anti-iPod that I got annoyed.
What you are unknowingly referring to are the Archos MP3 hard drive based players. When the iPod 20 came out, I bought an Archos Jukebox 20 Recorder for exactly half the price. Admittedly, it was a tad larger than the Apple which also gets points for style, but since when did geeks begin caring about carrying around the equivalent of e-jewelry? At the time, it was a more than viable alternative. It didn't hurt that the crazies over at Rockbox Firmware (down right now) rewrote the firmware for Archos systems. You can now develop your own apps for the system as well as enjoy total customization of the interface. They've added a "video" extension, a text file reader, and multilingual support, among other things. Now, with the release of the new 20 gb Archos player, even smaller than the iPod and the around the same size as the iPod mini (2.9" x 2.3" x .7") albeit with a larger screen (2"), I am beginning to believe that a new era of iPod competition is being reigned in.
Given the reliability of harddrives nowadays, my guess is the harddrive player will die much sooner than the flash memory player. Flash memory is rated for something like 10,000 - 100,000 writes.
There's a binary database that the metadata is stored in. Apple's iTunes knows how to access this DB, as do several other programs like ephPod, GNUpod (which I personally have used without any problems whatsoever), etc.
The arcane restrictions and "registration" of which you speak apply ONLY to Apple's "iTunes Music Store", an integrated but OPTIONAL part of the iTunes program (which you don't even have to use). They have nothing to do with music that you obtained elsewhere, i.e. from CD or an MP3 that you already have on your computer. Even if you do buy music from Apple, the restrictions on how many computers you can transfer the music to do NOT apply to the iPod.
Standard USB or 1394 interface. Standard filesystem. Standard audio codecs. Widely-supported metadata handling (GNUpod, for example, is in Debian.) If you're gonna bash the iPod, at least get your facts right.