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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."
Can we do away with the "iPod Killer" thing, it's old. Nothing is going to "kill" the iPod, it has establised itself as the standard for better or worse. It's like the Walkman. In fact, the iPod is the Walkman killer. Nothing that comes out in the short term is going to be an iPod killer.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
I wonder if they got the sack.
RTFA. It plays Ogg Vorbis, so you'll get about 2 seconds of music with the same quality as the 1,5 second MP3.
After spending that much money I don't have any money left for legal music.
Thirdly, a gold played mp3 player is dumb.
Don't be ridiculous; if I had an ipod it would just clash horribly with my gold medallions and my extensive collection of gold rings, including that one that goes on all my fingers at once and has my name spelled out in diamonds.
Some of us have style, man, and that's why we need the gold-plated mp3 players.
I remember having read this 'ipod-killer' story before...
DAMN THOSE EDITORS!!!
Advertising. Never shameless.
Design is more than functionality. Design is more than features. It's not about interface, per se. It's not even (as so many claim) that it's about style in the sense of fashion.
It's the whole shooting match.
People who don't grok Apple, don't seem to get that.
I had a can opener. A manual can opener, that I got for about 5 bucks in the early eighties. A maid accidentally threw it out several years ago. Only when it was gone, did I realize how wonderful it was. I searched off-and-on for months trying to find a suitable replacement. I bought 5 can-openers finding each to be annoying to use.
I finally bought one that was about half as good from a mail order place in Great Britain (I live in the US). Nobody in the world makes a can opener like what I used to own. It was the right weight, and had a perfect gearing. It gripped the lid, and neatly dropped it in the trash. The balance, texure, and feel were simply superb. If I were an architect or other design geek, I would have realized how good it was long ago. As it was, only by comparison with alternatives did I realize how nice it was.
The iPod, and other great designs from Apple, exhibit this kind of property.
If you look at a checklist of features, look at particular aspects of functionality, price, or other attributes in isolation, they do not appear special. Through feel, and through use, they just seem right. As a whole, they simply strike many people as right.
You're right, gold-plated, mpeg enabled, or cheaper, a true iPod killer would have to have the "whole package".
What's tricky, is that this requires attention to the details of the design which most people are never actually aware. It will take a great deal to "kill" the iPod.
That's sweet and all, but far from an iPod killer - or even much of a competitor, for that matter.
Geeks may love the Archos - but remember how everybody on Slashdot panned the iPod when it came out? Well, the iPod became a huge hit, and it wasn't because geeks loved it. It was because normal folks (the ones who are 99%+ of the market) saw the ads for it, saw the product, and said "I'll take one, please".
In other words, the market doesn't care if you can write software for the Archos, or load custom firmware, or change the skins. They don't give a flying fig if it uses MP3, AAC, WMA, or OGG as the standard format. They want their digital music player to work. Period. And by "work", I mean they want the sound to be good, the device to be simple and attractive, and they want the computer software that drives the library to be simple and capable. And until someone hits all those points better than Apple does, iPod will dominate the market.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
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.