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Creative, Apple Battle for MP3 Player Market
kurtz_tan writes "Creative Technology is spending 100 million in a marketing blitz to 'regain its rightful place in the audio industry' by trying to dominate the MP3 market which is now led by the Apple iPod (54% of the market last year for MP3 players that use hard disks). Creative is second with 16.5%. Does Creative Zen sound as cool as Apple iPod ?" And reader TheMediaWrangler writes "The Register reports that Apple will build a stockpile of flash-based iPods to be shipped as early as January or February of 2005. AppleInsider had the original scoop."
54% of the hard drive market? The AppleInsider article states 92%. Where do these statistics come from? Useless, unverifiable... Quote a source, dammit!
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
If you can judge by the presence of iPods in New York City (and you can't), you'd think there are no other MP3 players on the market. Everyone has an iPod here, to the point where it looks lame, too much of a fashion statement for my taste.
Simpy
Marketing isn't Creative's problem in the portable music player market...
I've owned two iPods, and I've never taken a look at one of Creative's offerings. As has been said (probably) countless times every time an iPod story shows up here, Apple has the Holy Trinity of online music: Software (iTunes), Store (iTMS), Player (iPod). You're just not going to beat Apple until you come to the field with at least those three pieces.
Wow, why don't they spend $100 million on making a superior product in stead of marketing an inferior one?
Yes, but is Creative's offering an iPod Killer?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Instead, how about cutting the price a little more? Digital music players are a huge market, and not everyone can afford an Ipod. You don't need to market it as cool and hip, just market it as functional and not so damned expensive. I have a Zen, and it's a wonderful player, but you're not gonna win anyone over appealing to style; Apple has that covered.
Just to clarify, iPod does play MP3. Look at http://www.apple.com/ipod. Dumbass.
as if Steve Jobs were paying off Slashdot (oh wait, maybe he is...)
Ipods do in fact play Mp3.
They can also be used as a hard drive.
Is there heaven? Is there Hell? Is that a Tuna Melt I smell?-Primus
Oh you can't count the iPods in NYC? I was visiting the city this summer and was standing outside the Trump building on Madison with a friend, playing what we called "the iPod game". We were trying to either spot people with white iPod headphones, or people geeky/trendy enough to know where the Apple Store was. We had no success finding the Apple Store (however did find another retailor, who was stocked out of the Mini I wanted to buy). It was none the less an amusing game to play; I'd estimate of 1000 people walking by: 25 people were stopped, 2 had iPods, 10 were out of towners, 5 were attractive, 2 of those were willing to chat it up, and 0 knew of, or where the Apple store was
Google can... I don't know if you've ever heard of it.
Please please please please please be a troll.
This reminds me of why Wal*Mart has kicked so much ass. When a company comes to them with a marketing blitz they just tell them to either lower the price or make the product better.
So what is Creative's best player? Or closest contender. Has anyone here compared the two?
You must be trolling! Of course iPods play MP3's in addition to AAC.
They play both. I have both formats on mine. They also support some other formats, like ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) and others I cant think of.
No.
MP3, AAC, Apple Lossless, AIFF, WAV, Audible.
Tech Specs
If anyone has a rightful place in the audio industry it's Aureal. Not trolling, I'm geniunely annoyed at the state of PC audio. It's not that the Audigy is bad, it's that for $200 bucks I expect a lot out of my Soundcard. My old Aureal was great, but Linux support was weak (at least at the time). Aureal was going to open the whole driver, but then they got bought out....
It's not just me, I've heard plenty of others complaing about the state of PC audio. You just don't have to try as hard when you're as far ahead as Creative. Yeah, recent C-media cards are pretty good (heck, for $7 bucks they're amazing). But creative's got name recognition and all. I'd just like to see PC audio competing a bit more like PC video.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
"Part of Apple's iPod success has been thanks to the burgeoning popularity of its iTunes Music Store"
I'll call BS on that one--it's obvious that the only reason iTunes is a success is because of the iPod.
I bought the Zen Nomad because it was certainly a lot cheaper than the comparable iPod at the time, and I liked it. Yes it was larger, but the battery was good. Now it's dead, and since I've gone iTunes I decided to switch. There's stuff I miss (like making playlists on the player itself) but I have to admit the iPod is really nice. The AAC files take about half the space as MP3s and sound better. I didn't do a scientific study but on several songs with quiet passages the MP3 version sucks compared to AAC, and the MP3 was encoded at the max bit rate.
And it's about half the size!
The revolution will NOT be televised.
Why not spend that $100,000,000 on reducing the cost of their MP3 players and let them sell themselves?
This is something i've always found strange.
MABASPLOOM!
Hmm. I think Creative is receiving its just desserts since the release of the first Nomad Jukebox.
They had a special team in their R&D center in Scotts Valley design that product, and then after it was done, they laid off most of the people in that project team and outsourced them to a less-experienced team in Singapore.
Consequently, some of the team was picked up by Apple which went on to develop the second rev iPod.
Detachment 3 Media
Exposed, Exploited, Exploded
No, it plays both.... and it plays both deliciously, i might add....
iPod formats (direct from the Apple site): AAC (16 to 320 Kbps), MP3 (32 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Apple Lossless, WAV, AIFF, Audible
Whenever there's an iPod vs X brand player, the same arguments pop up. Well, I'm an iPod fan, trough and through. And now I understand why.
The iPod does its few tasks with a 'very good' rating for all of them. FireWire transfer = Very good. Biggish screen, backlit but (for the most part) no colours = Very good, sound quality = Very good, battery capacity = Very good (12 h), expandability = Very good (lots of accessories, much more than the others), design = Very good, UI = Very good.
The reason for for its success is the average 'Very Good' rating that users and critiques give it.
What about the others? Well, usually they have one outstanding feature but that is not enough to raise the overall user experience to the iPod level.
We geeks often put on blinders when it comes to gadgets and forget what people want. And while we may choose another product because we evaluate OGG-support to be an 'Excellent' feature, most people do not. They see like this: FireWire transfer = Very good. Small screen, backlit but (for the most part) no colours = bad, sound quality = Very good, battery capacity = Very good (12 h), expandability = bad, design = bad, UI = fair, OGG support = WTF?
And the round goes to iPod. In my work, I have tried out a huge number of iPod 'killers', and frankly they don't reach to the knees of iPod for an average person. I saw this hot chick on the tram today, she had a 2001 Creative Nomad. It was twice or three times the size of my old portable Sony CD player. Apple chose the right direction early and are now reapling the benefits.
Hmm. "cool"? So that's how they spell "asstastic" at Creative Labs these days!
Let's see. The iPod wins hands-down in functionality, usability, and appearance. So who cares if the Zen sounds cooler? We're only talking about audio output devic---hmm, that didn't come out quite right.
*backpedaling furiously* Umm, I mean, they're both solid-state, so they all sound cool! And it's winter! So gimme a nice warm set of vaccuum tubes powered by a backpack-mounted car battery or give me death, man!
"Currently, Creative has 600 research and development staff working on its MP3 players, and plans to hire another 300 engineers."
This is why the Creative products will never be as good. 600 people in R&D for their player? What are all those people doing, reading fark?
You'd think they'd hire 5 people with imagination to replace the 450 people who aren't doing anything except meeting with each other.
Even if we leave the style, appeal, looks, etc. aside, itunes is still a far more superior software for music management then anything else available in the market.. other mp3 players either work with windows media player or some of their proprietory(tm) software which Sucks big time. so its about an end-to-end solution.. ipod is simply easier to use then all others.
Creative is going on an all-out blitz/preemptive strike against Apple, which will immediately become a contender in January for the flash-based player market.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet
The MP3 market is way too crowded, and is going to be retired eventually anyway. Instead of throwing money at it, create new markets and expand as much as you like in those.
The hybrid approach means you don't lose out because current MP3 sales are stronger than MP4 sales. It also means you get to chown the remnents of the MP3 when the bulk change over.
Of course, Creative won't do this. They'll slug it out with Apple, and someone else will corner the MP4 market, and both Creative AND Apple will lose out.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
iPods have been able to play MP3's for longer than they have been able to play M4A's and M4P's... IIRC, the original 5 GB iPod didn't even have support for AAC (much less the DRM.) iTunes originated as a Mac MP3 player called SoundJam.
However, Steve personally didn't like the audio quality of MP3s and defaulted iTunes to burn them at 160 kbps instead of the traditional 128 kbps. This combined with the inital iPod's support only for the Mac platform limited its appeal until Apple integrated MPEG-4 and it's AAC codec into QuickTime. Once this occured, Apple finally had a "ideological" business reason to leverage the iPod onto the Windows platform: as a way to reinforce QT installations on PCs. QuickTime technology drives many of Apple's high scale packages, like Final Cut Pro, as well as making a good PR platform to keep Macs on the radar, so more visibility of QT verses Real or Window Media was in line with Apple's historical biases.
Those who complain about affect & effect on
Unlike the iPod, however, Creative's players can play back Windows Media Audio (WMA) files sold by many of the iTunes Music Store's competitors.
So what? Unlike the iPod, however, Creative's players CAN'T play back AAC files sold by the most popular online music store in existence!
Illegal, immoral, or whatever, Real was on the right track. It's like trying to break Microsoft's OS monopoly: "Yea, well our OS runs the GIMP!" Unfortunately, *most* people don't care.
The first hard-drive based MP3 player I bought was a Creative. The second was an Apple. Why did I switch? Simple, the software that shipped with the Creative was lousy. I ended up buying the Notmad software from an independent third party and that was much better, but I really don't feel like I should have to. My MP3 player should just appear as an external hard drive in Windows, should work as easily in Linux, and the MP3 software should be of high quality as well.
I can't say I'm particularly impressed with iTunes, mind you, but at least an iPod appears as an external drive when I plug it in. I don't need to cart around extra software to install.
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
Yes, that includes HP which adds 3% to ipods market share
Apple at least realises the value of solid engineering and a good user experience.
The iPod, while not jam-packed with features, is fast and stable.
Creatives products (at least the older ones i have seen) are slow and buggy.
The iPod is sleek and minimalist, Creatives products are covered with chrome trim and raised, plastic buttons with a little hole you have to push a paperclip into to reset it.
The iPod's elegance and simplicity extends to its custom written and polished software package. Creative just bundles whatever crap it can license the cheapest.
I gladly bought an iPod, I wouldnt touch a Creative player with a ten foot pole.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
I reread your post and it's now apparent that you're suggesting *other* companies (those competing with Apple) cut their prices. I agree with you, it'd help them leverage against not having a store or software as good as Apple. Sorry about the confusion, I do agree with your post.
Here in NC, even in the relatively progressive Chapel Hill area, I've never seen a single one. You're right. Sounds like a fashion trend for wealthy people, if you ask me.
I don't respond to AC's.
...it's really no contest. I had a Creative 20 Gb Nomad Jukebox that I bought at the end of 2002. Had it for a year, and it was...serviceable. It was bulky (I know not a problem with the Zen as much), the interface was awful, and the software was beyond horrific. I got my iPod in December 2003. It's been flawless. My biggest gripe with it is shorter battery life, but that's only because I actually use it for 8 hours a day, unlike the Nomad, which was clunky in every way it was possible to be clunky. Sure, the iPod is luxury-priced, but it's worth it to me. I suppose Creative has improved their products (likely) and software (doubtful) since I last used them, but I wouldn't go back to try.
Wal Mart has a pegboard wall loaded with bubble packed IPod lookalikes for $29.95, just in time for Xmas, that can load and play a few mp3's with a usb cable. You know, a toy version to give junior that basically works but was cost cut to the bone and not too sturdy.
I can remember seeing a bunch of Palm clones one Xmas for about that price in some store.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Being able to afford it doesn't matter to me. I'm content with my 20gigs residing on my computer UNTIL I can afford an iPod. I'd rather wait then waste money on something I don't want.
I think the price point, premium but attainable, heightens it's desirability. As well as the unwillingness to settle.
Besides, marketting it as functional, for most players, would be false advertising. TROLL ME UP BABY!
__
Thou hast besquirted me, O leotarded one.
Is there truly a strong market for flash-based players? I know they're low-cost, and I know Apple would not launch a new line without strong market research, but flash is expensive per Meg... can it really be significantly cheaper than the Mini, especially with a 1GB maximum?
perl -e 'foreach(values %SIG){$_="IGNORE";}while(){}'
I personally liked Ephpod better. I just needed a simple interface, and I wasn't going to be buying any music from the Itunes store. For those of you who don't know, Ephpod is a free software package that is used to upload/organize/configure music on your ipod. Give it a shot, I really liked it.
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise - William Shakespeare
Even if we leave the style, appeal, looks, etc. aside, itunes is still a far more superior software for music management then anything else available in the market
Everyone thinks *their* favourite piece of software is the dogs bollocks. I submit that Media Center is far superior in every way to iTunes. YMMV. I note also your comment about managing mp3 players with different software suites. Ever hear of plugins? I've seen Archos players managed with iTunes, and iPods managed with Media Center. Whatever rocks your boat.
Da Blog
I wonder if it's to late for a CD based Ipod. The store shelves seem to be full of $50 CD players that can play MP3s and WMAs. There is even a Sony one that can play ATRAC files. My new Mustang has a MP3-CD player as a base level stereo. Is the CD-MP3 player out of style or just overlooked? Ok now talk amongst yourselves
Science is the Real TRUTH!
from what I remember Diamond's Rio play any format, MP3, Ogg, Flac, + others but those three are the only ones that matter to me. After that, I would buy a Creative, then an iPod. I'm a value oriented person.
"brxref
Alright, I admit it. I'm an Apple fanboy.
There, I said it, can I have my iPod now?
I had an imaginary sig once, he said I was a loser and ran off.
It most likely won't be Creative, at least not this year or next, but the Koreans are coming with a slew of low priced harddrive based music players. Some of the 20gb are going to be less than $200!
I have a 3rd gen iPod and while its nice some of the accessories are just junk or wear badly, like the apple remote control.
People too easily dismiss the competitors to the iPod while ignoring the big picture. There isn't just one iPod killer, there are dozens. One of them may just get the idea right. Look bad to the 80s when Apple was flying high with their PC. Yet there were dozens of "others" coming along using someone elses product.
Also, don't forget there are many people who don't like Apple either and that is something many still like to ignore.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I own an iPod, and I have to say that the wheel on the front is just brilliant. I have played with the Zen and it's a nice player, but that slider just isn't as good as the iPod wheel.
The other issue I think we have is iTunes. Most other players rely on MusicMatch Jukebox or WMP to work, both of which are not as easy as iTunes is. If Creative wants a change, they don't need to make an "iPod killer", they need to make an "iTunes killer."
I don't know how difficult this would be to pull off from a security perspective. I suspect there are third party tools out there, but I'd like to see this integrated with the iPod's software itself.
I am offended of the use of the word Zen in terms of the name given to a MP3 player.
KATZ!
Don't worry - Microsoft has that part covered. There are thousands of container ships from Taiwan making their way to all four corners of the world filled to the brim with cheap plastic crap with that lameass WMA Ready or whatever sticker on them.
The iPod mini is $249, and the Micro is $249.
You mean the Creative Touch or Zen vs the iPod?
Inferior really is relative. The difference between the products, to me, is great enough that buying a Creative Zen Touch is like wasting $200 while buying an Apple iPod isn't.
GPL Deconstructed
you know, for simple music storage the ipod is tough to beat. but for people like me (geeks who use it for a lot more) I use a harddrive jukebox (RCA's Lyra Jukebox). and the biggest reason I like it has nothing to do with it's capabilities, (though it has the highest volume of any of them, big bonus!) it has to do with the fact that it shows up on almost any computer as an external drive WITH NO SPECIAL DRIVERS OR SOFTWARE!!!! which means I can use it to back up data, carry emergency recovery disks with me, contact information, resumes etc and can access them anywhere. You cannot do it with an iPod OR Zen Jukebox (my friend has one, it annoys the piss out of me). so screw them both. Besides that, I have already disassembled my unit and found out that I could upgrade the HD in it with just a little soldering (antistatic/grounding straps are soldered to the drive chssis).
mp3
aac -> m4a [regular and lossless], m4b [bookmarked], m4p [protected]
audible
wav
aiff
i saw the baby, and the baby looked at me
You know up till quite recently Apple was all about saying over and over "Flash Sucks". Jobs made a point of dissing the Flash players during the interviews around the iPod Mini launch, even toting them on stage like trophies. And of course all the loyal Apple Maniacs went around repeating his NO FLASH mantra as if it were natural law.
I notice recently the anti-Flash hype within Apple has settled down to imperceptible...
The biggest argument made is that disk is cheaper for lots of storage. Well Flash is definitely not cheaper, but it does offer a different kind of convenience.
Say Apple sold a Flash player for $100 with minimal memory bundled but with an SD/CF slot.
Now, you can buy 1GB CF cards for arounnd $50 these days, and 1GB SD cards for around $60. And I've seen them go for $40 after rebate. Afvter rebate prices basically presage the sticker price in 4 months time...
So if you sell $100 iPods to "kids" or people who don't want to plunk down a larger bag of cash at once, then you can lock them in by selling them an "upgrade" 1GB (or the forthcoming 2Gb cards) for around $50 every few months.
Carrying around several SD cards is no big deal, they are tiny. You can get a caddy that holds 10Gb and is smaller than the end of your thumb.
Organizing different artists or genres on different cards also offers an easy, physical way for people to manage their collections without resorting to extreme tagging and playlist noodling.
One advantage of the Flash media model is also that the price of "upgrades" basically halves every 9 months or so. So if you don't want to add 5GB now, you can settle for adding only 1GB, knowing that in a year's time you could spend the same amount of money for another 2GB.
Consider also the possible business advantages of selling these low-end cards for Apple. The selling price of the cards could be subsidized by including bundled songs for a fee - a great way for record companies to distribute new music gratis. Or snippets of songs as adverts, jungles, or ringtones. This could lower the retail price of an Apple-branded "media card" by 10-20%.
Yes, even given the continued growth in capacity of flash media, they will never equal the price or capacity of hard disk media. However, at what point does enough space become too much? Lots of people seem to be happy with their iPod Minis, and they have a tiny capacity compared to some other options available.
It seems like lots of people are happy with just a few GB of music "on-hand" at any time. Hell, people get by with 256MB players! When and if Flash capacities reach the 4GB mark for $50 (I give it two years tops) then wouldn't a lot of the people who currently buy iPod Minis also consider a similar, half-priced iPod Flash?
That's a big market opportunity any way you slice it.
Of course, to really slim down Apple will have to do something about the iconic wheel interface. It's a nice design but it does take up a lot of front space on the device and constrains the screen size. Look at the iPod Photo - it's screen is lame and tiny ans resembles the old Archos Muldimedia players from a few years ago. At that time everyone lambasted them for releasing a "multimedia" player with such ridiculously tiny screens.
But Archos was just not thinking far ahead and went with maintaining their familiar audio jukebox interface. They learned from their mistake and upped the screen size on the newer models to take up most of the front panel.
What is the option for Apple? If they want to keep the wheel but shrinkthe devices *and* make the screen larger then they have to either A) put the wheel on the backside of the device, trusting users to navigate by touch, or B) convert the wheel into a software-simulation using on-screen display.
Apple has invested a lot of marketing collateral in their wheel design but it does constrain their effectiveness going forwward in a shrink of the iPod form factor for Flash sizes, especially for Asian markets where smaller is definitely much much better!
Da Blog
on last night's Smallville episode? It caught my eye, particularly since I'm accustomed to seeing Mac's left and right in movies and tv. I suspect Apple has to pay for some of it, but then again I'm sure lots of Hollywood folks swear by their powerbooks.
In any case I wonder how much Creative had to pay for their product placement.
I love Creative's cards for their normalization feature. (There is really no other reason to love Creative's cards!)
Does Creative put this feature in their portable players? If they don't, they should. It's a feature I'm used to having at home.
I remember back in the 80s when a friend bought one of those multi-disc CD players. It was useless (as far as I was concerned) because no two CDs are the same volume.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
If creative really wants to bring this battle they need to improve thier ogg support and offer it on more models. I will not buy an IPod because of the lack of Ogg support and the selection of creative models with Ogg support is too limited.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
Where did this quote come from? If it was said by somebody at Creative, that shows a remarkable sense of hubris and entitlement that is out of place in a competitive marketplace.
Just because you were first major player in the MP3 player market doesn't mean you are entitled to stay there. Look at Apple, they were first to the mass market with a GUI-based computer, and they didn't maintain any dominance there, did they? Apple's not even your real enemy; their iTunes player supported the Rio series in the early days, and still supports many of them on the Mac platform. Apple chose the high end player space; Creative chose the low end. Apple got lucky this time around. No sense whining about it...
Those who complain about affect & effect on
Here is a key feature that the iPod is missing: Bookmarks! I could be wrong in that, but so far from the searching I've done it appears to be true.
My current Zen is on the fritz, and a replacement plan that I have will allow me to get a new player. If the iPod had bookmarks, I would get an iPod instead of a Zen.
I listen to a ton of audiobooks. One thing about audiobooks is that you want to be able to bookmark the track, and track position when you have to stop listening to it. The Nomad Zen can do this on any MP3 file. As far as I've been able to find, the iPod can only do this for audiobooks that have been downloaded through iTunes.
I have a bunch of books on CD that I have ripped to MP3. I continue to get books on CD, many of which are not on iTunes. In the case of these books I am out of luck with an iPod.
As far as hardware design, other features, usability... the iPod wins. But in my case this is a crucial feature that is missing from the iPod and present in the Nomad.
I have had friends try to bookmark MP3 tracks on their iPod and they were unable to do it. So, is there a way, or am I relegated to getting another Zen?
You know Creative used to have a virtual monopoly on ugly pimpified mp3 players. For years iPod fashionistas were able to hew to the purity of the white form. Endless tedious column inches were spewed in blogs and media about the flawless design purity of the iPod. They were, of course, ignoring the popularity of variously coloured covers and after-market skins for the iPod. And the iPod's slow drift into chromism...
Then came the first rift in the iPod's White Power Ideology: the iPod Mini. Suddenly it was available in, let's face it, some pretty girly pastels and the Cult of iPod had to adapt to pay homage to this new reality.
But now there's the U2 iPod. Black and Red. A testament to gaudy ugliness. It's like the A-Team Van was recycled with go-faster stripes. It out-blacks the iRivers and out-pimps the Creatives. Apple has definitely made a land grab for the ugly mp3 territory. Creative can no longer claim the Ugly Throne.
Well done. I hope the iPod Flash comes in hot pink.
Da Blog
Actually the loss will be way more than that......If one considers the amount of interest this money would have earned if it had not been spent so carelessly...........
=== 'Kernel Panic' no sig found:
I love Apple products, but Apple has always had a problem competing with the low-price market -- they've always opted for high-quality, high-margin equipment.
Most of these flash-based players can be had for under $100 and exist in the "impulse buy" region. I seriously doubt that Apple will be able to put out a player for $150, even if it only has 256meg. Yes yes, *I* know will it be a much better product, but that wont matter to the tightwads.
An HDD-based player can put 40GB of music in a box the size of a cigarette pack. To get 40GB of music with a CD-based player, you would need to carry 60 CDs with you. If the player is mounted in your car that's not a big problem, but a 60-disc CD wallet isn't exactly something you can just slip in your pocket. Besides, it takes longer it taked to burn a CD than to send 650MB of music over USB-2 or Firewire to an mp3 player, and you can't easily add one new song to a collection on burned CDs.
0 1 - just my two bits
given that the Ipod mini uses a CF hard drive and that many people bought it, sold the hdd fro a few hundred (more than the cost of a ipod mini BTW ) and stuck in their own CF cards, i am surprised it took so long. In any case, i expect it to look like an ipod mini since in essence, the hardware is all there in the mini all they need to do is pop in a CF card and not a HD with a CF interface.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
is there a way, or am I relegated to getting another Zen?
Rockbox does user-defined bookmarks. For Archos, now being ported to iRiver.
Da Blog
"Creative: One hundred million dollars down the toilet."
Fitting, since their products (MP3 players) already look like digital crap.
Perhaps they should spend a million or two from that figure and hire a decent industrial design team to make a product as stylish looking as the iPods.
Watch for Microsoft to buy out a bankrupt Creative Technologies company to not only perpetuate hardware competition for Apple but to also own a stake in the THX brand and have a guaranteed sound chip design for the Xbox3.
The Lynxpro
Creative can't claim that mp3 players are their territory, because apple was there first. The iPod defined Hard Disk players, and it's what everything's compared to. When compared, creative is only an upstart.
I don't think they'll ever get more popular than Apple.
Only one company (Sony) has the resources to do that easily. (They currently offer all three of those pieces.) Unfortunately, they are too mired in IP idiocy and bad design to have any chance at it. Don't expect this to change any time soon.
(Posted anonymously as I am a Sony employee.)
Meta-comment: go read the moderation guide, idiot!
Apple's iPod dominates the MP3 player market because Apple made a player that was easy to use. No inner gizzards, no tricky new skills. Just a sleek, simple looking device that plays music. Most people don't really even know what an "MP3" is; certainly they don't know that the iPod plays AAC. Apple remains the master of selling comfort to the mass market, which is delivered with style as a method, not compensation for some defect (except perhaps the price). Let's see an "MP3" war between Creative and Apple, and may the easiest player win.
--
make install -not war
Ah, defining the market to be What Your Product Does.
The main reason why iPod beats the rest is the software and a slick, usable player that is not cluttered with buttons for everything. The Music store aside, I bought an iPod only because of these two reasons. Even if no one bought from the Apple store, iPod would be a strong seller. Have you seen women with the Creative player?
I own both a 40GB iPod and a 256MB Creative Muvo Slim. I like the really small form factor of the Muvo and the fact that I can just plug it in and drag 30 tracks onto it and go. Oh yeah, it also recharges off of USB (so do the iPods for that matter). Offerings like RedChair's Notmad Explorer also allow me to have a randomly generated playlist downloaded to my Muvo anytime I plug it into my PC. On my mac, the Muvo is recognized by iTunes and I use this to transfer files, however no random playlists. The Muvo also costs 4 times less than the iPod. So for quick trips to and from work it is my favorite of the two. Easy transfers, light weight, decent sound, can still hold a couple of hours of music that can be easily changed every day if I want. Also, I am not too scared to break or lose it as it does not cost $400. That said, the iPod definitely wins the beauty and functionality contest between the two. If I need to listen to more than 2 hours of music, it is my choice. Now if Apple were to come out with a Flash based iPod that had a 1GB - 4 GB of internal memory and was significantly smaller than the current iPod or iPod mini, and supported drag and drop for music files, they would take the market hands down. At least they would have my money.
"When Nature Calls We All Shall Drown" Johan Edlund
I have a Creative MuVo TX 256MB flash player. I've had it for about 3 weeks and I am very happy with it.
g ory=213
My only complaint is: no ogg support.
I like the way it doubles as a "pen drive" without needing a seperate usb cable. I also like that it's teeny-teeny-tiny and has no moving parts. It lasts forever on a single AAA and is skip proof. I plan to take it skiing with me, so a HD player may have been a little too fragile.
Here's a link to Creative's portable audio product line: http://www.creative.com/products/welcome.asp?cate
The ipod supports bookmarkable AAC files (mp3 too?? not sure), as well as audible (audiobook) files - http://www.audible.com/ - an no, I don't work for them.
I listen to lots of audio books on my iPod. The 'bookmarking' feature is one of the things that makes the iPod AWESOME to listen to books on. Basically, it automatically 'bookmarks' where you leave off.
So, if you want to stop in the middle of the book to go listen to some music, or whatever -- when you come back to your book, you pick up where you left off.
There are applescripts you can use to convert long mp3 files into bookmarkable AAC files too. Alternatively, if you rip in a file in AAC, it's pretty simple to switch on bookmarking in that file as well, using applescripts (there may even be an option in iTunes, I haven't checked). For example, I have some long comedy mp3s which I've turned on bookmarking for using some of the scripts.
Cheers
The iPod has had this forever, possible as a software revision to the first 5gb iPod!
GPL Deconstructed
Hey, maybe what Apple's going to do is sell a flash player with a card slot, then sell preloaded flash cards. THAT would be a great idea for the industry. Slap in U2's new album, then slap in "1,000 metal hits," "1,000 easy listening tunes," etc.
:(
Just imagine the market for custom card mixes. Damn!
That would totally change the music industry.
I'm sure the Apple guys thought of it already. No patent for me
I have an i-pod mini.
Plug it to a DELL GX280 USB 2.0 interface running MS Windows XP...
bam! I have a 4 GIG mass storage device in drive F:
drag/drop file
and state-of-the-art itunes to manage the music.
I plug the same ipod in the apple imac USB 2.0 interface and bam! I have 4 GIG mass storage drag/drop device and state-of-the-art itunes to manage the music.
Calling Creative Zen or RCA Lyra the ipod-killer is like calling a Cadillac the RollsRoyce of automobiles.
- these are not the droids you are looking for -
Funny, there was just something about it on macosxhints.com. This hint lets you have speed control and bookmarks with non-audible content:
0 41 114214939859
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20
Considering, "The worldwide corporate headquarters is located in Singapore" (Creative's Corporate Site) you can't really call it outsourcing (unless they outsourced management as well).
I'd never buy an iPod. You cannot copy music off of it. (Well, there are hacks, but I'm not going to buy something I have to hack to use. Especially for the price Apple is charging.) Also, from what I hear you can't simply drag and drop music on it, but you need to install iTunes. And from what I hear about iTunes, it'll rename all of your MP3 files.
If I'm wrong about any of this, don't flame me, educate me. Thanks!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
What the fuck was the point of your post?
First of all you were in tourist central, not to mention a major business district. So your little survey was most likely of tourists, businessmen, rich older women and kids going to the Disney store. You were 60 blocks away from the Apple store....
you know what, nevermind, I just want to wash your dumb ass post from my brain.
Most portable cd players can play mp3. Do portable dvd mp3 players exist? I'm not talking portable dvd players with a video screen, only a dvd player that plays audio files. With dvd burners being mainstream, it should be cheap and you could fit 4.7 gig of music (or double that with dual-layer discs).
... there's no goin' back. I have yet to see another player that is anywhere near as good.
I've had one since Jan of 2002 and it has been great. I listen to it daily while lifting weights. I've lost count of how many times I've dropped it.
Creative will have to put forth something compelling to take market share from the iPod.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
I didn't say it was an iPod killer... I think the zen is garbage, but what I was saying is that the lyra fits what I need it to do, and does it simpler, without any proprietary connectors, drivers or anything. I DON'T think that it is a flat-out superior product, it is clunky by comparison to the iPod as a music player, but it plays music well, and does a lot of other stuff I need it to. Mine uses a STANDARD mini usb type 1 connector, uses no special software (except for profiling, but that is normal for all of them) Most importantly, it is supported under windows CE devices, (which I STRONGLY suspect is not the case with the iPod, or Zen, and I DO connect this to embedded CE devices for my work).
One of the iPods killer features is it's tight integration with iTunes.
Chenges you make on your PC are seamlessly carried over to your iPod when you sync it.
Podcasting etc. is something I have been pleasantly surprised at, and none of this is very straightforward with a CD-based player.
However, I do have a CD-based MP3 player in my car, and before I bought the iPod I had a portable CD-based unit.
Battery life on CD-based units is pretty good, and I would probably choose a CD-based unit while travelling etc, since it can take AAs and isn't such a target for theives in unfamiliar places.
If you have a significant CD collection, or havent got around to ripping it yet, a CD-capable player also makes sense.
Whether Apple will produce such a player, I can't say, but I suppose an interesting concept might be an addon for iTunes to allow you to 'sync' some playlists with the content on a multisession CD-R/CD-RW for use in a MP3-CD player.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
Apple didn't dominate the PC market as it does in HD-based players today. It had good marketshare, but not overwhelming.
You know at the start of the 1980s Apple's share of what was then known as the "Microcomputer Market" was nearly total - I'd say around 80% or so. Apple enjoyed almost complete dominance. For all intents and purposes Apple *was* the micro computer industry. Apple was even cocky enough to run jokey adverts welcoming IBM's entry into the marketplace.
Nobody's laughing now. Apple's share of the computer market has progressively shrunk until it is now being eclipsed in market share by third-rung Korean or Taiwanese companies few people could put a name to.
Da Blog
Just let the device show up as a USB/firewire drive. Don't make me use propriety software. I want Mac compatibility for my iPod clone! The average consumer cares more about MP3s and ripping CDs than they do about buying DRM encumbered songs online. I find it ironic that the player manufactures act like WMV compatibility is a feature rather than a limitation! The iPod interface is nice, but people are willing to put up with inferiority if the price is right -- or we would all be using OS X instead of Windows.
The market for people willing to purchase encrypted songs is well addressed (by iTMS and the windows-only stores). The only market space left is people holding out for something cheaper, much cheaper.
Here's a picture of the Medion/Aldi mobile jukebox.
I paid the going retail price for a Windows screen reader and got a free Unix computer!
Why don't we see any portable DVD mp3 players? At 4.7 gig / DVD (double that with dual-layer media) it becomes really interesting. It could be fairly cheap too since dvd players can cost as low as 30$
>You cannot copy music off of it
Open windows explorer View->Options->Files tick "show hidden files and folders".
You'll see a folder called "iPod Control" or something to that effect.
Inside there is a subfolder called Music. Guess what's inside?
There are plenty of programs that can do this with a nicer interface (The music folder has your music sorted in subfolders named F00, F01 etc), but 'hack' is not how I would describe it.
On the iTunes issue, there's a winamp plugin, and then there's anapod explorer from redchair software. And frankly iTunes is rather good.
The first version of iTunes to ship for windows (4.0) would, if you chose the default options move your all your music to 'organise' it (breaking all your existing playlists and music libraries in other players). It has been fixed.
All the rumors about flash iPods have the word "cheap" in them somewhere. Now, everybody think back to the period before the iPod mini was released - remember all the rumors back then said the mini was going to be "cheap".
... and Apple sold a zillion of them.
What did we get? A smaller form factor, same storage as the original iPod, not "cheap"
People, Apple doesn't do cheap. The main reason Jobs dumps on flash MP3 players is they're too small - not enough room for a significant fraction of most people's music library. If there is anything to the flash iPod rumors, what do you bet it'll be a 4GB flash device, costing $250? And it'll be half the size of an iPod mini? And Apple will sell a zillion of them?
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
Isn't that the only thing people here care about? Peace GO iPod!!!
Thanks for clearing some stuff up.
What's easiest for me is to simply copy my already ripped and organized MP3s over to the device. I don't want to use any third party software to do this, just Explorer. For example, I'd want to copy folder "Coltrane, John - Blue Train" over to the device. Is this possible? Thanks.
If it's possible to put a bunch of CDs, each in their own subfolder, onto the iPod, can it randomly shuffle across them?
And once I copy those files and folders over, will I be able to copy them back off? I don't want any programs. I just want to treat it as a hard drive.
One last thing. So you do NOT need iTunes at all, right?
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
No it will actually be: "Creative, Apple Battle for MP3 Player Market" as someone re-posts this article without checking for a previous submission.
Why is it that the only iPod naysayers seem to be the ones who cannot find a way to afford one of these wonderful devices? Rationalization?
I just went from a 1st-gen Mac-only iPod to a 4th-gen (bought just before the color one, oh well). It made my pocket lighter, sure... but dang if I don't have a huuuuuge music library when I'm on the road!!
I also love iTunes Smart Playlists and the way that everything synchs between your computer and the iPod. I use the iPod to audition a lot of music and lately (using a Smart Playlist that picks "recently-added music that has not been listened to more than twice"), if I find something I like, I rate it a few stars directly on the iPod. Then the next time I synch, I have a smart playlist set up to automatically cull those tunes in. You have no idea how cool this is unless you love music and try it. You can also now set up playlists directly on the iPod pretty easily, and those too will appear on your computer once you sync.
I basically don't know if it gets any better than this... which is why I also use OS X =)
IAL
:)
(I Actually LOL'd)
...for a number of reasons:
1. The iPod's excellent onboard CPU processing and its excellent controls make it the best-sounding and easiest to master of the portable music players.
2. The iTunes software/online music store is pretty easy to use and integrates extremely well with the iPod.
3. Apple has built up a good relationship with music companies, and it appears very soon Apple may even get full access to the Beatles' music and music created by the various Beatles members since the breakup of the group, something everybody wants.
4. Most importantly, Apple got to the market first and successfully staked out a huge marketshare. Their wise decision to support Windows-based machines with iPods that connect to the computer using the USB 2.0 cable connection has proved to be a huge financial boon for Apple.
Mind you, I'd like Apple to do the following for future iPods:
1. Have the battery be user-replaceable.
2. Offer support for future-technology flash memory cards that can be re-written to many times. Note that I do not suggest using today's flash memory technologies since they have a relatively short re-writeable life.
3. Offer a digital AM/FM tuner.
What's easiest for me is to simply copy my already ripped and organized MP3s over to the device. I don't want to use any third party software to do this, just Explorer. For example, I'd want to copy folder "Coltrane, John - Blue Train" over to the device. Is this possible? Thanks.
NO
If it's possible to put a bunch of CDs, each in their own subfolder, onto the iPod, can it randomly shuffle across them?
Wrong question
And once I copy those files and folders over, will I be able to copy them back off? I don't want any programs. I just want to treat it as a hard drive.
Yes, however they might be slightly renamed (not an issue if you have good ID3s, which you should have to use an iPod effectively anyway), and they will be in different folders in seemingly randon lots of 50. Do get anapod (you can have the installer on the ipod's hard drive).
One last thing. So you do NOT need iTunes at all, right?
You might need it to initialise the iPod when you first get it. I can't be bothered to wipe my iPod to know for sure, sorry
Actually, it'll be something along the lines of "Creative posts record losses for quarter."
iTunes does one important thing (though other programs can do this too) and that is create an index, a database, a file that contains information for all your songs, that is uploaded to the iPod that allows the iPod to function.
This index is the library file: Think of it as a card catalog in a library, or a directory at a mall, or a index in the back of a book. It allows the iPod to do three things: Be fast, efficient, and power thrifty.
Instead of scanning through the whole hard drive for ID3 info, it scans through an 11mb file stored in ram. This allows the iPod to be both fast and power thrifty when you're searching for a song, album, artist, or playlist.
As per copying the files and folders, you can copy them on and off the hard drive, because it's just a mass storage device. But going back to that index thing, iTunes (or another similar program) will copy the music into a specified Music folder so that the index and content are always in sync.
As per shuffling across a bunch of CDs, yes, you can do that.
You have one problem that would prevent you from being happy with the iPod: You want to do all the work and don't want the computer to do any of the work. By default iTunes will sort all your music by artist and album into their own folders:
Folder "John Coltrane" will contain folder "Blue Train" will contain all your music.
Then, with the iTunes interface, all you have to care about is: "Who is the artist?" or "What is the album?" or "What is the song?" or "What is the genre?" or "Who is the composer?" or "How many times has it been played?" or "What year was it recorded?"
That's the other thing about the index/database. iTunes uses it too, so if you want to, you have access to all your music in any myriad number of ways OTHER than artist-album.
GPL Deconstructed
According to the report, which covers sales over September, Apple's player lost share to both cheaper, flash memory-based players and HP's version of the iPod.
OK, the author of the article you quote is obviously an idiot or burdened with an impenetrable anti-Apple bias, or both. Under what delusional alternate reality is it possible for the iPod to lose market share to the iPod???
I level it with you.
Ipod sucks if you have Linux, no support there.
I also recoiled to the idea of being forced to used X-BRAND software to manage any device, then again..I didn't bough the ipod, it was a gift (he, he).
The wheel thing allows you to zoom through your list at variable speeds without having to press anything or lifting your thumb, It's a "infinite scroll". IT's quite ingeneous.
Then comes the bullshit factor. I wear my ipod-mini with the arm band at the health-club and heads do turn..its just a darn cute little gadget, quaint and yet....powerful.
But never mind that, all my music files are MP3's stored in a linux box read only ext2 partition running samba over my LAN. No way I'm letting apple or ANY company for that matter manage my music.
Cheers.
- these are not the droids you are looking for -
Audio support - AAC (16 to 320 Kbps), MP3 (32 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Apple Lossless, WAV, AIFF, Audible
Peace
"You want to do all the work"
I don't see any work involved with dragging and dropping the folders I want to the device. I do it all the time with my Creative Nomad. I open up the folder I store my CDs in. Hold the "ctrl" key, select the CDs/folders I want, and then drag them over to the device. How is that work?
If I had something the size of an iPod, I'd probably put all of my favorite CDs on it and then randomly shuffle across it. I have about a five-day play list at home. I rarely "look" for specific music, I just want it played.
I have to agree that I would probably not be happy with the iPod. The iPod seems designed for people who don't know how to use their computers. As someone who has already ripped and organized their music collection and who knows how to drag and drop, the iPod is not for me.
Thanks for your help!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
I run iTunes on a mac, not a pc, so I don't know how it organizes music on the PC, but, from my viewpoint here, you import your music into iTunes, it organizes it into folders (which are easily accessible and well named, usually by artist then album if it has that information) and off you go. Add tags, whatever. When you want to listen to something, you go into your music player (iTunes) and you look for what you want by music hierarchy, not by computer hierarchy. (genre, artist, playlist, whatever... browse mode is great for that). Instead you would rather go hunting through directories to listen to music? To me, the folder scheme provides just one (rather static) view of your music... as opposed to looking at it through the meta-data view.
I'm not ridiculing your needs here, but just don't understand why you wouldn't want to go with the computer automated method of organization (which, at least to me, seems to be what computers are here for!) If nothing else, the music's all nicely organized and put into folders for you, ready to be accessed from outside iTunes just as easily as if you had set up your own structure.
Something similar to the prediction of how the ipod was lame, overpriced, no one in the right mind would buy it, and it would not sell. Or does this belief of companies with competing products will fail/suck/etc only true when it involves Apple's competition?
Funny, I wonder how many of the Apple fans here who are complaining about Creative's products and are saying they won't sell, etc, are also bothered about those complaining about the ipod, saying the ipod sucks, the ipod will not sell, it was a bad decision and Apple will not survive, etc.
The iPod's excellent onboard CPU processing and its excellent controls make it the best-sounding ... of the portable music players.
Where is your justification for this? I notice Apple is very loathe to publish its Signal-to-Noise dB figures for its products.
Personally for best sound when I want a quick blast I like to jack an optical out straight into the nearest amp. iPod lacks this. It's analog output by comparison sounds a bit muddy.
Apple got to the market first and successfully staked out a huge marketshare.
In fact Apple was quite late to market, basically a year behind Creative and Archos for the HD models, and fully two years behind the Compaq/HanGo PJB. Market shares have a weird way of looking huge at the time... until a new entrant carves out a space and/or expands the space. Just as Apple did with the iPod.
The real threat to Apple's continued success is mobile phones. There are already models launched that contain hard drives and play mp3s. Within a few years it will be tough to buy a phone that does *not* bundle this, or lots of RAM or slots for Flash.
Compared with the annual sales of mobile phones, the total sales of mp3 players, iPods included, are a rounding error. The phone makers can even combine with the phone companies to basically give away the devices on long-term credit contracts.
To take just one example, in a few years, when everyone and their dog can get the space equivalent of the iPod Mini in their latest phone for "no money down", what do you think that will do to sales of the iPod Mini? Just as Tivo is being squeezed out by the cable companies, so too Apple could be squeezed out by the phone companies.
Da Blog
Work involved:
Creating and naming folders after artists and after albums.
Do you also name all your songs, or do you let your ripper do that?
With iTunes I do none of that: I only do one thing, and that is hit the button to rip. So by my definition you are doing more work: You create, label, and name folders, and you copy and drag folders.
I only do two of the same things to accomplish that: Insert the CD and hit rip, and plug in the iPod. My only work? Hitting the button to rip.
GPL Deconstructed
I've got about 200 CDs ripped into max bitrate MP3s, and the same collection ripped into AAC.
The MP3 collections is almost 20G, the AAC collection is about 9.6G.
I reckon that's makes the AAC files about half the size for the same music, but math was never my strong point.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
I ripped them with the Creative software which is in fact limited to 320 k bit/s.
I don't know if you can write something to do better, but that's the max bit rate available from the product.
No bullshit.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
Oh.
My.
God.
That's right up there with "Macs have colour now?"
Come on - the Internet isn't just Slashdot. You can actually look at Apple's web pages as well! And you can learn stuff there too! Wow! And then there's Google! It's a search engine! You can try it out sometime!
I just got the thing, guess I need to RTFM. :-)
The revolution will NOT be televised.
Go retro, use a wax cylinder instead. Now that would be a statement.
You don't need a lab to make mud.
...is it just me or is Creative Labs declaring war on Apple in the MP3 player market a bit like the Polish Calvary declaring war against the German Panzer Divisions in 1939?
blog |
These ipod 'schemes' are actually legitimate
Who would have thought?
This is Creative's history of innovation...
Original SB:
Adding a gameport and DAC to the ADLIB FM synthesizer. This product was an incredible success, and got them very rich. Unfortunately they haven't done anything since besides let others innovate and then buy them out.
First PCI soundcard with SB compatibility was made by Ensoniq. Creative bought them out to get this technology.
First decent 3D soundcards were made by Aureal, which you already covered.
The chip in the SBLive was developed by EMU, which Creative bought out.
The Soundworks speakers had nothing to do with Creative until they bought them out.
The Aureal is still basically the same technology that's in the SBLive. I guess they ran out of innovative companies to buy out.
Unfortunately for Creative they can't exactly buy out Apple, so I'd say they're in trouble.
320kbps is indeed the limit. The granpdarent poster is possibly on crack.
If you want to give mp3 another try, go with lame. Most commercial rippers really blow. I have excellent success with EAC (exact audio copy) and lame. I usually go with --alt-preset-extreme, and end up with files averaging about 240 kbps (though it really varies on music type). I usually listen to my music on Senn HD580 headphones. I can't tell a difference from CD, and noone I've challenged can tell the difference, either. I'm not really an audiophile, but I am pretty picky.
Though if you have an iPod, and don't plan on ever using some non-AAC supporting player, stick with AAC. I'm personally concerned about compatibility. What if, 5 years down the road, I can no longer listen to my encoded music? I'm not about to rerip all of my cds.
Driving to SF yesterday I saw a lot of Creative Zen audio player billboards. They show the various colors of the player. (Anyone know a link to a picture?) However, they don't have the kick of the iPod ads. If this is the kind of marketing they're planning on then your prediction is sure to come true.
Oh sweet jesus calm down, man.
...and you can get back to me later on a promise I'll make: I'll kiss your ass on Main Street if and when you can demonstrate to me in the remotely near future that the iPod fails in the marketplace simply because it doesn't offer Ogg support, or likewise that any other portable audio device that has a slew of great features fails to make it in the marketplace because they don't offer Ogg support.
/. have made the case as to why Ogg matters to them and a few other folks. And that's fine, we all have wish lists. But the marketplace as a whole doesn't even know what Ogg is. I know close to thirty people that have iPods. I'd be shocked if any of them have heard of Ogg.
OK, I'm not trying to be a smart ass. I know a number of people on
It would absolutely blow my mind if Creative "brings this battle" because they "improve their Ogg support and offer it on more models." Nobody--or hardly anyone--cares.
But running the Gimp on an MP3 player makes more sense than running KOffice. =)
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Couldn't find a WinAmp plugin when I looked though... maybe there's one out there now.
> 1,000 metal hits
That is possible, but when you pay $0.50 or more to put a song on a CD, your 1,000 song card would cost $500. That's the problem.
I must say I like the name zen better than iPod, one of the major reasons being that I hate mixed case titles.
Not Apple, but nobody publishes SNR, THD, etc for lossy codecs.
Let's take the codecs out of the equation and assume we are playing back lossless. I'd like to know about the SNR/THD of the iPod hardware. Do you know where to find this sort of info?
Da Blog
I know Creative products. Let them die off. Creative got fat, happy, and lazy in the '90s when no one could touch them with their 16-bit ISA sound card and their MMUKs (-10 points if you know that acronym). They shot themselves in the foot so many times they don't have toes.
Cry me a river. Creative's business model is so flawed they won't dig themselves out for long: they'll either dig a new hole and jump in, or fall back into the hole they just crawled out of.
i bought a Mac soundblaster card at MacWorld in 2001 or something (which they charged like $150 for). i am STILL waiting for OS X drivers that they promised in the next 2 months. ok, i'm not really waiting..... i pulled the card and chucked it in a box somewhere.... but their sales people flat out lied. they went through the expense of getting a booth and selling products to Mac users that they never had any intention to support. It was MacWorld (NYC), so it was the more dedicated users and many/most were already running OS X.. though Creative never made drivers past OS 9. assholes!
anyway, for that alone i will never support them.... not that their products work on my machines anyway.... but if i COULD buy their shitty junk, i would not.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
Well, I'm one of 'Creative's market share' and my comment is "I own two and couldn't be happier with them".
No extra software is needed at all to download off any windows computer with a USB port. I connect the player to a USB port, move MP3 files from my computer network to the MP3 player and I'm loaded with four hours of music on the one player and one hour on the other older model. No muss no fuss.
And they are small and light and play forever on a battery and have easy as pie operation.
Sounds great too.
Did I mention they're cheap, warranteed, and my four hour one can also act as a sound recorder ( voice, whatever).
The old one is ugly but the new one is pretty enough to show off.
My only regret is that neither has a radio in it, but then I have two credit card size radios, so its not like I actually NEED that feature...but still.
gotta go
tata now
really, you can't expect me to waste my time like this. bye already.
Ever since the days of the venerable Gravis Ultrasound, I've had a seething hate for Creative Labs. Their products are second-rate at best, and their policies are disgusting. They've single-handedly held PC sound technolgy back by at least 5 years!
It's possible to find.
Good luck. You'll have to check the specs from PortalPlayer and whichever DAC you're using for analog output, and even then there's a fudge factor based on Apple's alterations to their spec design.
The new Zen is, apparently Signal-to-Noise Ratio : up to 97dB, # Channel Separation : up to 74dB, Frequency Response : 20Hz - 20kHz, Harmonic Distortion Output : less than 0.1%. The older Zen did SNR up to 98dB.
Apple has used a variety of Wolfson DACs with nominal SNRs ranging from 90dB to 100dB. There are significant differences in audio quality between some of the iPod generations and models.
Da Blog
For my needs, flash is the way to go. Throw it around, put it anywhere, no skipping ever. And incredible battery life. I have the 512 MB model. I'm not so picky as far as bitrate, 192 kbps is good enough for me, so that's a good 6 hours of music. I don't know why a person would need his entire music collection with him beyond a sort of mental satisfaction. I change the contents of my player every other week.
This is a smart move by apple. As long as the product is mediocre or better, a flash iPod will outsell everything else, even if it is inferior to others. I don't like that one bit, but them's the facts, most consumers don't care to look for reviews online and read at least 20-50 of them before putting down $150.
And there's no way apple will make this thing expandable. Let people get more space cheap? forget about it. They'll make several size capacities, set the price increments greater than the cost of purchasing memory cards alone, and force people who want bigger sizes to give them the cash instead of some discount vendor.
I'll bet that Apple will not grace this new product with the exalted mantle of iPod. Remember when Apple created a low-end laptop? They didn't let it share a name with the pro line of PowerBooks, but instead called it the iBook. The iBook eventually came into its own and became a desirable machine even for business users, but that was not Apple's original intent.
Similarly, Apple has looked down its nose at the Flash-based music player market and will probably give their own device a non-iPod name. Something like iFlash maybe.
People should not fear what they do not understand; people should fear because they do not understand.
Ok, I used to be an Apple hater. I really didn't like the company, I didn't like the products, and I was sick and freakin tired of hearing that the iPod was the only good mp3 player in the world.
So, when I decided I wanted a portable hard drive and music player in one, I looked at everything EXCEPT the iPod. In fact, I flat out refused to buy an iPod. I looked at the iRiver, the iAudio, and the Creative Nomad. (does every player need an "i" in front of it?). And you know what happened? I couldn't find a single player that did the following: play music, mount as a USB mass storage device, and have an interface that didnt suck. They all either had a horrifyingly proprietary setup (needs drivers just to mount it as a drive), or they had an interface that was either crappy, or just plain cheap (I'm talking to you, iRiver).
Finally, my dad gave me an iPod for my birthday, and you know what? I couldn't find anything to whine about. It did everything I wanted it to do, and it's engineered really well, and it was smaller, to boot. It even made me have an open mind, and I've come to respect Apple products. What I'm trying to say is, yeah, the iPod isn't the only player on the market, and even I'm sick of hearing about it, but for god's sake, somebody, PLEASE, make an alternative that just plays music and acts as a hard drive. Is that too much to ask?
-Jay
of the woodwork every time an iPod is mentioned.
It's like, "I'm going to load up the BFG and have me a piece of those fanboys. Yeah!"
The funny thing is, most of you use and like Microsoft products, the biggest whore on the planet.
love for open systems and rebellian against tyranny semms to be innate in me.
I see. That's why you had to wait for iRiver to add video support to your player, presumably in response to Apple upping the ante. That's not freedom, that's market competition. Unless you and I have different definitions of open systems. Or did I miss that day when iRiver went open-source?
You want freedom, try the really free open-source Rockbox. They even managed to add 30fps video playback to some of the 4-year-old Archos Jukeboxes, along with talking menu prompts, user bookmarking, and other goodies. And lucky for you, there's moves afoot to port the Rockbox code to at least some of the iRiver devices.
Da Blog
ack, already did it man. it wasn't as bad as i thought. interesting to go through your whole collection.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
I still love my 20 gig iriver HDD mp3 player. I was debating if I should purchase an IPOD, a Creative Nomad player or Iriver Player, and After quite a bit of research, I chose the Iriver. Been Happy Since
Current State: Pirates > Cowboys + Ninjas + Robots Yarrrr
I have a Gen 1 (5 Gig) iPod, and it does indeed play AAC.
Free, legal music for iTunes users.
If Creative wants to get more of the market from the iPod they are going to have to do a few things, some of which they probably won't do, so the are doomed to fail from the start.
1. Quit making cheap, crappy players. Since they don't understand what makes the iPod so popular this one is going to be a big hurdle.
2. Better device firmware. If you have thousands of songs you need a easy way to manage and access those songs. Another big hurdle.
3. Design. They are hit and miss here. Make it cool like a mac, don't make it like a PC.
4. Mac Software. This one will kill them. Creative has missed so many opportunities to sell Mac product. Their outboard USB sound "cards" are a prime example. With just some simple software drivers their line of Exitgy and Audigy could have easily been Mac compatible. M-Audio is now making cash with basically the same thing. If they are not going to make Mac software then they will probably use some third party software like musicmatch for their PC jukebox software and not support the Mac at all.
With all the money they are throwing at it they could do it right....but past experience show, they won't.
I fail to understand why we would want an ipod when in fact you can get a single device that can do everything... My cell phone can display movies, play mp3's and run a bunch of different emulators... now tell me why would you buy the ipod? or creative zen? sure having the 40 gig hd is nice but really, I can swap out sd cards when I need to llisten to something different or watch a different dvd I transfered on to it... Or we could all just have chips implanted into our brains...Reminds me of the old amiga kick start rom upgrade...Ok sure you buy this chip and now What? how to install...Ok so I smashed it into my forhead...at first nothing then the familiar blue amiga kick start boot up screen and that was all... just kidding... Someday I think cell phones will do everthing we need..right now mine handles all of my communication including internet...And I can even listen to streaming audio- radio stations that re-broadcast on the net... One device is all you need... PEace OUt...
Iriver is as good as Archos when it comes to support for rockbox.
You know Rockbox happened on Archos because the quality of the Archos firmware and the frequency of updates were so terrible? Rockbox is a guerilla project and has nothing to do with the corporations that manufacture the hardware.
Da Blog
I had the chance to see Apple's overall manager for the iPod project last year, and I was impressed... Her iPods were so thin and her *&^(s were so awesome! I did not get the chance to ask if she were single, sorry ./tters! Like I would even tell you if I knew... muahahahhaha
Thanks about hint on Wolfson. So, here we are:
d io /
http://www.wolfsonmicro.com/products/digital_au
Most interesting part - about codecs, integrated with ADC and DAC - I think, one of them is in heart of iPods.
So, WORST of them (stereo):
DAC SNR - 98
ADC SNR - 95
Sampling rate max - 96 kHz
And for THD - on worst DAC:
- 84 dB
And THD for digital amp (DA)
0.01
I mean, if Apple uses WORST of Wolfson's codecs, DACs and DAs, they achieves "up to 98 dB SNR and down to 0.01 THD" easely.
Did you apply a firmware upgrade at some point? According to this specs in this document, the 1st Gen's (released in 2001) didn't ship with AAC support, since it wasn't part of QuickTime just yet. (QT 6 was released in 2002, if the date stamps on Apple's support pages are correct.)
Those who complain about affect & effect on
I applied the upgrades via Software Update, yes.
Free, legal music for iTunes users.
Jobs isn't down on flash per se; he's down on $200 flash players that give you 512 megabytes when $250 will get you 4 gigabytes. It was more cost effective to go with an even smaller hard drive rather than use CF. Now, if someone were to come out with CF that was superior to a hard drive, there's no reason why they wouldn't switch.
Sort of like all the people that bitched at Jobs for not installing a floppy drive in the Next cube, and then for not installing one in the origional iMac. A lot of people seemed to get the idea that he wasn't for removable storage. Its not that he's against it, just removable storage that sucks ALL ass, i.e. the floppy.