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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
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?
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.
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!
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.
"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.
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.
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
Man, I hate that attitude.
Hey, here's this neat thing but since everyone else has it, I'm not going to try it and see if it really is as neat as it seems. Because I'm different.
It's a freaking music player. Try it, don't try it, but letting its popularity affect your decision is just stupid.
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(){}'
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.
Maybe you don't notice other MP3 devices because the other MP3 players aren't as flashy as the iPod? For instance, my portable mp3 player is a PALM Zire. Totally inconspicuous as an MP3 player...someone might think I was doing actual work on it:P Others are built into watches, pens, or little things you can clip in your pocket...even a swiss army knife:P Also, I have used a creative HDD based MP3 player and found it quite nice. I haven't used an iPod to be able to compare but the creative unit did the job at least and could also record audio in several formats via a line in jack which I found quite useful at times.
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
If you like the iPod as an mp3 player, and have the money, then buy it. If you think the Zen is a better player, then buy that. Who cares how "cool" you look with either.
He's not tyring to look "cool." He's trying to go out of his way not to look "cool"... because that's way less self-centered than somebody who wants to be seen listening to their iPod.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I think it's a Red State vs Blue State kind of thing. NC is a Red State, so you'll see a lot of the players with the WMA Ready sticker on them, whereas NY is a Blue State so you'll see more iPod's.
More likely, it's a public transportation thing.
People who take trains, busses and ferry boats to work were the first ones to buy Walkman radios back in the day. This is pretty much the same trend. Having headphones means not having to talk to the weirdo sitting next to you on the bus. Having an iPod instead of a radio means you won't lose the signal when you go through a tunnel. For somebody who spends two hours a day in such an environment, $400 probably doesn't seem like a lot of money to spend on making the time more pleasant.
People mostly drive to work in "Jesusland", so even when they listen to iPods during their commute, nobody else sees them.
Disclaimer: I live in the suburbs of a "light blue" state and drive to work. Nevertheless, I would rather go without the use of my legs than go without my iPod.
P.S. Not to nit-pick, but if you shade by percentage of victory in each district, and most states are actually solid purple. I think that people are making a little too much of "cultural differences" between the states.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
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.
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.
...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.
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 understand why some people think Apple offers the best player/store/software "experience." But competing players are improving and some are pretty darned good right now. Too bad songs bought at iTMS won't play on them. Competing music stores are also getting better. Too bad WMA songs won't play on iPods. Their are several multimedia apps for Windows that are better than iTunes, but Apple wants iPod users to use iTunes exclusively.
I think the iPod's "trendiness" will turn off buyers eventually. The iPod does not have to be "killed" by one player. There will be many players that will be nearly as good or better than the iPod. They will work with all of the other music stores and music apps. When consumers realize this, they will not want to be locked into Apple's music store and music player.
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
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.