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."

Comments

I hope so, I'm sick of Slashdot whoring iPods

[Anonymous Coward]

as if Steve Jobs were paying off Slashdot (oh wait, maybe he is...)

Re:$100 Mil on Marketing?

[almostmanda]

The Zen Xtra has more features than the 3gen Ipod that came out around the same time. The Zen Touch has a longer battery life, is cheaper, and probably has some neat firmware features compared to the 4gen Ipod. "Prettier" does not mean "superior."

Re:It's gotta be about more than cash

[Dragoon412]

But is that completely true?

Personally, I want a player that doesn't require proprietary software to use. I don't want its main strength to be that it's tied to an overpriced music store that forces me to burn/crack/transcode to be used on half my audio hardware, or a inferior audio player (I'll stick to eMule, my own CD collection and Foobar, for the time being).

Apple's offering, despite the nice physical design and great navigation, is too much bloat for way too much money in my eyes.

Creative's aiming more for a consumer like me. The problem is, their flash-based players don't require proprietary hardawre. The Zen does. And the physical design and navigation are quite bluntly just flat-out inferior to Apple's. But the lack of ITMs? In my eyes, that's a good thing.

Re:It's gotta be about more than cash

[Dragoon412]

But the most important part of the design (love it or hate it) is the way it works between all three components of Apple's offering. It may be bloat. It may be expensive. It may be proprietary, but damn if using it isn't as easy as falling out of bed. People are willing to pay for easy.

And how easy is it when you want to listen to it on the MP3 player in your car?

This whole ease of use thing is important, I agree entirely, but the integration with the Apple store doesn't make it easier for people who want to listen to music they already own on another format, or for people who want to listen to music that isn't carried on iTMS. Neither of those instances may be as large as the number of technophobic soccer moms that want to plug something in and get the Newest Britney Spears album, but to consider them a tiny demographic is delusional. To say that price doesn't matter is equally asinine.

And even without this ease of use, Apple now has an overwhelming majority of the mindshare among the kinds of hipsters who can drive trends like this all the way to the stars and back. Call me when the Creative CEO is joined onstage by Bono and The Edge.

I can't argue with you about mindshare, but here's a tip: "hipsters" aren't listening to U2. ;) Unless, of course, by hipsters you mean "the sort of people who think Michael Bolton and Rod Stewart are cool." ;)

Reality distortion field alert

[Animats]

Apple iPod (54% of the market last year for MP3 players that use hard disks).

Ah, defining the market to be What Your Product Does.

Re:Apple can't compete on the low-end.

[realmolo]

Apple has high-quality hardware? What planet are you living on?

Anyone who fixes computers can tell you that Macs have more hardware problems than any computer. By a HUGE margin. And I'm talking about post iMac stuff. Before the iMac, it was even worse.

Re:Why I own an iPod

[jan7da]

I got iRiver H320 after a long wait and after thorough study.

Its faucking awesome,
the minute ipod talked about phote viewer in iPod, iriver made an firmware update and now i can watch video on my iriver H320. thats the power of developing an open system.

love for open systems and rebellian against tyranny semms to be innate in me.

Theres little learnning curve for navigation, but iriver can always make a firmware update to improve the navigation.

i think ipod back u2 theme is cool, not sure about ipod white and pink.
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=Ipod+gay+ design& hl=en&lr=&selm=brah09%2417vc8%241%40ID-177983.news .uni-berlin.de&rnum=2
http://www.gay.com/style/di gital/?sernum=771
http://www.redban.com/modules.p hp?name=News&file=a rticle&sid=75
http://www.ipodlounge.com/ipodnews_ comments.php?id =4177_0_7_0_C
http://www.stereogum.com/archives/0 00134.html
(no offense pls, i just want to mention the direction the looks design is going these days - i guess every generation wants to look different from the older generation. I am sure, there will come time, when people will think Ipod and bright colored players suck)

-jen