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Creative Gunning For the iPod
yashchopra writes "CTZ is running an article where Creative's main goal in 2005 is to take away market shares from Apple's iPod music player, which they believe is very possible. The publication also have some information on the upcoming flash MP3 player standards that we will see this year. "While many companies are looking forward to their flash MP3 players, Creative has other plans. Creative was one of the most popular exhibitors on the show floor with their Zen Micro and Zen Touch players on display. Creative's sole goal this year is to take away some market shares from Apple's iPod. The company believes it to be a possible task, as iPod is limited to iTunes when it comes to purchasing music online and with Creative's products, you will be able to purchase music from major online vendors. The ability to download and listen music from any major online retailer and the price are what Creative is using as their marketing strategies to compete against Apple's iPod. But other than that, Creative's products look very much like the iPod with a few changes."
The ability to download and listen music from any major online retailer
Well, all of them except for *the* major online retailer that is.
I wish them luck. Competition is good.
I got a Creative Nomad Xtra for Christmas, and I have been very satisifed with it thus far. I needed to upgrade the firmware to get the most out of my player, but so far I've shown it to my friends and they are most jealous as I paid the better part of $100 less for a 40 gig mp3 player then they paid for their Ipods.
Whenever anybody says their product is really similar to iPod or Tivo except for a few tiny differences, I can guarantee you what the differences are.
Usability, physical beauty, and simplicity.
News flash: those little things are the reason people are buying a an iPod, buying a Tivo, etc, and not your product, Creative. My girlfriend didn't want to carry around something that looked like an angry PDA, so I got her an iPod and she's happy, and her friends are buying them now. My parents didn't want a home media center computer in their living room because they can barely handle their current computer, so I got them a Tivo and they're happy, and their friends are buying them now.
Are there cheaper products out that do the same dang thing? Sure. But they're not as usable, not as attractive, and not as simple. And sorry, Creative, but putting a "Mesmerizing Blue LED Back Light" isn't going to cut it. Those were "Mesmerizing" back in 2002. You're not going to get money out of my pocket by looking like a rice-boy's Civic dashboard.
And as long as the Zen Micro has a blatant pair of nipples on the touchpad, my girlfriend's not going to use it either.
What's your damage, Heather?
Given that Apple has about 70% of the market for online music sales, aren't the others all "minor" if numerous?
The 100$ price difference will surely force apple to rethink their prices. Hope their iPod dosent repeat what happened to their Mac's when PC's came to the market. Apple should take care for that. Also any way the battle turns out, its party time for the consumers!
Hopefully the market will hot up for HDD based mp3 players, I'm thinking of getting one to upgrade my old Archos 6000, which is falling apart and 6 GB is too small for me nowadays. There's no alternative that really makes me want to part with my cash at the moment though...
I can see this being the year of partnerships. Wireless transfers will be a huge part of that. All Creative need to do is add Bluetooth to their devices and sell them at Taco Bell. At this point, people could get the Backdoor Boy's latest hit with the purchase of a burrito.
I also see a large market for pre-recorded radio. Your car downloads the media at night while it sits in your garage. You listen the next day and hit the big red 'buy' button in order to purchase the music that you like.
More
can something be very possible?
I can start my week without concern now. I have had my death of the ipod (or apple) article so all is right with the world.
iTunes GAINING market share every quarter
At best they can hope to slow the dominance!
The biggest most MAJOR retailer of songs is apple with over 70% of the market for sold files.
I hardly see how they can claim that they support "ANY major vendor" without supporting the DRM protected MPEG 2 AAC file format.
besides, apples the AUDIO in apple DRM is the most leightweight, and highest quality (48 frequency "bins' instead of 32, more amplitude, more upper frequ3encies) than mp3 and wma.
Digital Restriction Management sucks, but at least apple's is a little less hostile than microsoft's and Real's. (number of machines, phone-homes, number of allowed lost replacements, etc)
Seriously, whats with the looooooooooong link?
Creative's sole goal this year is to take away some market shares from Apple's iPod. The company believes it to be a possible task, as iPod is limited to iTunes when it comes to purchasing music online and with Creative's products, you will be able to purchase music from major online vendors.
I'm not sure what non-iTunes stores outside the UK are like (because they won't let me find out), but the ones I've seen in the UK are all rebranded versions of the same backend. Which was awkward to use, glitchy, and more expensive. Their only advantage was they had some tracks iTunes didn't. I'd provide links, but I can only get into the pages using IE for Windows.
"Will work with anything except the iTunes store" isn't that great a selling point, IMHO...
Frankly, I don't see either happening. If apple sell more ipods than creative, then creative would lose market share. And I can't see that there are many people who would dump their iPod and buy a creative, especially since all their iTunes purchases wont play on it.
Creatives best shot this year is to produce a flash player that looks and plays good, and try to beat the ipod shuffle.
Creative models seem to have better battery life, either easily replacable with a spare without needing special tools (Zen Xtra) or extra long battery life (Zen Touch).
The iPod always seems to rely heavily on iTunes, not just the store, but the software itself. For example multiple playlist creation and on fly editing (you can see whay songs are coming up and remove them if you want to) can be done directly on the Zen, I believe the iPod will need synching with iTunes to do the same.
There is far more freedom to copy songs to and from the Zen, to multiple machines, something that is difficult if not impossible to do on the iPod.
Noone can deny iPod's market share but the design seemed to stick in 2002/3, the Zen has overtaken Apple with more features, and they easily beat them in price.
It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. --Albert Einstein
Ford is trying to take market share from GM!!
Of course Creative wants to take market share from Apple. Why is this news??? Are nerds oblivious to simple economics?
Man, this must really be a slow news day.
Either Creative is wrong, or the dumbass that wrote the article is wrong...
iPod is limited to iTunes when it comes to purchasing music online
That's total BS, and I hope people don't think that this is true. You can purchase music anywhere online that has the Mp3 or AAC formats. Audible.com is a good example of where to get audio books. And allofmp3.com (although maybe not so much on the up-and-up) is another place to get music online. I'll leave the copy and paste of these sites as an exercise to the reader, since I'm not trying to pimp them or anything.
But come on folks, you can put almost ANY mp3 on your iPod, and it certainly doesn't mean you have to use only iTunes for your online music. It's also possible to buy music from iTunes and load it on ANY music player. There are programs out there (Hymn) to remove the security from the iTunes music, and them convert to Mp3. Google has your answers.
This is just a way for Creative to scare people away from the iPod, and it is crap.
Make it look great, make it easy to use, and people will buy it. Simple as that, Creative...
"Send an Instant Karma to me" - Yes
okay, now, apart from playing all the Pink Floyd you own: does it boot an emac into OS X Server? No? Then it's just not in the same league. The ipod is an external storage device also capable of playing music, for some of us anyway.
But hey, we can't ALL be system admins, can we?
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
I really hope Creative takes Apple down on this. How many times does Apple need to learn that people don't want lock-in solutions. Where you buy there player and are locked into their music service. I mean I can't even re-download songs I already own. Most if not all of the WMP online music providers let you re-sync your songs. Maybe this is because Microsoft has a better DRM than Apple and this can be done.
But back on point, Apple needs to stop these lock-in practices, they tried to do it in the early days of the desktop computer, and now they are again trying to do it now. And like the late 80's and early 90's Apple started out real strong, because they had an amazing product, but soon people realized that there is nothing out there for them when choosing Apple. I beleive you will see that in the next couple years with iPod.
So Creative smack Apple around a little and maybe they will start supporting Ogg Vorbis and WMP (which their chipset in the iPod already supports).
When they realize WHY the iPod is so succesful, then they will finally reach the starting line of competing for market share. I'm all for competition; if someone makes a better product that I'm willing to buy, power to them. But so far it seems like the executives and marketters at Creative should be required to use an iPod for a couple weeks first, in order to see what it's all about and what they're up against.
;-), but until the drones figure it out, it's a lost battle and SJ will be laughing all the way to the bank.
Large choices of online music vendors is NOT a feature that the majority of the public is looking for. Sure, if you have multiple choices it will be a nice added feature, but it's not the killer point. It's not even a MAJOR point. Hell, I don't even use the iTMS and I STILL love my iPod.
Unless they can work miracles, allowing for multiple online vendors is gonna mean more complicated work for the user, and more than likely a lot of confused users calling Creative, or the online music store's support line for help.
The reason that the iPod has sold so well to the non-Apple-lover masses is actually quite simple.
1) The device is simple.
No manuals. NO NEED! Scroll. Click. Play!
Connect. Sync. Done!
2) It's tiny, but the UI is what counts.
It's tiny and good looking, but that alone is not the main point, just an added bonus. The UI (and when I say UI I loosely mean it to include the screen and click wheel too) is not only easy to use, but seems to fit perfectly with the anatomy of the hand. This is not so much a selling point for first time purchasers, but it's a BIG point for returning customers. (Like myself, who purchased an 4G iPod last week now that my 1G iPod is wearing down a bit.)
3) Even geeks like simplicity.
Am I repeating myself? Oh lord, I am! But seriously, simplicity is the key. Learning how to do the ogg thing is fun and all, and hacking together your own music synchronizer software is an added excercise that certainly is fun, but when it comes to simply having music on the go, even geeks appreciate plug-n-go kind of simplicity.
So, the last 3 points all boil down to simplicity and "just works", and Creative needs to figure this out. It's not just the pretty design, or the flashy Apple brand name, or even the music store.
I'm not a graphics designer, an industrial designer, or a UI designer, but as a user I know dead on that Creative doesn't "get" it. Probably their engineers "get" it (they probably use iPods themselves!
C'mon, I want to see a product that makes me want to trash my iPod and buy the new thing!
Guy Kawasaki once wrote (as an "Evangelist") something along the lines of "I want something SO GOOD that it'll make me want to trash my Mac and never look back." That was constructive criticism aimed at Apple at the time, and perhaps they've finally come close to that with the new MacOS X (and awesome hardware), but so far it's just that. Apple competing with itself, constantly. Mac's are/were a niche market, but they do damn good in their market. iPods are no longer the niche market, but holy cow, main stream marketshare dominators!
The major question will be whether Creative's UI is as elegant, simple and useful as the iPod's clickwheel. If they can -- or if they can just mimic the clickwheel -- I think they'll be able to do it.
It's about simplicity.
With regards to the iPod shuffle - yes there are other Flash mp3 players. But for consumers like my mother, who has issues navigating the file system, she doesn't have to (a) rip a cd and then (b) find where her ripped mp3's are to (c) copy them across to her flash player.
With an iPod, she simply sticks in her device to charge, and music syncs between the iPod and iTunes automatically. If she wants to burn a CD she sticks one into the computer and presses a single button: import. She doesn't need to know anything about which codec to burn a cd with (mp3/aac/wmv), or where on the filesystem they end up, or dragging an dropping. It happens for her automatically.
Simplicity and doing what it does do well - is where the iPod shines. If companies want to eat at the iPod market share, it's not about bombarding the customer with a shitload of features. Instead, make a music player, make it easy to import music (this includes minimising any DRM), and make the device SIMPLE to use. I want to be able to explain how it works to my mum in 60 seconds, and to have her "get it". If you can do that, then you've got a product which has a chance.
Software developers and marketers, learn from Apple. Simplicity is king. Don't cause the customer headaches, and they will come back for more.
Man watching 6 MSCE's around a sun box, looks alot like the opening scene's of 2001:space odyssey...
"But other than that, Creatives products look very much like the iPod with a few changes."
But other than their slanted eyes, those people look very much like any caucasian with a few changes. Wow, what an insightful comment!
Let us not compare Apples to Oranges.
:-)
Sorry, couldn't resist
HERETICS!!! Someone is trying to compete with our beloved holy Apple!!!!! Here at slashdot, let's all condemn them to death and tie them to a stake and burn them!!!! Oh, wait, judging by all the comments, it looks like we're already doing this.
People buy apple products for different reasons than price.
I read several opinion articles about how the ipod mini did'nt compare to some other offerings if you looked at how much storage it had, how many different formats it supported and so on.
People buy apple products for two primary reasons.
1. Ease of use
2. Style
You want to know why the Ipod, Ipod Mini are successful and probably the Mac Mini as well? Because they are COOL.
Price concious consumers do NOT factor that in when deciding what to purchase.
My MOTHER wants to buy a Mac Mini because of what it looks like on the OUTSIDE. That tells me all I need to know about why Apple is able to succeed.
If Creative want to take market share from Apple then they need to increase reliability. I got my wife a Zen Touch for christmas, and it went back to the shop just two weeks later because it kept locking up.
I did everything Creative recommended, the built in scan-disk, formatting the disk, upgrading the firmware but in the end it was still locking up nearly every time the thing was turned on! A quick google search turned up posts on the creative forum that showed that I am not alone in this problem. Even reviews of the player mention that it froze up, but most just gloss over it.
It is a shame that the player had these problems because my first impression of the Zen Touch was a quality player. It's made from metal, not plastic, has a good screen, fantastic battery life. Altogether better construction and design than the iPod and cheaper too.
I'm giving them a chance to replace the player when they have stock but I'm not impressed by these problems and my next purchase probably won't be a Creative product.
A latent existence
While there are just as many, or more, geeks buying these things as ever, the real reason for Apple's success has been developing and marketing complex devices in a way that is not threatening or intimidating for Joe Schmoe. So as long as Creative makes players that look like a Klingon's wristband and Apple makes products that look like the finest polished ivory, I think I know who will have the greater market share.
Dan.
A bit off-topic, but yes: I met my girlfriend whilst working for Apple. We both did work there actually.
[ontopic again]And even a decade ago, when Apple was not considered 'a fashion company', they were already considered 'cool'.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
How about I buy another one of your products when you stop doing stupid things, like surface mounting headphone jacks that snap in months, and not letting users mount as a native USB storage device, not to mention releasing those poor excuse for drivers into the wild.
Between ignorance and plain stupidity, creative can stick it up their collective arses.
...they get it on TV.
"Advantages" and "features" and all the other stuff won't mean a thing unless they get it on TV where people can see it. People got iPod because it has the apple logo on it. That's it! The whole reason. Half the people I know who got one still haven't figured out how to use the thing! A good portion of the rest have since decided they don't like listening to music through ear-phones... they just got it because it looked nice.
We're geeks here... we like features, flexibility, things with technical merit. The rest of the people buy whatever they see on TV.
Competition is good - just look at what windows has done for the Mac OS. I'm a huge apple fan and I'm glad to hear that there are other companies out there willing to step up to the plate and try to knock apple down - it will just keep apple on its toes and we'll get to see awesome new stuff from them at the next macworld. Lack of competition = no motive to innovate
Kiteboarding Gear Mention slashdot and get 10% off!
SO wrong! Apple = GREAT usability => We buy ipod. Creative = Too much buttons on the player, almost requires two hands to use (while you can control whole ipod with your thumb, EASILY) => We won't buy Creative.
I like Creative and all, but taking market share from Apple is going to take quite some doing
On the plus side, it's nice to see no mention of the previously ubiquitous "iPod killer" nonesense.
Mr. Sim Wong Hoo, it is a pleasure to write to you.
To familiarize the readers, Creative has a long running bout with the reigning king, the Apple iPod. In fact, just last November, you, Mr. Sim, "declared war" on the iPod. . And Today, you had even more fighting words for the newest addition to the iPod platform, the iPod Shuffle:
I am not here to discuss your comment about the Chinese, nor am I here to bash you personally or your company. I am not even here to talk technical specs, because frankly the lack of a male USB port on your Micro Slim is currently the least of your worries right now.
You are undoubtedly a smart guy, being where you are now. You have sold over 2 million MP3 players last Christmas season, no mean feat at all (vs 4M iPod). There is no doubt that your company Creative is a successful one.
But let me ask you this: You have declared War, but Do you want to WIN this war? Absolutely demolish all that is iPod and steal all the glory? Well then read on because as it stands, this is a War you will live or die for. If you want to live, please consider my Two Cents:
1) Tip #1: Think like the underdog. If you want to be a market maker, you need to grow up and act like one. We all learned about "Perfect Competition" in school, how it meant that there was no excess profit and that the only way to get out of that bind was to differentiate yourself. Right now, iPod is winning because it is differentiable from you (brand name, iTunes integration). How are you winning? What is your battle cry?
For the last two years, Creative has acted just like the "Chinese" me-toos (as you so put down in your latest comment) while Apple has been the market maker through and through. Here are some examples:
When the first generation Apple iPod was released, you still were selling the MP3 jukebox ($480) that could not fast-forward or rewind (true), that looked like a spaceship (definitely), and still took 20 seconds to transfer a song (USB1.0). Quickly, your team raced to build a better looking version, after the success of the big iPod.
The success of the iPod touch interface was also "borrowed" on your Zen-Touch line. And finally, after the Apple iPod Mini was announced, you surprisingly announced the new line of Zen Micro's in 10 colors.
See, I like supporting the "underdog." I like supporting the brightest and most inventive minds. I support Tivoli Audio, Sirius satellite radio, I support many of OS X's small developers' applications, I support the Treo 600, Brian Transeau's music and a million gazillion other small companies out there with insanely great ideas. These are premium but differentiable products that people are willing to spend extra money on.
Make something special, Be somebody special. We want that for your kids right? So incorporate that into your technological children, the Muvo's and the Zen's. Because Nobody honestly lusts to buy a me-too product.
2) Tip #2: Make us shit in o
I just ordered myself 2 of these babies. Self charging USB2, driverless, 5GB, ultrathin and very sexy.
i tem_main_Rio.asp?model=267/
http://www.digitalnetworksna.com/shop/_templates/
"as iPod is limited to iTunes when it comes to purchasing music online and with Creative's products, you will be able to purchase music from major online vendors. ". I purchase all my music from www.allofmp3.com and have no problem with iTunes. Just give up and stop writing crap about it....
i think creative is in for a big fucking dose of reality. the ipod did not get where it was due to price, and no other product will touch it USING price. the ipod succeeded because it became an icon, and it is perpetuated now due to that. you're not going to compete against something like this by just offering a cheaper alternative. the only way to win this game now is to offer something cooler, or to offer something with bigger mindshare.
when i saw steve job's view of the "ipod marketshare" in the MWSF keynote from "before ipod mini" and "after ipod mini" one thing came to mind: everyone in the flash market better get ready to pack up their bags and leave, because apple's taking over in a big way. i don't think anyone else stands a chance anymore because no one can compete with apple's marketing by mindshare or cool-factor.
- tristan
Since 99% of all the music in people's mp3 collections is either ripped from CD or downloaded off the net, who cares which store it's connected to? Online music stores are nifty and all, but I seriously doubt that they are driving hardware sales.
READY.
#
If Creative really want market dominance they have to give the people what they really want (but may not know yet). Easy mobile song sharing.
Equip the players with Bluetooth and or Infrared so that I can easily copy songs from my mate if I want to.
Make it possible for users to P2P & browse from one device to another while on a train without even knowing each other. Great way to socialize too!
"Hey is that you with the new Britney Spears album? Is it any good? Mind if I copy it? Wanna have a drink together?"
Yes, this will make the media providers very unhappy, but the buyers will love it.
That's the route to market share!
After the 4th generation it still can't play tracks gaplessly (the player inserts gaps between tracks, very "good" for live/concept albums) and has a crap, clipping equalizer. But in the case of a fashion item it doesen't matter too much.
A haze from crack smoking has unexplainably engulfed Creative's HQ during the statement.
People buy apple for its style and ease of use.
Just thought I should point that out because it's a new and exciting fact that no one has ever mentioned before.
"the design seemed to stick in 2002/3"
There's an obvious reason why the basic iPod design hasn't changed: it works, and works well. The same reason sharks have remained basically unchanged for 400 million years.
Apple is the established competitor in this market. It's nice to want to beat Apple (as a secret wish), but Creative needs to focus on making a better player. From the start, this means making it painless to use Creative's product instead of Apple's. Creative needs full compatibility -- plug-in accessories for iPod should work with Creative, and CERTAINLY the iTunes AAC format should work. On the former, remember that cars are now shipping with controls and ports for iPods. Creative needs to be able to plug in to anything an iPod can.
Everyone here talks about the music format (AAC, MP3, Ogg, WMA, etc.), but most people just don't care. Apple does not sell the iPod as an "AAC Player", yet Creative sells an "MP3 Player". These are music players. Quit selling a format. Sell a player.
Creative needs to make a product that gets the stellar reviews of the iPod. When I was considering alternative players to my iPod, including Creative, I was amazed that Creative's players had a significant number of complaints among all the reviewers at places like Amazon. No one wants a player that sounds iffy. If I buy an iPod, I know it'll work.
Two final points: Where's FireWire? USB 2.0 High-speed is supposed to be as fast, but many say it just isn't. Also, will Creative offer incentives on their product? Apple's "Jam and Cram" rebate this past fall meant many people picked up 20 GB iPods for $69 (after $200 rebate, received when buying an iPod with a laptop).
Creative, just focus on what your player does, caring about Apple only as much as you make your product easy to interoperate anywhere an iPod does.
I purchased the original Nomad Jukebox and it ended up being a pretty big letdown. The software was essentially non-functional (prompting a shareware app called NotMad that would *actually* transfer music onto your player), the battery stopped holding a charge after about six months and then the power-supply burned through the case. Granted, this was a first-generation product but I'm not convinced that Creative cares any more about quality-control now than they did then. I spoke with one of my friends about it and he told me that back in the early 90s he came to the conclusion that Creative makes horrible products and hasn't looked back since. I strongly advise everyone to avoid Creative products. If you don't want to pay up for an iPod then at least go for something, anything that doesn't have a Creative logo on it.
Less talk and more action. When companies TALK about doing something, but actually don't seem to actually be DOING a lot of anything, people lose interest.
Creative have been at this for long enough, and I don't see why they don't just channel all this hype up into a bloody good product rather than releasing products which try and keep up with what Apple are doing. Nothing of theirs that I have seen so far has been particularly innovative - just one big game of catchup.
Make the killer product ffs and then wow us with it..
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
Apple is superior to Creative in more than just usability and design - Creative has no qualms about rushing poorly tested products to market.
I bought a spiffy new flash 128 Mb Creative Muvo that had clearly been rushed to market. When it locked up about three months later, I learned it had not one but TWO crippling bugs.
1. Unplugging the Muvo's USB connection without doing the "Safely Remove Hardware" thing in Windows can make the Muvo permanently lock up (can't be turned on). I didn't do that (but lots of people do).
2. Attempting to fill the Muvo's flash to capacity can make it permanently lock up. I did that, as does everybody.
Creative's warranty is 90 days and I couldn't get my $220 + tax. I keep my worthless Muvo as a reminder - they won't fool me again.
If you must buy a Creative product, do some research and beware of buying something that's only been on the market for a few months.
Like most foools, I like to part with my money, but I'm not foolish enough to plop down $300+ for something marketed as portable, contains moving parts, but only has a 90 day warranty.
From creative's site, for the Jukebox Zen Xtra (30 and 60g)-the other Zens seem to have similar warrantie.:
a) The limited warranty for the Product extends for three (3) months from the date of your purchase ("Warranty Period"). The warranty period will be extended by each whole day that the Product is out of Your possession for repair under this warranty.
b) Creative will pay for the labor charges incurred by Creative in repairing or replacing the defective parts during three (3) months from the date of your purchase.
c) You will not have to pay for any such replacement parts.
d) Creative also warrants that the repaired or replaced parts will be free from defects in material and workmanship for a period of NINETY (90) days from the date of repair or replacement, or for the remainder of the Warranty Period, whichever is greater.
Was I the only one who read "Creative" as an adjective and "Gunning" as a gerund, implying that the iPod was being converted into some sort of imaginitive weapon which might be carried by ESR?
Ecce potestas casei!
Apple is not a computer company, it's a fashion company.
Oh come on, while Apple has inevitably tapped into the fashion side of things (a first for the computer industry, really), you can't seriously say they're a Fashion Company!
Some people think Apple is a hardware company, others think it's a software company, but I think in reality people think this way because they can't wrap their minds around the possibility that a company could be BOTH at the same time, and synergetically support each other. They can sell cheaper hardware because they own the OS and can sell it dirt cheap without worrying about anti-monopoly issues related to dumping the OS wholesale to certain manufacturers and not others. (Reality checks show that the majority of people buy a computer with pre-installed OS, so none of this "I can build cheaper" nonsense when we speak of economics and marketing, please.) Think about it. The Mac mini comes with MacOS X, iLife '05 and a few others. And how much does it cost again?
At the same time, having tight control over the hardware means they can make a very tightly integrated OS and software that "just works", since they don't need to be concerned with half a million kinds of chip sets and configurations that may or may not work properly, and may or may not be fully compliant with the PCxxxxx standard of the day. I think this is sort of obvious now that Apple has pretty much given the bird to Adobe, Microsoft, Avid and many others by choosing direct competition where they traditionally preferred to supplement each other. Eventually, this may lead to the downfall of Apple, or create the next mega-monopoly (unlikely), but until then it appears they're doing very well. Ever read the profit reports on APPL?
I also dislike the fact that iTunes is such a part of the iPod. You can't put music onto the iPod without using iTunes (well, not unless you either don't want it playable or figure out the iPod's bizarre internal directory structure). I want my player to appear as a hard disk damn it! Having the player appear has a hard disk keeps the geeks happy, and allows dumbed down apps for normal users too. It also turns the player into a portable hard disk as well.
I think 2005 will be a big year for MP3 players. Iriver has got an impressive line of MP3 players with features such as a USB host function (as supported by the H300 series - connect a digital camera or external hard disk to your player!), optical audio out, ability to view text files (great for lyrics, notes, whatever... - maybe even artist information from the MusicMoz project), FM tuner, realtime MP3 encoding, support for standard M3U playlists, better battery and so on.
An iPod might be fine for the person with a bog standard music collection who doesn't mind the lock-in of an all-Apple solution. It's not fine, however, for someone like me who has written his own software to handle his music collection with web-based search, lyrics integration and so on. I've seen the value that can come from a non-locked in solution.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not really anti-Apple. They brought these kind of players to the mass market, but their technology is now lagging behind. Let the battle commence!
Apple is positioning itself to take advantage of the (shockingly lousy) flash-based Music Player marketplace. Apple's move gives opportunity to Creative.
There are two groups of music player vendors: Apple, and Everyone Else. Although Creative designs some very good products, they are part of that Everyone Else group. Creative has the very difficult task of differentiating their products from the hundreds of other competitors to John Q. Public.
The iPod Shuffle will certainly clear out weaker competitors by competing directly against all of the products in the "Everyone Else" group. This effect on the Flash marketplace will hold even if Apple doesn't top the flash-based market.
With the resulting shake-up of the overall MP marketplace, Creative will have a great opportunity (and perhaps their only opportunity) to build brand recognition. Creative will have to compete directly against Apple, instead of competeing mostly against the no-names like M-link and SuperMP.
To take on Apple, Creative will need to beat Apple in all areas at once: smaller packages, lower cost, more features, significantly more capacity, top-notch customer support, excellent software, and excellent ease-of-use.
Dropping the ball in any one of these areas dooms Creative to a sublimating marketshare.
Creative can do it - they make very good products - but they'll have to jump in with both feet and take some serious risks before someone else makes it into the pool.
---
Now back to my regular market analysis job.
Re:To Mr. Sim- I don't want to shit my pants so easily!
I value my conrol over my body, but that post is the most valuable post i have read on Slashdot in over two weeks.
You are a great essayist.
Too bad you are only a +1 mod still, as i write this, and i myself do not believe in mod points so i read ALL posts, including gems like yours.
That is why i read all posts, and that is why I do not believe in silly mod point system.
I really used to like Creative. Then they started doing the same stupid thing that turned me off of Real and countless other companies: They try to force and lock you into using THEIR products. In a world where it is perfectly possible to just plug in an mp3 player and have it show up as an extra drive, Creative decides you need to install their "driver", which by the way also installs YET ANOTHER MEDIA CENTER, for a turn-key totally scalable enterprise media experience solution. This media center takes over all file associations, unless you find the hidden checkbox to opt out of that "feature". It's a horrible application, that completely fails to fit in with the normal Windows look and feel.
</rant>
He who laughs last, thinks slowest.
Seriously - the iPod is an OK device, but it is not *that* much better than your average MP3 player. Not better enought o justify the sales. The iPods aren't flying off the shelves because they are pretty or because they are easy to use. There are thousands of products that meet this criteria that fail every year.
/.ers gave more credit to marketing. Sure, you may hate them, but in the majority of cases (there are exceptions - Google, eBay), it is marketing, and marketing alone that makes a product succeed or fail.
They are flying off the shelves because of the nifty commercials with shadows dancing to Jet. They are flying off the shelves because U2 says to buy one. They are flying off the shelves because ther are in every second music video on MTV. They are flying off the shelves because they are featured in many major motion pictures. They are lfying off the shelves because teeny bop star X had one at the AMAs.
As usual - Apple's marketing as ruled the day. Unless creative can duplicate this marketing magic (I doubt it), they will fail.
I wish
Thanks, that's exactly what I was thinking myself. Who the fuck moderated this down? At least it's a new viewpoint compared to the usual talk about style and user-friendliness.
Don't mod things down if you don't agree, discuss them...
The advantage of the P2P thing (from Creative's POV) is that some of their main competitors (Sony, Apple) won't be able to follow their move because they're in the media business themselves.
(yeah I know, some of you'll probably think I'm the AC too.)
...bought myself an 40 giga ipod... conclusion... be sure you're ID3 tags are okay or you won't find shit on your ipod...
Its not Creative that's wrong, but the Dumbass that wrote the article!
Question 1: Who the FUCK is "Cool Tech Zone?"
People are treating this as if this lone article, telling people what they think they know ANYWAY (who DOESN'T want to increase market share in consumer electronics?), as if it was a press release by Creative. Not everything on this Intarweb thing you read is true. Dumbfucks.
Question 2: Who the FUCK wrote the article? To Gundeep Hora, the author: Don't pretend to be a journalist.
Its as if the entire article is one huge troll. I swear you're going to give me a heart attack first-thing Monday morning... In fact I'm going to guess that the poster is actually just trying to drive traffic to the above site.
Given that HP could jump to number 2 almost overnight by simply releasing a branded version of the iPod, Creative have a tough battle on their hands.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
I'll take my iRiver h340 every single day. I've owned two different Creative DAPs (and multiple aftermarket accessories for my computer [DVD, webcam, etc]) and the thing that put them out of the race for the 3rd DAP was the simple fact that their post-purchase support tends to be "we don't support that; buy our new version", particularly when new operating systems come out (the DVD player I have, hardware based, hasn't had a supported release since Dec 2001). Apple doesn't get my slice of the pie because I did my research based on price and functionality and most importantly versatility. Now, I know people are going to say "How versitile does a DAP have to be?" and I answer with the more the better.
:)
My iRiver H340 functions as well as a DAP as it does a portable 40gb hard drive. The directory structure allows me to find everything I want, quickly (YMMV as I am rather picky about how I sort artist/album), has the built-in FM tuner, has photo display, has recording capabilities, and after a down-and-dirty firmware flash (which was a mere 100k or so download), I can play videos (sure, they are 220x176 and only 10fps, but perfect for animation) and if I so desire I can skin the silly thing as well. In fact, I've already changed my bootup screen to be a picture of me ala South Park (I figured it would make it easier to catch a theif, god forbid someone steal my H340). There are battery replacements availible for this unit for around $20, and speaking of battery life - I get around 16 hours (although some users on the misticriver.net group have reported battery life of around 18 hours). To top it all off, the whole thing is drag and drop. No Creative PlayCenter, no iTunes, no proprietary software crap to mess with. It's a freakin' hard drive.
Did I mention it plays OGG?
The only comparable Apple product is the 40gb iPod Photo, and it costs $100 more and does way less (resize your photos? pah!).
I think people should be a little more picky for $400 instead of going for the fashion statement. Do the research and save some bucks.
Why do I M2 everything negatively?
Anybody else think for a second that someone was adding a small machine gun to their ipod? ;-)
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/corporatene ws/view/127025/1/.html
"Actually, to me it's a big let-down: we're expecting a good fight but they're coming out with something that's five generations older," Wong Hoo said. "It's our first generation MuVo One product feature, without display, just have a (shuffle feature). We had that--that's a four-year-old product."
"So I think the whole industry will just laugh at it, because the flash people--it's worse than the cheapest Chinese player," he added. "Even the cheap, cheap Chinese brand today has display and has FM. They don't have this kind of thing, and they expect to come out with a fight; I think it's a non-starter to begin with."
Acer Aspire 1520 ?
It's a brick.
HP Pavilion zv5000z
okee.
Is a very ugly brick.
80% of taste is determined by smell.
Guess you have a serious cold.
-- forget
With possible patent abuse, and substandard sound cards, no thanks.
I'm reading this thread and, as with any other "iPod Killer" threads, I'm amazed at the zealotry that iPod fans exhibit.
2 3&tid=137
The main draw of the iPod seems to be its "style".
So...I propose to the iPod challengers that they team up with fashion designers to make designer audio players.
How silly will you look with your geeky iPod when I'm strutting around with my "Hugo Boss" or "Tommy Hilfiger" logo emblazened portable audio device. Your girlfriend is going to be pretty jelous when she compares her bland iPod with my girlfriend's "Cartier" or "Prada" designed audio device.
A previous article that supports my idea: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/23/17262
Creative *used* to create clunky unusable ipod clones. Their more recent offerings, like the Zen Micro, not only match iPods in usability and design, but offer more capabilities (Zen Micro has 5Gigs of space, plus an AM/FM radio), all for a lower price. Apple makes fantastic, stylish products, but the days where they were a market onto themselves are coming to a close, and Apple will finally be forced to competitively price their hardware, versus deciding they want a huge profit margin and that people will pay anything.
/Love my 20Gig IPOD
//Got it as a present, but wouldn't have paid full for it
///Really love my 300Gb Tivo
I can't think of any case offhand where "Me-too only with more" has been a successful marketing strategy. This is lazy marketing...
Of course, if you ask existing customers who like and use a product X what they ''want,'' those customers, just having faced a difficult struggle choosing from different price points in a product line will say something like "I'd like to get the features of the top model at the price of the entry model." Or if they're more ambitious, "I'd like twice the storage, half the size, and half the price." (About the only thing you won't hear from iPod owners is "And I'd like it to play the music twice as fast!).
What the strategy never takes into account is that in the time it takes to bring the me-too-but-more product to market, the manufacturer of the product they're gunning for will probably improve their product.
As for "choice," most computer users I know never change the home page of their browser from the one that's set by the manufacturer. Consumers will happily buy into the all-Apple iPod ecosystem and won't care unless it becomes obvious that the PC download music stores have dropped prices to, say, $0.25 per song, or have a grotesquely larger selection.
It may be a shame, but all the issues about lock-in, DRM, etc. don't matter to consumers until they personally get bitten, and so far Apple has taken great care not to bite consumers much.
It also helps that Apple's stuff works. The number of articles I've read about "iPod killers" by PC-centric sources that acknowledge up front that whatever they're testing wouldn't install, or froze, or had DRM authorization problems is astonishing.
A friend of mine who is just an average PC-centric engineer bought an iPod for his wife. Because it was reputedly a good product and easy to use. His wife, who is mildly computer-phobic, had no problems with it. It just worked. A few weeks later he bought one for himself. He likes it.
Another friend who bought some fairly pricey high-end gadget from Creative, I think, reminds me of all the personal computer enthusiasts of the late 1970s. It constantly presents him with challenges, which he enjoys surmounting. He is a chorus director who brings his player and powered speakers to rehearsals to play us things. It never works, and there is always some good reason why he can't play that particular thing that particular day.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Its like getting Windows users to switch.
I cant see it happening.
Sorry creative but the boat has sailed and both you and sony missed it.
Actually they mean: "from Microsoft". Even when buying songs from a non-MS company in WMA DRM format, you are actually supporting MS, as you'll use Windows Media Player ánd you are limiting yourself to playing your bought songs only on that number of hardware devices that MS/the music industry does allow.
Going from Apple AAC DRM to MS WMA DRM is like going from one evil to another one.
Look, the majority of people you show your new Creative or Rio player to are going to think "Oh, they bought a knock-off iPod." Sorry, that's how it works. The iPod is the cultural icon for a cool music player. Any competition must stem from attacking that position, not by technological superiority or price slashing. People don't care about technology like most of you reading this do. If it works well, it works well enough.
If the vendors choose to use a non-MP3 format then ya I agree iPod can't play their music. But who wants MediaPlayer only type files which seems to be a larger file than even MP3.
I'm tired of hearing all these - we'll beat iPod because we'll support M$ files and they wont. Question I have will it play me MP3's like my iPod does or will it be another Sony only using Sony's format.
My iPod still supports the formats that I want and iTunes Music Store still is the best at buying my music but not because it's from Apple - not because of their lossless format but because I just like how easy it is to get my music and I don't have to leave iTunes to do it.
Save Pangaea!! Stop Continental Drift!!
ihp-140 owner - best mp3 player in the world. Personally I see this as a total pro, so what if britney spears is denied my money... sucks to be her... onwards to p2p! besides there are legit music stores that sell mp3 and ogg format you know ;D
There is gobs of room in the portable MP3 player market that iPod isn't exploiting. Targeting iPod's market share simply means you'll be going after a limited market and needlessly competing for it. Meanwhile, there are people who still yearn for an easy to use music player with quality sound, long battery life, and that can play multiple formats. I've seen very few portable players that can do this at a reasonable price.
Very un-Creative!!! Why can't they take their efforts and make something new and exciting? This MP3 player free ride has to be near its end anyway. What will the new must have gadget be?
If Creative (and other wanna-be's) really want to take market share from the iPod, they need to bite the bullet. Cut your prices in half! If you can't afford to do that, be content being a marginal player and stop making empty boasts that get you nothing but make you loose credibility.
I paid the going retail price for a Windows screen reader and got a free Unix computer!
the point is, rather, that usability isn't really going to be a department where ANYONE can compete with apple in for a while. As a long time windows user, and a "1-year old" linux user, the interface on ALL apple products I've come across was quite notoriously different to anything else I'd seen, but much, MUCH easier to use. Very intuitive. The iPod is yet another manifestation of this syndrome. How I wish macs weren't so bloody expensive...
If Creative's products weren't CRAP, then yeah, maybe their plan would have some feasibility to it. Its no so much the hardware that's garbage, but the drivers and software. I can recall several instances where I had to rely on Windows' internal support for their devices and when they wouldn't work, I threw them out after a severe thrashing. Creative would be a great company if they'd just get their shit together.
-- Game Developers: Stop porting badly-textured games from crappy console systems!
Sweeping generalization from the cluetrain-R-us department -- invert most big company slogans or names to get the truth. Hmmm... "Creative Labs"... "Copy-cat Fabs" maybe?
Almost all of my MP3 music is either ripped from my own personal CD's or from CD's belonging to my friends -- real-life, face-to-face friends. According to most standards, that falls under "fair use".
I do have other MP3 files, but those were released by the author. At least, I trust that sites like Salon.com actually have the rights to distrubute the music they publish online. There's so much music being distributed free by the musicians as samples that I suspect that that is what the recording industry is afraid of: the short-circuiting of their promo campaigns.
I honestly don't know anybody in my circle of acquaintances who "pirates" music. Most of the "pirated" music falls under format-shifting and fair-use copying not unlike the old days of making tapes of friends' records.
How big are they? Carrying around a standard HD with a control interface, a screen, a couple of ports and an audio jack doesn't sound like anything for Apple to worry about...
... this community normally berates or degrades companies that keep their products closed or proprietary, yet Apple, whose history in this matter makes Microsoft look like Santa Claus, gets a pass? Apple has a history of generating revenue by selling overpriced hardware to stupid marks who don't know any better, and the iPod is no different.
Isn't every company's goal to take as much market share as they can?
Was Creative's plan to lose market share to Apple last year? If so, they need better management.
I don't know if anyone checked the player market last week, but up here in The Great White North (tm), this is the first time Apple has a product that is not only competitive, but cheaper by a magnitude than the competition. For the price of a 512MB iPod shuffle, the competitition only has 128MB or 256MB (if they are lucky) players. And for what Apple asks for the 1GB version, the competition is selling only 512MB players!
Maybe it is different in Canada than in the USA or elsewhere, but methinks Apple will dominate the over 99CAD market, leaving the sub-100CAD to the bottom-feeder crapola players (or replace CAD with USD, same principle). Creative, RCA, Rio, etc. just don't compete. Well, *right now*.
Of course, these new iPods are not visible right now by the unwashed masses that go to Future Shop and other big stores like that, but once they are out there on the shelves, my *opinion* is that anyone who does not buy an iPod is either nuts or a rabid anti-Apple MicroSerf/Bill Gates groupie.
Because it screams "I am unoriginal!" "I jump on bandwagons" "I am a lemming!"
Isn't that one of the reasons why people are replacing their iPod earbuds?
And quite frankly, who cares if creative is just copying apple? I mean really!
There's soemthing for everyone. If you want to be a Steve Jobs worshipper, go buy the iPods. If you don't and want to save a little money and forego the nice looking iPods with nice usable designs, go buy something else.
I think the posts for this article is really why people don't like Apple zealots/bigots.
(I know this post is inflammatory, but that's how I truly feel - nothing against all the iPod buying/using people really, except when you tell people that somehow they are inferior because they don't share your tastes - imagine that - people actually disagree with you. Enough already - it's just a friggin portable music player)
My one and only reason for buying a Creative ZenMicro over the iPod mini was that the iPod has no radio built in.
I mean c'mon! I like to listen to Stern or This American Life when I work out. Dloading those in RA format and trying to get them to work on the iPod is too much to ask a consumer.
No battles to the death are recalled. Mumpsman can hit to attack and cause brainsmashing.
I can imagine it now a bunch of crazed iPod owners going on a rampage shooting up wintel boxes.
After listening to Apple's Q1'05 Earnings call I have to say that I am concerned that the music stores besides iTunes will soon go the way of so many dot-coms. Here's two reasons:
- Apple stated in the call they have 70% market share in on-line downloads.
- Apple stated in the call they posted a small profit on the sale of now >230,000,000 songs (admittedly, these were not all in Q1'05).
If the $0.99/9.99 model is so razor thin that one company with 70% of the market is eaking by, how can six other companies who share the remaining 30% of the market hope to survive?
Napster seems to be in the lead (don't they have about 10% market share?) but it is primarily due to the subscription model they have, not selling tracks/albums. Sounds like an opportunity for Apple to swoop in and service the sub-market for subscribers to me.
But back on subject, the Creative statement that they have some type of advantage because their player submits to the DRM of half a dozen music stores that are loosing money just says to me that Creative is tightening their seatbelt on a sinking ship.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
While I agree that competition in the portable mp3 player market is a good thing, I think Creative's a non-starter.
They win on price, I'll give you that. If you run down the features list of a Nomad vs. an iPod, the Nomad looks good, has a slightly bigger disk, and is $100 cheaper. Sure, it might be the size of a paperback instead of the size of a pack of cigarettes, but good design isn't necessarily worth $100 to most people. As long as you can plug the thing into your computer and get down to the business of cataloging and playing back music, then it should be fine.
Here's Creative's first Achilles heel. Where iTunes is simple and intuitive, Creative's software is terrible. I say this to you as a fellow user of open source software, where function often takes precedence over form: Their software SUCKS. It is hands-down the one of the worst applications that I have ever used. Where iTunes gets out of the way, Creative's application stands in front of you like a bouncer, arms crossed, giving you that look that says you're not cool enough to come in here. Moving songs and files to and from your Nomad is an unbelievably tedious chore. Eventually, frustrated and tired, I tried to use Windows Media Player to transfer music to my device. That's how bad. Add to that the constant upsell involved in using a new Nomad. Many Nomads come with a lot of encrypted music already on disk, just waiting for you to enter your credit card number and unlock it. Removing these songs to get your disk space back is frustrating, and being asked to shell out more money after you've just spent hundreds is insulting.
Fortunately, (pimping time) Red Chair Software has come to the rescue in this regard. With their NotMad software, using the Nomad stops sucking. Further, they license per-player, not per-copy, so you can synch multiple PCs against your player on the same license, something Apple can't do.
This is how incredibly bad Creative's Nomad software is: There's a company doing brisk business selling aftermarket replacements for it. You don't see anyone even trying to do the same for iTunes.
Fortunately, NotMad is pretty cheap at $30. So now with your Nomad, you're only saving $70 over the iPod.
Still, that's $70 put to other uses, until the Nomad breaks (and it will). Anecdotal research, while certainly not definitive, seems to show a very high failure rate for Nomads. Certainly my room-mate's broke inside of a year (the headphone jack has become de-soldered from the board). Learn from his mistake, and make sure you buy the extended warranty. That's another $30, bringing your total cost savings down to $40.
So now your total savings for a Nomad are about $40 over a comparable iPod. For $40, you may as well just get the market leader. Until Creative can improve the reliability of their products, and write a good software package to go with their hardware, they're going to keep losing.
Frankly, that's fine by me.
Even Jesus hates listening to Creed.
Creative needs to take market share away from Apple. The iPod is a terrible product - bad battery life, few file formats supported, battery replacement costs $ridiculous, can't get music back from the iPod without hacked software... the list goes on.
Creative's Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra is simply awesome. I got one for Christmas a couple years back. 40GB storage capacity; 10 hour operating battery life; support for MP3, WMA, and Audible audio (in the latest firmware); cheap replacement parts; two-way data and music transfer...
Creative should be winning this competition solely on the basis that they can add support for new audio formats through a firmware upgrade. Apple, rather than released updated firmware, releases new versions of the iPod, thus totally pissing off anyone who had an older one, because they can't use the new functionality. See here for an example of the trouble this causes.
Creative acknowledges their customers. Apple snubs them.
I am scientifically inaccurate.
you could always just forget both and find a cheap terapin mine on ebay for about 100$ I've had mine for over a year now, and allthough its the ugliest thing youve ever seen, HUGE, and sucks rechargables in about 5 hours. its still a $100 mp3 player/hard drive with video out for images, a RJ-45 connection to setup a portable server or check your email, and a port for wireless connectivity if you so choose. But Damn its ugly..
That was just a wardrobe malfunction. The advert was filmed in a very cold room. Sheesh.
:)
I'd rather a pair of nipples than a joystick.
Since iTunes came out, I've started buying a lot more CDs. The ability to have the same music in multiple places adds value to the CD. Pretty much everything I have I've ripped myself. In general, I don't bother with online music. I'd much rather have the CD as a backup, or to re-rip at higher quality when I have more storage, and if I buy it used, it's usually as cheaper or cheaper than online. As for pirated mp3's, who want's to bother with a copy ripped at unknown quality? I might accept an mp3 of a group I don't know, but if I like them, I'll order the CD.
Creative is going to take market share away from Apple? That's pretty funny, because it sounds like Apple has decided to take a bunch of market share away from Creative (and everyone else) with the iPod Shuffle. Small, sleek, simple, and sensible, the Shuffle is the one flash-based player that's interesting to me; Apple will likely get my money.
If the iPod Shuffle is a hit, Apple will be taking at least a decent chunk of the flash-based market. Creative, then, will need not only to take a bite out of the iPod's and iPod mini's market share, but take a big enough bite to make up for its losses in the flash-based market.
It'll be an interesting battle.
Apple's competition can't seem to settle on a design. Their product lines vary in UI and appearance quite a bit.
That makes it hard to distinguish Creative's players from anyone else's, which IMHO hurts their effort to build brand recognition.
There's been some variation among Apple's iPods, but the designs hang together pretty well. Apple could have just thrown some randomly positioned buttons on the Shuffle, but they opted instead to configure the UI to at least resemble the click-wheels on the full-size iPods.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
Hmmm- there's a business model for Google- FroogleTunes ?
I'm sure it's not news here, but I do think that Creative has one thing in its corner that is driving its sales more than any other. They sell cheap microdrives. Last year I purchased a MuVO2 4Gig and ripped the drive out to use the Hard Drive in my digital camera. Before doing so, I let my girlfriend use the Muvo2 to see if she wanted me to put some memory back in it, so she could use it to work out with. After one session in the gym, she said she'd rather listen to nothing than have to use that (free to her) product. Pretty sad when somebody would rather run on the treadmill musicless than use your product. I should point out that she was used to using my iPod. Last week, after she saw the iPod Shuffle announced on TV, within 5 seconds she said she was going to buy one. I love Creative's marketing scheme though. They saved me at least 175.00 to 250.00 on that microdive I bought from them. So I threw away a bit more packaging, so what. The enviromentalist in me feels guilty about it, but maybe Creative should just put the Microdrive in the bubble pack and skip the music player. Go Creative.
umm... at the price ranges of the market.. people who have MP3 players have them... the market is growing slowly.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
She's had it for about 3 weeks now and loves it. Since she usually goes for the pricey stuff I thought we'd be going back for the iPod but she likes this one well enough to want to keep it. I think the added cost of the iPod was a factor. When one item costs twice as much as another, and doesn't offer twice as much, why buy the more expensive item? We can get two Creatives, one for her and one for me, for the cost of one iPod. I think iPod's are way overpriced, but even if they were on par, I haven't seen what makes them so special.
The Creative does everything my wife wants it to do... which is basically play music. Nothing more, nothing less. It shows the song info on the screen for each song and the random works fine. What else do you really need from an mp3 player? Sure I guess it might be nice if it could grill me a steak but it was purchased to do only one thing, and to do that one thing well. It does that. What else could/should we be asking of it?
How is it that one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
The publication also have some information on the upcoming flash MP3 player standards that we will see this year.
Odd - why would they have information on the Shuffle models in a Creative report?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
weenies suck....
how about 30 bucks?
that is what it costs for an iPod battery replacement you retard.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
One thing I have yet to see from the MP3 player market is the idea of-coopting the accessories developed around the iPod.
One thing that certainly does not hurth the sales of the iPod is the vast (and growing) accessory market that makes things like waterproof cases, jackets, armbands, etc. for the iPod. I'm not sure why companies have not thought to release players with an identical form-factor that could make use of these devices - a really advanced goal would be dock compatibiilty so you could use the current iPod remote and things like the tape adaptor that controls the iPod through the tape deck controls!
Perhaps the risk of lawsuit is too great, but I figured someone would try.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I bet your wife hates you now. No sex for you, you cheapskate!
If it ever comes down from $5K. And if it didn't tie up both your hands to use it so you can't do anything while moving. And if it had a decent range. And if it actually could maneuver as well as a person and cross the same terrain.
The problem with the Segway is the functionality as much as the price. It's basically a solution in search of a problem.
This device at any reasonable price would actually have to solve a problem people had. It could make it as a mere novelty, but the price would have to be very very low, like a razor scooter or something.
Ooh, there's another. It would have to be more portable. For those who ride mass transit to work, but need a device to move them to and from the train/bus station on each end, the Segway is far too large to be practical. Even a bike does better on how much space it takes up on a train, or especially bus.
The ipod works with lots of download sites. I have an ipod, I don't buy from itunes. I download a lot of legal tunes. I have used emusic, disclogic, mindawn, magnatune, digitalsoundboard.net, studiodownloads.net, livephish.com, primuslive, live metallica.com, and some others I am probably forgetting. If none of these places have the music I want, I just order the cd for usually less than $12 new or $8 used. (which usually winds up being cheaper than most of the download sites especially when you include buring and labelling cds) The "doesn't work with any major retailer" complaint seems to mean "doesn't work with windows media drm".
On the other hand market research seems to indicate that people do not want to own music, they simply want to rent it, by paying a subscription service and using the new windows media drm to allow subsription services to be used on portable players. If this is so, it will give M$ another monopoly and Apple will be screwed. I want to own all my music, the rest is radio. Rental is probably the music industry's dream scheme, they can sell you the same music over and over in perpetuity without having to come up with anything new.
Another take on this issue is that MP3 players have had the slowest and least market penetration (15% of households - Forbes) of any major consumer electronics product. So maybe this is not the wave of the future... maybe we don't know what's coming at all.
The ideal situation would be hundreds of these little sites popping up so that no one site has a huge selection, but you can get what you want somewhere with no drm. Lots of competition, good for everybody. Certainly successful bands could all make there own sites (Metallica, Phish, Primus) and screw the record companies now. Even some smaller bands are making a living with their own sites. This would also be the best situation for the ipod. Buy lossless music and then pick your own format, don't let someone pick it for you.
The iPod is not doing so well because of commercials (though of course they do not hurt). Advertising and ease of use built them a base, but is not responsible for the dramatic rise in sales they are seeing.
The reason why the iPod is really taking off is the network effect - the sheer value of having so many devices around. You have more people around that know how to use them, more people around that reccomend them, and so on - and lastly because there are so many players you have a HUGE accessory market that provides you with a lot of extension options. The more players you have, the more interesting accessories you get in a virtuous cycle.
People think iPods are just all about style which is why competitors keep failing. At this point though it's really hard to make headway against the strong tide Apple has got flowing.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Their MP3 units are buttttttttttt ugly.
This is somewhat off topic, but it relates to the USB2.0/Firewire debate. Just two days ago, I had to move about 300GB of files from an internal harddrive to an external drive. Initially, I attached the drive through USB2.0. Every time, about 15-20 minutes into the transfer, it would crap out (this was in XP). Windows would spawn errors and the little blue LED on the drive would fade out, Terminator-style. The people who needed this done had discovered a few weeks before that you could move files one by one, and it would work, but with 300GB of data, that would be unreasonable.
So I picked up the drive, unplugged the USB2.0 cable and plugged it via Firewire. First time through it worked like a champ. Couldn't tell you if it was faster or not, because the USB connection hadn't ever gotten far enough to be meaningful.
(Note: the USB problem occurred both on a 3-year-old install of XP and, on the same machine, on a squeaky new install on a new harddrive.)
What's the moral? Well, I dunno. Maybe my experience with an external harddrive doesn't translate exactly to the iPod. But, then again, the iPod is really just an external harddrive. Anyway, maybe USB2.0 is, in fact, faster, but for bulk data transfers, I'll stick with Firewire.
eMusic is mp3 only and works great with my ipod.
The competitors are trying to make this all about compatibility with online music outlets. That is irrelevant. Customers don't care. Until Apple's patent on the scroll wheel (now called the "click wheel" since they integrated the buttons) runs out, the competition is screwed.
There is no doubt that many people are buying iPods for it's aesthetic qualities, but it is the ease of use facilitated by the click/scroll wheel that makes people love it and recommend it to their friends.
I have tried dozens of other MP3 players and not one of them has a navigation and control mechanism that even comes close to the iPod. When you have hundreds or thousands of songs, the ability to easily navigate trumps every other design aspect. The fact that children and non-tech-savvy folks can learn to use the click wheel efficiently in just a few minutes is really hard to beat.
The competitors will tell potential customers it's about file formats, price, battery life, FM tuners, etc. and they can make their products in pretty pastels just like Apple. However, until they create a human interface that a thirteen year old girl can learn to navigate within a few minutes of opening the box, they are going to have a tough time stealing market share.
Are you joking? I just returned one...
1. The outmoded up-down wheel controller (doesn't rotate continuously like the Blackberry wheel, it just goes up OR down like the Kyocera/Qualcomm smartphone wheel, and clicking it often confuses the unit into thinking you want up/down. Tactile feedback on the click is non-existent.)
2. Slow UI response impairs usability.
3. USB does not charge
4. No single-click to get to now-playing screen.
5. Cannot copy files OFF of the unit (they are my files, I should move them as I wish. I do not need my equipment supplier trying to help me be compliant with a law that I am not breaking. It is my choice to comply with or break the law.)
6. Slow transfer speed on USB.
The next great audio player needs to have:
1. 802.11g or better wireless OR bluetooth
2. FM digital transmitter built-in (frequency selectable, power selectable)
3. USB charging
4. two-way transfer capability (screw the content companies' idiotic lobby, they need to back off and let the consumers choose. This is not about legalism, this is about our liberty as individuals to use these devices as TOOLS. We must choose to use them the correct way in terms of law, but it must be our choice. Forced law-abiding is not real law-abiding.)
-t-
iTunes and iPod won't last forever. It's a fad. The more Apple tries to lock down it's little kingdom, the more people will leave. Remove yourself from Jobs reality distortion field for a moment, and you'll see it more clearly.
I think you should change your handle to The Ostrich. Because you certainly seem to have your head in the sand.
itunes and iPod may last forever. but to label it a fad shows the same lack of vision that would-be competitors have.
I find it amusing that you talk of "locking down the kingdom". I fail to see how that is the case, they are slowly and cautiously expanding - first with the HP iPod (not much of an expansion) and now the Motorola phone deal (much more of a real expansion).
Then of course they have just released a player with a different UI and form factor, the Shuffle. This in itself is something of an expansion, a different product that levereages the same software and store as other products.
Apple is still expanding where it can, then when the market is as big as possible they can further license out the technology. But while they can maintain a 70%+ market share for online music sales, why should they let any other stores in on the action? As it stands the popularily serves to let them dictate the terms of the DRM and pricing the store uses, which is vital to the iPod's success. Remember that the music industry thought a little while ago that $1 a song was too small and they would rather raise it? If the Apple store had been much smaller that would have come to be, and online stores would all be charging $2 a song, and none would be making any money.
ITMS + iPod is not a fad, they are an example of a company actually serving customer demand when no-one else would and winning brand loyaly as a result. They are an example of a carefully constructed compaign of expansion with competitors that cannot seem to figure out how to do the same thing in time, and basically missing the boat.
Now the network effect is propelling the iPod forward and unless Apple does something really stupid (on the iPod photo the judge is still out, but I don't think it's enough of a misstep to count) they are going to gain sales for some time just by momentum alone.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Even beyond that, Creative has exactly zero reasons to be critical of Apple's design and marketing, since that's what they excel at. For starters, check out a recent NY Times article on what the iPod Mini offers, versus other iPod-killer wannabees. Here's what the article says on how Creative's Zen Micro player, Creative's mid-range product, compares to Apple's iPod Mini:
Pros (Mid-Range) Cons (Mid-Range)
The price is the same ($250), but even if the Zen Micro offers more in the way of features, the quality of those features is lacking. At the bottom end of the market, which is more price-sensitive in nature, you have Creative's Nomad MuVo line of products, the most inexpensive of which are:
So now along comes Apple's iPod Shuttle, which lacks some of the more salient features of the MuVo, but offers more space for less money per MB.
Pros (Low-End)
Cons (Low-End)
The only place I can see Creative possibly beating out Apple is at the top-end of the market, with their Zen Touch (20/40GB) and Zen Xtra (30/40/60GB) players. Despite being a bit larger and heavier than Apple's iPod, they offer a superior price-per-GB ratio. Then again, if Creative's problems with their mid-range products appear in their high-end products, that may not stop consumers from seriously considering the iPod, even though it's far more expensive per GB.
Personally, I'd rather buy a player that's well engineered (hardware + software), and built by a company that stands behind its products -- that company being Apple. Apple offers a fairly straightforward set of base models, with a growing lineup of 3rd-party accessories that serve to expand the appeal to their products. Creative, in many of these respects, doesn't meet these high standards.
Oh, and before you call me an Apple weenie: I don't like Macs, I don't own an iPod, and I own an old-ass Creative Nomad II mp3 player (whose flaws have been evident from the very start). In all likeliness, I'll probably snag either an iPod Mini or Shuttle at some point in the near future; I haven't decided whether giving up the LCD display and capacity is worth the cost savings.
1.Get a card from overseas, like china or india.
2. Buy all music you want using this card
3. When RIAA gets hold of the card details, they will find it was issued in china/india and forget about it.
4. PROFIT !!!
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
Does anyone think that the CEO of Apple's biggest competitor is going to gush about how great the iPod shuffle is? Of course he's going to cut it down and try to make it sound inferior to his own products.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
If it ever comes down from $5K. And if it didn't tie up both your hands to use it so you can't do anything while moving. And if it had a decent range. And if it actually could maneuver as well as a person and cross the same terrain.
On these points, I think you are mistaken - you can get a Segway for $4000 now, so they are coming down. You can work it with one hand pretty easily, I have shot pictures from it while moving and steering. And it id gnereally good enough at handling most terrain you would encounter in a city, it does not need perfect sidewalks or roads to function.
If it ever came down to about $2k I would buy one for commuting, and it would work really well.
Ooh, there's another. It would have to be more portable. For those who ride mass transit to work, but need a device to move them to and from the train/bus station on each end, the Segway is far too large to be practical. Even a bike does better on how much space it takes up on a train, or especially bus.
I kind of agree with you here, in terms of portability - it's rather heavy and I think would be a bit hard to put on a bus or in a trunk. They help out somewhat by having a mode where you can power it up and over things like curbs even when you are not on it.
However I do think that anyone that manages a bike with transit would be easily able to heft the iPod - but these are exactly the same kind of people that would probably resist doing so because they like biking and are willing to put up with the hassels. The Segway has the potential to increase bike-style commuters who like the concept but don't like getting sweaty going to and from work, or just lightly excersize and have too many hills between them and work.
A Segway just need to have enough range to get people to and from work with charge left to spare, and it think it does have that - for me it probably has twice the charge needed to perform this function.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
My iPod's battery died. Luckily, it was still under warranty, but I was less than impressed with the prospect of having to mail the player back to Apple for a damn battery. So when I got the iPod back, I sold it and bought a Zen. So far, I've been happy with it. It can hold the same amount of music as my iPod for less money, the music sounds the same, I don't use the iTunes store, so that's a non-issue for me, and I don't really like the touch pad anyway. I think the Creative is the better product, and can definitely compete with the iPod.
"Do I dare disturb the universe?"
so far I've shown it to my friends and they are most jealous as I paid the better part of $100 less for a 40 gig mp3 player then they paid for their Ipods.
I am not sure if you know, but jealousy does not sound like those snickering noises your friends make.
If what you need is a function, that is dumb.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
It's not like Creative hasn't been in the MP3 player business longer. Apple is actually the Johnny-come-lately compared to Creative, even in the hard drive based player market. Apple is simply the first to come up with a proprietary digital music player for folks who would rather spend money money than worry about whether they have the best sounding player. Don't get me wrong, the ipod is a fine piece of equipment, but it's designed to limit your choices in life, and for some, perhaps most, simpler is better. But, for those who demand more than that provided by the limited scope of the Ipod, let's be thankful there are choices.
Apple fanboys get annoyed so easily! The funny thing is how they start saying nonsense when the objct of their love is touched with the petal of legitimate criticism.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The iPod's success is all about the entire experience not just the player. That's why all these wannabes will fail--including Microsoft--because they think that being good at one part of the whole picture is good enough. It isn't. If it were, companies doing this stuff would have taken off long before the iPod and iTunes came along. Apple's real coup was recognizing that nobody offered a whole, integrated experience and and how much that would change things. Good for them. It's good to see a tech company realize that people, for the most part, don't give a rip about the technology, just whether the damn thing works like it should and if it's designed well.
One other thing to remember is that the iPod and iTunes branding is phenomenal. "Branding" is a hot buzzword amongst marketing folks right now, and believe me, the iPod/iTunes branding is a marketing person's wet dream. An Apple branded iPod player will wipe out the low-end player segment easily even if it's an inferior product.
However, if the product is quality (and I suspect it is) Apple will have loads of converts. Creative understands all this, thus the public noisemaking. They're trying to do pre-emptive damage control. I don't blame 'em, but as with Real, I think it's too little, too late.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
I don't think lack of a lock will be a problem with the shuffle, as by the looks of the thing the buttons will take more force to depress, and the suggested mode of use is the lanyard so the buttons would have nothing to press on really.
But even inside the pocket I don't think the buttons will get ht much.
That's all heresay of course until we all see the device in person, but it's just a feeling I have from seeing how the buttons are shaped.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"It's also possible to buy music from iTunes and load it on ANY music player. There are programs out there (Hymn) to remove the security from the iTunes music"
You obviously were born yesterday or came out of the cave you have been hiding for the last 10 years.
One single word: DMCA.
What you are advocating is illegal behaviour (we can discuss the morality of the laws, but as things stand what you are suggesting is a law suit waiting to happen).
If that is the flexibility Apple offers I thing we are using different dictionaries to define the same concept,
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
"Lame".
There, now your stunnning argument is complete.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Creative has a zillion brands for their MP3 players, seemingly combined at random.
Look at the product list here: http://www.nomadworld.com/products/
That's a product list only a crooked bookkeeper could love.
They can't seem to decide what they want to focus on.
Worse, their large number of product names hinders cross-promotion. Promotion of a "Creative Zen Micro" probably doesn't aid sales of a "MuVo Slim".
By contrast, promoting the iPod Shuffle promotes the iPod brand as a whole. If the iPod Shuffle isn't quite what a person wants, they're more likely to look at other items in the iPod line.
If a "MuVo Slim" isn't quite what a person wants, what's to lead them to, say, a "Creative Zen Touch"?
Further, the number of brands Creative uses probably makes their share of the MP3 market look lower than it really is.
I mean, good lord, they even have an "Interactive Decision Maker" to help you decide which model is right for you. Damn thing might as well say "Get an iPod."
Creative's situation is so bad, there isn't even a single name you can use which encompasses all their MP3 players. You can talk about "iPods", but with Creative, all you can refer to is "Creative's MP3 players", which doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. Yet you can't say "a Creative", because that sounds dumb, and Creative makes more than just MP3 players.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
One thing I've been wondering for a while is how average consumers feel if they've been buying from one locked format (like Napster) and then switch to an iPod.
Do they generally return the iPod because it does not work with their music? Do they get irked at the music company because it will not work with the iPod? I haev no feeling for this as I've not heard any stories yet about how people react when they discover the locks that have been placed around them.
I think that will be an interesting time, when the consumer at large realizes lockin is occuring from both sides and see how the masses react.
One reason I do like buying from the ITMS instead of other stores is that you can easily unlock the music with Hymn - I don't think there's anything like Hymn yet for protected WMV files.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
... in all EU countries, effective 7/7/99. IANAL, but I guess this directive had to be ratified by member countries, so the actual date may have varied. Italian government took three years to do so, YMMV. Not sure if directive applies if not ratified by your country.
The law is only valid for individual customers, not merchants. Apple, like many other manufacturers, only mentions the first year. Apparently (but again, IANAL), that's because the law actually addresses the party which sold you the item -- which may not be Apple. Apple offers to pay for the first year, the second is up to the actual vendor.
If you bought from a EU AppleStore, though, you should be able to get your assistance from Apple during the second year, too.
See here, esp. art. 5.
It isn't bad that people like beautiful products. Certainly, the iPod is much nicer looking than many of its competitors. But it's also very clean, and has a simple-to-use design.
This is why people call it beautiful. Sure, your iRiver or Zen Micro may look pretty cool, but the interface is trashy by comparison. Getting both the look and the interface just so is a real challenge for designers.
It's a sexy, techy device that my grandma can use (and she does).
Creative's software is neither feature comparable nor is it as easy to use. The players do not have sucha clean and intuitive interface (although it's close in the player). Let's use the Grandma test. My sister's boyfriend bought her a Creative player, and my father and I bought my grandmother an iPod.
My sister, although far more tech savvy, has yet to do many of the things my grandmother is doing. When my sister saw iTunes, she said, "Wow, this is really neat!" She has yet to rip all her CDs the way my grandmother has because, "It's such a hassle." Whereas my grandmother just sat down one afternoon and ripped about 110 cds while playing solitare. She also organized them and is in the process of rating them.
There's something to this story. iTunes is more feature rich, and people use those features. We all know MS Word has about umpteen billion features, but most are never used even in professional environments, because MS Word has poor design and crappy usability.
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
Well, all the comments here make it quite obvious that the iPod is the way to go IF you can afford it. All the rest of us will just have to do the best comparative analysis we can and settle for something inferior, such as the irock!. I bought my little irock! a loooooooong time ago, and I've never had a problem with it. Granted, it won't house my entire CD collection, but I could give everybody on my Christmas list one of those little players (and still have money left over) for the same money that I would have spent on a single iPod.
Pity we don't all have money to throw away on iPods.
Heard any good sigs lately?
Yeah... It could work. But, I think it depends on Apple's reaction. Apple could easily copy what Creative is trying to do differently, thereby wiping them out of the competition. Then, once Creative is out of the way, Apple could go back to their normal way of doing business. Despite what could happen, I like Creative and I hope they are able to stick around awhile.
My friend was bitching about the quality of his ipod on his $1000 sound system so I hooked up the Creative Nomad Zen Xtra. The sound was louder, with less loss of quality. The difference was frankly, amazing. And the Zen cost $100 less.
but iPod killers are so passé
People *still* talk about Duke Nuke'm Forever.
Ah, spoken like a true soon-to-be multiple divorcee or comfirmed bachelor. ;-)
Getting back on topic, Apple has already recouped their investment and then some on the iPod. Given that all Pods are made in China and there's plenty of margin to shave, I'm guessing that when the current fad passes and high capacity, solid state mp3 players are a commodity, Apple could still be a major player if branding still matters. Whether Apple elects to play is the only question.
Luke, help me take this mask off
Trust me, having owned other players until I finally got my new iPod this Christmas, I can guaran-damn-tee you that it's more than just looks that make the iPod a better player.
Apple doesn't, in my opinion, have any real technical superiority. What they do have is (as someone has already mentioned) is superiority in producing products that focus on these three basic elements:
These elements exude from their entire product line and will always set Apple's products apart from the competition.
That said, it is debateable whether Creative's software and players are as easy to use as the iPod. But you're right - competition is good. The last thing I want is Apple to get complacent.
Well *THAT* is why my Muvo is dead. Thanks for that, I had no idea why my Muvo died after about 3 months worth of use.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
You're right that marketing doesn't get enough credit, but I think that Apple's efforts are only a very small piece in the puzzle.
Viral marketing is doing much more here than Apple could ever do to promote their product.
I could not begin to count the number of times I've read/seen/heard a mainstream competitve review of the iPod vs <insert other player here> where the iPod won, hands down. Or heard people talking about or showing off their iPod. Or how many people have those damn "help me get a free iPod" banners on their personal sites.
And there's a reason for all this free advertising: the iPod is *that* much better than your average MP3 player.
This isn't a case where people were forced to adopt a mediocre product because it dominated the market or was bundled with one that did. This is an example of where a great product appeared and caught the mediocre product manufacturers completely off guard.
Just a heads up for Creative... most iPod owners don't & won't care what other stores your player supports. You know why? A large majority of iPod owners use a Mac! (big surprise) The "other" online music stores have no Mac version! This is the same as Real having the gall to accuse Apple of not giving iPod owners choice, when Rhapsody doesn't work on a Mac user's OS of choice.
To Quoteth: "To take on Apple, Creative will need to beat Apple in all areas at once: smaller packages, lower cost, more features, significantly more capacity..."
.ogg support, or lower cost, under the current market, Apple will continue to dominate. And "distinctive" is the key word there; right now everyone other than Apple is following in Apple's footsteps. They need to look at the flaws and shortcomings in the iPod and make something different, not just a bad imitation.
Apple's iPod didn't initially succeed because it had "lower cost" or "more features" and it doesn't continue to succeed because it has "significantly more capacity" than the competition. It succeeded because Apple applied a skill they have always been good at to a burgeoning market: the ability to look at what every other company was offering and say "we can do better."
I may be an Apple whore, but I sincerely believe that a majority of Apple's products come about because of a similar motivation. Apple doesn't seem to look at a market and say "hey, we can make something good enough to make some $$$, let's do it!" Instead, Apple looks at a market, and says "wow, everything out there sucks, we can certainly do something better than that." The result isn't to everyone's taste, certainly, and that's a good thing, but this different motivation in product creation seems, to me at least, to be the reason Apple is succeeding in the portable digital music player (PDMP?) market, for now.
And yes, someday another company will come along that will get how to make a PDMP, or the market will change and overrun Apple as seems to have happened with the PC market in the 80s. The iPod doesn't dominate because it has more features, lower price, or higher capacity than the competition, but simply because the motivation behind it, and therefore its resulting design, is an attempt at making a damn good product, and most people, it would seem, agree that it is.
In order for Creative or any other company to succeed in this market, right now at least, they need to forget about how big of a piece of the pie Apple or anyone else has, and simply try to make something that's better than anyone else's. The iPod, despite how much I love mine, certainly has room for improvement (wifi, Bluetooth, are obvious ones), and until a company comes along with something distinctively better, not just with features, or
Maybe this is the ramblings of a idealist Apple whore who believes that Apple is "different" from other evil capitalist companies, but I do.
On apple.slashdot.org. Certainly the Apple fans will give unbiased comments.
I have yet to buy one song from iTunes, but somehow, despite Apple's best efforts as you believe is the case, I was able to transfer my entire existing music collection (mp3) to the device without a problem. If it supports the most common, standardized, open compression format, how are they limiting my choices? You don't /have/ to buy songs from iTunes.
The first mp3 player to start taking market share FROM the iPod line will have to be :
1. Prettier.
2. Even more retardproof than the iPod.
Finding anything that meets item 1 is hard enough- item 2 is next to impossible... both? Ain't happening.
Playing music is fun with the Creative Zen Touch's easy navigation. Built to hold 10,000(1) songs with an incredible 24 hour(2) battery life at 128kbps MP3 or 32 hour(2) at 48kbps.
(1) Based on 4 minutes per song at 128kbps MP3 encoding and 64kbps WMA encoding
(2) 24 hours battery life at 128kbps MP3 or 32 hours at 48kbps MP3
From Creative's own site.
From this one would expect that it holds 10,000 128 kbps MP3s, right? No. It'll only hold 5,000 of those, nevermind the second half of footnote one or the fact that one might easily assume that the 128 kbps MP3 in the advertisment applies to both the battery life and the capacity, the capacity is entirely based on 64 kbps WMA encoding. Finally, they claim 32 hours of battery life at 48kbps MP3. WTF? Who listens to 48kbps MP3?
I refuse to buy a Creative Player if for no other reason than their misleading advertising. The goal is not to see how small one can make the bitrate to fit more 4 minute songs on the same size drive. Use 128 kbps like everyone else please.
I recently got an iPod (for Christmas) and all I have to say is that I am very pleased. It's battery is supposed to last 12 hours with 128 kbps (AAC) encoded files and when I decided to test it to see how long it would last, it lasted over 15 hours on 192 kbps MP3s, well above its advertised capacity especially when one takes into account that 192 kbps encoding requires more reading from the hard drive than 128 kbps encoding.
Whenever I see these iPod/Apple discussions, I always wonder what kind of baggage the posters are bringin to the argument. It says a lot when you dislike something because it does a bunch of useful things AND looks nice. I know here we are supposed to find some kind of valor in ugly things performing just as well or a slightly better than "the pack". Apple sucks for a lot of people simply because they appeal to everyone, not just us. Meh.
"You know why you do not see me styling wit my homies? Because I have no homies!!" -Mojo Jojo
How do I put a song into multiple genres? Say, sub-genres, or actual "crossover" music?
Constitutionally Correct
It seems all the local kids (who didn't have an iPod already or didn't get one under the tree) stopped by my local store with their Christmas Green and bought all they had. All iPod minis, and full sized iPods - sold out.
The store is waiting for the next shipment, and taking orders.
So if that type of event is being played out across the nation, Apple can expect some really strong iPod sales numbers for first quarter '05.
I know two moms who got iPods after their kids showed them how cool it is. I wonder how many households become 'multi-pod' homes?
Now with the Shuffle as the 'budget' $99 choice for iPod consumers, the holiday money from grandma and uncle Steve is even more likely to end up in Apple's cash drawers...
If Apple can just figure out how to replace TV and Radio with the iTunes Store & Mac mini, they will gain control over a major section of the Media marketplace.
Eh? Did you read my posts? I LIKE the iPod and iTunes!
All I am saying is that the competition isn't quite as bad as many iPod worshippers like to believe.
are you implying that MP3 is open??? that's news to me. I'm not aware of any open formats supported by the Ipod, neither does creative for that matter, however where apple limits your choices is in the area of support for Online music purchases. You buy Itunes or you don't buy music online. For that matter only Ipods work with Itunes.
Here's the other biggie, let's suppose a few years down the road you decide you want to buy a non apple player, and you've accumulated a nice little library of music from Itunes. Guess what? You HAVE TO buy another apple player or your collection is worthless.
That's the kind of business practice that makes some people call Microsoft EVIL, and while I think Evil is strong wording, but it's the kind of situation that I would shop around to prevent dissappointment in the future. People hold Apple up as some "holier than microsoft company," but the truth is that they are the same as microsoft even before Microsoft became part owner of Apple, and pretty much have been since they came out with the Macintosh (a closed system) Try building or buying a Macintosh without the Mac OS.
Lastly, I'll agree that Ipods are nicely crafted, but they don't have the best sound processing and you simply cannot argue against them being the most "closed" player out there. I don't buy things because they are pretty, you can if you want to, no one is trying to stop you.
Creative makes MP3 players. They've made them for years. What was their previous goal if it wasn't to build an iPod killer?
Heavens, no!
I don't understand it at all.
My suggestions to Creative:
Yeah, Ok, but it's a diffrent way of saying Creative is attempting to compete against the iPod - or more specifically going to try to get somewhere near the brand recognition that the iPod has. I mean most people know what an iPod is, but how many people even know about the huge number of competing HD based mp3 players avalible?
The Spirit 20 is a 20GB MP3 player with an FM tuner, USB2.0 and a rechargeable polymer battery for under $140.00.
In a month or two I may treat myself to one.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
A major thing for me is minor labels selling albums direct online. I can order an album on vinyl or cd and still have it for less than my local music store. It's also nice to get free pins, stickers, samplers and singles. Seriously, retail is doomed.
While IKEA's roots are Swedish, they are actually based in the Netherlands
A description of the stupid user who can't get the super intuitive ipod up and running:Damn, I hate apple products.
I won an iPod. My dad bagged it off me.
...didn't....read....what....I....wrote...
I could talk really slowly, or I could just ignore you. I think the latter will get me to my bedtime faster.
Is it moral (not legal, moral) to pirate the works of deceased artists?
95% of my music is pirated. That 95% consists of obscure soundtracks to silent films, Mozart, Rossini, Handel, and videogame soundtracks.
Videogame soundtracks are unavailable for purchase (or at least extremely rare). The composers of the silent film music are dead-- as are Mozart, Rossini and Handel.
I love iPods and I must say that Steve Jobs Guy is a marketing genius. He manages to market something called the iPod Suffle as something new and people go crazy over this amazing breakthrough. I had a creative Nomad Movo for 2 years now and it does everything this so called suffle does 2 years ago a lot cheaper. The iPod is winning the Music Player Market on cool design alone, nothing else. Will creative win the Music Player Market, you bet. When, I don't know, all I know is that people will not continue to buy products that are yesterday news at very steep prices for long. the truth will come out. If you wanna see the truth, do a comparison between creative Zen and Apple iPod. And please, be objective. Creative offers more capacity, longer battery life, better support and a cheaper price tag. I don't hate Apple, I think they are one of the most innovative companies in the rather stale computer industry at the moment. But Apple Vs Creative, PUHLEEEEEEEEEEEEEZZZZZ
... was to take away market share from the iPod.
OK.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Like the Driver who looses control of their car.
If they look at all the things they want to miss, they'll end up hitting them all, but if they look at the gap between all the obstacles, they may just get through...
Concentrate on your objective, not they Obstacles.
Microsoft does lock in people just like Apple does; they just have more locks. Besides, Microsoft has no player of its own. They must rely on players provided by other companies. This is not a nod to freedom and choice. Microsoft is simply not a hardware company.
Even worse, if an AAC song you buy from iTunes does not work on an iPod, it's Apples responsibility. If some WMP song form some company that came out of the woodworks does not work on your WMP player, you are stuck. Will Microsoft help you? Unlikely!
Was it really necessary to put the whole damn sentence as a link?!
from the link
swedish roots
The IKEA story began in 1943 in the small farming village of Elmtaryd in Sweden, when its founder, Ingvar Kamprad, was 17. Read about our company history.
Ingvar Kamprand is 'richer than Gates'
In response to your complaints:
1) Tactile feeback nonexistent? Except that you can't scroll up and down with the scrollwheel pushed in.
2) I've never had a problem with a slow UI. Which firmware version did you have?
3) So? A USB-based charger is pretty much useless, since you can still plug in a power cord while connected to the PC. All it would do would be to lower the wire count.
4) Hold in the back button for one second. It switches between "Now Playing" and "Selected Music".
5) Umm... yes you can. Nomad Explorer, the software that comes STANDARD with the Nomad, lets you browse your files in a Windows-style hierarchy.
6) Did you have a USB 2.0 connection? With that, I can dump a full 40GB of music onto my Nomad in under an hour. That's pretty damn fast.
In response to your suggestions:
1) Why? What would be the point? Do you mean you want a wireless connection to speakers, or something? A wireless network connection would have no useful purpose for a music player. USB 2.0 is faster than 802.11g, and Bluetooth is pretty outdated at this point.
2) I agree, sort of. I think the FM Tuner should be separate simply because of the drain on battery power.
3) Again, what's the point? USB was designed for high-speed data transfer. USB-powered devices tend to have a small power usage footprint; charging a device via USB tends to be a lot slower than charging it via AC/DC.
4) WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? The Nomad Zen Xtra HAS THIS. Almost every Nomad since the first one does, as well. You must not have installed the right software. If you don't like Nomad Explorer, look up NotMad Explorer. It even has its own communication drivers that speed up the data transfer.
Now that I've ranted like this, I should ask: were you actually talking about the Nomad Zen Xtra, or something else entirely?
I am scientifically inaccurate.
I don't know if this is Apple's policy wrt Europe (don't spend any ad money on TV/radio) or I just don't watch enough commercial TV?
Ciao
a) You repeated part of what I said, which is just really bad form, and
b) I expressed myself quite succinctly. Your infantile desire to see your own name on the screen is what fueld that pithy and pointless comment. Next time, go make your own thread.
1) purchase an MP3 from your favorite music download site.
2) import said MP3 into your iTunes library
3) create a playlist that includes said MP3
4) export the playlist to the iPod
It's really quite simple, folks. The iPod doesn't ONLY work with ITMS.
Pooty tweet
I totally agree. Evil is a a strong word, and to me, Apple is as evil as they come.
Check out http://www.ageofconsent.com. Interestingly enough, the age of consent is actually 16 in most states of the US, 18 without parents' consent. On the other hand, "Corruption of a minor," which technically includes kissing, has an upper limit of 18 in Ohio. So in other words, I can have sex with a 16 year old with her parents' consent, but I can't kiss her? Weird...
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
Their player looks very much like an ipod and the UI seems to be an exact replica.
So what exactly is creative about this product???
...in case you didn't know; they pay no attention to the file name either. Don't know about other players.
Belkin external battery pack
Both Belkin and Griffin offer voice recorder attachments, but I don't think the quality would be comparable to minidisc recording - more suited to lectures than concerts. This review also mentions that there is a generic microphone adapter, but I think you may still be limited to low sample rate WAV recording.
EphPod is also a good alternative (and free).
...it was posted so that we could have our weekly flame-fest over why *my* digital audio player is the best and all the others are crap...