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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?
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)
also downloading any major road works, congestions etc.
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...
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
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...
Let us not compare Apples to Oranges.
:-)
Sorry, couldn't resist
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
If apple sell more ipods than creative, then creative would lose market share
Uh, no. If A sold 990 units last year and B sold 10, then A has 99% market share and B has 1%. If this year A sells 600 units and B sells 400, A still has sold more than B but A's market share has dropped from 99% to 60% while B's has gone from 1% to 40%.
If you're talking about total market penetration of players in the field, then at the end of last year, A had 99% in the field. At the end of this year, A has 990+600/2000=79.5% of the number of widgets in the field.
Either way, A's market share has decreased even though they've still sold more units than B.
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
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.
If I have to decide between listening to you, and listening to the company that owns three quarters of the online music market and three quarters of the portable music player market, I think I'll listen to the company.
Your history is kind of wacky. Apple's heydey in the computer market was the early 80s with the Apple II line. The Apple II was always a very open platform. The Mac, on the other hand, never owned a huge part of the market. The late 80s and early 90s were decent for Apple, but they never had anything like the kind of position that the iPod has. They never started out strong with a closed platform and got stomped, so I don't see how the iPod would mirror anything else they've done.
Maybe you're right and people want "open" hardware. Two things come to mind, though. The first is, how are any of the competitors any more "open" than the iPod? They all let you play raw MP3s that you can get from anywhere. The iPod lets you buy from iTMS and nowhere else that has DRM, the others let you buy from other places but not iTMS. Is being locked in to a handful of minor players less grievous than being locked in to a single major player? They all have DRM, they all restrict what you can do, and none of them will work with an arbitrary music player.
The second thing that comes to mind is this: 400,000 people a week would seem to disagree with your assertion. Maybe you're right and they'll change their minds, but so far I don't see any evidence.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
Why do you think they made the iPod Shuffle ?
It's cheap enough to please most joggers.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
"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
"All Creative need to do is add Bluetooth"
And hundreds can watch the thermometer bar crawl across while transferring data at really low speed.
This got modded insightful by people who've heard of Bluetooth but never used it.
Oddly Draconis
Too cynical to live, too stubborn to die.
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.
#
A haze from crack smoking has unexplainably engulfed Creative's HQ during the statement.
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.
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!!"
No, no, no. This is the year of High Definition. Didn't you see the keynote?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
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.
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 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.
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
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?
First, let me start with a disclaimer: you are an idiot.
...there is nothing out there for them when choosing Apple
...start supporting Ogg Vorbis...
...and WMP...
A point-by-point evaluation:
How many times does Apple need to learn that people don't want lock-in solutions. [sic]
Why do people never learn? Why, no matter how many fucking iPod articles Slashdot posts (and, yea, there are a great many), does there remain a group who simply do not get it? How many times must one of these types be told that no-one (or, should I say "so few people that they cumulatively round down to zero") gives a flying fuck about lock-in. They probably don't even know what "lock-in" is. I know I have ranted on about it in the past to non-tech types and they just zone out. Can you blame them?
Where you buy there [sic] player and are locked into their music service.
Your frighteningly schizophrenic spelling aside, you're bandying around that dangerous "lock-in" word again. As various others have noted on here, there do exist paid-for music services which offer MP3s, e.g. allofmp3.com. There are others, but I have not the inclination to look. This aside, the average man on the street doesn't particularly care anyway, but we've already made that point.
This is more subjective, but I can say with certainty that in the UK, the Windows-using masses are restless, tired of spam and spyware and system updates every other day. That Mac mini is looking incredibly tempting. I am sure it is the same way - even more so, perhaps - on the other side of the pond. There is something "out there" when choosing Apple, unless you find the tortious Windows/WMA et al experience pleasurable in some way. (I have already commented on schizophrenic spelling, so I shall leave further interpretation as an exercise to readers...). The iPod's elegance and simplicity appeals to people. Really, it does.
Groan.
I posted at length about this on my blog after OGG and iPod were mentioned in the same thread a while back. It goes back to the "so few people that they cumulatively round down to zero" point again. No-one, save the militant/obstinate few, gives a shit about OGG, and, moreover, the only reason that Creative, etc. include OGG support is to try to capture some of the statistically minute militant/obstinate market. That's how marginalised they are - like a pack of mangy stray dogs fighting over scraps.
At the outset you seemed to be typing yourself as anti-lock-in. I'm confused. Most people choose the lesser of two evils, and here you are, proposing that Apple sleeps with the devil.
I'd apologise for the tirade, but, y'know...
iqu >:|
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."
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
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!
I never said that Apple needs to start supporting WMP, I said the chipset on the iPod supported it. Also I think if Apple opens of the AAC encoding to other companies that some of these companies like MusicNow, Walmart, Napster, etc. could offer both formats.
As the Linux guys love to say it's only a good thing when there is more compitition.
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.
What you aren't noticing is that before the iPod was introduced there were a lot of MP3 Players already on the market with a lot of features the iPod still doesn't have and the market did not take off. There will always be a niche of geeks and hardcore users who want all those features but most folks just want something that "just works". And Apple has that covered with the iPod. The Creative CEO assumes that because his company's products have more features for the same or less money that they will outsell the iPod. I doubt this very much so.
m on ey/16digi.html/ technology/17app le.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/16/business/your
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/17
If you read those articles you'll see that one Apple has something most other companies don't, and two you'll get a glimpse at Apple's possible future.
You know that "Digital Living Room" all the tech companies are trying to create? Apple has a head start. The iPod, and the iPod Photo, are the first steps. The iPod Photo already connects to a TV. Add a Mac Mini to that (more likely a rev 2 version with Tivo features) and they'll have it pretty much well wrapped up.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
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.
You've said it. Really, what Creative needs to do is to add Myrinet support to its players.
Now, that would be bandwidth, with the side advantage that you could even stop imagining a beowulf cluster of those.
Signatures are for stupids.
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.
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.
why are you spending all that money for a personal FM radio when you can spend 20 bucks or less for a good personal FM radio?
if I wanted a radio I would have gotten one.
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?
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
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
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.
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?"
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
... 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.
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.
I knew a guy who was saying some stuff, so we did comparisons and junk, and found out that everything I own or bought or borrowed from another guy totally are better than other things that I don't have.
(this has been a Slashdot product review)
a 500 86 platform will have more bang for the buck than a mac mini
:)
You can stamp your feet all you like. Reiterate your earlier statement if you feel the need. It will not make it come true. In most people's eyes, there is more to a computer than clock cycles. See above and below.
I must say that I am thankful that Slashdot allows one to view others' comment history - it allows a much more educated response, even to the most moronic of posters - sir, you are a fine specimen indeed.
More specifically in this case, I note that you battled others in the comments appended to the Mac mini article. And, with a certain glee, I must confess, I note that I am not the only one so rightly dismissing you as an idiot.
I presume it is some kind of denial. In the Longhorn graphics card article's comments, you trumpeted the use of graphics cards to "speed stuff up," finally. Mac OS X has done this for ages - two years or so, IIRC.
And in the Mac mini article, you dismiss resplendent and wholy valid security and reliability concerns with the suggestion that "a bit of education" is all that's needed. As someone noted at the time, your immediate family is not really particularly representative of the entire Windows using world, although it does mean that they are by implication more intelligent than the average moron - good for you.
In any event, this is irrelevant. For most people, Windows has done enough damage - lengthy phone calls to premium rate numbers, assisted credit card fraud, formatted hard drives, rebooted every 60 seconds, given Internet users the world over more shit in their inboxes than they could possibly imagine, simplified DDOSing no end... - not to me, I might add. I am simply the one who has cleared up this kind of mess.
Anyway, all this malaise, coupled with iPod love, means one thing - switching. Maybe even en masse.
iqu
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.
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.
oh c'mon. were you using the same mp3's, encoded by the same program? were you using the line output in the ipod dock or plugging into the headphone jack? if you were plugging into the headphone jack, was the ipod volume turned up loud enough to distort? what was the equalizer setting? was "sound check" turned on? was the zen set up similarly?
i'm not discounting your experience, but don't complain when people think you're spewing bullshit if you don't provide enough information.
london is drowning and i live by river
You'll pardon me if I lend absolutely zero relevance to this claim. Unless you're doing at least volume normalizing with a meter, with identical tracks, preferably not lossy-compressed, preferably blinded comparisons, sound quality comparisons are useless. Louder music almost ALWAYS sounds better, as proven by many blinded tests with listeners with far better ears than you or me.
You'll also pardon me if I don't give much importance to somebody with a $1000 sound system. $1000 isn't really much in the realm of audio systems. My front speakers cost more than that alone, and mine isn't what I would consider audiophile quality.
"No, no, no. Don't tug on that. You never know what it might be attached to."