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Sony takes on iPod Shuffle
Ben writes "It seems that Sony has decided to take on Apple with a low cost flash based player that will go up against the Shuffle.
Pocket-lint has
the low down on some of the stats,
as does the BBC and Engadget." The major improvement in my eyes is that some models have an FM tuner.
IMHO they look like every other flash drive, apart from the circular one. It doesn't matter, I reckon Apple will be laughing all the way to the bank here - the press are describing it as "Sony takes on Apple's IPOD shuffle" - ie: they're already the de-facto standard in a market that's 2 months old.
The other comment is - what on earth are Sony smoking - they really need to learn about branding - the models are the NW-E103, NW-E105, NW-E107, NW-E405, NW-E407, NW-E505, NW-E507. Apart from 'bigger numbers are better' (which is a guess), what does that tell me ? What are the distinctions between them ? both in-range and between the ranges (presuming the E1xx, E4xx and E5xx are 3 distinct ranges).
Even I get this, and I write s/w for a living. You'd have thought someone in the highly-paid 'marketing director' position would have a clue too.
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
But I thought "radio was dead."
Never understood why all these rival players seem to include FM radios, if I wanted an FM radio I could use the one built in my phone (not sure what FM is doing in a phone either) but I never do because the quality on the move has never been that brilliant.
If they want to include a radio at least include a DAB one (the digital radio service in the UK).
It just sucks
For me, the inclusion or addition of an FM tuner to an mp3 player has now become a negative rather than a plus. My experience has been the FM tuners are all pretty bad, and so the only conclusion I can draw is the FM tuner has been added solely for the sake of making it more attractive, not enhancing the quality of the user experience. So, more circuitry, more electronics to support a poorly implemented FM tuner just means more things to go wrong with the device.
Just walk into Best Buy and find about a dozenddevices that do plenty.
Voice Record, FM/AM Tuner etc etc, play it in your car through the FM dial, for around $120 of less for 512mb.
Plenty too choose from. Make the IPOD mini look like a joke in comparison.
To me it looks like Sony is trying to get rid of their discman shells and decided why not let's make a compact flash player. And really 256MB, 512MB, and 1GB seems timid compared to the amount that could be in there. Heck, my mini practical fits in the biggest one.
-Teiresias
The major improvement in my eyes is that some models have an FM tuner.
Well, I guess that's -kind- of like the shuffle... I mean, you still know exactly what songs are going to be played, you just don't know the order.
"Quoting famous computer scientists out of context is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming." - K
Dang it, why is it so hard to find an MP3 player with a decent AM radio built in? I keep my portable AM radio in my pocket right next to my mp3 player and it has no problem with interference when the MP3 part is turned off. I use it to listen to baseball games... would be nice to have it all on one device.
Sony takes on Apple's iPod Shuffle
News story posted on 08 March 2005 11:46 AM GMT by Stuart Miles
Sony has launched a new line-up of flash based MP3 players to tackle Apple's iPod Shuffle. The new models will start at 256Mb of memory and cost under £70.
"Until now, the complaint was that Sony products sold at a major premium," said Gregory Kukolj, general manager of the personal audio group in Europe.
Sony's new flash memory players are equipped with chips capable of storing 256 megabytes, 512 megabytes or one gigabyte of data. Sony also said that the new devices would have 50 hours of battery life with the ability to play for 3 hours will a charge of just 3 minutes.
The 1Gb model will still cost £200 compared to Apple's iPod Shuffle at £99. The new models will feature a OLED display though.
The new models - called the NW-E103, NW-E105 and NW-E107 will weigh less than one ounce and are about the size of a poker chip. They offer up to 70 hours of continuous playback on one "AAA" battery and feature a backlit LCD for easy viewing of track information. The models connect directly to a PC's USB port enabling high speed transfer of data.
Sony also launched the 400 and 500 Series of Players today; NW-E405, NW-E407, NW-E505 and NW-E507.
The devices provide up to 50 hours of continuous playback on a rechargeable battery and feature a quick-charge function that enables three hours of playback on a time-saving, three-minute charge directly from your PC via USB. Sony also state that you'll be able to achieve 80% charge in about 45 minutes.
The NW-E405 model is offered in dark blue with 512 MB of storage while the NW-E407 has a contemporary black finish and 1GB of built-in memory.
The NW-E505 and NW-E507 models include an FM tuner.
The NW-E505 has 512 MB of capacity and comes in a choice of light blue or pink both with a chic, metallic finish. The NW-E507 is offered in silver with 1 GB of storage.
The new models will be on show at CeBit the technology show in Germany.
Pocket-lint will be attending the show so will keep you post on any further developments.
Ok is this the Music Sony we hate, or the Gaming Sony we Love... It's electronics, but it has to do with music. Arrrgh I don't know if I should love this or hate this. Somebody tell me I can't think on my own.
Introducing Microsoft Vacuum 1.0 The first Microsoft product that doesn't suck.
It's not iTunes compatible! What Sony and other companies just don't get is that the software behind the iPod hardware is what drives the sales. iTunes is an excellent player. The only problem is, if you use it you can't sync with any hardware except Apple iPod hardware. For millions of people this isn't an issue, and it's a small but very important point that Sony and others forget.
I bought my iRiver iHP-140 40GB player because it had a tuner and ogg support. The only other one I considered was one with a built-in FM transmitter, but that thing was a brick and seemed to have supply issues. You'd think for the cost of the iPod (twice what mine cost) it would at least have a tuner.
It conforms to NO Human Interface Guidelines at all, it has huge amounts of extremely choppy and pointless animations and is such a CPU hog that it doesn't respond even when the only application open on a 2.6GHz P4 laptop. Quite unbelievable.
Now if I could sync it with iTunes, that would be another matter.
Get a free iPod Nano 4GB!
looking things, if you ask me. Apple has some very nice design when it comes to mp3 players, IMHO.
But (good for Sony), the players all have native mp3 support....I always hated the fact that they used their propretary ATARC3 for minidisc players
-Chris
My MythTV HowTo
We can only pray that it goes as well as it did the last time Sony took on an iPod.
However, as we all know, Sony are a music company too which means that however great this is, they'll crippled or fudge it up in some spectacular way meaning that, yet again, it'll be a flop.
My guess is that it'll be the required usage of SonicStage.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
Stats don't matter, style does.
Apple understands style, SONY only understands style sometimes.
There have been other MP3/flash players that have better stats than the Ipod or the Ipod Flash. People buy these things cause it's "cool" to have an Ipod.
Sony unveils new MP3 playing screwdriver... Steve Jobs cowers in mock fear on way to bank...
Is anyone buying this?
As a retirement gift this week, the ousted Sony CEO (Nobuyuki Idei) was given an iPod of all things! He didn't find it very funny considering he is famous for declining Apple's offer to participate in the iTunes music store.
I'm a big tall mofo.
ugly. costs more. hold less. no itunes.
where's the news?
everybody claims to have an "ipod killer" but there isn't one company that can claim success.
i'm getting tired of these "stories". How about something about the adoption of these new products? Especially Creatives players (which suck).
That would be news. Nothing to see here.
for marketing the inability to see what track is playing as a "feature." Life may be random, but I want control of my music.
Every month, someone "takes on" an iPod. The next month, we don't hear about them again.
FM tuner? I can buy one of those as an accessory add-on thanks to the burgeoning "iPod economy," as Jobs puts it. I even have that FM broadcaster that lets me dial into the frequency with my car radio to hear my iPod through my car speakers without any special hookups.
I don't see Sony's player going anywhere. They feature a display, which Apple abandoned as being pointless in a tiny flash player (and they're right). And it's still more expensive.
I have a lot of music on my iRiver, but sometimes I just don't want to listen to any of it, and rather than spend half my journey hopelessly flicking from one album to the next, I simply just stick on the radio.
Some of the DJs in the UK are very good and put me in a good mood first thing in the morning. I do fear though that I'm becoming one of those weirdos that suddenly bursts out laughing in the middle of the street for no reason whatsoever.
Summation 2
If I made a top ten reason why I wanted my player it would be ...
1) use at the gym
2) use at the gym
3) use at the gym
There are a bunch of TVs there, each tuned to a different channel and broadcasting their sound on FM.
Anyway, I don't go to that or any gym anymore, but I still use the tuner at work.
A 70 hour battery life on a AAA? A 3 minute quick charge that lasts 3 hours and at max charge 50? These are things that some people look for and can use. Those are insane battery life spans for something like this will be a real selling point. The IPod Shuffle only offers up to 12 hours at most currently. I can't remember how many times I've tried to turn on my MP3 player only to find it was dead, having forgoten to put it on the charger or replace the battery. With lifespans like these, one would only need to recharge once a week in most cases, vs. once every day or two for the shuffle.
Now all we need to do is find out if the audio quality is just as good.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Well most people on Slashdot seem to love Apple, and therefore they love the iPod. I'm all for sony taking a run at the market and at least giving them some competition to potentially drive the prices down or better yet expand the features of the current series of iPod's to perhaps include WMA support and a service other than iTunes.
One big note to consider, is that in a recent survey of baby-boomers, they were more likely to buy the Sony brandname than *any* other brand name in audio/visual home equipment. So with some good marketing, we might see out 50 something year old fathers jamming to a Sony sPod.
"The major improvement in my eyes is that some models have an FM tuner."
My eyes don't care about an FM tuner, they care about the nice "backlit LCD screen" but according to Engadget these will have OLED screens, which (from the pictures) look sweet!
"None of these'll be out for a couple more months, but the NW-E405 will sell for $130, the NW-407 for $180, the NW-E505 for $150, while the NW-E507 rounds things out at $200." Seeing how they wont be released for a few more months, and are (at the higher ends) closer in price to an iPod mini (with 4x the capacity) than to a Shuffle, I don't really see these as all that comprable in any other form that size.
No smoking sigs indoors.
Apple has already got people hooked on iTunes. Until a "better" service/program comes out, people will continue to use iTunes. And when they want to play their music on the go, they'll get an iPod. (or an iPod Shuffle if you want something portable)
Apple has simply done with the music industry what they've already done with their computers. They've made software that's so good that it's almost (and is, in my case) worth it to pay more for hardware that will work with said software.
The iPod isn't a blazing success because of technical superiority; the iPod isn't a blazing success because of crazy mad features. The iPod is a success because it does what it was designed to do very, very well--better than the players that boast eternal battery life, radio tuners, wireless, video playback, more storage, more audio formats, lower prices, and smaller packages.
It's about finding the right balance--and based on what I'm seeing, I don't think that Sony's upcoming offering will succeed at striking that balance.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
This is very different for them... In my experience from selling Sony mp3 players, they were usually very expensive and targeted to a smaller customer base. Most of their focus was, in my observation, on their MiniDisc Players.
1) higher price ($99 v $150) 2) has a screen 3) fm tuner Yup, its another flash-based player, not an iPod Shuffle competitor. The Shuffle was made to be the bare-bones entry point.
One man's Funny is another man's Offtopic.
it always cracks me up when people talk about the technological advancements made by the two key players in the mp3 player industry, when items such as that existed over 5 years ago and smoked the hell out of anything that came out for the next 2 years.
i blame poor marketing on compaq's part... they could have also been a key player. good luck to sony. nowadays (especially in boston) it doesn't matter if the mp3 player had a friggin' time machine in it, if it's not an iPod, people don't want them. because they all want their friends to know that they are COOL and HIP and have enough money to frivolously blow on a "cute white mp3 player".
fuck the iPod. I hope sony can at least dent their market share.
"when the sun sets on the ghetto, all the broken stuff gets cold"
Sony now has a new CEO. The new CEO is a media and content proponent rather than a hardware man like his predecessor of ten years.
This will most likely mean a shift for Sony from being a hardware company to a content company. It will also mean hightend interest in DRM and copy protection on Sony's part.
Personally, I think it's a big mistake for Sony to forget "their old slogan".
Sony -- Because caucasians are too damn big!
...across the board still seems higher than what Apple sells the iPod Shuffle at.
Ironic though that after all these years of complaining about the high cost of Apple computers, all of a sudden it hard for others to beat the quality, user experience, AND price point Apple does? *shrug*
Blacker than my baby girl's stare. Black like the veil that the muslimina wear. Black like the planet that they fear...
The problem with AM is two fold. First, the wavelengths are much longer, so the small antennas can't pick them up as well. Second, AM has to have the amplitude of the signal preserved perfectly during amplification or you get distortion in the audio quality. In FM you can distort the hell out of the original signal, you just care about the fruency it is at. This makes AM tuners harder to implement than FM tuners.
It's more a problem of the technology behind AM than anything else. Not that they don't want to implement it.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Wikipedia OLED:
"An organic light-emitting diode (OLED) is a light-emitting diode (LED) made of semiconducting organic polymers. These devices promise to be much cheaper to fabricate than inorganic LEDs. Varying amounts of OLEDs can be deposited in arrays on a screen using simple "printing" methods to create a graphical colour display, for use as television screens, computer displays, portable system screens, and in advertising and information board applications. OLED panels may also be used as lighting devices. OLEDs are available as distributed sources while the inorganic LEDs are point sources of light. Prior to standardization, OLED technology was also referred to as OEL or Organic Electro-Luminescence.
One of the great benefits of an OLED display over the traditional LCD displays found in computer displays is that OLED displays don't require a backlight to function. This means that they draw far less power and they can be used with small portable devices which have mostly been using monochrome low-resolution displays to conserve power. This will also mean that they will be able to last for long periods of time with the same amount of battery charge."
(but wait, there's more!)I'm convinced that every time some product is touted as the "iPod Killer" it's destined to be a flop. This Sony design won't be any different.
Why do people buy a flash music player like the Shuffle? To listen to music. The problem with competing with the Shuffle is that it serves one purpose and does it well. Trying to compete with it on features can easily raise the price so that it's no longer price competitive.
The other big reason is that the Shuffle is being driven by the success of the iTunes Music Store. Any other player doesn't work with the most popular online music store. Any player that wants to compete with the iPod has to either play iTMS songs (which Apple won't do for obvious reasons) or have a music store that's better than the iTMS. So far none of the competition even comes close. They either have horrible interfaces, bloated prices, or draconian DRM -- and most of the time they have all three.
Unless Sony can not only create a flash player that's cheaper, but a music store that's better, they're not going to put much of a dent in the iPod's sales figures. Personally, I don't see Sony doing either of these things.
The iPod Shuffle works because it's small, cheap, stylish, has the benefit of iTunes' excellent UI, and works with the iTunes Music Store. The Sony player is Yet Another Flash Player, and it won't sell necessarily better than an iRiver, Rio, etc. would.
Sure the Shuffle is cool but how does that compare with the OLED display on this new player? Personaly I like the way Sony products look over the look of Apple.
Period.
It will have a screen in the future and it will eventually have a FM tuner (it is built into the chip).
Apple scaled out the features with the first iPod (touch wheel, screens, ect) and they will with the shuffle as well. You will get the people that bought the first gen to dump out money for the better ones as they come out as well.
I notice that the FM reception of most portable music players is pretty poor-you can typically receive only the strongest signals from the mega-broadcasters, which I don't want to listen to.
Also, it seems that the performance of theses units is dependent on using the earphones for antennaes-which means that the reception is spotty, depending on how the earphones/receiver is oriented. This makes it almost imposible to listen to the radio while moving around.
Does anybody know if there are any mp3/fm tuner combos out there that don't suffer from this problem?
...The iPod, in any incarnation, has three advantages going for it: style, ease of use, and iTunes integration. The iPod Shuffle is no exception. 256MB MP3 players are plenty common these days; Sony's competing with them, not with the iPod Shuffle. The only real similarity it has to the iPod is the form factor.
I know that iTunes integration is something only Apple can do, but if you can get the ease-of-use going, then you can at least sport Microsoft integration. And somehow, nobody gets the ease-of-use thing working. They keep thinking that they can beat Apple on price, which isn't really relevant now that Apple has a $100 iPod. Sure, you can make another MP3 player for $50 or $75, but it doesn't take long to compare features and decide the extra $25 or $50 is worth it.
Get it right, manufacturers -- your target is ease-of-use, not price or size. The iPod has proved that there are enough people who will pay for quality (and fashion, I'll admit it) to make it worth catering to them.
Nothing exists until Apple makes it. Obviously the small, cheap flash based player market didn't exist until the Apple Shuffle. Since the Shuffle didn't have it, any kind of display is a "new" feature. Same goes for an FM tuner.
With the iPod it's almost understandable how the Mac faithful believe all harddrive based players revolve around the iPod (while being years late, it did introduce harddrive players to a more friendly form factor).
With shuffle there is no excuse other then pure cult thinking. Thumbdrive mp3 players have existed for years, and cover all areas of the market (from ultra cheap with very limited features like the what the Shuffle copied, all the way up to full display with all kinds of extras like recording and tuners).
Obviously sony isn't about to challenge the shuffle with a unit running 200 pounds+. Their real shuffle competition is $150 US, has a gig of space, and a display. It needs a AAA battery to run but does NOT have FM radio.
clicky
I don't see this as an improvement, if radio had any quality programming we wouldn't need iPods.
Those who know, do not speak. Those who speak, do not know. ~Lao Tzu
Good luck to Sony, cuz they got no shot in hell, at least not for a while....
Unless it just plugs as a storage device to drag and drop on any computer without software it is out, out, out....
Mind you the various Ipods are in the same boat.
I believe Sandisk has proper drag, drop n play operation on any platform.
I do believe we now have a new theory of the universe: The Pop Music Uncertainty Principal
You can know what station is playing crap, but not in what order.
Or, you know now what crap will be played, but not on which station.
This explains a lot...
Blockwars: free, multiplayer, Tetris like game.
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
From BBC:
So what's the price? The first quote makes it sound like it's about twice the cost of the Shuffle's $150, then about $300. The sceonds says that it should be around $150.
What's the price??
This comes from a proud owner of a 1Gb Shuffle.
I don't think that Sony would be able to take down Apple. Microsoft has been trying to do it for several years now, and Apple is still going strong.... Wait, nevermind that last statement. 24.119.169.210
I don't know about most people, but the whole reason I have an iPod, and take my music with me, is because I'm sick of the garbage that is played on the radio, and the endless stream of commercials that I'm forced to listen to. Why do you now want to add that back into the unit?
WWJD -- What Would Jimi Do?
(Smash amp, burn guitar, take home the groupies)
Ok is this the Music Sony we hate, or the Gaming Sony we Love... It's electronics, but it has to do with music. Arrrgh I don't know if I should love this or hate this. Somebody tell me I can't think on my own.
It's the Sony that's competing with the iPod: Therefore we hate them.
And to save you future mental anguish:
When the PSP comes out it'll be the gaming Sony that's competing with Nokia's N-Gage, so we'll love Sony that day. As far as content-provider Sony, we despise them... except when they make Spider Man movies.
You can't take the sky from me...
They only have 40 songs to choose from.
What, you don't see the benefit of Top 40 programming? You get the same functionality as the iPod shuffle without the expense. They're saving you $99 or more! How many other media outlets can make that same claim?
OK, so you don't get to choose the songs on the radio. Minor detail.
Anakin Simpson: If you're not with me, then you're my enemy--ooh, donuts!
So create a playlist with the song you want on top and turn off the shuffling. Or, get an iPod that has a screen.
Apple may have to buy or build a record label to compete.
And, realistically, portable music players better than the iPod will be in blister packs in WalMart for $49 within two years. It's going to be like HP and their great high-end calculators.
No Ogg Vorbis, no FLAC. I want to encode my CD-ROMs into a format that's not patent-encumbered. Looks like neither Sony nor Apple have a product for me. And it looks like Sony's product costs more than Apple's - are you kidding?
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
This is the second post I've had claiming my sig is "bogus."
Every page was of Slashdot.
You know, I debated adding 'for them' at the end of the '2 months' sentence, but I figured that anyone reading would understand I meant that. Obviously not.
Therefore, I replace the original with:
" ie: they're already the de-facto standard in a market that's 2 months old for them".
(/. really ought to allow editing of comments...)
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
So, I absolutely consider the addition of an FM tuner to be a very big deal.
why are all mp3 players created as 'ipod killers'?
Why don't companies simply make something to compete with the iPod and try to grasp some market share?
You don't see Ford coming out with cars labeled as 'BMW Killers'...
I just don't understand the logic.
one thing I like about ITunes is the easy streaming station options.
I swear(it's not in front of me right now) it tunes in live365 stations without going through some stupid ad-riddled web interface or having to register. Otherwise I can tune into stations WinAmp can tune into. Yay!
So make a playlist and turn off shuffling. Is this so hard?
Let's review -
1. shuffle is targeted at people to listen to music while they exercise
2. many healthclubs in the US broadcast TV audio signals and music at low power on unoccupied FM channels
perhaps a cruddy FM receiver isn't such a bad idea...
What's the difference between this and the old iRiver flash memory devices with a radio?
I'm still trying to figure out what the shuffle has over my iFP-190T aside from a little memory and lack of tuner.
It was right after he was buggled. How disturbing.
Most health clubs I've seen keep their televisions at low volumes and use a different FM frequency for each tv to broadcast the audio to. Because the transmitter is so close to the exercise equipment (usually within 20 feet), the FM tuner can be pathetically weak and still let you hear the station.
jh
I would assume the use of the proprietary software is optional, maybe only required to transfer songs you might buy online from Sony, I don't know about that. Don't iPods work as USB drives, too? I know my Creative MuVo works just fine as a USB flash drive. Also, I have a Sony CD player that also plays MP3s (and ATRAC3, of course). I know it came with software, but I've never installed it. I just burn a data disc with MP3s on it and it reads and plays them with no problem. I doubt Sony would cripple their player that thoroughly when the industry standard seems to be that the players double as removable storage.
Honor Among Slackers. A veri
I realize that has nothing as such to do with the main topic, but I'm about as likely to get my monkey as you are to get an MP3 player that does AM, so it's not like I'm going to be hurting either of our chances by bringing this up.
It's probably bad form to reply to your own message, but anyway...
My last comment would have been a whole lot funnier if I had added the following text:
You mean you didn't want to hear "Since U Been Gone" again? But it's been over an hour since you last heard that song.
Anakin Simpson: If you're not with me, then you're my enemy--ooh, donuts!
......Zzzzzzzzzz. Snerk!
Who cares about this new fangled FM radio stuff. One channel is enough for anyone! Give me a call (on my crank phone) when you can get a portable MP3 player that can fit in your pocket and play vinyl records (LPs, not singles).
Otherwise, nuts on you!
Snerk! Zzzzzzzzzz.......
So buy a dedicated wearable radio.
It all looks pretty reasonable, sexy OLED display *on* the actual device, and then you get to this part:
While it connects via USB, the player appears to have a non-standard connector, so it won't connect directly to a PC's USB port, just the bundled cable. (From The Register)
Just like the iPod photo, which needed a special cable to connect to TVs to show photos, it will fail (iPod photo is Apple's slowest seller) - nobody wants to carry around a cable for basic functionality.
Imagine the scenario, you're at a client site, or at a friend's house, and need to move a file from one computer to another - and because the network is down, you have to use your USB stick. But no, you forgot to bring the cable. Brilliant.
I can't understand why the idea of using an FM transmitter from a PC to an FM tuner on a device like this isn't exploited. You could then essentially turn your small device/headphones into a wireless audio receiver for your pc, so you can walk around the room, etc while still hearing music and other audio from your PC over headphones.
Again, no innovation, no invention: market share, i'll get an Ipod, na.
We saw this killer and that killer all the days, don't know what is the problem, why people enjoy hating somthing so much that want to kill it?
Why don't those business guys stop hating their competitors and learn to love their costumers?
Come on, give your costumer a hug.
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
http://www.sandisk.com/retail/dap.asp
I've had a 1GB sandisk player for almost 6 months now, and its got an FM tuner, weighs 1oz, great ear buds, fm tuner, as well as a voice recorder, and I picked it up on newegg.com for a hundred and thirty five bucks. Its fantastic.
Why is this such "big news" ?
...they'll make you use their own crappy software as well. I remember when I (briefly) tried out the NetMD. Actually liked the player, even though having to re-compress MP3s to ATRAC kinda blew. But the software Sony bundled with it was the ONLY piece of software I've ever had actually CRASH Windows XP. I mean blue-screen had to hard-power off and reboot crash. Now there is some fine software right there.
Or you had the option of using Real Player to sync it. Like choosing between watching Beastmaster or Beastmaster II.
Why didn't you just buy a small radio instead?
It really doesn't matter how much Sony clones the iPod shuffle or iPod; if users are forced to use Sony's ridiculously restrictive MagicGate(TM) DRM and their crappy synchronizing programs, people are going to pass on it. I'm glad that Sony has gotten wise to their inexplicable death-grip to ATRAC3, but they simply must go easier on the DRM. This may be a crazy thought, but maybe, just maybe, the majority of us music fans out here actually own all (or most) of the music we put on our iPods.
Get wise, Sony; loosen up the DRM and make an MP3 player that synchs through a simpler interface.
ie: they're already the de-facto standard in a market that's 2 months old.
If you think that the market for small flash-based MP3 players is only two months old, or that the Shuffle is already the de-facto standard, then you are obviously smoking something good.
Small flash-based Mp3 players have been readily available for at least 2 years - the Shuffle is competing in an already saturated market, whose sales are currently being domniated not by big name players, but by no-name Korean imports that can be had for less than fifty bucks.
On top of that, aside from the brand recognition and the fact that it is white, there is really nothing new that the Shuffle brings to the plate, since every single one of these players ( including the shuffle ) are so small that you can only fit a few buttons onto them at all. There is no useability factor at play here like there is with the original iPod - if Apple succeds in dominating this market as well, it will be due to marketing alone.
iPods work as USB 2.0/Firewire drives, but the player software does not support drag and drop from the file manager. The iPod is based upon maintaining various playlists in iTunes, which you can select to sync to the iPod. That way, any time you change your playlists in iTunes, it just gets updated automatically when you plug in your iPod.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Got myself a Sony "mp3"-player a couple of years ago. Well, actually it's an ATRAC3 (Sony proprietary format) which can convert from MP3. The player has a nice design and battery lifetime is ok. The software is the worst piece of CR%P I have EVER used! Seriously, the first version would only run on Win98 SE US! Although later versions supported Win2K and XP it doesn't help with the bottom problem - ATRAC3 and some useless DRM format - screw you Sony, I'll NEVER buy MP3-players from you again!
ya. dem's classy guys over at apple.
real classy.
(I don't know what makes me sicker:
KDE zealots, Apple Zealots or Slashdot Libertarians.)
Apple does NOT understand style.
They just market things.
adding am tuner also would be better. What I still don't see is support for removable usb flash drives to a small tuner/player. There are some flash drive players at tigerdirect and other places that have capacities of 128, 256, and 512 mb, all of which appear to be about twice the size of a usb flash drive stick. A good player would be about the same size, but use a usb flash drive for storage. This would allow unlimited capacity by simply swapping usb drives. Carry a few 512 mb usb drives on a key chain, and when prices drop on the 1 GB usb flash drives, you can upgrade to the higher capacity without your player turning into solid waste.
Plus, the 1,000 write cycles wouldn't be an issue. I don't know if accesses count but if they do the players with fixed storage won't last long at all. If they don't, then it isn't as much of an issue, but the number of write cycles is low enough that a small but significant percentage of owners will end up with solid waste eventually. I still have several fm and am/fm cassette walkmans from 15+ years ago, and fully expect flash players or similar electronics to last just as long or longer.
A company that comes out with a flash player/tuner which includes am/fm and removable usb drives for storage will have a real winner on their hands.
As for Sony, won't buy any of their products (or music from any of their labels) anymore due to their stance on digital restrictions management.
Let's see a small (8cm x 3cm x 1cm) device that has an FM tuner that can be set to record (in OGG and/or MP3) several hours of FM broadcasts at user-settable times. Then be able to play it back and skip back/forth 15-second intervals to fast-forward or replay sections.
The headphone connector would also act as an RS-232 to connect to the PC in order to download the MP3 recordings and adjust the recording times along with other parameters. It would switch between logic level and audio by testing the impedance level of the load (8 ohms for speakers vs. high impedance for RS232).
It should cost $39.95 US and be shock-resistant so it wouldn't break if dropped.
Sony? Whatever. Whoever makes it, we will buy it.
Well...
Who wants to bet Sony -Music-(TM) was the big fat reason it tookem so long?
I hate to break this news, but Ogg is dead as a format. AAC and MP3 are more popular, and technically-speaking, Musepack is the superior format, which is why you see it so much on P2P networks and for people's personal music rips.
Honestly, the only time I ever hear Ogg Vorbis talked about is in Slashdot posts asking where the Ogg support is. As for FLAC, APE is by far more popular.
Get over Ogg Vorbis! It's not taking off.
if you want a tiny form factor like these have and the (gasp) ability to choose your songs visually when you are stuck on the train away from your computer to make a playlist, then your only choice is the sony. personally i was waiting for exactly this, the shuffles form factor is awsome, but lack of screen is crap.
tasty electronic music vittles
iPod Shuffle 512M -- $99
NW-E405 512M -- $130
NW-E505 512M+FM -- $150
iPod Shuffle 1G -- $150
NW-E407 1G -- $180
NW-E507 1G+FM - $200
iPod Mini 4G -- $200
cheap Panasonic CD player. I was looking for some variety of a portable MP3 player, and I just didn't care to pay the premium for the flash players, or something like the iPod. And it was the *only* thing that I could find that had both an AM and FM tuner. While it's not cutting edge by any means its useful to have. Like last fall, when I was working night shift for 3 months. I mostly sat around waiting for stuff to go wrong, but in the meantime, I had a portable AM/FM to listen to the playoffs and wold series. And being almost directly between Boston and NY, it was rather nice to have.
To me, the AM/FM tuner is so cheap and easy to install, I don't see why they shouldn't have them. Not everyone who wants a portable player only listens to Top 40 music.. or even music from the past year or 2... or even music at all.
"No fair, you changed the outcome by measuring it!" - Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth
Every MP3 CD player works with mp3 disks as they are made in computers,not transferred onto the device itself. You need your disks to interoperate with your portable, your car MP3 etc...
But We all had this discussion about the ipod shuffle. It works as a mass storage device for things other than music. For music transfers you require Itunes. This method is actually the industry standard.
Notable exceptions are the Muvo and Sandisk players, but my own RCA K@zoo has crappy SW only transfer. A mistake I will never make again.
The best way to rid ourselves of this stupidity is to buy players that work as mass storage device/players, and tell your non-techy friends.
Boo Apple, Boo Sony...
Yay Sandisk.
If you want an MP3 player that runs off an AAA battery, you can get it a lot cheaper than $150.
Been there, done that, got the iPod Shuffle.
Despite that, I still think the Sony player has a decent chance of playing songs transferred to the player through other means than the included software. If not, then my next flash player (if I get one) will probably be another MuVo.
Honor Among Slackers. A veri
iPods work as USB drives, but only play music loaded with iTunes or one of the many 3rd party reverse engineered iPod loading apps (GTKPod and ephPod come to mind).
The iPod display gets all song metadata from a database file, not the tags on the individual song files.
i forget
If someone spends a lot of time living with a certain piece of music management software, when the time comes to choose a player, they're going to lean towards the one that integrates best with what they have. If they can't see or use the software without buying the player, that will impact the decision in a negative way.
LordBodak's journal.
http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/newsimage.php?newsId= 1005&image=2
Show me one that as a gig of space and a display
The fact that the battery is necessary doesn't mean this isn't worth looking at. Same argument could be made about the shuffle's lack of a display.
Sony and Apple have made their compromises to get the cost down. It all depends on what you are willing to give up. Is never dealing with batteries worth losing a display to you? Is having a display worth buying a AAA every 70 hours (although I NEVER believe sony's battery life estimates)
Still, having batteries required isn't always a bad thing. Even if it is only worth half that (35 hours) that is still a lot better than the shuffle, AND you don't need a computer to recharge it. There are definite positives and negatives to either one, but I don't think you can dismiss this offhand just because it requires a battery.
If that thing is the size of a poker chip, (smaller than the size of the clickwheel on the mini), then those must be some damned tiny earbuds...
stop going to the gym.
I don't think I could fit a AAA battery into a poker chip. Are British poker chips a lot bigger than American ones?
Okay, I realize they probably mean it's as big around as a poker chip and are not counting its depth at all - but when Apple says the iPod Shuffle is the size of a pack of gum, they really mean it!
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
Radio makes a good addition, since it can be crammed in without significantly raising the price or the weight.
A camera added to my phone is less good, since it adds both price and weight, but for those willing to make the tradeoff it's nice to have a snapshot camera that happens to be with me whenever I feel like it. But it's not going to be a great camera, with fancy lenses and sophisticated controls.
But I'd just as soon not try to converge my PDA with my cell phone, since they operate in totally different modes (one against my ear, the other in my hand). I'd consider a PDA with headphones to be better, but it requires either wearing the headset all the time or putting it on whenever you want to make a call.
No bannana for the monkeys at Sony. I'll be sticking with my iPod Mini.
They pushed the shuffle feature because the regular iPod completely lacks one
No, they pushed the shuffle feature because the shuffle option on the regular iPod was so popular. That, and after running such a succesful marketing campaign (just think about how many people drool over iPods, regardless of how disinterested in music they may be), Apple wanted to release something at a lower price point. iPods have become a fashion accessory, the lower-cost Shuffle plays perfectly into this.
For a long time Sony has sold on its brandname, while it's products have started to suck in both quality and functionality/components. In this market though, Apple has brand recognition in the high ground. Sony might be able to snag a few fanboys, but I hope that they eventually catch a clue and realize that selling an overpriced player with less features (in this case less storage) is not going to gain them many fans.
It's beyond me why you'd want to shuffle songs and then not even know what you were listening to. You can listen to your same old stuff over and over but I like finding new music, and when I hear something I like I want to know what it is.
Seriously, I know it's not cool to comment on look and feel on /. but that's where you inevitably go with consumer products.
:-)
And these things look goooood. If they're as good as iPods in sound and ease of use (conveniently NOT thinking about iTMS and iTunes) they should sell quite well. And battery life of 50 hours with thingies you can buy in just about every store won't hurt either.
Of course, as a mac user, I think I'll have to pass, I don't see them make it mac compatible, the bastards
imo the first real competition. Strange, how the consumer space works, no?
I think, therefore I am...I think.
I bought a Sandisk MP3 player so that I can watch TV (if there's something interestingon) while I workout at the gym. Dave's Ipaq had a good breakdown...I believe ecost has the 1 gb version for $120!
It's a quality player, it has a display, works just like a flash drive (although you use a cable to attach it to your comp's usb 2.0 port), and it also has a microphone. It's not as easy to use as an ipod, and it's shuffle feature seems to prefer the first file (it numbers the files) for some reason. But all in all, it's a better buy than the shuffle if you're in my situtation!
nobody claims their device to be the ipod killer..
the websites claim it because it makes hordes and hordes of mac boys to visit the site and then go into lengthy discussion why it's not as good as the apple offering.
how can they kill something with something they've already been making for years and years?(flash players)
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I'd like to see something like that with XM tuning. The Delphi SkyFi is too big and fugly.
I really like the Muvo players from Creative. They are flash based, have a FM tuner (that can also record radio) and are designed just like a DOK (disk on Key).
They can't be beat for flexability, or size.
Why buy a player from a media company (apple or sony)? Creative is motivated to have their player as flexable as possible.
Sony's only plus is name recognition... they haven't got the features or the size benfits anymore.
(at Newegg). Building a solid state mp3 player without MMC card extention is nonsence. I suggest to ignore any player that does not have that feature (iPod shuffle included).
Andrew
Well, as long as Sony includes some way for you to view exactly what the hell you're listening to, the track time elapsed, and what else is stored on the player, they will be miles ahead of the iPod Shuffle. Seriously, how expensive is a damned LCD? Stop trying to focus on hitting price points that end with "9" and give the consumers what they want.
I'd have thought that every contract electronics manufacturer on the planet has something on the market or in the works:
o about the size of a matchbox
o runs off an AAA battery
o a display that you can read from at least some angles
o works as a flash drive, allows easy copying of mp3 files to and fro
Apple have succeeded because they (very skilfully) made the original iPod a fashion accessory. People will always buy fashion items, but this year's "must have" spends next year in a drawer.
(still can't quite understand why quite so many people drive BMWs though).
Not true. I've copied songs from one machine to another, and the song data gets transfered. Even the album cover is stored in the file. Certain things like playcounts however are stored in the iTunes Library file though.
"The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved." -- John Ashcroft
Same memory, same price, same basic features, longer battery life, display, user-replaceable battery.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
Sony continually goes up against competitors they can never win against. Apple has too strong of a hold on this market for Sony to even budge them. It's no surprise that they are 60 million in debt.
Apple fanboy logic:
If an Apple product sells it is undoubtedly
due to its mind-blowing design and level of
innovation.
If a non-Apple product sells it is obviously either due to evil monopolistic practices or
because they copied Apple.
Ever get the feeling that the slashdot editors were all top 40 radio programming execs in another life? All the hit news, all the time! Less talk, more dupes!
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
If they used a text to speech engine and structured it like modern day phone IVRs. With a text to speach engine you could select music by artist, album or genre.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
I think you're tarring with a pretty broad brush. For me, the key feature of the iPod is the smart playlist generation, and the accompanying database that's built from ID3 tags. Since I started using iTunes, I no longer have to think about the file structure of my MP3 collection. I simply tag the track with a genre, album, title, whatever, and query on that metadata to build playlists.
I would hate to have to pick and choose 6000-10,000 tracks to put on my iPod (assuming I have a collection that's larger than my device). Drag and drop is not good enough.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Seriously, there just ain't that much to 'em-How much can they cost to produce these days? Seems like these things will the digital watches of the 21st century...
No bluetooth. Smaller than Rio. Lame.
One huge problem that any IPod competitor will face is the natural lock-in of ITunes. If I bought an IPod and bought a few albums through the music store, I'm pretty much stuck with my IPod unless I want to buy the music over again. Sony can't even get away with providing some sort of import tool because it would violate the DMCA.
Sure, there are tools to decrypt these files, but many of the average ipod users don't have a clue about that stuff. If they consider an IPod competitor, they'll be informed that their music won't carry over and they'll get another IPod.
It's the same game Microsoft plays if on a different scale. Everybody needs windows to run the software they bought and it's too expensive to change to a different operating system because you have to get all new software.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
competition is good - it will keep apple on its toes. I think this announcement had a pretty big impact on AAPL today though its dropped about 2 dollars a share - yikes.
Kiteboarding Gear Mention slashdot and get 10% off!
I own far too many Apple products and I hesitate to point out a glaring omission that seems to have eluded the masses.
...why not see and hear?
The Shuffle has no display. Most players in this class do! This is the only thing accounting for the lower cost.
Has Apple really convinced everyone that the inability to interact with the device beyond play/pause/skip and random/sequential is a positive?
The Apple noSight. Why see when you can hear?
iTunes is great. Mac and PC implementation is stellar. The playlist builder works.
Sony's new MP3 players
The good:
- OLED
- stunning looking
- uses AAA battery for 50 hours of playback
- quick charge mode... 3 hours of playback after 3 min charge
The bad:
- no MP3 capability
- $30 more expensive for the 1GB
The bottom line:
Sony craps on it's stellar design team once again!
The online audio store war has been fought and Apple has won. All other players lost out because of greed, lack of vision, bad management and greed. Did I mention greed? Get over it. To survive in today's market you need both ends of the coin.
And Apple, less marketing and more hardware please!
Because I wanted to listen to my music AND the radio, but didn't want to carry around two devices.
Actually I lied in my first post - first I had an Arcos player, but upgraded to my iRiver.
I also considered an iRiver MP3/CD/FM device, but wanted something smaller.
I'll pass.
I don't moderate anymore. Karma penalty for 90% fair mods? Can I mod that unfair?
Owners of larger iPods might find the Shuffle useful for storing a few songs, but as a standalone player, the Shuffle is a POS. An equivalent priced MP3 player would have far more features, such as an LCD display for the same price. Its hard to fathom why anyone else would buy it.
Ok, CmdrTaco. You finally have your mp3 player with your beloved FM tuner. Buy one and write up a review for us, ok?
I cannot think of anything more useless these days than an FM tuner. Here in the SF Bay Area, most radio stations are absolute trash. 2 songs, ad break, 1 more song, more ads. It's just terrible. An FM tuner is a totally worthless addition to a portable mp3 player, imho.
Generally, folks buy mp3 players so they can listen to their mp3s, and they're listening to the mp3s because they're sick to death of radio!
I'm also surprised that nobody tried to call this the "iPod Killer" this time. Heh. the new Sony devices look nice, but do they work well with iTunes? Do they include some Sony software that's Windows-only? I think that the iTunes + iPod integration and ease of use is a huge selling point. Piling on more mp3 applications to support various devices is only going to make a mess of things.
Just bought a 256mb flash, with am/fm/tv for under 100 last month. Integrated USB port, and about the size of a fat but short magic marker..
Has a SD slot to boot.
Doesnt beat my Ipod, but its rugged AND IT HAS A F-ING RADIO ( do you hear that apple? )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
... if not, then no sale.
In the course of every project, it will become necessary to shoot the scientists and begin production.
I didn't say that itunes stripped all the metadata from your song files.
I said that the iPod doesn't read the metadata from the song file, but rather from the database file. If you just copy an MP3 file to a random location on the iPod filesystem, that song won't show up in the Music menu - there is no way to play it.
i forget
Also you have to supply your own external battery charger and take that with you on trips. Either that or buy tripple A's.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
For the Audio products, the battery life is spot on. Sony is leaps and bounds beyond thier competitors when it comes to battery life on the portable audio.
Personally I consider the use of a AAA battery a big plus. A LiIon battery will wear out in about 2-3 years. At that point your Shuffle is garbage. Buy two AAA NiMH batteries and a charger and always have one ready for the NetworkWalkman.
Whenever a new Sony or Creative player comes out, the product simply feels like a "me too" kind of thing, where they try to somehow prove to the world that it is a better product than the iPod by listing out its many features like absolutely insane battery life, more space, FM capability and such. Most of which the average consumer would care nothing about.
These companies' products ultimately lack identity. I honestly don't see how the new Sony players are any different than what was avaliable a few months ago, nor any compelling reason to buy these over, say, a shuffle.
I agree that iPod sales drive iTunes usage. But after some trial and error I have to admit that iTunes is a pretty good player. It does everything I need and has also enforced some rigor in properly tagging and rating my music. This helps me squeeze music from my collection onto devices with limited storage.
And this is where the Shuffle figures in. A gigabyte is likely to be smaller than most people's music collections. It is much smaller than many collections. Playlists are cool but it takes work to compile them and keep them updated. I almost always want to just take all my best music and shuffle through it. Now that I am familiar with how iTunes works I know that the Shuffle will be able to implement this system quite easily. So if I end up buying the Shuffle (and I probably will) iTunes is the real reason.
I love how big fat Sony continues to not get it. They are no better than M$ with all their me-too (in)-action. Apple OWNS the "shuffle" market too now. But boy, they must have gotten some pretty good recognizance to put something out this fast. Good for them on that front. What is also good actually for Sony in this case, is that they don't have to design any interfaces, which they blow severely at.
Stay below 92.5MHz on your FM dial and you're usually a lot better off.
.mp3 or .ogg (station formats and history) I have really grown to like "After Hours" between 20:00 and 23:00Eastern on weekdays. Saturday evening is pretty decent hip hop mix. You're in for a surprise if you try Friday evenings or Sunday mornings :) Some PSA's.
.wma or Real. Mostly Jazz. SUPPORT
.mp3, .ogg, or Real to one of the first radio station in the world to rebroadcast over the net. Eclectic and chill.
.mp3, .ogg, .wma, Quicktime, or Real. (please send them a few bucks if you stream their music!) All classical all the time. (Just disconnect if you're not listening!) SUPPORT
.mp3, .wma, or Real (from iBiblio) to a well funded public radio station. You get Terry Gross, BBC and Day to Day. "Back Porch Music" on weekend evenings (great bluegrass). Program Schedule SUPPORT
d io.html 5 40231&tid=141&tid=185&tid=95&tid=4
You'll often find NPR stations and college radio, often almost completely void of annoying DJs and commercial interruptions.
In the triangle we've got:
88.1 -- WKNC @ NC State Listen in high-quality
88.9 -- WSHA @ Shaw University Listen in
89.3 -- WXYC @ Duke Listen in
89.7 -- TheClassicalStation, WCPE Listen in
91.5 -- WUNC in Chapel Hill Listen in
I know everybody doen't have such a wonderful selection at the bottom of the dial as the Triangle, but check it out locally - you may discover something... (tune manually rather than with "seek" or "scan" as these will often miss low powered - sometimes high quality - listening opportunities). If you don't have a FM tuner onboard your music player, you can either pipe in audio from a regular radio to your soundcard for automatic recordings and conversion to your favorite format or use the FM tuner that's built in to many TV capture cards and do the same.
http://gary.burd.info/2003/07/time-shifting-fm-ra
http://osl.iu.edu/~tveldhui/radio/
http://jaeger.blogmatrix.com/radio/
http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/05/1
If you actually RTFA, there's no mention of him being given an iPod other than in the sardonic headline.
Got it for $148, shipping included. For my purposes - this blows the doors off anything else out there..
I do agree, however, with the earlier poster about wanting AM, though.
I'm well aware that some consumers are obsessed with the iPod "cool factor", but I expect more out of the clear thinkers among us. Why buy a flash-based player that won't let you upgrade the flash memory when a HUGE component of the price is the memory itself, and when you'll be able to upgrade the capacity to iPod Mini size within 2 years for less than $100? It's a vehicle to deliver music, not an expression of who you are.
Seen any BadMarketing lately?
Personally I would rather have a AAA battery. It is cheap and easy to carry a spare.
I had something like this and the Shuffle for months.
Consider further that unlike Apple products, there is discounting of Sony products. With increased battery life and some display it will definitely lure the average Joe. Not to mention the iPod as a trendy item is about over.
I've had one that did this for over a year now.
Personally, after using the Sandisk, I fail to see what is so hard about developing a simple, easy-to-use mp3 player with lots of flash memory. It installs as a drive letter so I can "drag and drop", it's backlit, and it runs on AAA (one).
I'm not a shill. Just satisfied.....and a little confused by the whole discussion.
Nice that it works for you, but not everyone is comfortable being forced to use software just to put music on their walkman. Heck I might even use it if provided and it turns out to be worth it.
But if I Reinstall my computer and I have to find lame software to put music on my player. No thanks, I won't be held hostage again, no matter how good the software is.
What is the freakin harm in letting me simply drop my music on the player as an option???
I'm just here to play the Apple iPod Shuffle.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
I honestly don't see why they're talking about taking on the iPod Shuffle. Their new player has a screen, no built-in battery, and is twice the cost of a Shuffle of the same capacity. In short, it's the complete opposite of the Shuffle, ie. it's like all other flash-based players out there.
Um, I'd rather have 1 GB of AAC over 1 GB of MP3 any day. If you want to listen to anything remotely intricate on MP3 you really have to crank up the bitrate, to at least 230. For MP3s, I'd usually keep it at 320, just to be safe (because when you can tell the difference, in your favourite song, it really pisses you off).
With AAC I'd top out at 192 (sometimes I need to go higher, but low bitrates with AAC aren't as brutally ugly as they are with MP3). 128 can be very good for simple stuff, but it's very much hit and miss at 128.
And it's not like I'm going to rip all my high-bitrate MP3 music again to use a crappy MP3 bitrate.
And what about software? Is there anything that can smartly choose a subset of your library for the thing, whilst saving disk space for your own use like iTunes' iPod Shuffle support does?
Moderators should have to take a reading comprehension test.
What's "uncomfortable" about it? You seem to be couching this as some sort of liberty argument, which is totally perplexing. Are you bitter that your video card requires you to use drivers to make it work?
.mp3 to some random location on the device? The only other alternative would be for the player to re-index itself every time you turn it on. Whee...wouldn't that be fun? I bet it'd only take half an hour or so.
What is the freakin' harm in letting you drop music on the player? How does the player know to update the database when you drag an
"Held hostage"? Come on. Get some perspective. You're being silly.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
The fact that the battery is necessary doesn't mean this isn't worth looking at. Same argument could be made about the shuffle's lack of a display.
I didn't say it wasn't worth looking at, I said it wasn't competition for the iPod Shuffle. It's competing with the high end flash players, not the low end where the Shuffle sits. And that's a tough market, jammed as it is between the iPod Mini and the real low end that the Shuffle's going after.
That's the competition for the shuffle: the under-$100 flash players like the Magic Star.
You haven't heard of the Magic Star flash MP3 player? I bought one about 3 years ago, for my daughter. It's basically the iPod Shuffle with less memory and no shuffle feature. When Jobs came on and started talking about the price and size of flash players, I wanted to crawl through the Internet and shove it down his throat. "This is what you want to make, Steve!", I'd cry, as they dragged me offstage.
Well, damn me if he didn't go ahead and do it. And at a competitive price, too. Now let's see if Sony will catch on as well...
Sony might be expensive, but the iPOD's are't that cheap either. The main reason I don't buy sony products is mainly because its over priced and they force you to use their expensive memory sticks..
I recently bought a Neuros, it has a lot more functionality that an iPOD and is way cheaper..
I think I paid about $229 for mine and it came with a:
30 Gig HD
FM Radio
FM Transmitter
long lasting rechargeable battery
and a car charger,
and the best thing is that the firmWare is open source.
The form factor sucks cause it looks like a tank compared to the slick iPOD.
the current market is not what is better, its all about what is marketed better... Its pretty interesting that HD MP3 players have existed for some time now, but with Apples marketing, it seems like the newest thing since sliced bread.. :p
The price just dropped from ~$180 to $154 delivered which is what I paid.
I originally purchased an Archos Jukebox for exactly that reason, I wanted to be able to drag and drop my music files onto the device and avoid any DRM, rather than use software. I enjoyed the Archos, despite the incredible amount of work it took to get the files on there, arranged and named correctly. Until I played with an iPod. iTunes makes the process of importing music to the iPod so seamless and simple, I bought an iPod and the Archos sits on a shelf. I have no problem importing downloaded MP3's to the iPod.
I don't know about elsewhere, but at least in Seattle, it's not worth bothering with. With two crappy companies owning most of the stations, 60% of the air time is commercials, egotistical morons run at the mouth durring drive time (in the 2nd worst traffic in the US), and when they are playing music, they plug the same "crossover" and "wide apeal" singles on every station they can get mileage out of.
*** Sigs are a stupid waste of bandwidth.
I have and RCA and I hate it. I have to use musicmatch to load the songs. It is a steaming pile of dung. Now if I ever was dumb enough to buy a player that forced me to use software to load the tunes, itunes is probably better than just about all the rest.
But really, I will not buy another player that forces me down that route.
Get a Sandisk and use true drag and drop.
Compare that with the Creative muvo n200 1gb version for £109 on amazon.co.uk .
Based on creative's pricing, I would pay £140 for the NW-E507. Anything more than that would not seem like a reasonable purchase.
What is uncomfortable is that after the last install, I haven't found the lame software disk I need in order to transfer music to my player.
Hence I can't update it. I dont' know where the frelling disk is. So yes I am hostage to the craptacular software that came with my RCA piece of frelling crap. When I did have the software it had no playlist management, just first come first serve. So I need to find some damn proprietary disk so I just do a glorified drag n drop.
You think a drag and drop player would take half an hour to re-index itself? And you say I am being silly.
There are drag n drop players like the Sandisk and Muvo that work just fine without any crap software and that is what I will definitely purchase next.
There seems to be a general misconception regarding price. The players mentioned in this article are competively priced.
The EW-104(512MB) is $99 and EW-105(1GB) is $150. Atop that, these players offer a display and can use interchangable batteries (AAA).
The 512MB EW-405($130) and 1GB EW-505 ($180), cost $30 more than a comparative iPod Shuffle but offers OLED and better battery life (the FM cost $20 extra on each version).
Slashdot's Apple-bias approaches the illogical, these new players offer more key features for a comparable price. Imagine if Sony made the iPod Shuffle, people would be bashing them for not being able to know what song you're playing, and locking them into a single DRM-ridden service. People can show their product devotion without bashing other products (be it Sony, iRiver, or any other flash player); especially if the product offers healthy competition to the market segment.
What does your bad experience with a cut-rate RCA player have to do with the software that comes with the iPod (which, by the way, you can download for free...even if you don't have an iPod)?
I think drag and drop players DON'T index themselves. There is no index...just a bunch of directories willy nilly arranged on the player.
Yes, there are drag and drop players, that do not have a database that I can query to build playlists, which is (IMO) a crippling limitation. They might suit YOU, which is fine. Nobody's making you buy an iPod. But, yes, adding that function to the iPod would make it less usable.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Jesus Christ man, can't you even have a coherent conversion with yourself?
Maybe its just where I am but FM is all music, where as AM is talk radio. Here I've never understood why I would want a FM tuner in a mp3 player. I mean I already have the music I want with me. Why would I want the crap on the radio? Live talk radio on the other hand is something useful to add to a music player. Maybe I'm on the go and want to hear the news, or the sports game.
Thats why I care less about FM, but would be interested in AM.
Anyway, it's a reasonable concern: a reasonable criteria for an audio player is that it play a number of formats. If you're trying to avoid patented formats, Ogg Vorbis is a valuable format.
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
http://www.iriveramerica.com/prod/ultra/1000/ifp_1 095.aspxHere is one of many such devices (it takes pictures...)
9 9.aspx Here's another one that is maybe more in the ipod shuffle price range.
http://www.iriveramerica.com/prod/ultra/700/ifp_7
"where words meet intent, lies rhetoric's lament"
How dare anyone think differently from you?!?
I have the exact player I linked to, and when I connect it with USB, it shows up as a generic storage device. I don't need MusicMatch - I just drag and drop. If yours does otherwise, I'm sorry to hear it.
Seen any BadMarketing lately?
> Not to mention the iPod as a trendy item is about over.
That's right, just as the Mac has been going out of business for over 20 years. I always love it how, failing to find serious flaw with the iPod, 'pundits' now claim that 'it's over'.
I have an older model, A K@zoo. Require SW. Good to hear they fixed that.
Sony, seeing they had a potential hit on their hands, immediately announced a recall on all units and discontinued the model.
This is what I see in the iPod shuffle: relatively short battery life, no display, lack of playback controls. And what about iTMS? What about it? I just need a small general MP3 player which covers all the basics of any audio playback device. Of course depending on prices, these Sonys are much better than the shuffle for someone like me to whom the Apple or Sony brands mean precious little.
My experience is no knock against iPods, it relates why I won't buy another player without easy drag and drop. This article was about Sony and I suspect the Sony sw is not as good as Itunes. There is also platform support. Drag n Drop works everywhere.
:-)
Also I don't care about playlists, I alway put my player on shuffle. I think some company out there is even marketing a player with that in mind.
the her than superb.
The problem is not lack of drag n' drop, it's simply poor engineering. Drag n' drop might be better than other bad solutions, but it's not as good as a database-driven selection system.
The iPod shuffle is a perfect example. I can tell it to "Keep all my high-rated songs on the device at all times, and fill the remainder with non-one-star rated songs. Oh yeah, and preserve 128 mb of free memory for me to store files in".
You simply can't do that with a drag n' drop solution, without spending hours picking and choosing a file here and there.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
I understand the price gap is not so large in other countries, for some reason apple decided to really mark things up here. But I think the comparision is still vaild.
In any case, the point is that any player more expensive than the shuffle will never compete with it. In the publics mind the iPod is the top of the line player. Why would you buy one of these sony players when you can get a 'better' one for less money.
The only way to get around that is some clever marketing that makes people thing your product is cooler. And I don't think that is the case here, judging by the fact that they couldn't even think of a better name than the NF0507, or whatever.
I have to say that is rather stretching it. Almost all the National Park radio stations I have listened to go like "Highway 85 iis closed at pine junction due to swarms of fierce grizzlies" with perhaps a minute or more and then it loops.
It's sometimes nice to listen to for a few seconds in the car, but it's always stuff the ranger just told you at the booth when you come in anyway.
I agree about the Podcasting though, I greatly prefer that to radio as you can control the playback, speed it up (if yo use the audiobook format) and never have decline in quality because you are sitting wrong. I can almost not stand the quality of radio in the car (or for that matter the quality of what is broadcast) and so I really prefer to capture it at listen to it at my own pace.
You can also use RadioShark to TiVo real radio.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Bzzzzzzt...Wrong answer!
The real problem is that Sony sells DRM-poisoned crapware, and misleadingly labeled (Minidisc does NOT support MP3) and overpriced to add insult to injury.
Sorry Sony, I won't buy from you even if it is better and cheaper (which it isn't). Your brand has too many negative connotations for me now.
I've got a JMTek Melodistik, and I am quite surprised at both how good it is, and how bad JMTek's marketing of it is. $75 for the 128 mb player, $75 for the 1 GB expansion card, built in FM tuner, 15-20 hours battery life, acts as a USB drive, track display, robust design... The engineering is top notch, but their marketing and advertising is virtually non-existant (probably because the company's main product is USB drives). Basically its better than the shuffle in every category except size where it is a little bigger but still competitive. I'm just curious how many other superior MP3 players there are out there that no one knows about due to poor marketing... Probably a lot.
Check out Anapod Explorer from RedChair Software. It allows you to use your iPod as a removable drive and comes with a host of other (rather nifty) features.
It isn't free though.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
How could a product double the cost challenge a similar product. Quality ? . No wonder Sony just hired a new CEO if this is how they operate.
And you know this how? IIRC Sony's MD products sold in much higher quantities in Europe (and Asia) than they ever did in the US.
Not to mention the iPod as a trendy item is about over.
Again, your evidence for this is ... ?
Also, perhaps in your haste to post the US prices comparing the Sony players to the iPod shuffle you didn't notice that the 1GB Sony is only $19 cheaper than a 4GB iPod mini.
and would cost over $1000 if they did sell it in America. Proven wrong. Not sold in America because Americans are too poor to afford something so nice. Don't worry though! By the time this phone is a year old, Motorola will have a pitiful 1.3 megapixel iTunes phone for Americans to buy and enjoy, along with America's pitiful excuse for broadband.
Ok, would you prefer the more politically correcct "more"?
Sony sales in 04 were 20% more in the US than Europe. Right
out of their annual report, ok?
As for trends, its a personal observation about the life
cycle of most 'must have' items here in the states.
As for price compared to iPod mini, why aren't you then
asking about Apple's pricing of the Shuffle? And it seems
fairly clear Sony is marketing this to compete with the
Shuffle, not the mini. Likewise you fail to address the
fact that Apple items are only sold (new) at list price
whereas most other products are available at discounted
prices.