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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!
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).
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.
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.
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!
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.
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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.
yeah, something about video killing its star.
-- i am jack's amusing sig file
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.
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.
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
"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
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.
...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.
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
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'
Apple has always shied away from features it doesn't want enabled in their product but which are supported by the hardware. For example, all iPods since 3rd gen have been able to play WMA! But Apple never enabled it. The original iPod OS can control FireWire CD Burners - Apple never enabled that feature. It would be trivial (and cost nearly nothing) to add an FM Tuner to the entire iPod range, but Apple thinks (right IMO) that people buy Music players, not radios, and complicating a product with extra unused features is not a good thing.
In fact, looking at the original iPod to the Click Wheel iPod, apart from the Click Wheel itself, what has changed about the way you interact and use the player? Actually very little, when you think about it.
Get a free iPod Nano 4GB!
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, I absolutely consider the addition of an FM tuner to be a very big deal.
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 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.
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
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.
I went to my local Fry's electronics and checked out flash based MP3 players. Fry's, in case you don't know, is a huge store that carries most anything computer or electronics related (with several exceptions - but for flash players they pretty much have it all). They had a wall of flash players and not one of them was a better deal than the iPod shuffle when you compare price and megabytes of storage. Most were in the $50 - $70 and had either 32MB to 128 MB of storage. At $99 for 512MB, the iPod shuffle seems to me like a better deal.
For what its worth, I saw several people crowded around the Shuffle and other iPods and no one around the other players which were in a different area of the store.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
No bannana for the monkeys at Sony. I'll be sticking with my iPod Mini.
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.
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 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.
On the subject of FM radios and such, here's my two cents.
Think about mobile phones. Practically every mobile phone today has a camera in it. If you want a decent mobile phone, you have to buy one with a camera.
I don't want a camera. So when I buy a $120 phone with a camera, I feel ripped off. How much less could they have sold the phone for if they didn't put the stupid camera in it?
Apple knows that most people don't want a portable radio. They know that for two reasons. First, they know that historically portable FM radios have not sold like wildfire. Second, they know because they asked. Apple does tons of market research, which is one reason why they hardly ever ship products that flop. They have a good idea of what people want before they ship the first unit.
So if Apple added a radio just because they can, they know right up front that most people won't actually want it. Sure, it might only add a couple of bucks to the cost of the iPod, but the perception on the part of the customer is that he's being sold something he doesn't want. How much cheaper could the iPod have been if it didn't have that stupid radio in it?
Or, get a Sony flash player with a screen for half the cost of an iPod. Or is that forbidden?
Article reads:The 1Gb model will still cost £200 compared to Apple's iPod Shuffle at £99.
Using that Bush "Social Security" math?
I'm not a Troll, it's reverse psychology.
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.
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.
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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?
Not necessarily. I don't have an mp3 player, and I'm tempted to get one. See, I have a portable cd player. I usually burn a disks worth of songs out of itunes and let it play in shuffle mode. I've never felt the need to carry my entire collection with me. The ipod shuffle would fit the bill perfectly, and at a fraction of the size.
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.