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Microsoft's Tips for Buying an MP3 Player
An Anonymous Reader writes "In another extension of Microsoft's 'Plays for Sure' campaign, the company has launched a web page with six tips to help consumers purchase the 'correct' MP3 Player for them. Among the insights of the article hard drive-based players suck and a stopwatch is a useful feature to have on your player. Unsurprisingly, the iPod meets none of Microsoft's criteria. A humorous commentary is available, of course." From the article: "6. Don't get locked into one online store. Have you ever been on the hunt for a particular song? Some obscure indie rock tune or rare jazz performance you heard on the radio? You might have to shop at more than one store before you find the song you're looking for."
They didn't say microdrive players suck, but the page IS about flash players. About the display thing, I wholeheartedly agree, I think people assume any ipod is "teh coolness", but I'd rather buy a flash player with a display and fm tuner for the same price as an ipod shuffle, I think apple manages to confuse a decent amount of people, and the apple fanatics, well, they'll buy anything apple.
I know about Linux PDAs and such but is there a Linux-based mp3 player. It seems like a great idea since you wouldn't have to pay fees on the OS. Plus Linux is pretty customizable. Open the player up so people can write plugins and new features. Why hasn't anyone thought of this?
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
few with fm radio
how come mp3 players with fm radio are so hard to find?
doesn't it occur to manufacturers/ consumers how much functionality is added with so little effort by adding fm radio?
i have an iriver IFP-180T solely on the basis of it having an fm radio
how much does the fm radio circuitry add to the cost of an mp3 player? 50 cents?
will someone please enlighten me then how come fm radio is so hard to find in mp3 players?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The Neuros is a brick when compared to the iPod, and that's the only reason it never sold that well. Had it had its current feature list and been the same size as an iPod it would have done much better, even with its limited marketing budget.
Sure, the iPod's looks carry it a ways, but it's the size of the thing, and its smootheness (which makes for better pocket-ability than any of its last gen competition) that have made it so popular. Most consumers care far more about how big a DAP is than about its format support or even battery life...
Unsurprisingly, the iPod meets none of Microsoft's criteria.
Is that so? Up until recently, I seem to recall every iPod sold having a display.
So i can figure out how long the fucker takes to crash. No wait. :-)
Approximate figures based on CD-quality WMA (64 Kbps)
Every player up to the Shuffle was a hard drive based player. Thus the only iPod that could not meet the criteria (and still be flash based) is the Shuffle.
TSI
From the article:
"*Approximate figures based on CD-quality WMA (64 Kbps)"
Am I the only one who don't think 64kbps WMA is "CD quality", or is it because the quality of todays recordings on CDs are quite a lot worse than they used to be, of could I just be insane?
Make me doubt one fact, and I'll start doubting all facts...
When did ANYONE with a clue listen to Microsoft? "Linux costs you more money", "Linux has more security problems" and "IE doesn't have any security holes which we can't fix and do the second we know about them if you have a fucking time machine!" seems to be all they can say lately.
I'm sick of Bill and his lies, who gives a fuck if he says Longhorn will stop teenage pregnancy, cure world hunger and get every geek laid within a week of buying it. He talks so much crap now (and so do most people who have spin doctors sitting up their ass all day) that we may as well go listen to the talking clock for a bit and at least get some truth even if it's useless 10 seconds later.
I like muppets.
...from the good folks that brought you the hilarious
Parents Primer to Computer Slang.
Now you and your family can be l33t together.
W
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Some obscure indie rock tune or rare jazz performance you heard on the radio? You might have to shop at more than one store before you find the song you're looking for.
Rare jazz performance? Sure, I often want stuff like that, but why would I buy it off of an online digital music store? Nearly every store supplies its songs in a mediocre 128kbps-ish format, generally sub-par to the equivalent LAME encoded 128kbps VBR MP3. Why would I want jazz, with all its high-hats and dynamic range, in an uber-low quality format? Britney Spears' new single, sure.. but jazz??
And don't say AllOfMp3.com (who have changed CC processor to someone else)..
I like the CARS take on it:
CARS is good stuff!
Don't you remeber in 1995 when they ran the song "Start Me Up" into the ground. They have 10 years experience with music, they might be able to do something right by now.
mnewberg.com
but why?
what is it about fm radio that doesn't appeal to you?
to me it's a free jokebox, it has no downside
in all honesty, respectfully, i can't understand you not being impressed by fm radio
i run and listen to mp3s, then at some point i get bored with my choices, and yearn for something random and fresh: voila, radio, different channels, different tastes
why is it that, if you are correct, people are hellbent on listening to nothing but that from their own collection?
isn't that incredibly asocial and self-important and stuffy?: "i know all there is to know about my musical tastes and my tastes will never change on a moments notice and yearn to hear something new and fresh"
i don't think that my mp3 collection, as large as it is, adequately describes all of my musical interests or whims or desires to find something new and different
are people really that incredibly inward and unexperimentive about their music choices?
i honestly can't believe that
and if you are correct, well then that's sad to me
are people really that cloistered and stuffy?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Be sure to get that FM receiver option so you can listen to higher-quality music when you get tired of your 64 Kbps WMA collection.
As if any of Microsoft's time estimates have been correct.
Case in point: try copying a file to another place on any Windows PC.
For another fine guide of theirs, check out the Parent's primer to l33t sp34k. Seems to be on par.
I can fathom why they'd want to make a page like this, but it wouldn't stop anyone from purchasing that ever-so hip iPod/mini/shuffle/gumstick.
Really? Not even point three, "You'll want a display"? How many people would choose an iPod Shuffle over one of these? Note the price difference and the presence of an FM tuner/recorder.
"The newly born animals are then whisked off for a quick run through a giant baking oven." --heard on Food Network
I have seen the Neuros and the iPod side-by-side. The player itself is of reasonable size, but it is a flash player, and only capable of holding 256mb of music. Attaching the "backpack" enables it to hold a lot more music on the hard disk, but it essentially makes it a brick.
I would have to argue that the better user interface definately goes to the iPod. The Neuros' interface is cluttered and confusing, at best. The 5 preset buttons on the side may be useful for some purposes, yet, I find that they just take up space.
The extra features on the Neuros include FM recieving and transmission, and a feature called "hi-si", which essentially records part of a radio stream for comparison to a DB when synced to a computer. Sure, these features have that "hey, that's kewl!" value, but it only lasts for a day, one week tops. Ask yourself: are you REALLY going to _use_ these features?
FM transmission is really just an ad-hoc solution for getting it to play through car speakers. In most circumstances, I find that a cheap tape adapter actually sounds better. FM reception is gradually turning into a gimmick in digital audio players. We are turning to digital audio for a reason: you will not find many radio stations that do not play absolute crap most of the time.
The iPod is an example of a device that does one thing and does it well: play digital audio through an easy to use interface in a stylish device. Devices like the Neuros do a lot of things, but it generally feels slapped together and half-assed.
Some obscure indie rock tune or rare jazz performance you heard on the radio?
Funnily, this is the kind of music that you're most likely to find available as unrestricted mp3s, which will obviously work in any music player you like.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Why do people think this is directly targetting the ipod?
Because we read it.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Quite right. Twenty minutes to copy a 17-meg file won't hold a candle to some of Windows' estimates.
Bears don't normally eat things that talk and move backwards.
How many people would choose an iPod Shuffle over one of these?
You mean, how many people would choose a 1024/512 megabytes players over 256/128 megabytes players? Count me in. And as for the price difference - it will be eaten up quite soon by the non-rechargeable batteries.
You know, in a way I tend to agree with MS here, in the sense that I always thought moving parts are a bad thing for mobile entertainment devices. Idealy, if it is possible, I'd like my MP3 player to be fully solid state tech. Less power consumption, more rugged, and perhaps higher data density.
Of course, when the price factors in he equation, HD starts to look much more attractive...
Sigged!
Except, of course, for all of the ones that don't and haven't. Because the average consumer (as opposed to the average Slashdotter) doesn't care if their music is OGG, MP3, WMA, CD, or cassette. They want to be able to access it and listen to it when they want. All the other questions pale in significance by comparison.
Holy Apple-Fanatic Batman!
This is the first time I've seen someone pan 'extra functionality' as being bad. Well, actually that's a lie. It's the first time, since the last time the apple fans had to come out and be defensive about their product.
Not Meta-modding due to apathy.
Basic conclusion? Determine your size needs. This is based on A. How long do you listen it in one go. B. What is your tolerance for repeats. C. How often do you chance your songs. If you use it 4 hours per day, can't stand to hear the same song more then once in a week and never replace your songlist you are going to need more space then someone who likes to listen to the same album over and over again. HD's also can be damaged more easily by extreme rough use. Not by carrying them with you in your pocket while running but if you throw your stuff around the hd might not survive. For most people there will be no problems.
So don't be tempted by "extras". Extras are easy. Making a damned good solid mp3 player is not.
As for the whole wma nonsense. My hearing is pretty bad but on the whole
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Woah there! Put down the Kool-Aid, pal. You're still clinging to your Newton, aren't you?
Repeat after me: "Apple is a mindless, soulless corporation that would be just as evil as Microsoft if they had the marketshare. They do not care about me or what I do, so long as I don't 'steal' their intellectual property or post leaked pictures of their new products to the web."
Then again, I just got rid of my IIgs last year...
The average slashdotter doesn't even care about ogg. However, every single time an mp3/wma/aac player is discussed, someone always chimes in about ogg. Ogg support is such a rarely desired that few manufacturers want to spend the money on something that probably won't pay itself back with increased sales.
http://www.mirrordot.org/stories/4d12acb0722715b19 eb0a3491221d3ab/index.html Mirrordot mirror of the /.ed page
Interesting. Archos devotes the top of its Gmini page to the freaky giant-head guy. I can't find any information on whatever software they expect me to run on my computer to put music onto the Gmini. I can't find any information about a charging dock, or what carrying cases are available. And the photos of the Gmini don't make it clear how to navigate, which fits well with one review I just read saying navigation is "clumsy."
It's small, it's cheap, but... does it suck?
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
In this completely unbiased article with absolutely no underlying agenda or ulterior motive whatsoever, the Redmond Beast makes a humanitarian effort to warn you about certain pitfalls that dot the path of buying a portable digital music player, so that you don't wind up with a music device without a built-in stopwatch, which, of course, would be a fate worse than death. Here, with brief summaries of Microsoft's explanations, are the six tips that could save you from inadvertently spending all eternity in Flash Hell:
1. Understand the basics, i.e. flash players are inherently better than hard-drive players because they don't skip unless you throw them at the water just right.
2. Make sure you're getting all the goodies, i.e. you just won't be happy unless your player can record FM radio and includes, for some reason, a stopwatch.
3. You'll want a display, i.e. there's no nobler way to die than by trying to change songs with a three-line, teensy-button human interface while jogging and being struck down by a Dodge Stratus.
4. Let a professional make your next playlist, i.e. why listen to your own music when you can listen to nonstop commercials and obnoxious local DJs on FM radio? And record them digitally, so you can share that great beer jingle with your friends and loved ones?
5. Pick the right size for you, i.e. Windows Media is great, and we just wanted to harp on that for a minute. Have we mentioned that Windows Media is great?
6. Don't get locked into one online store; it is, however, just fine to get locked into one proprietary data format and DRM scheme-- as long as it's ours.
Interestingly enough, before it was refined into the Six Commandments you see above, an earlier draft version of the list was considerably terser. AtAT operatives have secured a copy, and it seems to imply that Microsoft might have had some sort of unstated underlying objective in mind when it put these tips together, although we're having a tough time seeing just what it might have been. Maybe you can help:
1. Don't buy an iPod, iPod mini, or iPod photo.
2. Don't buy an iPod shuffle.
3. Don't buy an iPod shuffle.
4. Don't buy an iPod shuffle.
5. Pick the right size for you (as long as you don't buy an iPod shuffle).
6. Don't buy an iPod of any kind whatsoever.
We know the hidden message is there, lurking just beneath the surface. Maybe these three additional tips found in another draft unearthed by faithful viewer DT will shed some light on the subject:
1. Make sure your flash player isn't white. You don't want to get it all dirty now, do you?
2. If your flash player has a fruit on it, you might get poisoned by insecticide.
3. Always listen to Uncle Bill; he knows what's best for you.
Hmmmm. Nope, it's still a mystery. Impenetrable. Guess we'll never know.
Say, is that the smell of fear wafting over here from the Pacific Northwest?...
Microsoft is making a mess of "Plays For Sure," its effort to provide an umbrella brand for non-Apple music players and download sites. "It makes the marketing for Microsoft Bob look masterful," he said. Which is not to say that he thinks marketing is the only issue. "They're taking a bunch of online sites that aren't that good, a bunch of products that aren't very good, and putting a logo on them. Every nickel they spend on this is a wasted nickel."
For a split second I thought about Baghdad Bob, but then, here's what his reference to Microsoft Bob means:
You may have heard jokes about some old failed Microsoft product called "Bob" or seen that big yellow smily face wearing nerdy glasses, and wondered "what the heck was that all about?".
Well, in early 1995 Microsoft released a software program called "Bob" designed to replace the desktop of Windows 3.1 and 95 with an interface designed mainly for novice users.
Microsoft held a big advertising campaign and loaded up stores with copies of Bob expecting huge sales. It totally flopped.
Found that at: Toastytech
Which makes me wonder, was Baghdad Bob named after Microsoft Bob after all?
Microsoft says 64kb/s WMA is CD quality.
What does that makes 128kb/s? Or 192kb/s? Sooperdooperaudiophonicbeyondcompare quality?
The only thing that is CD quality is...a CD. And while 128kb/s AAC is fine (and somewhat better than MP3 and WMA), it isn't even close to CD quality.
64kb/s? That isn't even FM radio quality. I'm not talking Clear Channel 99.something playing the top five hits over and over FM. I'm talking real FM quality (i.e. WGMS in Washington DC, or hundreds of PBS/NPR stations across the U.S.). Heck, I've not heard a WMA that I would compare to CD, and I'm not talking expensive stereos; I'm talking about listening on a stock car stereos.
I realize this is a silly rant, and there are people who listen who really can't tell the difference. But lets stop pretending on audio quality. It reminds of the 60's when every amplifier manufacturer was claming the most ridiculous power outputs until the government stepped in and made them stop.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
6. Don't get locked into one online store. Have you ever been on the hunt for a particular song? Some obscure indie rock tune or rare jazz performance you heard on the radio? You might have to shop at more than one store before you find the song you're looking for.
Do the different "stores" actually have significantly different content, other than artificial differentiation (like Apple Records hating Apple Computer)? Should they? I mean, there's no significant overhead for online stores to carry every track out there.
In practice, online DRM-protected music distribution will tend to become a "natural monopoly" like operating system software. You'd have your choice of half a dozen Clear Channel Radio equivalents all with he same content and all tied together behind the scenes to Microsoft. Choice would become the choice of buying your copy of Windows XP from CompUSA or MicroCenter.
Meanwhile, the "obscure indie bands and rare jazz performances" can be found without DRM on a CD from the band's own website or Amazon. I buy individual tracks from iTMS, but when I go to buy an album I pay a bit more and wait a bit longer to get a "clean" version.
I've bought more CDs in the past couple of months, since I got my iPod, than I've bought in the past couple of years before it. This makes me wonder about the industry. I sometimes wonder if they're not pushing DRM-protected music so hard they're trying to hurt CD sales...
This statement makes the assumption that people that don't listen to the radio don't have other means of hearing new music.
One of the reasons I took my old walkman fishing and camping was the fact that it had a radio. It was nice being able to listen to tapes and it was nice to catch weather reports. Radios are very useful things at times and it's shocking to me that it's no longer fashionable to put them into portable media players.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Call me stupid, but I thought that the store using closed & DRMed formats were the ones doing the locking in, not the player that didn't support the locked format.
After all, had they used a open format, I would be able use it on any fscking device wouldn't I?
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
Theres an hyperlink to M$ PlayforSure.com music business lobby.
You can search for "iPod", but you won't get what you were expecting...
Is this legal in the US? They're using the well-known trademarked name to divert people to something else...
Expecting an ad to be accurate is like expecting a fart to smell like perfume.
There are several ironies that one cannot help poke fun at:
A professional what? Playlists are bought and sold. There's about as much 'professional insight' in radio playlists as there is in coming up will silly ways of walking.
How about "don't get locked into one OS/Office Suite/browser vendor"? Just couldn't resist that one.
Also, people should remember that this ad came from a corporation. Corporations are by definition non-living entities which have the capacity to act as if they were living beings. In other words, they enjoy many of the same rights and benefits as living, breathing human beings (more, in fact), but have no internal moral code to speak of, since they're not people. Without an internal moral code, they could be accurately thought of as severely mentally ill.
So, you could interview any severely mentally ill individual and get information just as good/delusional as you get from Microsoft:
Maybe
From the article: "6. Don't get locked into one online store. Have you ever been on the hunt for a particular song? Some obscure indie rock tune or rare jazz performance you heard on the radio? You might have to shop at more than one store before you find the song you're looking for."
Ok. I call bullstuff. Show me **ONE** radio station anymore that even aspymptotically approaches indie rock songs or rare jazz performances.
Lame.
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
So you can enjoy the Blue Screen of Death!
You can match logos. When you see it on a device and on an online store you know the two will work together with a no hassle. It just works!
Plus, they didn't capitalize each word of It Just Works (tm) or add the trademark symbol.
I rather like the shuffle because I excercise daily. The IPod or IPod mini is too big and bulky. The Shuffle is perfect and because it plays in random mode it is great that no song will be repeated too quickly.
Here is how I use the shuffle. Load up the device with songs for your mood. Then excercise, but that might take 45 minutes or an hour and a half. Repeat for six or seven times. At the end of the week reload with new songs.
If you don't like the shuffle, well the shuffle is not for you. It is for me for people who literally count the grams that they have to carry when they are out and about.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
"Radio is *not* the only way to hear no things, and is my experience, the *worst* way to hear anything new and fresh."
That's the case, but for times of extreme emergency. And event like 9/11 will go unheard by an MP3 player, but if you can tune in to ANY FM station, they'll cover the BIG stories of the day, and in some cases could alert you to incoming threats. Heaven knows Clear Channel would jump at the chance to scare Americans.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
The Gminis do support a proprietary database format, ARCLibrary. If you create the database and enable this functionality you can use it as well as the directory structure. Archos tells you that you need to use MusicMatch Jukebox to create the library but now there's an open source program that does it.
Regarding navigation, scrolling through a long list like a list of all albums is kind of annoying. However I organize my music in a more intelligent hierarchical way and I don't have any complaints about navigation.
I do have some complaints about other things though. The Gmini 220 sometimes ignores button presses while the hard drive is being accessed. The FM remote crashes once in a while and needs to be unplugged and plugged back in. The player also sometimes skips for no good reason.
The base Shuffle player holds 512 MB of music in a proprietary format.
Oh, the "proprietary format" boogyman.
The iTunes Music Store sells DRMed music, the iPod supports that music on the go.
BUT THE iPOD PLAYS MP3s JUST FINE.
You can't take the sky from me...
I don't know.... I can see the validity to the argument that the Shuffle lowers the bar for "Apple quality" - since it's just a "me too" flash player for people who only shop for "cheap".
On the other hand, it went along with the Mac Mini, which is another experiment by Apple to cater to the lower end of the market - and most people consider the Mac Mini a stunning success.
I'd never buy a Shuffle, but by the same token, I'd also never buy an iPod Mini. They seem like "all style, no substance" to me. You pay close to the price of a player that can store 4x as much music or more, and you get the exact same thing except in a little bit smaller, colored casing? But nonetheless, it was a huge success.
Sometimes, you can't just go by the "feature set for the $" to determine what will be a "hit". It may determine what the "technophiles" among us buy, but the general public has other motivations. I've talked to a number of iPod Mini customers, and generally - they don't do lots of MP3 downloading. They jusy buy a few things here and there off iTunes and rip the CDs they already own - so 5GB is plenty of space for 'em.
The problem with a FM transmitter for the iPod is that you sacrifice quality.
A better solution is to get a new car radio that has a 1/8" line in on the front, then you just connect an audio cable between the iPod and the radio, and you power it with a cigarette lighter.
This means that you would have to get a new radio, and an iPod, but once you get a radio that has a line in, you don't have to change it if you get a new portable, because 1/8" is essential in a portable music player.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
The iPod supports a number of popular formats, including MP3 and WAV, but not WMA (they would have had to pay licensing fees to Microsoft). Just because Apple did not support Microsoft's format, many people are insisting that its vendor lock-in. There is nothing preventing another music download service to open up tomorrow and offer MP3's or AAC's for sale (some already do), that will be compatible with the iPod.
Then is the question of motives. It has been shown that Apple makes nearly no profit off the iTMS anyway, as its probably true that the entire effort was aimed at selling more iPods. What reason do they have to lock-in users anyway? It would actually be to Apple's benefit if other music services aimed to sell music for the iPod.
The whole idea of Apple trying to force iPod users to use the iTMS is totally untrue. Why, then, would they even allow iPod users to rip from CD's or import audio files that they already had?
Microsoft is just trying to spread the misinformation by making consumers think that iPod only works with iTunes, which is untrue.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
It meats 2) Goodies (Games, notes, scheduling, contacts) 3) Display, 4) Playlists (iTunes generates playlists based on YOUR needs) and 5) Size. So the iPod matches 4 of 6. 4 is greater than 0.
Well, in response to the article, I think it makes sense in this case to buy...a Pocket PC:
1) The basics - my PPC uses (64 MB) SD and (512 MB) CF memory to hold a lot of 256 kbps MP3 files. I can take it jogging, in the NYC subway, and at work, and attach it to my belt with a nice hard plastic clamshell to protect my Dell Axim.
2) All the goodies - you mean you have FM radio and included speakers? I can have GPS, games, and develop MY OWN PROGRAMS for my music player. Oh, and voice recorder, notes ability, and Office sync. And this other thing called WiFi. Woohoo!
3) My display is more intuitive than yours! And I can view web pages on mine...
4) I can access and stream online (ad-free) radio stations using a free player with the little wiFi available...or pay for an FM-enabled CF upgrade.
5) Pick the right size, eh? And upgrade at a whim...using my mix of 32, 64, 256, and 512 MB CF and SD cards, I can fit a iPod shuffle's worth and then some...oh, and would you believe WMP on the PPC actually has this "shuffle" feature. STOP THE PRESSES!
6) Online store...whatever. I can use iTunes to "buy" songs if I wish or get them free through various promos (Paypal, Pepsi, etc.) and burn them from to a CD. Then, using Musicmatch, burn them to hi-quality MP3s and copy to my PPC. DRM...oh that! Oh, and I can play WMAs on my PPC...can you do that on your iPod?
And the funny thing is these PPCs when there's a Slickdeal, can be cheaper than the 20GB iPod and much more useful as an all-in-one device. Which is why I canceled my order for an iPod shuffle...twice, because I couldn't live with myself if I bought that rip-off. Anyway, with computers so ubiquitous today, how often do you really use the full 12+ hours of music on YOUR device without "plugging in"?
And what else is cool...I wear my Axim in a sexy silver clamshell and turn more heads than an iPod because it is...different. They ask, "You mean...that's a computer? Cool!" Otherwise, "Oh, another iPod - that's SO 2004!"
This sig donated to Pater. Long live
The player and jukebox software combo should support music formats of AAC with Freeplay DRM. After all the iTMS gets exclusive deals for those hard to find songs you might be wanting occasionally.
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
The title of the article is "Get 6 tips for buying an MP3 player with flash memory." The windows media devices page mentions a number of hard drive based solutions. But it's way more fun to ignorantly bash Microsoft! Woo hoo!