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Inside Hardware Design - Competing Against the iPod
ihatewinXP writes "FastCompany.com has a behind the scenes article detailing Rio's (and others) attempts to differentiate hardware and compete in the digital music market against the iPod juggernaught. From the article: "We decided that we had to be radically different from Apple. Where Apple was sort of the ivory tower, we were going to be the dark rebel. Where Apple was very geometric, we were going to be smooth and curvy. Apple was so enamored with absolute pure, minimalist design that some designers may argue that ergonomics were compromised.""
You'll know they've got it wrong when...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Like Archos' players are powered by dilithium crystals! The one company (besides Apple) that does do something technologically novel in their MP3 players, although it's not to my taste, is Neuros.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Wow!
I've gotten so used to articles on the web having 12 pages with 15 sentences on each page so that page was like a breath of fresh air.
I wish all articles were like that.
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
My daughter has a Creative Labs MP3 player, 512MB flash MuVo... It's great. It pops up as a new drive, she copies songs to it and they play. I think that simplicity goes a long way toward ergonomics. A sleek design is one thing, ease of use (not that the iPod is hard, you just have to install software and it's hard to move the files to a different computer) makes the MuVo a better choice IMHO.
How many people in love with their iPods have tried other MP3 players? I'm curious because there doesn't seem to be anything particulary ground-breaking about them - they play music and have a nice clean shiny white plastic case. The premium you pay for an iPod versus another player helps to pay for the marketing that makes it cool, and that seems to be the primary difference right there.
air and light and time and space
The tricky bit in designing a device to compete with the ipod is going to be user interface. Not just the interface on the device itself, but the software used in transferring files to the device from the computer. Apple has done a superb job on both ends and it will be tough to do as well or better.
This I think is what makes building an ipod competing device so much more difficult than a walkman knockoff cd or tape player. With the cd or tape player, the interface is just a matter of a few buttons. Designing a quality mp3 player is a whole different challenge.
The iPod is so popular in part because it is a simple, no-frills solution. For most people, the world of players is confusing, riddled with complex features that they don't understand or need. Apple realized this, simpified the approach, and people love it. They then went on to simplify the whole music acquisition process. iTMS is so good that it competes with illegal downloads.
It may not be very geeky, but it's this kind of clarity that the vast majority of novice computer users appreciate. Customization is something experience and confident users will do, and the simple truth is that the vast majority of modern computer users never reach that level of confidence and knowledge.
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
The Nitrus????? huh? has anyone else heard of that before? No good having a great product if no one knows about it. And then there's sony:In March, we introduced nine flash-based players to the Network Walkman lineup, which includes last year's 20-gigabyte HD3.
Nine flash-based players? How are you going to get a strong message out about nine different players?
Drag n' Drop DVD Recommendations
Honestly, its iTunes that makes iPOd so great. The complete package is what I think is successful, not Itunes or the Ipod as separately.
Have you tried music match. UGH, its just terrible and slow. I had to use this originally with my Ipod, and it couldn't even sync properly. Musicmatch had to re-copy the entire library to do an update.
Tranlsation:
The engineers at Sony would love to make a good open product. However, we keep getting slapped around like a red-headed stepchild by the lawyers and the content (Movies/Music) division of the company. As a result we'll keep throwing out sucky DRM'ed products that never take off because of that. But, we'll keep doing it. No matter how much it hurts us.
She says: " At Sony, we believe What customers really want is choice"
But what she doesn't say is "...too bad we don't give them any".
Or do you think Sony has convinced themselves consumers want lots of DRM and a proprietary (ATRAC) music format? When you work at Sony, do you start believing the crap you spout? Or do you keep some sort of perspective and understand you're only spouting the company line.
Its fascinating.
Insofar as his comment about the innards of the iPod, are you saying he's somehow mistaken? What exactly do you think is uncommon and impressive about the technology?
Apple uses the same components and the same contractors in Asia to build iPods. The technology itself is available to everyone who wants to make players. What the Archos CEO is saying is that in his opinion the value proposition of the iPod is not in the technology. He doesn't say where he thinks it is though.
I'm surprised that someone at Slashdork would be scandalized by a statement like this - after all, one of the first articles here about the iPod (after Taco's famous "lame" editorialization) was one about some dude dissasembling the thing.
Then again, maybe even people around here are distracted by shiny objects.
The Sony guy blabbing on about their customer focus and listening to the customer and all that shit, when the main reason they didn't have a competitive player 5 years ago is that they insisted that everything had to be stored in that same crap format they used in the minidisc player. What was it called? Atrac or something like that? And when they did bring out a player, they called it an MP3 player but what it really was was a player that played their proprietary format, and software that converted MP3s to their format.
That's really customer focused. Boy oh boy. I can hear the teeming millions saying "what I want from an MP3 player more than anything else is the inability to play MP3s".
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
You mean like the Treo 650?
The thing's been getting great reviews. I have one, and it kicks butt. It's not the ideal phone, or the ideal PDA, but it's a very good combo device.
"Unlike Apple, however, we are not going to spend our money trying to convince people that we are good. We are going to spend our money telling people what we offer. At Creative, more is better. Our products are packed with more features -- an FM tuner and voice recorder, for example -- and we're able to deliver this at a lower price. That's where we can win." If people don't know about the product (and the majority of the world does not thanks to their lackluster marketing) how are they going to demonstrate those wonderful features? Walk before you can run...
Apple's main point of sale is Job's salesmanship. Don't get me wrong - they have great products. But great products don't sell themselves (Which RIO is explicitly trying to do). The iPod is the shit because Job's wants you to believe it is. You can't beat that with a sack of wet noodles (aka better products).
www.olin.edu
Oh please. Ogg Vorbis is a no where format. It's a geek format. Why use Ogg when AAC is as good or better. Look at all the listening tests. AAC is always scoring in the top, and usually bests Ogg.
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
We have to draw a line between usability and ergonomics. Note the definition of ergonomics: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=ergonomic .
While poor ergonomics will ultimately detract from the item's use, it only focuses on the fatigue or discomfort.
The iPod may be very easy to use, but if some ergonomics expert (which I am certainly not!) says it lacks ergonomic design, it may be lacking in the comfort / endurance department. I'd certainly agree that ergonomics has become associated with "curveyness", but being ergonomic doesn't necessarily mean it's usable.
Every one of the interview subjects sounded like a mouthful of sour grapes. Why is it so hard to admit that you got your ass kicked, and are noew attempting to do something to come back?
Every single one of them had some dig at the iPod, and then a marketing spiel about their own POS product that's in the clearance bin at Sam's. Tell us something NEW and we'll consider your product.
Everyone accuses Apple of being obsessed with looks, but it's always other companies and critics of Apple who focus on that. And ironically, that's only part of the picture. Apple really does understand design is a way that other tech companies just don't... and design goes way beyond looks. If that's all Apple had, they would be a lost cause. But as evidenced by the products Apple produces and the interviews with him I've read, Jobs really understands that design is how something works--looks being a side-effect of that.
I'll admit that I didn't RTFA, but it sounds like the same story yet again. Until these companies figure out that it's the combination of the iPod and iTunes and the iTunes Store that have all been designed to work seamlessly together and in a way that makes sense to people, competitors won't stand a fighting chance. It's not the looks. It's not the price. It's not the file format. It's the way it was designed with the user in mind. That's what Apple does best.
I'm a fan of Apple's products so I couldn't give a rip either way, but it's amazing to me that so many companies just can't figure this basic concept out.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
interesting.
The person at Sony said what customers really want is choice. Actually, most customers don't want choice, or at least they don't want to begiven choices that just get in their way.
What most customers really want is something that will do the job and get out of the way. For most the journey is not destination.
Steve Jobs understands this. Most Linux sellers don't.
They both provide an OS (or an iPod) and while the former says "Here is OS X and Aqua and iTunes and you can hook it up to your iPod and stuff and it just works." the later say "Look at all the configurations you can run this under, you have a __choice!__. But of course that implies you are smart and knowledgeable enough to make a choice."
At which point most people run screaming for an exit because they want anything but choice.
They just to do something and not be bothered with all the geeky stuff. They want to know nothing about how it works under the skin. They just want to enjoy it.
Apple is able to 'get away with "foisting their decisions on the world"' because they select components that do their work and then 'hide'.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
The problem is you can have the best product in all fronts vs. your competor and still loose out.
True. That does not necessarily mean, however, that other products are better than ipods. I don't own one, or any mp3 player. I have a computer pretty much anywhere I want to listen to music. That said, if I were to buy one it would likely be an ipod. The reasons why include:
I'm sure other people have different priorities and would rather have Ogg support and better Linux support. That is fine by me. At the same time though, for me (from what little research I"ve done) iPods are the toyotas in this case. Just because a product is dominant does not mean it is not better.
First, pardon my ignorance but is there a RAW->AAC encoder for Linux? I didn't see one when I ripped my CD collection. Second, this is the same kind of debate as the one between MP3 and WMA: WMA is technically superior but forever a closed, non-standard format. Finally, Ogg is the same geek, "no where" format (as you put it) that MP3 was five years ago. I suppose today's flooded MP3 player market appeals to geeks only, right? Even my most non-geek, "what's a microsoft?" cousin wants a digital music player, one that works with MP3, WMA, AAC, and Ogg, all purely, simply, and without DRM nonsense.
It must be Windows. It needs half a gig of RAM and a hardware-accelerated graphics card just to run Solitaire.
Apple might consider implementing ogg support when 1% of the people buying ipods want it. The fact is, virtually nobody has even HEARD of ogg vorbis, much less requiring it for their music player purchases. You need to face the fact that you are in a non-influential minority, and if you want to be have a wide choice of music players, you might want to think about re-ripping all of your cds, because ogg support is at the bottom of the priority list for 99.9% of music player manufacturers and purchasers.
People say this kind of crap all the time, but I just don't see it. I have a Toyota Corolla. I have an iPod. And I bought them both for the same reason--they were both good values.
There, I said it. I think my iPod is a good value. I does exactly what I need (and more) with minimal fuss. And it has proven to be very reliable. The same is true for the Toyota. My confidence in both of these purchases was based somewhat on the reputation for quality these companies have. I haven't been disappointed.
I didn't get an iPod to impress anybody. As a matter of fact, I'd rather no one ever see my iPod.
Isn't it possible that the average joe buys an iPod because they've heard that they're pretty good?
A publicly traded company exists solely to make profits for shareholders.
Apple was so enamored with absolute pure, minimalist design that some designers may argue that ergonomics were compromised.
How in the world can anyone claim this?
I can perform the following actions with one hand holding the iPod and my thumb controlling it:
And that's compromising ergonomics? The iPod probably makes the fewest ergonomic assumptions than any other product I own/have owned.
Well, alright, it assumes you are a homo sapien with at least one opposable thumb on one hand. But even with that assumption anyone belonging to the homo genus can use the iPod.
The Luddites were ahead of their time.
I hate to be an Apple apologist, but I can't think of anywhere they've sacrificed ergonimics for design.
Well, there's those disc-shaped mouses they (used to?) ship with Macs, that are of improper size to be used by any hands larger than a kindergartener's...
They looked nice on a brocure, the transparent plastic was sleek, and the whole body of the mouse serving as a mouse button were all great design elements, but the thing just wasn't comfortable to use in the manner in which I was accustomed to using a mouse.
apple is stylish because typically artists want them and make decisions not on specifications and performance to cost ratios alone but if it looks pretty in their "space".
Bullshit. I mean sure, Apple makes some sales because clueless people with too much money think the look "cool" but that is by no means their main market. You think Linus Torvalds bought a powerbook because he is so artistic and wanted a computer that looked cool and was ignorant about how poorly it performed? You think the dozens of security professionals I work with daily bought macs because they are ignorant of the specifications and cost/performance ratios? Hell no. They bought them because they work better for the task at hand. Raw cpu cycles are by no means the best judge of how suited a computer is to a task. If I want to play Half-life I'm not going to use a cluster of PPC processors even though they provide more bang for the buck because first, they can't run the software and second, I don't need that much CPU power to play a stupid game.
Similarly, many people buy macs because they run OS X, which is the best environment for what they want to do. These people might be artists, or writers, or security professionals, or geneticists, but macs allow them to get their job done better than and other machine available. The number of artists who run macs because they are ignorant is probably a handful compared to the number who run it because the system works better for working with graphics because of the tools available, the better multithreading, the prioritization of input which means when you're painting a line the OS won't suddenly hog the processor and stop recording mouse input for half a second, the color support is much better, and because most artistic software is written for macs with Windows as a buggy afterthought.
Your condescension towards those poor ignorant artists is really annoying and your ignorance about using computers as a professional artist is glaringly obvious.
WMA vs. MP3 isn't a tech thing. It's a what sounds better at what rate thing. You can encode everything you own at 320bit MP3 and be happy as a clam. Its when you start collecting a huge collection that size/quality becomes an issue. Some people can live with 128 Mp3s. Some settle for 192Mp3s. WMA files might give you the same perceived quality of 192MP3s but at 160bits, and a smaller file size.
Ogg is a good compressor. Don't get me wrong. But the consumer doesn't care. They will go with whatever sounds good.
For me, a Musician, with a huge library, I encode all my CDs to iTunes using 160AAC. For Jazz music, which is my love, I can't really hear any difference between 160AAC and CD. If I did the same for 160MP3, I can hear problems. Cymbals don't ring right, etc.
As for the DRM non-sense. That only applies to music that you purchase online. If you own the CD, you can rip it to whatever you want. AAC doesn't have DRM in it. The stuff from Apple's iTunes store does, a protected AAC.
I think it's a moot point in supporting Ogg. It's kind of like, to me, supporting the old Archive format ZOO. Yeah, ZOO had a lot of interesting things, and it compressed well, but, it went nowhere.
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
Reminds me of Mystery Men
"It's a Harley. Compatible. It's a Harley compatible. Basically, the same
engineer."
While I seriously doubt not having iPod will affect how much play you get from the Hunnies or not, the likelihood that someone was about to start to explain the technical differences between a Rio and an iPod was probably far more distressing.
Imagine that one
"Is that your iPod?"
"No, it's a different player which can play ogg files because
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Linux users are the computing equivalent of car enthusiasts. They want the spoiler, the tricked out stereo, the racing stypes, the hand-tuned carburator (sp), the custom muffler, the racing tires, the bling rims, etc, etc, etc - car enthusiasts crack open a parts catalogue and drool.
Most people only give a shit about their vehicle when it breaks. Most people want to just turn the key and GO. They don't want to have to worry about engine timing or oil pressure or RPMs or torque or rather their car parts are metric or imperial because absolutely NONE of this has ANYTHING to do with running down to the store to get groceries.
The failing of linux is that you've got a bunch of hotrod enthusiasts trying to sell The Last Of The V8 Interceptors to people who really just want a commuter coupe - and these hotrodders just can't see that the rest of the world gets absolutely NO pleasure from fucking with things that should Just Work Already.
"Maybe one day people will crave a PDA that is also a phone and an MP3 player. That day has yet to come."
;-)
I crave one and the time has come. I have a Treo 650, which has strong sales and great reviews. If they made 40G SD cards, it'd replace my iPod and do it all. Much nicer to carry one palm-sized device all day than three or four.
The iPod is simple and "just works", and for that it'll remain a market leader until someone else can do it as simply. But that doesn't mean there isn't a market for a more full-featured device. I love my iPod but barely use it because it's "yet another device" I have to carry around. Carrying a handful of songs on a device I have on me already is much more convenient.
What I think will truly do the iPod in will be if someone comes out with a device as easy to use as the iPod but as full featured as the PSP. If my iPod or iPod-like device could watch movies and play games with the simplicity and ease of how I currently select playlists and songs but with the power and quality of the PSP's screen and games, that'd be cool. Especially if it was a phone and PDA too
Let's face it, the iPod is pretty much entrenched as the de-facto standard for mp3/DAPs.
It doesn't matter why, or how, or if it sucks, or if it's cool. The fact is, it's #1, and it's got a ridiculous amount of momentum. I mean, they're making car adapters for the freaking thing. They make stereos with iPod adapters that cost more than the iPod itself.
It's hard to beat that kind of momentum.
In general, you can go high or you can go low. With the iPod, you can't really go low, because of the shuffle. I mean, how can you beat the shuffle? It's cheap, it works, and it's got the iPod brand.
Go high? How? What kind of ridiculous stuff could you put on a DAP that would make it more expensive than an iPod? How could you sell enough of them to make any money?
The fact is, the iPod may be dominant enough that all the other players get killed off...except at the low end, where one-feature USB players might squeak out a living as giveaways. Nobody's making the kind of money that Apple is in the mp3 player market. That trend will likely continue.
From a business point of view, well, the other player manufacturers can see their trends, and they're trending downwards. Would you rather get out now while you're making money, or wait until you start losing money?
Where does that leave the midrange players? Niche verticals?
One thing is they have to change the game, or they'll get squished. Apple has successfully straddled every price point from $100 to $450. There's not a lot of room left for pricing. There's not a lot of room left for features, either.
Maybe the subscription stuff will work out. But one FairPlay subscription license from Apple would kill that whole market dead. Maybe that's what they're waiting for?
One interesting side-effect of on-line music stores is that it makes pricing transparent. For example, a FairPlay DRM'd song is worth $1. A subscription-DRM song costs, well, pennies or less, depending on your plan. A non-DRM'd song costs about $2 (buy the CD). A radio version is free. A Sirius/XM is free. Makes it hard to sue for damages, doesn't it?
Ergonomics means designing equipment, or modifying a workplace to fit the workers (or users) rather than the other way around. This includes things like:
- Comfortable work environments (chairs, desks, etc);
- Intuitive UI design for electronic and mechanical equipment (fax machines, even things like placing a light switch by all doors rather than on an opposite wall);
- Uses of products to increase efficiency. Basically letting the workplace equipment do tedious work, freeing the worker to move on to more important things (like a printer that hole punches or staples automatically).
A little bit of personal research above and beyond the stupid buzzwords people use would give a good idea as to why Apple's iPod is, in fact, much more ergonomic than most players.I really challenge anyone to give a list of reasons why some other player is superior that consists of items beyond "it's comfortable to hold in your hand." Anyone who thinks that ergonomics means how something feels in their hand really needs to think why THAT is their central criterion.
New slang when you notice the stripes, the dirt in your fries.
I have having my pockets stuffed with miscellaneous gadgets. Generally speaking, only my phone goes with me whereever I go. My iPod stays at work. I don't have a PDA. The "does one thing 'well'" thing is overrated. There's no reason why we can't have something that does three things well.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Then why do Graphic designer houses have all MAC's typically as well as most vieo editing places nowdays
Because their NIC cards won't be recognized on the network without a MAC?
Ohhhh.... you mean Macs!
That's easy: The best graphic design and archetecture software out there (the pro-level stuff, anyway) is mostly Macintosh-based. They are using the right tool for the job.
while the sales drones and managers have cheapies Dell's?
Also easy: Sales drones don't need to run graphic design software. Any $300 shitbox which can run Quicken software is more hardware than they will ever need. It's a shame they must put up with Windows because of this choice, but such is life.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I think there's a very nice push-pull with the marketing, good reviews and word-of-mouth. People buy an iPod because of marketing, but then tell all their friends, who then buy their own. The marketing does matter, but the iPod, unlike many other brands, manages to back that up with a great product that also has a large word-of-mouth pressure.
Rio has managed to make interesting players, but none that has the shear critical mass of marketing, positive reviews and word-of-mouth; this is just the hat-trick of selling a product.
Anyone who whines about being modded down should be.
I am a graphic designer by trade. I own an iPod and am reasonably happy with it. Up until recently I owned a mac running OSX but recently chose to install an alternative operating system. Why? I was sickof Aqua and of it's connotations as a design aesthetic.
From a designers perspective, homogonous environments trap the intuition, simply looking at the same interface 12 hours a day, with all its semiotic baggage ionises an approach to thinking about screenspace, to the ends that the work I do becomes permeated with a similar 'sheen' other designers using the platform will inevitably, and subtly become infected with. Apple products, from software to hardware, comfort the user by reducing visual complexity. One cannot argue that this works, and that there's a market for it. However their approach, of making appliances and not contexts for user-defined, unique experiences, is wearing thin amongst Apple users, at least in the design industry.
I hear more and more Mac users I work with saying they are getting sick of Aqua and the Chrome DE, that the Benetton metro-sexualism of the iPod fad is making them ill, that the general ubiquity of the device is killing their interest in the device as a cultural signifier. It is no longer a transgressive vector, merely a commodity default produced by the self-imposed supersaturation of their own iconographic marketing. Ironically, Apple has produced the context for consumer mutiny. Ever eaten too much marzapan?
Apple market their products not in the aesthetic space, but in the cultural space. But what is the culture they append to and propogate? Benevolent Arianism, and it's starting to wear thin. They are a step away from the solipsistic cult of elegance that saw the end of the Deco and Seccessionist periods. To stay edgy they better embrace the hate and start sinning.
That's hardly true today. Pretty much all of the heavy hitter software has version for both PC and Mac platforms.
That wasn't true a few years ago. The only reason the Mac is so strong in this market is inertia, or the fact that some of these places haven't upgraded yet (it's not uncommon to see OS9 still in use!). But I suspect that a lot of them are changing over to the PC because they can get more powerful hardware at a cheaper price that can run the same software.
It doesn't matter what he said after that. Her face slackened, any interest she might have had was gone. It was such a crushing blow that I went and got myself an Ipod the next day.
You may be projecting your own insecurity a bit. Most likely, this girl was looking to make about 20 seconds of innocent small talk but dropped the subject because she didn't have anything to say about the non-iPod. Hardly a "crushing blow." Same thing could have happened if he'd mentioned he was from Boston, and she'd never been there.
Still, I remember enough of junior high school to know that some of the popular kids really will look down on you if you don't wear the same brands that they do. I guess that's why I'm a geek, though. Fortunately I don't work someplace like Hollywood, where the popular kids from junior high have all the power. If they wanna talk shit to me I can just tell them I've had an mp3 player since about 5 years before they knew what one was (Rio 300, baby! Old school) and I chose my current model because it has a radio and can run on a triple-A battery. And then, they can continue to make fun of me and kick sand in my face. Because just like in junior high, they don't care about same things I care about. They only want to know that their brand is "in," and mine is not. Oh well--such is the life of a geek. But I find the idea of an mp3 player as fashion accessory silly. Who would wear one of these things to a reception, anyway? I would think you'd be there to network and socialize, not tune people out. The idea that anyone would care that you had an iPod is particularly ridiculous at this point, now that 80 percent of NYC can be seen wearing one on the subway. If I wanted to stand out at one of these things, I'd leave the iPod at home and wear, say, an interesting hat. In my experience, women are more attracted to guys who dress and smell nice than to guys with fancy gadgets. Have you ever noticed that Queer Eye for the Straight Guy does not feature a technology expert? Learn from this!
The thing's been getting great reviews...It's not the ideal phone, or the ideal PDA, but it's a very good combo device. And therein lies the problem.
Anyone who whines about being modded down should be.
yeah, who the hell would want choices? interesting way to read the parent is to replace "Ogg Vorbis" with "linux", "AAC" with "Windows", and "format" with "OS". all of a sudden the post goes from Insightful to Flamebait.
Just remember, on Slashdot 10% is a crappy share for media players and a wave of the future for web browsers or operating systems.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.