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Can Open Source Outdo the IPod?
CHaN_316 writes "Wired is running an article entitled, "Can Open Source Outdo the IPod?" Asking the open source community to help them compete with the iPod. From the article: 'Consumer electronics manufacturer Neuros Audio is tapping the open-source community to convert its upcoming portable media player from iPod road kill into a contender [...] To get the ball rolling, Neuros recently opened up the firmware code for its Neuros 442 portable media player, which is set to launch in January [...] Neuros' hardware design is complete, comprising a Texas Instruments dual-core digital signal processor, a 3.6-inch, 65,000-color TFT display and a 40-GB hard drive for recording video from a TV or home entertainment system. But the company has left a little something -- mostly user interface tweaks -- for the volunteers.' Is this a good idea or a mere publicity stunt?"
Is this a good idea or a mere publicity stunt?
Why can't it be both?
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Why is it that people don't "get" this - it's not sufficient now to simply make an MP3 player that "does more", or even is as easy to use as an Ipod. You need the whole shebang - the store, the presence on the desktop, the device itself, the ease of transfer between computer and device, the chic design, and good marketing/PR. Hell, there's probably loads more too.
Apple have a history (and therefore a lot of expertise) in "doing it all". They design their own hardware, write their own OS (*), develop their own apps, do their own marketing (the 'reality distortion field' effect
Coming up with an ipod-killer that could make *coffee* (+) wouldn't break the grip of Apple on this market now - it'll take a multi-vectored attack to shake their dominance, and no open-source project has the resources that Apple have in the focus areas that are needed. Open-source has manpower and skill, not billions of dollars in the bank. Apple have a fair amount of manpower and skill too...
I think Neuros will gain *some* benefit from this - it's a positive move for some people, but they're still fighting over the scraps in the remaining 10-20 percent of the market that *haven't* converted to Apple yet. Also it's cool to have legitimate access to something like this - I'm sure the OS community will come up with more uses for the Neuros device than Neuros ever thought of. I'm not *against* Neuros, I just don't think it's a disruptive idea.
Simon.
(*) Yes, I'm aware that they didn't completely design the OS, but they have contributed a good portion of it, and most of that in the user-visible areas.
(+) Yes, I'm aware that making coffee wouldn't be a useful ipod feature - think of the leakage - but I'm making the point that features alone aren't as valuable as they were when the market was nascent.
Physicists get Hadrons!
No! So stop asking fucking stupid questions!
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise. - William Shakespeare
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You can't record decent quality audio (8khz!), and you still can't play Ogg Vorbis or FLAC. They've obviously got enough power to do that now.
Oh great, just what we all needed more skins for a media player. That's essentially what this project amounts to.
Merely an attempt to try to profit from other peoples work.
From TFA "Most open-source projects do fail because they typically don't have full-time employees, but only a few volunteers who a lot of times are kids," Born [the CEO] said.
My guess is this article is just some paid (and poor quality) PR. Read this to learn more about how these articles end up published.
No
looks more like a digital camera than an mp3 player though
While I do own an IPod, I would drop it in an instant if I could have a nice open source digital music player that I wouldnt be forced to use one program for itunes. Perhaps if sucessfull this will start a new trend in digital phones, blackberries, PDAs, or any other portable device.
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
Was reported a couple of weeks ago:
/ 19/012249&tid=100
a p:Neuros_III
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10
More useful links not included in summary:
http://www.theneuros.com/index.php/Category_Roadm
Just like how open source has "outdone" Microsoft by luring a whopping 5% of its users away.
() Yes
() No
() CowboyNeal
"Made up/misattributed quote that makes me look smart. I am on
...it is a publicity stunt I don't mind. We could use more publicity stunts like this.
Most of the time, open source UIs are worse than their commercial brethren because they lack a cogent, coherent tack. You can't win just by adding features. An iPod does exactly, precisely what it should do and not a single thing more.
I can think of a few examples of really brilliant open-source UIs: Firefox and Eclipse come to mind. So it's not impossible. But in those cases the amazingly solid core UI was developed by key players, and other developers contributed functionality.
So I'm gonna guess that the answer in this case is "almost certainly not".
if you'd told me then apple was going to start kicking ass with a portable music player, i would have laughed *really* hard
I've already been using open source on my iRiver - and I can tell you, it completely wipes the floor with the ipod - the only problem? The player that I have looks like an ugly box. http://www.rockbox.org
Yes, because Internet Explorer is so much better than Firefox. [/sarcasm]
Two features make the iPod a killer app for me: the scroll wheel, and smart playlists.
Simple as it may seem, the scroll wheel is possibly the most ingenious user interface mechanism of the past 10 years. I can pull up a list of 500 artists on my iPod and navigate to any one in a matter of seconds. Apple's patent on this design virtually ensures that every "iPod killer" will end up as "roadkill".
iTunes, on the other hand, can be copied. Apple's player is great at managing very large music libraries (10,000+ songs). Apple's Smart Playlists are as close as any software gets to letting me run SQL queries on my music library to generate playlists. I form playlists based on the play count and rating. So far, I haven't found any other music library manager that lets me get this specific, this granular with my collection.
domain combinatorics
The iPod is successful NOT because of technology, or nifty programming tricks, or being able to play every free codec in existence, or what have you.
It's successful because it's stylish, because it's simple to use, and because -- and this is the only reason I use mine instead of having it sit in the junk drawer with my last 2 mp3 players -- because the software you use (iTunes) to sync with the device is USEFUL in it's own right.
Really, the key for devices like this is how well the software on the host device works. iTunes is good enough that I was using it to manage my music before I even had an iPod. Does it do everything under the sun like foobar2000 (which is what I was using before iTunes)? No. But it does the core tasks well enough that I find it very useful.
The usefulness or lack there of of the host software is going to determine how useful the Neuros product is. If it shows up as a drive, and they expect me to "manage" my music or video by copying over music out from underneath my music management software manually, I'm sorry, but it loses.
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Until the iTunes music store is wiped off the face of the earth, the IPod will remain supreme.
If you want to buy songs from the iTunes music store, you need an IPod...
Plain and simple.
Open Source will never change that.
It's left blank because I have nothing to say to you punks!
It's an interesting idea but how do you get developers to work on the system when they'll have to have the hardware to do any real work on it. Paying $400 for a half-finished device so that I can do free work on it does not sound like it's going to attract a whole lot of people to the project...
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
If companies that aren't open source can't do it, what's the draw for this? I'm happy with the iPod's interface. Even if you could make it better with a community behind it, Apple's still holding the key to the media, it's iTunes store.
Doesn't play ogg, I'm not getting one.
Karma: Bad. Calmer, good.
It's not just a matter any more of coming up with a better ipod than ipod. You've also got to come up with a better iTunes than iTunes. You've got to open a music store. You've got to have all the accessories that iPod has. You've got to have the distribution channels and the brand awareness that Apple now has. You've got to have the economies of scale to buy components cheaply that Apple has so you can sell it at a reasonable price.
Oh yeah, and building a better iPod than iPod isn't that easy either.
But the company has left a little something -- mostly user interface tweaks -- for the volunteers
;)
From most of the OSS projects I've seen, the UI is the last thing I'd let them tweak.
At last, a corporate promise I can take to the bank!
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
The iPod is all about the *hardware design* and *marketing*. Hardware design might benefit from open-source, but I can't see how (nb: talking hardware, not firmware or software). ed
Who's ready to grep their music?
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Why would open source want to out do the iPod? its just a music player, what this looks like is a PDA trying to be a music player when a PDA is really much more useful. If someone can stick a decent amount of memory into a phone, give it some decent hardware and not make it cost the earth or leave a lump in your pocket then they will have created a killer device. The iPod just can't be beaten for its shear Appleness in design.
The open source developers they do get are QUALIFIED and don't just clone the iPod or creative interfaces. So more brains are required then that of a project like KDE. My personal opinion is that open source people are better at OS programming then GUIs but I may be wrong. Prove me wrong infact.
The other thing worth mentioning is about PR. Even with a good interface it would take a lot of press to have it become anything more then a device just for geeks. Remember Apple's biggest market isn't the video iPod but rather the nano/mini one that is for smaller devices that don't need to play video.
is the open source community's biggest weakness. I don't see a group whose expertise does not include consistency and documentation working for free to save a clunky device which offers no price/performance advantage over the iPod (a $365 price tag).
In an office somewhere in Cupertino, Steve Jobs read about this in one of his many memos, laughed, farted, and went to go have lunch with Yo-Yo Ma.
Short answer to article question: NO.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Fear not the great uncleansed will be impressed with IE7. You may even be surprised how many firefox users it pulls back...
the iPod is just a cool trend. It won't last forever. Open Source, Creative, Sony, and others will all eventually catch up, and pass apple.
There is nothing incredibly brilliant about the iPod software, its the hardware that make it a top seller. Like most things, it will only be a matter of time before Steve Job's greed and closed circuit mentality has them loose market share. We saw it with the Apple hardware, their OS, and we will see it happen with the iPod.
We have already started to see it with the iTunes store, the iPod's "enabler" or "dealer" has made some pretty big missteps. Steve is pissing off the owners of the music he sells (talking bad about them in the press over and over is a big mistake), and they are ACTIVELY looking to others to replace him. He is giving them money now, but others can do that, all he has done is effectively made enemies of the companies he relies on to make the iPod a success.
There is no doubt, Open Source WILL be a player in unseating the iPod. Not the only player, but a contributor.
Something like the iPod needs a coherent end-to-end solution; iTunes Music store - iTunes - iPod. It isn't just the device that makes the iPod great, it's the whole package. Open source simply can't supply that in its entirity.
If open source wants to start winning in a market sector, it needs to start on home ground - like computing - rather than jumping into a consumer electronics segment dominated by one device. Remember that even Creative are having a tough time competing against the iPod. We've seen Linux devices go after PDAs, handheld and games consoles in the past and they didn't fare well at all. The only saving grace is probably the use of Linux in phones, which seems to be its ideal area right now.
In all honesty, it's probably worth doing what Microsoft have done with PocketPC and Windows Media players; publish a base hardware spec that the software runs on and have done with it, then let the builders choose how to implement it in hardware.
Your reply is summarized as such, Open Source cannot hope to compete against any corporate interest which is competent.
Sorry, if everyone rolled over liked that the OS movement would never have gotten off the ground. They are countless people who would make the same glorification posts about Microsoft but that did not stop those who thought otherwise.
I have an iPod but I know damn well its not the end all of MP3 players. iTunes has its share of annoyances. The difference is that fanboi support of Apple is considered acceptable regardless of nature.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
We need a Superman emblem with "OS" on it for stories like this.
Anyways, the ipod is a sucess because of adoption by the mainstream crowd, and they are not concerned about how "open" the device is. Opening your firmware is great, but work on making your next device the ipod killer, and don't expect a community to make it happen for you after the fact.
An iPod does exactly, precisely what it should do and not a single thing more.
It does exactly one thing more than it should: promote acceptance of DRM in peoples minds.
Funny- I find it takes 5, 10, 15, 20 seconds of:
Ever tried to change the star rating for a song? It's far too sensitive.
Ever tried to switch off your iPod by holding play down- but slide your finger ever so slightly, so the iPod thinks it's a scroll and completely ignores the button press?
Sorry. I liked the scroll-wheel-plus-4-buttons MUCH better. Apple's current design is the equivalent of iDrive, wherein they try to accomplish too much with one control. Same goes for the stick control on Sony Ericsson phones...I can't believe how many times I try to push DOWN on the stick only to have it go to the SIDE...
Also, I'm pretty sure the Slashdot Groupthink doesn't like patents. The concept of turning something to select from a list is about as old as the first radios.
Please help metamoderate.
- Write it themselves, and open-source it.
- Pay someone to write it, and open-source it.
- Hope that someone in the software community writes a near-enough piece of software that can be made to work with their media player inside the time frame that they're looking for....(wait for it)
For some reason, some people still seem to have the idea that open-source development is free.and open-sources it.
Everyone, repeat after me:
Open-Source Software does not cost money.
Open-Source Software development does cost money.
I pity the foo that isn't metasyntactic
I think the most important thing, with an open source UI, is to allow plugins/extensions. From the day I got my iPod, I wanted the ability to add in a way to queue the next songs to be played. In the time since, I've thought of a dozen easy ways to use existing controls to do it without affecting any current UI operations, but Apple hasn't released an open API that allows users to tweak their system.
I think that Steve jobs is not motivated by greed. He is motivated by ideals. Steve Jobs wants to create the best "widget" (replace widget with Computer, Portable Audio Player, Animated Movies) and this is demonstrated by Pixar creating a movie a year whereas Dreamworks is churning them out. Steve Jobs wants his products to be the best...
--------- I have no signature
The iPod, obviously. But what exactly are they going after? The interface? That's it? Whoopty do. When the iPod first came out, there were bunches of mp3 players on the market. People thought the iPod was too expensive and thus would fail. Yet here we are now. Why did it succeed? Simple use (an Apple hallmark), iTunes was amazingly easy to use (an Apple hallmark), but mainly because iTunes had the support of the major labels while no other service really did. So why would a MAINSTREAM consumer buy anything but an iPod? They have more LEGAL music choices and something easy to use. Here we are now with the iPod and iTunes dominating the market. Competitors tried fighting on price (both with player and song). That didn't work. They tried fighting with design. Nope. So just how in the hell do they think they'll win over Average Joe consumer and his three kids on an open source product that may change with each revision? Plus...I think with Apple adding video to both iTunes and the iPod pretty much sealed the fate of all the competitors.
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
Of course, if iPods could make coffee you still wouldn't be able to change the filter without sending it back to Apple and waiting 3-4 weeks.
Rockbox was originaly started as an opensource replacement to a lacking firmware on the Archos series of MP3 players.
The rockbox team then got their hands on the Iriver h-120 & 140 and decided to port rockbox to these players (what I currently own). iRiver h-120 owners will never hesitate to tell you that the iriver is far superior to an iPod in audio quality and features, but the included firmware was severly lacking. Rockbox filled this void.
Rockbox has not had an offical release yet for the iriver, but it is a great example of how open source project can create a great product or fill a void. (All of us are running very stable beta versions)
But, many of us have been waiting patiently as development has been slow. All of the developers do this work in their spare time, therefore this isn't the best business model. And as most of you have probably never heard of Rockbox, this business model obviously is not going to be a iPod killer.
Rockbox made my digital audio player complete.. so complete that I would never consider purchasing a ipoo.
Me! Me! Grepping music would be awesome, especially if you could grep for lyrics or some such. [I know I can find lyrics pretty readily through google, but lyrics for some of the more obscure songs I own are difficult to find.]
Also, Digital Innovations has been open with their source code since their original Neuros audio player. Unfortunately, the code for that player had to be compiled with a proprietary DSP compiler.
Personally, my Neuros just died last month, and I really miss it, but I decided to go with an iPod to replace it, mainly because DI didn't really have a direct replacement available. The 442 is physically bigger, has a smaller HD, and costs the same as the largest iPod now available, plus you can't buy accessories at every store in the world like with an iPod. Neuros did support Ogg Vorbis, and had several features better than Apple did (like FM transmitter built-in, presets, and some nice third-party open-source sync software). But it's hard to be counterculture all the time; all I really want to do is listen to my music on the go, not fight a culture war. Pity...
Have you read my blog lately?
Boy, you came so close to "getting it" and then you missed it. You are absolutely right on all counts, Apple has sewn up the market by providing top notch end-to-end product. No one will be able to do a better overall product.
But, Apple charges a pretty penny for their product and the consumer market has clearly shown that it has no loyalty when it comes to price. That means that if someone produces a comparable or almost comparable product but, at a significantly lower price than Apple's, people will by the cheaper product in large volumes. Apple may not be forced out of the market, but they will be forced to share the market. There is money to be made from iPod knockoffs! The problem is that there are hundreds of iPod knockoffs already and the field is growing daily. In fact I expect to see counterfeit iPods in the near future, if they don't already exist.
I guess that's what happens when the /. mods fall under the spell of Open Souurce. Thay lose their sense of humor.
The device will cost $400. I don't want to buy a $400 mp3 player. I think that will be the biggest roadblock rather than how open source it is. To compete they need to be cheaper.
check out the best blog ever:
http://oehlberg.com
I'm glad that the Wired article uses the term "hacker" appropriately...
I pity the foo that isn't metasyntactic
Musikcube is an open source music library that does let you run SQL queries to generate playlists. It also supports plugins to support any file format, and for added functionality.
If I could make a mistake that netted me millions (if not billions) of dollars profit with no negative consequences whatsoever, then I'd be all for it.
Slow Down, Cowboy! It's been 60 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment.
There are a small number of hardware hackers who do things like using a GameBoy as the basis for their electronic projects. It is way cheaper than trying to build something from parts especially if you buy one used.
With the above in mind, this could lead to a totally unexpected and potentially profitable use for this device.
Quick google search reveals that the phrase "iPod killer" was used about 500 times on slashdot, often in headlines - to quote "Latest "iPod Killer" Takes Aim at the Mini", Microsoft's iPod-Killer: Portable Media Center? or simply "More iPod Killers Introduced for the Holiday". Despite this abundance of killers, iPod is still very much alive. Many of these falied iPod killers actually did have more features - for example, OGG Vorbis support or built-in FM radio, which proves that actually it's very easy to outdo the iPod. There's no doubt that the open source firmware for this player can be more feature laden than the original iPod's firmware - but is it enought to compete with Apple's ease of use or access to the iTunes Music Store? I don't think so. It's going to be simply YAiK (Yet Another iPod Killer).
This is like asking if ducks can outdo Da Vinci if we simple gather enough of them.
Quality does not stem from openness or from quantity of creators. What makes the iPod what it is, is it's designers.
I know its off topic, but I really like the iDrive. You are referring to the BMW iDrive correct?
My 5 series is so friggen customizable. Its a pretty easy tool to navigate the menus to set it up. When driving I can careless jump around, combined with the voice commands, its pretty quick too.
Now the argument that you don't need all that stuff may be valid, but as long as you can do it, i think its a pretty nice system.
Like most things, it will only be a matter of time before Steve Job's greed and closed circuit mentality has them loose market share.
Ah...but that isn't Steve's way. That may have been Apple's way in the past, but Steve doesn't let Apple rest on its laurels. Remember when the first iMac came out? It was a big hit. He didn't just be happy with the gum drops though while imitation after imitation came out. He came out with the new iMac. And then the completely redesigned iMac again.
He did the same thing with the iPod. The iPod came out, competitors gunned for it. Then came the Mini. Then the Shuffle. Then the Nano. Then the Video. When everyone thought HD based mp3 players would give way to flash-based ones, they came out with one. Apple isn't resting and that's how and why they own the market right now in that particular field. And as far as computer market share goes...yeah, Apple f'd up back in the day. But since Steve has took the helm and decided not to ride the success of any one product, they've been doing fairly well for themselves.
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
What I would like to know is what does the open source community get out of this? I mean, yeah, it would be cool to have an OSS ipod competitor, but if it still costs me $300 even though I helped write the software, what's the point?
The reason why Apple has always managed to do so well is becuase they have (until tiger) been almost exclusively proprietory. If you build your own hardware, you can build software that works perfectly on it. Since everyone using your software has a precisely defined piece of hardware (that you built) you can eliminate a huge range of issues (drivers, drivers, drivers...)
But at the same time you create a situation where there is one sole provider of the hardware/software for the consumer. Look at the pain you have to go throw to get that iTunes downloaded tune to play on a rio, check out the pain of using non-iTunes software to interact with the iPod. (note: I had an original run iPod, things may have changed significantly since mine passed on)
Its for that reason that I find it ironic that there are so many slashdoters who are fans of Apple/iPod when they are just as controling as Microsoft.
Ahh well, just my little rant.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Steve should just stock up a few lawyertron bombs for Apple Music. That or just buy them out to start with. At any rate, the idea is that Apple could pull a Sony-in-reverse. Sony has a consumer electronics division that can only make gimped up products because the Sony media arm decides on incredibly insane things like rootkitting Windows. That doesn't encourage me to plug anything from Sony into my PC.
Apple on the other hand could be a computer company that owns a few labels. If they can't buy one then they should start one. They could twist the knife a bit by not raping artists up the ass. If Apple controlled substantial amounts of their own content then they would have a strengthed position to deal with the rest of the labels. Since Apple's DRM is the least obnoxious going, they can continue sticking it to their Windows only competitors as well.
Sorry, but open source players don't care enough about the stuff that makes Apple successful - polish and design.
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
I'm in the same boat - my 120's hard drive is slowly killing itself and while its still covered by the extra protection plan that I bought there're no other players out there that I'm remotely interested in.
The real reason OpenSource will never try and make a good iPod is because there's no evil MS on the other side to motivate them. Oh we can't possibly say anything bad about Apple! Oh, I had an anti-Apple thought, woe is me! Fools
Now that iPod is the champ that is changing, products for connecting the iPod to your car stereo and connecting your iTunes computer to your home stereo are rapidly expanding and will soon be standard on many new cars / car stereos and home stereos.
Once that has been acomplished the need for consumers to burn CDs of iTMS music will be dramatically reduced. At that point Apple could clamp down on the DRM and they may hurt a bit but they would still survive and fluorish.
We can see the beginings of this with the iPod video roll-out. Keep a close lookout and you will see the loose DRM which made iPod a success begin to deteriorate.
Steve is pissing off the owners of the music he sells (talking bad about them in the press over and over is a big mistake), and they are ACTIVELY looking to others to replace him. He is giving them money now, but others can do that, all he has done is effectively made enemies of the companies he relies on to make the iPod a success.
Nice troll, dude, but you conveniently left out the reason they're pissed off at him -- because they want to raise the prices of the music downloads, and Apple refuses to. If he were motivated by greed in this instance, he'd jump all over that and get a bigger piece of the pie.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
Asking the open source community to help them compete with the iPod.
No, fuck you!
The iPod is one of the very, VERY rare pieces of hardware that just work! Having a open-source-cellphone that just works as a phone (without virii, booting or shit...) would make much more sence. Until then I stay with my Nokia 5510 and laugh everyone with a newer phone straight into the face.
The hardware for the Neuros audio player was horrible, as of a year ago when I purchased one. The radio didn't pick up any stations, the 20G HD model was huge, and the HD on mine wouldn't even spin up 1/2 the time. The batteries were known for dying out, or not charging enough to run the player.
It was a hacker's device, and far from "just working". I love playing with toys and getting things to work, but not my MP3 player. I just want it to start when I hit start, and play some music.
When the player doesn't even do that, you've lost me as a customer.
Anyone want to buy my old one, cheap? $20 + shipping? If I still have it, I'd be happy to get rid of the thing. I'm happy with my rio karma (which actually works!)
The RIAA closed down the "open source" alternatives to the iTMS (iTunes Music Store)...
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
Ah jesus, here we go...
You're right on one thing, it won't last forever - nothing does. However what does Steve's greed have anything to do with this issue? Also, I seriously doubt the iPod is just a cool trend. Sure, some kids definitely have them for that, but I also know a lot of over-30 folks who have them in the car, home, pocket, etc - I don't see that as a trend.
Personally, I think the iPod software is great. Both Creative and Sony had players out before the iPod and they were crap. Their interfaces sucked and Apple was able to marry the scroll wheel with easily navigation. So far, neither Creative or Sony has showed anything interesting, nor will they probably in the near future.
As for the iTunes store and Steve pissing off the owners of the music, I think you referring to the music and media cartels, right? Hmmm...
And making some missteps, that must be, what...? 1 mil videos in 20 days? Or is it over 1/2 billion songs? Or some other nook that's not been reported on yet.
Look, I love 'open source' just as much as the next guy and my livelihood actually depends on it. But just because some group of people sprinkle the magic dust on [insert app or device here] doesn't mean it's gonna rule the streets. It's so obvious sometimes that the OS and even M$ communities are so focused on their one way (M$ dominating everything and playing w/nothing and OS re-doing everything M$ does for free) of the world that to them, it's impossible that something 'not invented (or copied) here' can be great.
Honestly, I don't care much for Jobs, but I tip my hat to Apple pretty much every time I use one of their products. They understand design and implementation almost better than any tech company out there. Sure, they're not perfect, but their stuff just makes sense. This is coming from someone who took a long time to give up Windowmaker and whatever the latest and greatest Intel/Amd box of the day was. I hope some OS player will see some success, but it won't happen soon, just look at Windows vs. GNU/Linux/Gnome. You're assuming the mass of people give a shit about OS and the Windows monopoly just shows they don't. So, you can pretty much apply the same rule to the iPod for the foreseeable future.
Most people buy iPods because they're sleek and pretty and well marketed and do what most people want them to do. These are "typical consumers". Basically none of these people care if the products they use are open source or not. Most don't even know what open source is.
Sure, there is a small segment of people who love to tweak and/or love the idea of open source, but those people don't matter. Why? Because they are more or less a statistical anomaly as far as sales figures go.
That's right people! You don't matter! Your passion for open source everything makes little or no difference, especially in the target market for iPods.
If anybody ever beats the iPod it will be because of better marketing, or maybe even better technology (as long as it's combined with better marketing)... being open source will never, ever make any damn difference.
"... right now any innovation only belongs to a half a dozen companies."
What a moron. If he considers a corpse of patent lawyers innovation, he might have a point. If he wants features and convenience, he has no clue.
KDE and other have it all gpl'd and ready for anyone. Playing, ripping and portability, it's all there.
For ripping, there's the easy "abcde" program and KDE's Konqueror. It just works, no further effort required. If you don't want to buy your music in a box, you can go get it for free at Magnitune and other Creative Commons sites that save you the trouble of ripping.
For play KDE alone have three excellent programs, Juk, Amork and Noatun. Noatun, while older, is my current favorite. It's network aware, as most KDE applications are, supports all sorts of playback including video, does shuffle and more. Can your music player sftp into your homebox? Outside of KDE, there are reliable standards like xmms, which also does network playlists, videos and all that.
My laptop coupled with a fm transmitter and a cheap fm equipped digital music player runs rings around a DRM'd ipod. I get a real keyboard, full screen to drag and drop my music around and have to be at my desk anyway. Why limit yourself to 40 or 60 gigs when you can see your biggest, fattest network box? When I want to go portable, I can drag a few hours of random music onto the player and walk off.
Music is the past, others are already living in the video future. Open Zaurus has been doing video streaming through the network for years.
So, the work is already done and Neuros is not so dumb to ask for help doing it. For the price of a few devices, they can have the best music / video player in the world. I imagine the experiment will be educational for more than the CEO.
If they are smart, they'll ship it with a Mepis CD to fix the end user's computer too. It's not like you can support a decent device on Windoze these days. Plugging cool portable devices to Windoze has like trying to put coal into your Ferrari for years now because Microsoft breaks what's not Microsoft.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The ability to make UI tweaks isn't going to do it. Will I be able to code support for open source codecs such as ogg vorbis or will I be restricted to using only WMA and MP3? Can I code up a music library application that works in Linux? That's the kind of thing I want to work on. Screw the interface tweaks.
(Score: -1, Stupid)
it wasn't trolling and you are wrong. He already takes a huge piece of each 99 cent download, and the Music labels wanted to make more money. The option would be for steve to take a smaller cut, or raise the price. He only talked about the higher price when spreading his FUD.
They also wanted to change the pricing structures... lower unpopular song prices, raise popular. For EXAMPLE, if I wanted to download rare b.b. king song I would be pretty happy to pay 50 cents... likewise if I want to buy the song at the top of the charts 1.50. Whatever the pricing structure may be.
All that said, I didn't pass judgment on that specifically, I just said, he is pissing them off by bad mouthing them publicly. You don't publicly bad mouth your supplier over a disagreement.
I think an open source player (nuts to bolts) could really work!
One thing it needs to be is different and bold, not bland and sucky like every other non-iPod media player out there today (sorry non iPod owners but I've used other devices and they just are not as nice in any way that I (or most people) care about). Come up with some really original UI ideas, as a for-instance although I know hardware changes are not really on the table what about accellerometers controlling things like volume? Think of something fresh.
Secondly (and probably more important) embed Hymn and support the AAC standard files. That way you can play tracks you bought on ITMS on this other device, and continue to buy things from ITMS to use with it. Sure it's just asking for a lawsuit but if you want to challenge the leader you have to take a few risks.
I think a real competitor to the iPod would be great for the market and probably even help push Apple to improve things at a faster pace too.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
They could try but the Ipod has the name. Everyone knows what an Ipod is, except for possibly some Amish communities. They could make a better mp3 player and it still wouldn't compete with the Ipod's sales, they already make far better mp3 players for less money and yet people still buy ipods for some reason.
If you want to run queries on your music collection, get foobar2000 with the extended playlist generator plugin (included in the special installer).
When I can also put linux on my ipod(see ipodlinux.org) it gives me that much more my ipod can do while still maintaining all the ipod functionality I enjoy(installation of ipodlinux sets up a dualboot system). I can play videos on my non-video ipod, play games like doom, emulate gameboy color, and a bunch of other useful applications. It lets me get the absolute most out of my apple hardware, which is pretty much on par with anything else any other mp3 player company can offer.
:)
I'm still not saying this is a bad idea, I'm just saying there already is an opensource solution for ipod owners and it is quite good.
A few notes to people thinking about trying this out:
1) First, this will void your warantee so keep that in mind.
2) Installation is easy but even then if something goes wrong you can use the apple firmware installer to reformat your ipod and start over fresh and clean.
3) Not all ipods are fully supported yet. Obviously the video ipod isn't fully supported yet because it is new and has new hardware. The Nano models and the newer ipod colors are also getting fine tuned at the moment as well, but the last of the major hurdles with those two are about done so its just a matter of going back and touching up the coding on the various software. So, before long every ipod model save for maybe the 5g video ipod should be good to go
You are who you are, let no one tell you different. But, never close your mind to a new point of view.
The Neuros 442 is not intended to be an iPod killer; it's designed to be a portable multimedia device. It'll play and record video. Its MP3 playback is far superior to the iPod. And, you don't have to spend $400 to hack on this device: you can get a developer board for about $160.
Anyway, I'm on the list for a board when they become available; and I am listening to the Eels on my 442 right now. For an MP3 device, the interface is not impressive but the playback is; as a portable video device, it's tre cool.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
The plan from what I know as someone waiting for the Neuros3 to come out so I can purchase it, is that they're doing in-house development on it to a fully functional point and open-sourcing it and any libraries/middleware they can contractually release.
The "community" effort they're relying on to drive further adoption is for the extensions. It doesn't ship with Ogg or FLAC support natively, but someone out there is going to add it because they know how, and then it will become a selling feature. The developers who add this kind of thing will gravitate to it because it means they *can* get a portable Ogg player if they put the effort into it.
And yet, after all of this, Neuros (the company) isn't doing anything explicit for Ogg support or whatever. They're just creating a shell and letting people tinker with it. They do apply to your first criteria (Write it themselves, and open-source it.) for the basics, and then let the community push it and see how far they want to take the hardware.
Correction -- open source might cost money. Idealogy aside, I still think it's free as in speech, not as in beer. Frequently it ends up being the latter, but there is no requirement. Plenty of people pay for it. I paid several hundred dollars for a copy of SuSE last year.
Ah, shut up.
I concur—it's the marketing. iPods are remarkably overpriced and underfeatured for what you get compared to other portable digital audio players. But everyone knows the name "iPod" because of the TV and print ads.
Even things Apple initiated, like the protocol behind what free software users call "ZeroConf" (what Apple now calls "Bonjour") aren't present in iPods despite the nice service it could help provide to iPod users—with wireless communication hardware built into a portable digital audio player, one could share audio clips, playlists, images, and so on just by being physically near them or on the same local network as them.
Digital Citizen
That said, as nice a gesture as this is, the iPod is a lot more than just its firmware. That clickwheel interface is pretty amazing--I haven't used such an intuitive device interface in a long time
I suppose I am the only person in the whole world who finds the ipod physical interface totally "the suck" and the software unintuitive. I thought the original jog wheels were cool just because they were retro, smooth and elegant - but the whole rub your finger around a touchpad? weak! Is it a button? is it a touchpad? does a double touch do something different? What the hell? It probably makes sense for those that owned and understood the jog wheel version but as a johnny-come-lately, it is confusing at best. Couple that with the totally unintuitive 3rd party fm broadcasting thingies that require you to play and pause a song to broadcast FM and you have me sitting in the passenger seat on a roadtrip fiddling with the damn thing for hours just trying to get it to play a damn song.
If that is the best interface out there... egads what must the worst one be like?
The iPod doesn't succeed because it's better than any other MP3 player out there, it succeeds because of its marketing campaigns. I'm not talking about the few geeks (such as us Slashdot readers) who buy it, mind you, but the masses of uneducated people who buy an iPod because, simply, it's "the thing" to buy. The only thing that's keeping other MP3 players from attaining the success of the iPod is a slick TV commercial with a well-known band (too bad U2's already taken!). That's why an open-source MP3 player will never succeed to the same degree.
The thing that always gets me about iPod vs other media players is that the other things that try to compete are players, and relating to music, and now movies, it stops at that. Farther up this thread I saw a link to Rockbox, which is a cool looking media player with games and recording and stuff. One of the features it lists is the ability to delete and rename files. This is the most obvious place where it steps out of direct competition with the iPod, and further inspection shows that really not many other players do directly compete with the iPod. The iPod is an extension of a music database, iTunes. It keeps track of statistical data about your music, such as the play count, rating count, last play time, date added, etc.. Drag-and-drop players do not offer this functionality. You can't just plug in your Rockbox player to your computer and have it automatically sync any songs that were added recently, songs that are rated high, remove songs that have been rated low on the portable player itself, etc.. iTunes does that because of the fact that it's a database. I know that not a lot of people want that, they want drag-and-drop, but that is not the iPod and so those devices do not directly compete with it. Unless you're including the database features of the iPod, you're not giving it an appropriate comparison to other portable media players. The iPod is a portable extension of iTunes. A satellite.
The result of Apple's control is good solutions.
The result of Microsoft's control is a stagnant software market, with lots of bad solutions.
I like Apple's control better.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
So THAT is the reason Apple has continuously lost money with the iPod!
If the open source community can make a slick, streamlined and elegant product, then perhaps. But most of what comes from the Open Source community is none of those things. Currently the device is clunky, large and ugly.
The Open Source community is great at getting a useable product to market, but they're techies, not artists. Useable doesn't equate to elegance.
"He already takes a huge piece of each 99 cent download"
Please define "huge piece" if you can. Some credible references would be good too.
The pursuit of absolute tolerance leads to the most rigorous and ludicrous intolerance. - REX MURPHY
DS and PSP both have plenty of hackers, even with official opposition to the very notion. It would appear that device hackers feel no qualms about working with "closed source" hardware. It seems that most hackers pick a technology for the transformational value. Taking a wifi router that's already quite cheap and vastly improving its features, that sort of thing. And I suspect the wide distribution of the product to be hacked plays into it as well, not just in how many potential hackers have the product, but how many hackers decide it's worth it to hack it and share.
Then the 442 is in a troubling spot. Partly because they already have a core set of developers who know the product and helped create the specs, there appears to be little documentation of the hardware used to run it. This is also partly because music players rarely get the kind of inspective treatment the various game machines do. The other big problem is that this thing costs about twice as much as their competitors. Price is a big determinate of sales, and if you want your "hacks" to see widespread use, you should be interested in seeing the price fall.
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
iPods are remarkably overpriced and underfeatured
Show me another flash player with 4GB of storage for $250...
Didn't think so, retard.
The reason the iPod is the sucess it has become is very simple - word of mouth. Marketing gets people buying new products. Really amazing marketing (which I do not think the iPod has) gets you to perhaps 20-30% market share, but don't forget OTHER products are also marketing at the same time! And Marketing does not really help you to get people to buy second or third players if a person is not happy with what they have.
The only way you achive utter market domination is by people liking a product so much they talk other people into buying it. Period. That is how a product becomes a lifestyle trend, like everything else it depends on people liking it. Why they like it is a combination of ease of use and ITMS and iTunes, but marketing comes a distant second.
Do you HONESTLY think the Dell DJ or iRiver would enjoy the same market position right now if they had thought to use dancing shadows? Please. Are you such a sheep that marketing controls everything you buy? Please have a little respect for humanity and realize MOST people can actually resist marketing, even more so as we have become inured to it through over-exposure.
How many times have you every heard people mention how much they like the iPod ads as opposed to the iPod itself?
How many iPod ads do you even see in a week? I see perhaps one a month.
To say the iPod sucess springs from marketing is to ignore a very valuable lession in human behaviour.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The "publicity" you get from a stunt targeted largely at the open source community is probably going to be worth less than the overall benefits you will reap by open-sourcing your product, though.
Just out of curiosity....which benefits would those be? The Neuros was open sourced quite a while ago, and it went nowhere. Is there any open-sourced hardware that's really benefitting from the OSS community? I can see how it benefits a software-only product, and in theory, how hardware might benefit, but that doesn't seem to play out in practice.
Dude, sounds like you are just being too rough with the iPod scroll wheel (and the SE phone you mentioned). I mean come on, if I slap my mouse around the desk I totally blow past the icon I am going for, but if I finness it...
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
Some people mention the iTunes Music Store and iTunes. Whatever. Maybe this really is the appeal for many iPod users, I just don't know. I buy CDs and have no desire to reward DRM in the marketplace, so iTMS is useless to me. And as for iTunes, I haven't used it so I just don't have a clue as to how it is better than xmms; I just hear people rave about it. And why any of this would make a difference to someone regarding their portable music player (where you don't wanna run the same kind of software that you have on your desktop anyway), again, I just don't have a clue. So I gotta mostly plead ignorance on that. What I can say, is that none of that stuff matters to me so the lack of it doesn't count as a strike against any iPod competitors as far as I am concerned. But I'm only one guy and my pick never wins presidential elections either...
Overall, I think the idea of having a tweakable UI is an extremely good idea. I was shocked by the irony of this:
I would have thought that as hardware gets cheaper and easier to build -- in other words, more accessible -- amateur development only gets more and more capable. Doherty has it backwards.The thing is, I just don't know if I'll buy one. I bought the original Neuros, and it croaked. Then I used a laptop to play music in my car, and that killed the hard disk. I'm starting to think that any hard disk that I use in my car, where it's exposed to the New Mexico summer sun and the bumpy ride from my cheap car on its 40 psi tires, is doomed to a short lifespan. I love having music in my car, but I'm 0-and-2 right now. I think I'm going to have to switch to solid state, and that kind of storage still just isn't big/cheap enough yet (but it's coming).
The inclusion of video in the latest devices is a mystery to me, but again, that's probably because I view these portable devices as being for car drivers, and obviously watching movies doesn't make sense in that place. I guess subway riders would see it differently.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
believe it or not I have actually never used an ipod myself, so I really can't comment on the interface, but that of my creative zen touch is good enough that it's definately worth the price difference, improved sound quality, tripled battery life, and increased durability. that's just me. though I've heard the software end of the ipod is actually pretty cool, what with the games and all.
as far as the DRM end of things goes, apple had to do that to get the media industry onboard with itunes, not with the ipod. again, to refer to my zen, no DRM whatsoever. the firmware isn't open source, but there's no restrictions for the industry to want to hide by closing it. it isn't that difficult to get unencumbered media. you just have to rip it yourself.
Variable pricing isn't 'one button mouse' simple. Apple values simplicity. Apple covets market share for player sales as well as online music sales. Raising the cost of iTunes music would hurt market share and reduce Ipod dominance. I don't think it is much of a mystery why Steve doesn't want to raise iTunes prices.
"Apple says iTunes is "better than free" because it's "fair to the artists and record labels." That's simply not true. First of all, Apple gets 3 times as much money as musicians from each sale. Apple takes a 35% cut from every song and every album sold, a huge amount considering how little they have to do. Record labels receive the other 65% of each sale. Of this, major label artists will end up with only 8 to 14 cents per song, depending on their contract. Many of them will never Artists Get Ripped Off. even see this paltry share because they have to pay for producers and recording costs, both of which can be enormous. Until the musician "recoups" these costs, when you buy an iTunes song, the label gives them nothing. (Sources: major label musician's cut Apple's cut For a thorough explanation of how recouping screws musicians, see Confessions of a Record Producer by Moses Avalon)"
http://www.downhillbattle.org/itunes/
35% is a huge cut for a distributor. Best Buy doesn't take 35% cut off of each cd sale, not even close! You can fact check the numbers but, apple's percentage is widely known.
which part of tiger runs without hacking on non-apple machines again?
-mkb
The new iPod is basically the exact same thing with a bigger screen, better buttons, but no mic, line in, or text features. I'll wait for the next big iPod. ;)
Back on topic, I think this is a great move. Sure it provides publicity (nothing wrong with that), but it also allows for great ideas. Every complaint that the community has about the player can be personally addressed by them. I mean, look at the PSP (and it's firmware is closed!). Before we know it, someone will figure out some way to get a browser on that thing (I don't, maybe through USB--it's possible).
Software is like sex. It's better when it's free. -Linus Torvalds
Only someone who doesn't own an iPod and is rather jealous can say such a thing. I used to think the same thing, until I saved up some cash and bought an iPod. Let's dispel a few myths here.
First, the iPods are among the lowest-cost music players in the industry. The 30GB Dell Digital Jukebox (the cheapest, crappiest equivalent) is $260 + $20 tax + $10 shipping = $290, only $9 cheaper than the iPod (no tax, free shipping). It has a black and white screen, it looks ugly, it doesn't play video, and it's a lot larger and heavier than the iPod. That's without even taking into account the iPod's awesome user interface. For instance, it's the only player that I know of that starts playing music as soon as you hit the play button -- without waiting to boot up or fill its cache. It has the most pleasant, easy-to-use navigation system I've ever seen in a portable device. It has the best sound quality of any player in its class. The main reason for its success is great engineering.
They are certainly not underfeatured. Yes, they don't have useless features like an FM tuner (which would have increased the size, decreased the battery life, reduced the sound quality, and made it more expensive). If I wanted to listen to radio, I would have bought a radio and saved about $295. I can't think of any other feature it lacks. It has video (including video output to a TV), it has top-notch audio. You can even use it as a portable hard drive, and unlike the Windows Media players, it doesn't have any of that DRM bullshit (unless you buy stuff from iTunes).
if you are going to make a better ipod please don't make a carbon copy of the ipod interface which seems to be the way most folks seem to try to make something better (gnome or kde vs. windows, or hell windows itself vs. mac os).
key ideas: simplicity and flexibility. you might have to make compromises but if you do, err on the side of simplicity rather than flexibility.
my 2c.
Large print giveth, and the small print taketh away
The other challenge they will face is getting content to their player.
It's amazing how quickly people have forgotten about ripping CDs. Just a few years ago, all portable MP3 players were (supposedly) sold for the purpose of playing music ripped from CDs, but today the common assumption is that all music is either legally downloaded and DRM-encrusted or illegally downloaded.
Amen!
The scroll wheel is great for sorting through a list of maybe ten options -- way better than clicking "down down down down...", but it really sucks for thousands.
What the iPod's UI really, seriously lacks is the proper HIERARCHY. I mean, it's nearly flat, which forces you to scroll through sorted lists of sometimes thousands of items when you can only see ten or so on a single screen. Apple consistently places form so far above function* it's laughable.
If this kit really is open enough that anybody can take a stab at modifying it's UI, I'll buy one. Bonus points for letting us in on the OS code. Sure, it's not for everybody, but speaking on behalf of hobbyists and tinkerers, I would love to play with something like this.
* Form above function: Single button mouse! Menu bar at top of screen! iPod UI! Etc etc feh
On the other hand, Apple doesn't care about the things that open source players are likely to have: Standard, open connectors (no dock connector that you have to pay Apple to use), ability to play lots of different formats like Vorbis, ability to customize the interface, ability to upgrade the memory, ability to talk to various operating systems, etc. Really, this player and the iPod re targetting different sections of the portable music player market.
There is no way open source will ever dethown ipod any more then open office will be better at the work force then MS Office. It just won't happen because people like turn key solutions. http://www.mikeandkim.org/
How about $199?
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.
that's weird. it took me 2 minutes to learn to use the iPod interface, and now I love it.
I have no trouble getting a song to play. Once I decide what I want to hear it takes about 5-10 seconds, depending on how far I have to scroll...
I much prefer this to one of those many-microscopic-button dealies...
Now... if someone made an MP3 player in landscape-layout, with a big screen, a few buttons and a real honest-to-goodness D-PAD, it might be awesome... (think like a PSP/GBA) though, with a D-Pad it's hard to do accelleration... but, if it was a pretty stiff d-pad, and pressing harder meant scrolling faster... I dunno... it could be done... but everything else I've ever used on the market totally sucked...
I mean, look at that iriver thing people keep linking to...
all these really tiny, sharply angled buttons that would be painful/difficult to press-and-hold... and you can't vary the speed... either it does continuous-accelleration, or it's constant speed. With the iPod, you want faster? scroll faster!
stupid iriver... a ~9 sq. in. area for buttons, and they make them freakin 2mm wide! look at all that wasted space that could be used for a decent UI!
I don't think the iPod UI is ideal. I think it's far from it. But I've yet to see the MP3 player with an interface even half as usable.
It even outweight 2 ipods....
Neuros (40G):
136.1 x 78 x 26.5
325g
Ipod (60G):
103,5 x 61,8 x 14
157 g
No Pixar wants to make a movie a year, as it is now they release them about once every two years.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
We're sorry - the fingers you have used to manipulate your iPod are too fat. If you would like to request a special dialing wand, please mash the clickwheel with your palm now
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Can Open Source Outdo the IPod?
FUCK NO!!!!!
I don't think that's really true. Do you know anyone who bought an iPod because of the add campaign? People bought them because they were well made, and more importantly, extremely easy to use. The coolness happend later, it seems to me.
"We have nothing in common, your attitude annoys me, and your political views are appalling."
I think if someone really wants to build an ipod killer, they should add a wireless interface. Add software such that any two such devices, when near each other, automatically start copying files back and forth. File transfer priority could be determined by a recommender system.
The company could insulate themselves from an RIAA lawsuit by allowing open source developers write the system for them, and distribute it as an unofficial firmware modification...
Perhaps it is only a matter of time before someone does this.
Nooo.. nothing can stop the ipod. Except the Sony PSP with its wifi capabilities streaming tv shows and radio stations. Really though, if ipods keep getting smaller anyways, whats the screen good for? I cant take anymore of apples step by step ipod releases. I appreciate the enthusiasm in releasing new updates but enough with the baby steps allready. We all know you have an ipod running the itunes store that can fit in your pocket.
The success of the iPod is a combination of design based on intense market research and never-ending advertising campaigns. Apple's firmware is buggy which makes it crash prone, and anyone who has dealt with a staticky iPod Mini knows that they can't design a circuitboard very well, so it seems unlikely that any amount of open-source technical ingenuity will beat the iPod.
What the iPod's UI really, seriously lacks is the proper HIERARCHY. I mean, it's nearly flat, which forces you to scroll through sorted lists of sometimes thousands of items when you can only see ten or so on a single screen.
if its flat then you're doing it wrong. im able to select songs by:
1. genre->artist->album->song
2. artist->album->song
3. album->song
4. song (i guess this is the one you're refering to)
5. playlists
6. shuffle
perfectly good selection of hierarchies if you ask me
Menu bar at top of screen!
what the fuck are you talking about? consistant UI is FUNCTION
TIAEAE!
Exactly, the record labels receive the other 65% of each sale. If the artists aren't getting a fair payment you should be blaming the labels as well as the artists themselves for signing a contract that screws them over. And, you don't think that at least 35% of a CD's price goes to packaging/shipping/storage?
I would kill to get something like this that plays all the VLC player codecs. The problem with me is that none of my videos even play on the iPod or any other commercial video player....
Absolutely not. Open source is characterized by bad user interface design, and this is the trump card that Apple has held on to since the first generation iPod.
Yes, 35% is a huge cut. Unfortunately for Apple you've chosen to make up figures instead of find out the real ones.
Apple gets 4 cents for each sale. The labels take around 62 cents. The publisher gets 8 cents.
That's a great idea. Making cofee could actually put those (usually) flammable batteries' absurdly high temperatures to good use.
The pod shell could hold 2 or 3 cups worth of coffee powder, in a thin layer.
Water could be added externally and just percolate through.
And it would still cool the processor.
And the taste of mettalic hydrides in my coffee would bring back fond memories of early years in the lab.
And, since it's open-souce... why not ? That's what OS is partly (or mostly?) for, anyway. Right ?
Truth is the labels are shit scared of Apple. They thought that iTunes would only be for mac - it was a little experiment. It is now such a success that they half want to kill it if only they didn't need it so much. All the arguments you are seeing between Apple and the labels is a power struggle. What if the artists go to Apple direct? Then they can have 70c+ in the dollar. That is what the battle is really about.
Menu bar at the top? what?
Aside from that, try creating some playlists or using Genre effectively. I'll agree that scrolling endlessly through artist after artist is boring and difficult, but if you use Genre instead of Artist, you get it lumped into smaller categories. If that's still too many, you can come up with labled subgenres and use those (think along the lines of southern doom metal v. progressive neoclassical metal, for example).
(meant for both parent and gp)
iPods are decent enough MP3 players, but they aren't winning in the market because of technology or functionality, they're winning because of distinctive branding and good industrial design.
...).
I'll probably buy a Neuros if it's hackable. But I don't think this box is going to take the world by storm. I think what might is if one of the 2G or 4G gumstick flash players became hackable and programmble; there are some neat things one might be able to do with them, in particular if they also got some additional, interesting I/O ports (Bluetooth, IrDA,
I have no idea where you got the idea that Neuros isn't doing anything for ogg support. They were the first portable player to support ogg vorbis. I can't imagine that the N3 will ship without ogg support.
To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three persons, two of them absent.
Supposedly nobody buys CDs to rip anymore.
I will admit, though, that the public library is less than a mile from my house.
resigned
downhillbattle.org is not a credible source. Nice try googling. Give it another shot. And you've managed to sidestep the parental post completely. It doesn't matter how big of a percentage per song. It matters how much cash per song. Even if your googletistic is correct, the record labels are taking 65% of 99 cents. Do you think the artist is seeing any of that?
Best Buy sells their CDs below cost, by the way, as a loss leader to get people into their stores, so that's not the stellar example you wish it were. Check out Record Contract Basics for more detail. The band is lucky to see $1 on a full-priced %16.98 sold at retail.
Bottom line, if you want to support the artists, attend their concerts and buy merchandise straight from them -- that's the only way they see any reasonable amount of money.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
* Increased Market Security / Customer Lock-in. If it isn't growing your number one job is to maintain market share
* Pressure from Labels (as you suggest) / pricing negotiations. Labels will continue to pressure Apple to do their bidding or pull product.
* Market shift towards DRM from intel, Microsoft, HD-DVD/BluRay, HDTV, HDCP and DMCA all has the potential to hurt us bad, a lot worse than it has. So far Apple has been mostly on our side but the tide is against us and they will not be able to stand up for us.
One thing that needs to happen for a serious challenge to the iPod is a standard for accessories amongst other mp3 players. I've said over and over, that techonologically, this is probably the greatest thing the iPod has going for it. Opening firmware like this could also possibly bring in some inovative ideas... maybe a small step, but it's something that could help.
That would be awesome, although perhaps not copying but streaming would appease the RIAA. Although it can't work how you stated it, because I don't know why anyone would want to automatically get every random person's music onto their player, but perhaps the more popular ones. One easy way I think (although I know nothing about this) is to utilize some sort of short-range radio and a tuner in the MP3 player and then have broadcasting capabilities, not on by default because that would be annoying.
All your base are belong to Wii.
I have rockbox running on my iRiver H120 - mp3 and gapless Ogg Vorbis playback, FM stereo, recording, lots of other stuff. Rockbox is completely open-source and under active development (it was originally written for some of the Archos players). Compared to the stock iRiver firmware, the Rockbox effort is better in almost every single way. Bravo to the Rockbox developers!
Another great thing is that I can (and have) dive into the source if I want to tweak something, like a default or a level multiplier.
This is exactly what I meant by "nearly flat". Here's a breakdown:
1. genre->artist->album->song
Bad for locating particular songs, since many artists/albums can be rightly placed in any number of genres. It's nice for a "surprise me with something jazzy" scenario, but the issue we're talking about here is how easy/difficult it is to select what you want. Which leaves us with a hierarchy at best 3 deep.
2. artist->album->song
I have 324 artists on my iPod, and that's not counting albums with multiple artists. That alone is really hard to navigate with the scroll wheel. It would sure be nice to have a breakdown by first letter, but Apple would never do that because it doesn't fit their aesthetic.
3. album->song
1290 albums. Again, same problem. Granted, there would be fewer albums if I'd bought them all from iTunes, but my mp3 collection is a rag-tag combination of ripping and p2p. No iTunes for me since I'm on Linux.
4. song
Yes, this is the worst. Maybe it makes sense if you're only got a hundred songs, but worthless once you're past that.
Aside: I installed MythTV the other day. The music player doesn't use any ID3 information, but it manages to be very functional with limited input devices (e.g. remote control) and not using much more display space than the iPod. It does this by having more levels of hierarchy!
How very 1999.
You have violated Robot's Rules of Order and will be asked to leave the future immediately.
I can see the adverisement now,
Narrator: "The Neuros Audio music master l33t 3k was made by these people."
Scene: Dark basement room, pizza boxes and empty pop cans strewn around, At a desk in the corner sits a glasses wearing hacker complete with dirty T-shirt, pale skin and acne, which mother yelling downstairs at him as he furiously types his computer keyboad.
Scene switches: Well lit office environment, professional looking people scurrying about, there is background chatter about stability, audio quality, usability, etc..
Narrator: "Apple Ipod was programmed by these people, who are you going to trust your downloaded music to? Aplle Ipod, programmed by professionals."
------
Don't get me wrong. I am all for open source etc... but I am just thinking that Apple will use this to their advantage somehow.
I read Slashdot for the headlines, because the headlines, unlike the articles, are usually original and never duplicated
Blame that one on my lack of experience (don't have a current neuros, just waiting for the N3) - example still stands though, that the ability to write your own audio decoder is a 'feature' of the device.
That clickwheel interface is pretty amazing--I haven't used such an intuitive device interface in a long time.
I have about a dozen MP3 players, and the clickwheel is not very good: it's too hard to control precisely and it's modal.
It's the boring, mainstream MP3 players that are intuitive. Simple designs have separate buttons for play, pause, skip left/right, scan left/right, and volume up/down. And the directional pad, which has push to play/pause, up/down for volume, push left/right to skip, and hold left/right to scan, is probably the best of the controls: it's simple, it's tiny, and it's intuitive. The clickwheel doesn't even come close.
The clickwheel is great branding, but only tolerable usability.
First, the iPods are among the lowest-cost music players in the industry. The 30GB Dell Digital Jukebox (the cheapest, crappiest equivalent) is $260 + $20 tax + $10 shipping = $290, only $9 cheaper than the iPod (no tax, free shipping). It has a black and white screen, it looks ugly, it doesn't play video, and it's a lot larger and heavier than the iPod. That's without even taking into account the iPod's awesome user interface. For instance, it's the only player that I know of that starts playing music as soon as you hit the play button -- without waiting to boot up or fill its cache. It has the most pleasant, easy-to-use navigation system I've ever seen in a portable device. It has the best sound quality of any player in its class. The main reason for its success is great engineering.
The sentences following the first one in that paragraph were supposed to support your contention that it's 'one of the cheapest.' You weren't supposed to regurgitate a bunch of stuff about how wonderful it is. Did you get all that boilerplate with a cut and paste from an Apple marketing web page, or are you an Apple employed astroturfer??
There are many, MANY mp3 players that are MUCH lower cost then the iPod. For my money, I prefer a CD-based player. I can get 7 gigs of additional storage for my MP3 player right at Walgreens for a few bucks (ten blank CDR disks). I can't imagine the need to carry around an entire huge collection of programming material in a single package so the iPod just doesn't grok for me.
resigned
I think we, as members of the geek culture, are often jaded by the technical downsides to successfully marketed products and we always like to knock what's on top and point out the flaws. The market is a bit less demanding technically so let's set the issue of technical quality aside for just one moment (I'll come back to it in a moment).
For the past 20 years, the home computer (Mac, PC, or other) has gone from a geeky little gadget to a household necessity. The success of the Win-Tel marketshare owes most of its success to the price point to help ensure its status as ubiquitous. Windows PCs are everywhere on the planet--look at your security logs if you're not completely convinced. They nearly drove the Mac to extinction and succeeded in killing off OS/2, BeOS, Amiga, etc. into obscurity. But there was always the promise of the next version finally being better and bug free.
Lately, though, as gadgets have become more sophisticated and easier to use, the computer has actually become the stop gap between people and their digital bliss. Along comes Apple with its iPod--and applicance that does one thing very easily. It's a success.
I don't think Apple's status as a giant corporation with marketing power is the deal breaker--if that were true, the Mac would be much more prominent. I think the simplicity and product design is what consumers want.
The only people I ever hear bitch about the iPod are geeks who aren't afraid of buttons or Ogg/Vorbis.
There's something to be said about the computer and its peripherals being marketed as appliances. I think that's what most people want--a simple push-a-button Jetson's world that doesn't require tinkering or tweaking.
So, if the Open Source community wants to build a better iPod, they'd better figure out a way to beat the iPod on the simplicity front because 80% of the players purchased out there don't seem to care about the price point or features slashdotters bitch about.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
I much prefer this to one of those many-microscopic-button dealies...
The neat thing is that you only need one button to control a player, a kind of D-PAD:
push to start/stop
up-down for volume
left-right for skip
left-right hold for scan
The players use a separate button to switch to menu mode, where the thing functions in the obvious way (for way navigation, push to select).
Doesn't require a manual either, since it's easy to label the functions.
There are several no-name brands that use this. I think it's the best UI: unassuming, simple, and makes good use of space.
The iPod clickwheel is great as a brand statement, but as a controller, I think it's far from the best.
What makes that stupid wheel so intuitive? Do you have a cirle of songs or something? Myself, I have a list of songs. Many lists. Lists go up and down, not round and round. Apple's upper-hand on UI is a farce. I have a touch zen which has a strip that goes up and down. I knew right away wtf that did.
I'm posting anonymously since I've used mod points, but it appears that the referenced website causes Firefox to crash. Anyone else seeing this?
It's true about the iPod's clickwheel interface, it's pretty darn intuitive. But let's not forget about how many revisions it went through, and how brilliantly Apple marketed each revision as something other than a "beta test." Apple did a good job of timing not to mention seeing a product through properly. Most products after that much thinking through and development time should be pretty refined, and this is probably why the Open Source community's effort in everyone's free time just won't quite live up to Apple's effort.
It has little to do with the quality of the firmware - it's got just about everything to do with its cool-looking design and ease-of-use.
The fact that it doesn't use MS-licensed software is great, too - makes it just that much more likely that it works with Linux (and it does, flawlessly, by the way).
Not that the iPod couldn't benefit from open source - iPodLinux looks really cool, and it must be great being able to create and play MP3s on your iPod, as well as play games and do many other things you can do in Linux. But a lot of that isn't really what you're looking for in an MP3 player.
Oh, and one more thing that makes the iPod better - it doesn't try to be a Swiss Army knife like the Neuros player looks like it's trying to do. My iPod mini doesn't play videos and doesn't have a color screen, and I don't care because it's for listening to, not for watching. And the Video iPod is for watching, and I'm sure they tried to make sure it's not an eyesore. This thing (judging from its picture) looks like just a boring digital camera, not something I'd want to watch an entire episode of "Battlestar Galactica" on.
Plus, the iPod's got cool accessories for it, like speakers that hook up to it, radio transmitters, armbands for when you're jogging or biking or whatever, remote controls (for when you're listening to the iPod through speakers or the radio instead of headphones), and alarm clocks that play one of your MP3s instead of having that loud, annoying beep.
www.linuxpenguin.net
Half the posters here are admitting that part of what makes the iPod "supreme" is the marketing and then everyone graciously swallows heaps of the same marketing and says that a iPod beater is not possible. What gives?
Be more open minded guys! You don't need a hundered alternative players, just one decent gadget that is functional, expandable and asthetically acceptable.
You don't need iTunes to make it happen. iTunes does not even have a presence in many parts of the world nor does it carry local music. An open interface for integration with other music stores is one possibility. And for many folks, there's always the latest incarnation of Kazaa.
Just making a player and hoping the rest of the ecosystem evolves is probably a bad business bet though. There's a market here for a hardware vendor, if they play their cards right. There's enough talent in the open source community to make it happen.
found out the battery life on it? I could care less about the flashy features, colours, or interface. If i can't listen to my music on a one week life battery ( at least ) then i'm sure as hell not going to buy it 0.o I'd rather have it function than be 'wow'ed
Note: My sony NW-E99 takes 1 AAA battery and lasts me through my school week and late weekend nights
I'll tell you why. Since the new software will be open sourced, any device can use it. Which means anyone or any organization that wants to make a MP3/Video player can use the open sourced code to do so, and each system based on the code will work the same and look the same.
This can be taken farther, remember the Indrema? What if the Indrema was instead an open source standard for a game console software to run under Linux? Not only could any organization make an Indrema, but any Linux based PC with the same processor as the Indrema could run the game console CD/DVD games. Since it uses Linux standards, this would give Linux game play a boost. Game players could choose between running the Indrema games on a Linux PC, or an Indrema game console. There can be F/OSS games that you download the ISOs and burn, or commercial games that you buy in a store or off of the web. F/OSS games could be sold by CD or DVD for the cost of making the CD or DVD, which means there could be cheap games sold at Walmart for under $10 (Possibly $5) based on F/OSS software.
To take things even further, since there could be a hard drive on the Indrema, emulators could be installed to emulate other game consoles. An organization could be formed to make arrangements with the owners of the ROMs to sell emulation CDs or ROM files of those games to play on emulators like Star Roms did with old Atari arcade game ROMs. Imagine if EA did this with all of their old classic Genesis, SNES, etc sports games? Maybe they could form an iTunes type DRM system to buy the ROMs via an application, and have DRM built into emulators to make sure that the ROMs are legally owned.
Anyway I would be interested in a Linux based MP3 and Video player handheld device, because I think it would lower the cost of developing such a device. The same, apparently, for game consoles, and other units.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
I can imagine the interface wars.
2005
GnomePOD!, no Kpod!
GnomePOD....Kpod
GnomePOD...Kpod
no enlightenPod v.17 dammit!!
how about GNUpod?
2006-2010
repeat
2011
repeat....only enlightenPod is now at v.18
oh my god, that was the funniest thing i've read in a long time. thanks
How do they expect to get the music/videos? They can't just piggyback the iPod.
Beats the hell out of me. I just know that my nephew handed me his iPod and I could immediately figure out how to do anything I wanted to do with it very nearly without having to think about it. Pretty much my first guess about how to do anything turned out to be consistently right.
It's downright eerie. And a pretty damned impressive bit of interface engineering too. Somebody worked his ass off to get it right.
Now, granted, I'm the guy everybody brings their digital watches to to be set -- I'm good at figuring things out. When I bought an MP3 player recently, I went with a SanDisk Sansa, because for 2/3 the price of an iPod shuffle, I get unlimited capacity via adding SD cards, and a display. The interface is clunky, and you have to fiddle with your track names to get them to play in the right order. I bet at least half the population would experience significant frustration trying to operate this device. And the other half don't get that "oooh" experience of things magically working right.
I'd really be happier I think with a nano (since I don't give a fig whether the thing is scratched). But I'm too cheap to spring for it when an adequate cheap solution is available.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I tried to buy one once but they wouldn't sell to me up here in Canada.. :(
Seriously the Neuros is pretty cool. I'd like one.
i disagree with that statement. the clickwheel's main advantage is not so much that it's intuitive, even if it is: it has a button to play/pause, it's even labeled! as you suggest.
anyway, the ipod's main advantage over other players, is that you don't have to hurt your thumb holding down or clicking on a tiny button, which in the end isn't really anymore precise than a scrollwheel because you go into mindless mode and just zap it up and down until you're where you are. a scrollwheel allows you to control the scrolling with barely a touch... but then maybe i'm the only one that played too much SNES when i was younger and now can't stand the pain of small buttons
Making the firmware OSS is a great idea to help the developers find bugs and fix them. It would be like Firefox, where users can submit patches for bugs. Yet how many people are going to want to download new firmware every couple of days? Most people todays already have ipods and are not going to get a new mp3 player just becuase it has an OSS firmware available, especially with with the price that is going to be charged. IF Neuros really wants to challenge the ipod, they have to go to the basics of an mp3 player, and then add support for the things that people really want, like multiple audio formats.
Granted I've really wanted open source design to take off. With the amount of suggestions already out there for the ipod, I'm quite confident we could come up with something together that would best Apple's little machine.
translation: "I can't think of anything else to do, can you?"
I think this isn't about saving software development costs. It's about acknowledging the futility of making software that will take a bite out of Apple's market share. Apple has too much going for it: a vertically integrated system running from player through the computer to the music store for one thing. Momentum. Positive consumer attitudes. Killer design teams. Cozy supply chain relationships.
It's like showing up with your high school football team, only to find out you're playing the New England Patriots. Most companies are reacting to this by trying to scratch out some brilliant plays in the delusion that they can get in the game this way. Our friends a Neuros are smart enough to recognize futility when they see it. Instead, they've gone down to the hardware store and brought back a truckload of axes, then handed them out to every fan in the stadium, with instructions to go out and have fun.
What's smart about this strategy is that if they are efficient enough, they can sell enough players to make a profit, and there is slim but finite chance that somebody will create a killer app for their device.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three persons, two of them absent.
The open source nature of certain product doesn't make it more attractive to a consumer who is not into DIY kit. And that's vast majority of the consumers I'm taliking about. Apple Computer is a perfect example of a company that takes advantage of the open source movement as a cheap software development contracter, and ignores it where OSS crowd doesn't have a proven product. IBM is of the same category nowadays, but they made a bold move once by opening IBM PC hardware specifications. We've got cheap PC, IBM quickly learnt the lesson, and Apple learnt from them too: closed products are a competitive advantage if you can build a market. In the end, the open source folk don't seem to be upset. Cisco and iPod have general acceptance. Integrity, as we know it.
If there is one thing that the opensource community is bad at, it's the UI design. I doubt the company is going to gain anything here. Now don't nit pick by pointing out OpenSource programs with good UI. I can only talk with the general case in mind.
-ItsME
I suppose I am the only person in the whole world who finds the ipod physical interface totally "the suck" and the software unintuitive
Maybe not the only one, but certainly a member of a very small minority.
I thought the original jog wheels were cool just because they were retro, smooth and elegant
Yep, until you got a bit of sand in the wheel. That was No Fun at All. Apple switched to a touch pad to improve reliability.
what must the worst one be like?
Heh. Kind of like this.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
yeah, that pesky alphabit thing. I mean, I want to hear toxic by Britny Spears, but where is it?
seriously dude, scroll fast until you get to the letter, then slow down. I over shoot by about 10-15 names, but reversing my thumb movement to go back up is pretty easy.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
For some reason, some people still seem to have the idea that open-source development is free.
Gosh, I wonder where they could have gotten such a strange idea!
Creative
iRiver
Samsung
Rirelobql xabjf gung EBG-13 vf gur yrnfg frpher rapelcgvba rire, ohg jbhyq lbh jnfgr lbhe gvzr npghnyyl qrpelcgvat vg???
Ignoring overpriced, let's look at underfeatured. What do you want from a digital music player? I want one that:
- Plays music
- Syncs with my music collection on my computer.
The iPod does this, and a load of other crap I don't care about, but can safely ignore. Their competitors do this, and a huge load of other crap that clutters up the interface and is really hard to ignore.I find it interesting that many of the same people who dislike the iPod for being too underfeatured like UNIX - an operating system whose philosophy is `do one thing, and do it well.'
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"I can't imagine the need to carry around an entire huge collection of programming material in a single package so the iPod just doesn't grok for me."
grok? Grok means 'understand'.
your use of grok indicates you don't grok grok.
I thoght the same thing, but after I got one I found my self craeting many differnt play list for different activities I do.
For example:
I have some higher tempo music for my walk to and from work.
I have some pod casts to listen to why I am waiting for someone, or writing docs.
I have a playlist of new music I think other people will be interested in.
I have a play list of my children saying things.
I have a playlist I may play during table top games.
So I am actually finding uses that I didn't even consider before I got my iPod mini as a gift.
I do have two complaints:
1) I would really like to delete files from it on the fly
2) I would like to be able to move files onto another computer.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I don't know, you might want to ask Intel, IBM, Apple or Microsoft. If computers were sold as special purpose devices that could only run a preinstalled set of programs (say Office), they wouldn't really go anywhere. By providing an open platform, Neuros might get some killer game or say a mobile karaoke hack with lyrics and slideshow that will convince some group of consumers - say japanese teenagers - to get it instead of iPod.
Probably because the neuros is a HUGE thing, not sexy at all...
;)
you can't make up for shitty hardware by opensourcing the firmware (although... look at i386... )
It took me a while to get used to mice with acceleration, but I did. Maybe you will, too. If not, oh well. The scroll wheel is, for me, a billion times better than a thumbwheel like Dell or Sony uses that can only scroll a little at a time. As for star ratings, yes, they're a bit of a pain, you just have to get used to moving veeeery slowly. I think going from 0-5 stars from 12 to 3'oclock on the wheel is dumb. It should take half the wheel for the 5 ratings--0, 45, 90, 135, and 180 degrees.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
> Menu bar at top of screen!
> what the fuck are you talking about? consistant UI is FUNCTION
Well, "consistant" spelling is function, too, but keeping something around just because it's what people are accustomed to is a poor alternative to replacing it with something correct.
The Mac's menu bar behavior is a vestigial design decision from the days before multi-tasking; they keep it around because it's part of the "look-and-feel"... hence form above function. That was my point.
(Sure, it's subjective, but I'm pretty sure the vast majority of serious computer users would agree that the menu-for-each-window scheme works better.)
--------
Troll me!
Beyond this, if they, sometime in the future, went out of business, if the device was discontinued and they stopped offering support for it, you would have absolutely nothing to worry about when that undiscovered bug pops up the next week. You will have the source code, and if someone else doesn't fix it, you can.
Or were you just trying to get some OSS advocacy going?
By the way, bet you the kernel hackers who wrote device drivers for stuff still have to pay for the stuff they wrote they drivers for.
I just sent my Neuros I in for fixing. Again. For pretty much the same issue as last time. They are pretty generous in fixing things that are past their warranties though, it seems.
I own an iPod. The UI is good, but not perfect. I could design better, but I have no motivation to do so. If someone offered me a free device in exchange for a couple of hours UI consultancy, then it might be worth it. Of course, their device wouldn't integrate with iTunes or iTMS, so unless they were also designing a better jukebox program than iTunes, then I still probably wouldn't use it...
[1] The 770 has this in theory, but the default WM doesn't use it, since it only[2] has an 800x480 screen.
[2] This `only' makes me laugh a little, since my first laptop had a 640x480 screen with 16 shades of blue (as opposed to the 16-bit colour on the 770), a CPU a little under 10% the speed of the 770, less hard disk than the 770 has built-in Flash, 1/16th of the RAM, in a much, much bigger package.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I want a nano too. Those things are incredibly rugged. I'd even suffer through the circular scroller. ;-)
Everything here is correct except semantics. Designis where most of the iPod strengths lie. The iPod fits a human hand well ("slim") and has a distinctive (white) no frills, functional appearance (clean lines).
Synergy comes into play in how the iPod wrks with iTunes and Airport Express and now Frontrow. Choosing the name iPod was a smart marketing idea, it fit into Apple's iLine of consumer products but it also evokes what you want when you listen to music: Your own private pod.
"Explain how the scroll wheel is so special". . . "So how is the scroll wheel so critical to the iPod's success? Or maybe it's not the scroll wheel you mean."
I've never used a Karma, but the pics show the wheel on the upper right-hand corner. iPodders seem to brag about manipulate the scroll wheel well with one finger (even with the first gen non touch-screen iPod). The central location of the apple scroll wheel also allow for one handed operation by righties and southpaws. Your Karma is just as functional as an iPod but perhaps not as flexible. This is due to the size and mechanical properties of the Karma wheel, perhaps people are used to the iPod.
Explain what is so specific and granular about a mechanism that lets you build playlists based on play count and rating. My Karma lets me choose individual tracks from individual albums! I don't see how it could get any more specific and granular. Or maybe it's not the specificity and the granularity that you mean.
Another user wrote a great response to this question and it explains what smart-playlists allow (the granularity mentioned above)
Can you have a playlist of all songs in your library, over 2 minutes and under 5 minutes, by an artist with a name containing a 'Q', rated over four stars, in the dance genre or the hip hop genre, that haven't been played in over two weeks and have been played more than 27 times, with a bit-rate over 96kHz, added to the library after June of 2004 ?
Bottom Line? Open source can outdo the iPod -if it also outdoes iTunes AND the iTunes music store AND the iPod dock connector AND they all work well together.
having all the features in the world wont help. I COMPLETELY agree with the parent poster.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I could swear I've seen this comment made before, once or twice... I really hate it when people re-use old comments just to gain karma.
:)
Posting AC for obvious reasons.
When the open source community gets done, Neuros Audio will be left with a hand-held device that will do everything but play music well, and will have an interface that sucks. The device wil undoubtedly have software do do everything from simple calculations to developing software in Linux emulation mode. But it still won't play music any better than anything that works with either Windows or Mac.
Funny- I find it takes 5, 10, 15, 20 seconds of:
This is mostly a matter of getting used to it. If you use an iPod for a long time (i.e. once you own one instead of playing with a friend's for a minute) you get used to it and it's no different from using a trackpad.
Ever tried to change the star rating for a song? It's far too sensitive.
This I agree with.
Ever tried to switch off your iPod by holding play down- but slide your finger ever so slightly, so the iPod thinks it's a scroll and completely ignores the button press?
No. (Seriously.) I don't have any trouble *not* scrolling when I try to press the button (the problem is making very fine movements- see above).
a scrollwheel allows you to control the scrolling with barely a touch
It doesn't work that way. Precise motor control requires a certain amount of force, and if the controller doesn't provide a counterforce, your own muscle have to, which makes things worse. You're better off using friction, but on the clickwheel you can't do that because then you click.
is that you don't have to hurt your thumb holding down or clicking on a tiny button
The button doesn't have to be tiny, it can be a big, smooth, comfortable directional pad. In fact, I think the iPod interface would be better if they dropped the touch sensitivity altogether and otherwise kept the click part of the click-wheel and programmed it more intelligently. For an added bonus, they could make the click wheel pressure sensitive.
Start in the middle (alphabetically).
Press left and right to go to the quarter way points, and so on. Very quick to get where you want.
Also maybe make up and down + and - one place.
You've got to be freaking kidding me. You're asking if open source knows how to be appealing to the public? To put idealistic views of being 100% right behind them just to get a product to the market ontime? To understand what the public wants, not what the average computer nerd wants?
How long has Linux had to make some headway into the home desktop market? How have those attempts gone?
There is a reason why Apple is skyrocketing with Mac OS X, and that Linux with KDE and GNOME are still pretty much the tools of nerds.
Hi All, This is Kathryn Born, I'm Joe Born's sister and have been with Neuros since the first product was conceived. Joe is on a long flight, so I'll write in the meantime. I'll just throw in a couple things. One, analyst shmanalyst. Completely subjective. But we're not an iPod killer. There's a slashdot article when we came out in 2003 calling us an iPod killer and I assure you, no iPods have been harmed in by the success of Neuros. Neuros has a totally different customer base. One of the biggest tech support problems that Apple has is that people don't know that they need a computer to use their iPod. The key arena in which we really go head to head with a product like iPod, isn't open source, but the fact that the 442 can act like a digital VCR, it can record anything that plays on your TV. People have already paid for their content, and this product lets you make a high-quality recording without an additional fee. We feel like we're the last of the independent manufacturers who fight for fair use rights. Historically, Sony fought for the VCR, the DAT recorder, the MP3 player, but now that they have their own studios, can we expect them to defend consumers rights? Now that Rio is gone, can we expect Apple to insure that mp3s remain free and clear? So that's my 2 cents. Please keep an eye on the Neuros Technology site, as we're launching a new product in the next week or two. If you get on the gamma email list, I'll write to you when it's released. Take care everyone, Kathryn
Forget the reasons why or if it will be successful. Build my own portable media player? Is anyone out there doing this sort of thing in their garage?
Ruby on Rails Screencast
At work, we bought a couple of the cheaper models to use for recording interviews. (Planning to do some podcasting)
Very non-intuitive. Buttons aren't used in any kind of a consistant manner. It's a pain in the ass.
I know little things like "ease of use", "consistancy" and "documentation" don't matter to most of the OSS crowd here, but they do to everyone else. Things like this aren't just about $ per GB of space. The whole package matters and Apple currently does it best.
It amazes me that people here STILL DON'T GET IT. Yes, people will pay more for something that isn't ugly. Yes, people will pay more for something that's easy to use. Yes, people will pay more for something that's more compact.
Leave it to Wired's slavishness to transform the prospect of charity for the rich into a contest to top the iPod. Admittedly it's a great Tom Sawyer ploy, though--"Here, kids, write your own interface and we'll sell it back to you!"--and there might just be saps who will fall for it.
Joe: What does Apple hold back from the iPod that the free software community can offer?
Bob: Record 48KHz 32bit floating point sampled stereo to that 20-60GB hard drive!
Joe: Why does that matter?
Bob: Because it cuts out the studio middleman! Does anyone remember the Grateful Dead tapes that were flying around? Well, going digital in a $200 device makes things a LOT cheaper. People used to lug around portable DAT decks that were 4-6 times the size of an iPod, and they could only record a couple of hours of music. Give it an interface to connect to a peer and copy music back and forth (sans computer). Apple would have to give up the ITMS and all of the content to make iPods do that.
--- Nothing clever here: move along now...
or.. more likely he picked his nose.. wiped the big greeny/yellow booger on the memo and slam-dunked it in the bin.. *shrugs*
/. is good for you.
It's amazing how quickly people have forgotten about ripping CDs. Just a few years ago, all portable MP3 players were (supposedly) sold for the purpose of playing music ripped from CDs, but today the common assumption is that all music is either legally downloaded and DRM-encrusted or illegally downloaded.
Unfortunately I'm afraid the CD's might be going away someday, because the labels want everything to be DRM-encrusted. But until they do go away, yeah I'd rather buy CD's and rip them than put up with FairPlay or its ilk; so I don't think this idea is "forgotten". Besides when you rip a CD, you can rip to FLAC for never-obsolete lossless quality; whereas iTunes is still using already-obsolete AAC-LC (they should be using AACplus by now). And if you buy used CD's like I do, it's always cheaper than iTunes. And there are legal sites where you can pay for and download non-DRM tracks, so that's the other alternative.
I think the rift between signed artists and indies is just going to keep getting wider; as DRM increases, it will become more and more possible to satisfy your musical tastes with "free" music (free of restrictions at least, even if you still have to pay a little money for it).
Now, how do you find the free music? Well iRate radio is a very good start. This project needs to be integrated into the others. E.g. I want it to stream to my SqueezeBox (and have a UI to do the rating right on the SB) and I want it to automatically put my favorites onto my portable player. Just with those features, a whole parallel universe can be developed in which the indie artists get much more exposure (among people who care about freedom at least, who, granted, are in the minority) and you the listener can find stuff you really like rather than having the labels shove it down your throat every day on the ClearChannel radio. This is my dream.
I concur--it's the marketing. iPods are remarkably overpriced and underfeatured for what you get compared to other portable digital audio players.
"Overpriced" is something you say about something that costs so much that nobody is buying it. The fact is that Apple is selling millions of the things from $100-$400 to people that obviously think they are worth as much.
Even things Apple initiated, like the protocol behind what free software users call "ZeroConf" (what Apple now calls "Bonjour") aren't present in iPods despite the nice service it could help provide to iPod users--with wireless communication hardware built into a portable digital audio player, one could share audio clips, playlists, images, and so on just by being physically near them or on the same local network as them.
Yeah, but why?
I've always found it pretty easy to share things with people physically near me without resorting to wireless networks. I usually just walk over to them and show them, or perhaps tell them.
I get what you're saying, and yeah it's a "neat" possibility, but there's certainly not iPod-scale demand for such a thing at this point in time. There are already far too many ways to share data, and far too few situatons in which people are without some other means. What you're basically asking for is an iPod with WiFi; if you do that, then why not have a web browser? Oh, whoops, now you're asking for something quite different from anything the iPod has been to date.
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
Does this thing have a touchpad? A microphone? Some sort of wireless? Motion sensing? GPS? USB or bluetooth to enable one or more of the above?
You could turn it into a musical instrument (think Theramin), voice trainer, spectrum analyser, game, doorbell, karaoke unit, tune analyser (sound-to-score plus boring things like turning your guitar), engine analyser, let your imagination run wild... show them what they're missing out on when they let marketroids restrict what a device can do.
I suppose I am the only person in the whole world who finds the ipod physical interface totally "the suck" and the software unintuitive.
I don't think you are the only person.
I wouldn't go as far as to say it sucks, but it's not quite perfect either, and I don't mind using a plain 5-way pad like most of the others have. And I don't really like interfaces that waste too much time animating things, at the expense of navigation/reading speed. The iPod isn't really too slow, but it's on the edge of being too slow, when you are scrolling side-to-side from one menu to the next; it wouldn't hurt if it did that about 2-3 times as fast.
What do you think about the players that have the finger-motion being linear, rather than in a circle? It's more intuitive, mabye? but the advantage of the circle is that it doesn't end, so you don't have to pick up your finger to keep going the same direction. Depends how far you need to go, I guess. And it's interesting that people always think of "clockwise" as "forward". I wonder if that's an archetype, or it's just an arbitrary tradition.
I've also had a wish for a long time that some player had really good fast-forward and rewind, like a real tape deck. It should have dedicated buttons for this, and it should completely decode and then speed up the sound (and optionally pitch-shift it back to the same frequency range), rather than skipping and decoding chunks here and there. (But you need some power for this - a fast CPU or a DSP.) Maybe the buttons could even be proportionally pressure-sensitive so that if you press harder, it goes faster. Or on the ipod, the wheel could have a shuttle mode where if you put your finger to the right of the top-center you get faster speeds, and to the left you get rewind (and when you stop touching it, it goes back to the normal speed, unless you hold the center button to "lock" the speed before releasing). You need a feature like this for language lessons, audio books and podcasts that have boring bits that you want to skip through.
But Apple always seems to stop a bit short of where they could go with any product. Like with that video ipod - why didn't the ipod photo already have video support? or be upgradeable to support it? And why is the screen so small? Their precious wheel is not more important than a big screen when you are watching video on it. So the Archos PMP's have the edge for video I think (besides the fact that they are Linux-based and therefore more easily hackable, to support new formats and stuff like that. If I didn't already have a Zaurus to play with, I'd get a PMP.)
artist->album->song I have 324 artists on my iPod, and that's not counting albums with multiple artists. That alone is really hard to navigate with the scroll wheel. It would sure be nice to have a breakdown by first letter, but Apple would never do that because it doesn't fit their aesthetic.
Dude. It is SO easy. You think of a song..hmm...what artist is it? You pick that artist, which is easy to find the alphabetical list of artists...then you pick the album...then you pick the specific song. The artist list is exceptionally nice, due to the fact it doesn't sort by the "The"'s in the name, but rather by the first letter following it. It threw me off the first time, but it's nice when you encounter MP3's that don't have the "The" in the artist name, even though it belongs there...and they all still show up in the same region.
I don't know how you could have a problem with this unless it's 324 artists you don't really know the work of or care about at all. If you want to listen to a song who's artist name you can't find in a list that you personally built on your ipod, you have serious problems.
Leaving the UI to outside subcontractors tells us that these Engineers haven't a clue how to compete in a mature marketplace. Its not about the bits and twiddles.
Bang and Olefson are 3rd tier product marketeers who wait for a market to develop then select the very top_end of each category to differentiate their product from the matrix. In B&O's case they rely solely on design to support their position in the niche.
Ah um, gentlemen! The UI niche is already taken.
You have no motor skills. What, are you eating butter with your bare hands and then trying to control your iPod?
gg troll.
Apple's Smart Playlists are as close as any software gets to letting me run SQL queries on my music library to generate playlists.
The iTunes smartlists are okay, but a bit simple and inflexible. Can you create calculated values from columns in one list table, and present them within another list for further operation? Try Media Center if you want some real customisation and flexibility. Or, as other people have pointed out, if you want to run actual SQL...
Da Blog
This is what I think makes iTunes + iPod the best, being able to manage a large music collection in very powerful ways, with ease.
The iTunes smartlists are okay, but a bit simple and inflexible. Can you create calculated values from columns in one list table, and present them within another list for further operation? Try Media Center if you want some real customisation and flexibility. Personally, iTunes choked on me after 80K files or so. It has no headroom. I prefer software that is not afraid to take on really big libraries...
Da Blog
I would drop it in an instant if I could have a nice open source digital music player
iRiver with open-source Rockbox...
Da Blog
This is exactly what I meant by "nearly flat"
yeah, 4 levels is definately near flat. Apple should definately come up with some retarded way to manage your music so theres no less than 100 levels of hierarchy cause that would obviously be simpler to navigate
It would sure be nice to have a breakdown by first letter,
smart playlist -> artist -> begins with -> a
now repeat for b-z and you have your wish
Apple would never do that because it doesn't fit their aesthetic
apple would never do it cause they have a scroll wheel, purpose of which is to scroll through massive lists quickly. your idea is just adding more work to finding what youre looking for
No iTunes for me since I'm on Linux.
now things are getting much clearer. without itunes, an ipod would be just like every other bog-standard mp3 player around. if you're not planning on using it with itunes, then i'd strongly recommend against an ipod. you're paying big dollars for features you can never use.
Aside: I installed MythTV the other day. The music player doesn't use any ID3 information, but it manages to be very functional with limited input devices (e.g. remote control) and not using much more display space than the iPod. It does this by having more levels of hierarchy!
alright then, enlighten me as to what hierarchy they use that has your opinion of the ipod's so low
TIAEAE!
Well, "consistant" spelling is function, too,
ah, you can always spot the loser (or should i throw in looser just for fun) of an arguement when they start to pick on spelling.
*shit, my arguement has more holes that swiss cheese, better find something else to score points with... ah, spelling, that'll do*
Sure, it's subjective, but I'm pretty sure the vast majority of serious computer users would agree that the menu-for-each-window scheme works better
the vast majority of computer users choose windows, do you really want to associate majority with best?
TIAEAE!
(%i1) factor(777353);
(%o1) 777353
The first part of this statement doesn't give you any more credibility or validity
But it does give me a basis for comparison.
and the second part is completely subjective
Quite to the contrary: usability is not just subjective, it is measurable: how long does it take users to accomplish tasks, how much training do they require, etc.
The click wheel is IMO very usable and superior to any interface I've yet come across
Well, and IMO, it's worse, so there. Until someone does a usability test, we'll just have to leave it at that.
and I think based on sales figures a lot of people agree with that assessment
Yeah, because, as we all know, sales figures tell you exactly how good a product is, right? So, in your opinion, the Windows interface must then be much better than the Macintosh interface because Windows outsells Macintosh 50:1, right? Or do sales figures only come into play when they confirm your prejudices?
Hilarious stuff.
So, you're sympathising with the music companies - the RIAA - who want to increase song prices for newer stuff? Given that Apple are resisting a price increase, I'd expect that the RIAA members aren't thrilled with them.
And talking bad about them? These are the people who did absolutely nothing, and get about 60 or 70 cents per track sold on iTunes. And then they want a cut in the iPod revenue for (again) doing absolutely nothing.
These are the people you defend in your post. As a consumer, I find it hard to sympathise with them, and since the iTMS opened here in Australia, I've bought more music in the last month than in the whole year to date. They should be *thanking* Apple.
You're right though - they are upset with Apple. It's just that there is no-one else yet who's gotten inside the front door, let alone made it to the table to negotiate with the companies. Apple's the only player in town at the moment, because they offer the player, the software and the store, and it's all so easy to use that anyone can master it all in minutes.
I'd like to see some real competition for Apple, but when companies like Creative just fail again and again in their quest for relevance in this market, there'll be no competition to speak of.
Is your list of songs more than about two inches long?
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
The sentences following the first one in that paragraph were supposed to support your contention that it's 'one of the cheapest.'
They do support my contention. Read my post. Which other player provides the same features for a lower cost? Every one I've seen was larger, heavier, uglier, had a bad interface and bad sound quality -- for pretty much the same price as the iPod.
There are many, MANY mp3 players that are MUCH lower cost then the iPod.
Oh yeah? How much do other hard drive based MP3 players cost? Care to list a few prices? Compare features?
For my money, I prefer a CD-based player.
Hey, if you don't get the whole point of the ipod, it's your own loss. Am I supposed to feel sad or something? I still have one of the best CD-based players (iRiver slimx), it's a total piece of crap compared to the ipod. It's large, fragile, gets shitty battery life, and you have to worry about burning CDs. Not to mention, how the hell do you organize 30 gigs worth of music on CDs? I like the ability to listen to anything I want, and I can afford to pay $100 extra for that capability.
DESIGN. My crappy Muvo2 has buttons that feels like crap, and the design is not good looking. Why can it be so difficult to get a nice clean design ? Should be easier than the crap the are pushing out now.
The MacMini is also great design.
The touch wheel was just too... touchy. (rim shot)
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
You can put linux on any ipod.
Well, gtkpod can make playlists, edit metainfo, and sync with an iPod in a similar way to iTunes. It also lets you copy music off of the iPod, which iirc iTunes doesn't allow. It just can't buy music online with it, which is too bad. (and admittedly it's not as pretty as iTunes)
MythTV adds an extra layer of hierarchy for the artist names, based on first letter, so it's
Artist First Letter -> Artist -> Album -> Song
Which means that you need to make 1 more choice, but in return you don't have to scroll through a list of hundreds.
This isn't good for browsing (e.g. when you don't already know what you want), but it's much faster to locate songs otherwise, so it's a tradeoff.
The time it takes to scroll through a single level of hierarchy on the iPod is linear: If you double the number of artists, it will take twice as long on average to locate a particular artist. Adding levels of hierarchy makes the number of artist names you have to read closer to logarithmic --- much faster to navigate.
The ideal way to do it would be to add another level of hierarchy every time there were more than N entries in a particular level, where N would have to be determined but I suspect it's around 50.
Data structures, yay.
Oh, for fuck's sake. We have a -1 Funny option in our /. preferences. Can we get a -1 Apple Religion as well? I'm getting tired of the Steve Jobs Admiration Society.
Yeah, I can't count the number of people who just haven't been able to grasp the whole 'move your finger in a circle' concept.
-Ted
-=-=- Quantum physics - the dreams stuff are made of.
I can think of at least two things wrong with this sentence:
1. How does black and silver glow? Do you mean a silver and black case that has a blue LCD? Or does the Dell DJ come with a black-light?
2. If you think the Dell DJ is 'sexy' you seriously need a girlfriend (or boyfriend, whatever) but for fuck sake it's a hunk of plastic. One with a black-light apparently.
I can't think of why anyone would buy such an also-ran Mp3 player, if you don't want an iPod fine, but you've managed to find the C-student of Mp3 players.
Anyone who whines about being modded down should be.
Even with multi-tasking, there can only be one active application at any given time. Chances are that if I'm not in an app and I want to pick a menu choice, I want to switch to it anyway. Click-through for menus (like Windows has) is very convenient if you *constantly* pick menu choices from other applications by clicking the menu title - it saves you one click. Maybe that adds up for some people, I don't know. Myself, I'm saving time by never having to worry about where the menus are. It's all good. :)
As long as we're discussing 'failures', the one button mouse *does* suck for most people who's smart enough to go to Slashdot. But. It doesn't suck for a whole lot of people, and programming so that everything is available *from* that one button keeps my program easy both for those people and for others. You might think it's a failure that the one button mouse is still in use, and I'm torn on that myself, but there's no question that there's less ground for confusion for users that aren't as well-adjusted with computers as you and me not because there's just one button on the mouse that ships, but because the programs are easier because of it.
Don't use Mp3 then and rip to Apple Lossless or WAV/AIFF.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Exactly my point. Real people walking around with iPods is not Apple advertising, it is a demonstration of word of mouth and of sight. Apple didn't pay those ten people to walk around with the iPod - they chose to do so of thier own volition. And that is exactly where the majority of sales come from, from spoken and unspoken testimonials of people that simply love the product.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yes marketing is all about human behavior. It's about the aspect where a company tries to compel someone to do something they might otherwise not, or just to at least be in the running for consideration. It's also about control, control of a company over the image they present to a consumer.
But when a friend says "if you're getting a music player, get an iPod!" then it has ceased being Apple. I see few enough iPod ads that I can imagine many, many cases where people have gone and bought an iPod only on worth of mouth without ever seeing an iPod ad. And Apple certainly has no control over your conversation with the friend - there is no aspect of traditional marketing involved. Yes word of mouth is a "Marketing Strategy" but it's really almost anti-marketing since it involves only indirect influence that is exerted by people with no interest in the company.
Furthermore, with so much advertising nowadays I don't see where anyone would become moved much at all by the iPod ads beyond thinking they (the ads) are cool. There are plenty of other products that have cool ads that do not dominate market segments the way the iPod does, or even sell well for that matter. This is in large part because people have become really jaded about ads now, and I think ads can actually lead people to have an almost negative initial impression about things, in that they have been burned before by other claims and generally now believe nothing they see in an ad.
That is why the pendulum has seemingly swung to people buying higher quality products instead of only shopping at WalMart. People are now starting to realize they want things that work, not ones that are just cheap and not very useful. People have figured out that time is a more important thing to optimize for than money.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Who told you that open source software does not cost money???
Well, journalists have a choice between courageously constructing false dilemmas and supporting the evil freedom-haters. What would you have them do?
Bluetooth is useful and relatively low power compared to WiFi. You can quite legitimately support wireless headphones or wireless links to the host PC (perhaps also for downloading from 3G mobile phones as well). Once that has been done, it would be simple to extend the interface for full sharing.
See my journal, I write things there
Can Open Source Outdo the IPod?
(...checking open source user interfaces screenshots...)
No.
Alexis 'jeriqo' BRET
I suppose I am the only person in the whole world who finds the ipod physical interface totally "the suck" and the software unintuitive.
As others have said, you are not alone. Personally, my iRiver's design of a small joystick style button which you can use to do everything on the player is much easier to use as I frequently "overshot" where I was trying to get to in terms of selecting a particular song with the iPod's naviagation system. The iRiver is just as easy to use (if not easier), single click to go down a directory or hold down to go back up again, up and down to go through the tracks in that folder. A lot of people (in my experience) find that system very easy to grasp as it can be associated with finding files on a computer. Dragging their music folder onto the iRiver and having the folder structure remain in tact is one of the main reasons people find this easy to use as everything is where they expect it to be.
Warning, comments may not have been passed by the sanity department of my brain.
I know you don't seem to like the 4-layer approah, but you should check out Jinzora. Several of us have been setting up music servers at home recently based on that. Granted you still have the 4 layer issue, but the upside is that it is fairly easy to create custom playlists (and save them for later), the search bar will search on song info or even downloaded metadata (is there cover art on the iPod? with album descriptions? With band art? with band descriptions?), and you also have various types of lists built as you listen to music. i haven't used it long enough to know if it visibly keeps scores on everything, but it seems fairly solid already, so I wouldn't be surprised if this was in the future (if it'snot already in there).
:)
:P
Also handles jukebox or streaming and I believe that podcasts are either just around the corner or somethng we overlooked (since none of us have an iPod but I was persuing the code).
When I finally get time to set up my Myth box I fully plan on putting Jinzora on the backend server as well. one of my friends already has it setup and is a few parts away from integrating it into his house system. He's tying the RF remote in and basically will be routing the jukebox to the upstairs and outdoor receiver via optical, then tying in the other computers in the house simply by setting them up to stream. Ripping all his CD's in flac (it will auto-transcode for you).
My fiancee has an iPod, she hasn't seen this yet but I'm betting she'll like a central music server of losslessly recorded musc a lot betterthan the 20GB of music she can carry now...especially considering it has a web interface and you can configure your own key bnds forthe interface (which means that binding, say, an RF remote to the interface is going to be much much easier).
Anywas, completely OT but it was the first thing I thought when I read your post
Oh, linky for easier access: http://www.jinzora.com/
* dislaimer: I am in no way affiliated with this product, except for having posted on a forum once about apiece of debug code they accidentally left in a release. So, like I said, not affiliated
Whee signature.
Actually, everything you're pointing out is marketing.
Picking the exact combination of ease of use between iTMS and iTunes and the iPod? That's marketing. It's about creating a position (being the world's elite personal music player) and a perspective (a music ecosystem is what matters, not the device itself).
Marketing is about "creating a customer". Innovation would be implementing that combination in a way that economically succeeds. Part of marketing is to shape the nature of what the word of mouth will be -- what features are values, who the device is positioned to, etc. A number of the pro v. con iPod debates that occur have already been scripted by marketers at Apple, and we just regurgitate them.
What you seem to be saying is that most people can resist advertising. And that's definitiely true -- people don't necessarily buy innovative products based on brand advertisements alone. Sometimes direct advertisements do incent people, which is why paid programming continues to work ("Buy the super ginsu 2000 for only 4 payments of $19.95! Call now!")
But while brand advertising doesn't sell product, it's useful background amplification -- especially if it is unique and provocative. It tunes peoples ears into the conversation occuring on the product -- the word of mouth -- when normally they wouldn't think about it otherwise. Ever notice that when you've visited a new city you start noticing it more often on TV and in movies? Same idea with brand advertising. You start noticing people talking about subjects that never interested you before.
The shadow dancers are one of the most talked about ad campaigns in recent memory. People that never would have normally thought personal music all of a sudden were open to conversations on the subject. There already was a word-of-mouth buzz built up from early and mid adopters, but when you threw in a provocative ad campaign, it pushed the iPod over the edge last Autumn from a "cool gadget" into a pop culture craze. Apple's probably one of the most successful companies at pulling off repeatedly: I can think of the Think Different campaign in 1997, which saved their public perception at a desperate time. It didn't incent people to buy Macs that normally wouldn't. But arguably Think Different laid the perceptual foundation that led Apple to its current successes. For example, Apple retail stores have been a smash, beyond what every industry analyst predicted. It also drove iPod early adopters from outside the Mac community. Apple was "cool" again.
-Stu
Check out the 22surfboard!
http://22surfboard.com/
Surf's up and the LAMP developer community is ready to rock out--they just need a surfboard to surf Moore's Law, Metcalfe's Law, and Constitutional Law on home. As soon as somebody manufactures handhelds and media-servers that can readily run common Linux and LAMP (Linux/Apache/MYSQL/PHP) applications like postnuke and phpnuke, the floodgates of innovation will open. The technology is there. Move over iPodTM, TiVoTM, iPaqTM, and MicrosoftTM. Open-source CMS and DRM will power tomorrow's content marketplaces, handhelds, computers, and media-servers, as artist-hackers create the open-source hardware, software, and standards for all-in-one media devices, record labels, media marketplaces, and modeling agencies. In fact, if your company is building a 22surfboard or some other open-source-based device, send it along and perhaps we can hack a free marketing campaign for it. Any company who's building open-source devices is doing us all a big favor, so we'd be glad to help out!
http://22surfboard.com/
Those are all examples of companies that have used a combination of open source and proprietary components to create a marketable product for a non-technical consumer.
They're not examples of volunteer open source groups creating and delivering one or more marketable products. I think Apache is probably the closest, in that they deliver marketable products for technical consumers.
-Stu
The Mac's menu bar behavior is a vestigial design decision from the days before multi-tasking; they keep it around because it's part of the "look-and-feel"... hence form above function. That was my point. (Sure, it's subjective, but I'm pretty sure the vast majority of serious computer users would agree that the menu-for-each-window scheme works better.)
Absolutely not. The whole reason the menu bar is at the top is because you can slam your mouse there, instead of having to aim it per-window. Apple's usability studies in the 1980's showed it was more efficient.
I'm a pretty serious computer user, and I tend to prefer the menu bar at the top.
-Stu
You know, looking at your post again, I don't even think you have an iPod with a click wheel:
This basically is a description of the click wheel, only it's more powerful because you can either scan by holding or scan by rotating.(%i1) factor(777353);
(%o1) 777353
There are programs that will let you do (2). gtkpod for Linux can do it, for instance. There are several for windows.
I just looked at the product specs OGG support is missing. This is disappointing as they have traditionally supported OGG on their hardware. So perhaps with the firware open that might be a good target for adding support.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
This feature has been requested from Apple for years. If the iPod were open source, someone would have fixed the problem by now. Instead we are forced to sign a petition:
t ml
http://www.petitiononline.com/13421509/petition.h
Please sign because this is getting ridiculous.
"Is Open Source Interested In Outdoing The iPod"
If wondering if something is cool, just ask "Would James Dean do this?"
Would James Dean use an iPod? Yes
Would James Dean fiddle with the firmware? No
Therefor, tinkering with the firmware is not cool.
Interesting? Fun? Educational? yes, yes yes.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Thanks fior the info. I am aware of those programs, but I would perfer it was supported nativly. Technically, moving stuff off the iPod violates the warranty. I ams ure that the Music Industry pushed for that as part of their agreement. So I don't know if Apple would actually check to see if I had done that, or if the even track that in the iPod.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
>> [The labels] also wanted to change the pricing structures... lower unpopular song prices, raise popular.
The record labels never, ever would suggest to lower the prices for anything. Change in pricing structures was _always_ restricted to raising prices for popular songs.
Part of the problem is that the Neuros II went open source, and then re-closed. I don't believe it has ever re-opened. It was a mess. While it was open, there were many modifications made that improved it and fixed problems (that, really, Neuros themselves should have fixed).
Now the Neuros II is a closed-dead-end product too. I own one. One of the reasons I chose it was the open source nature. I regret buying it now, because the hardware is flaky, and the software is unreliable and now unmaintained.
I would say be wary of dealing with Neuro Audio. Their hardware platform was VERY cool - the NII has every feature you could want, except for size/weight minimization -- but they don't put a lot of work into quality of experience. Their software is, pardon the slight, a lot like much open source software. Powerful, but kinda klunky and unintuitive.
On the plus side, their synchronization manager software was fully open-sourced, and has been replaced by several open-source projects, but the core code that runs on the player is stuck.
-- There is no truth. There is only Perception. To Percieve is to Exist.
They're just creating a shell and letting people tinker with it.
I don't own an MP3 player, but I would fork out some cash if it had an interface that would allowed an internet connection and had an application that would find songs I like and download them for me. Provide some way for me to rate the songs. I know there is a Linux program that does this, but I've never been able to get it to work (not that I've tried very much).
It's along the lines of what the other posters are saying about the end-to-end solution.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Technically, moving stuff off the iPod violates the warranty.
Where'd you get this one from? Unless Apple can prove that the third-party software damaged the hardware, this cannot possibly void the warranty. Besides, they can't track it anyway. You can get at the files without any program, they are just renamed something funny in a hidden folder. The iPod isn't smart enough to know what you are accessing. When you plug it into a USB port, it switches to USB hard drive mode and basically gives you unlimited access to the internal hard drive.
This is such a good idea. My mp3 player has features disabled in some of its firmware versions (like high bitrate recording) and I've often wished I could mess with the source.
I've also often wished I could modify source for my satellite receiver to try to add features not everyone would need.
More open source firmware should lead to more general purpose hardware, which can be programmed to implement specific devices. There are a lot of creative people out there, and even if the hardware manufactures had all the creativity, some unique hardware applications are not markettable enough to be worth producing. But people will, if they are given the chance.
In an ideal future, all our devices will have the software features we want, will behave the way we want, and will interact with the other devices we have (not just one brand or OS). If there is some software feature we dislike, we should be able to get on the internet and download a modification, or make one ourselves if no one else has. Open source firmware is one piece of this ideal future.
This basically is a description of the click wheel
No, it's not. The iPod does scanning and skipping via left and right clicks, but you must use the wheel for volume control. Directional pads use up-down for volume. The center button would make a great start/stop.
Worse, you can't avoid using the wheel for navigating the menus. The interaction between menus, the wheel, and the buttons is quite unintuitive. Other players solve the problem of switching between navigating and playing a lot more simply.
only it's more powerful because you can either scan by holding or scan by rotating.
You can't scan by rotating; you have to go into the scan mode and then rotate. When you just touch the thing, you'll change the volume (which frequently happens accidentally).
You know, looking at your post again, I don't even think you have an iPod with a click wheel:
You know, looking at your post again, it's clear you are just the typical Apple fanboy who knows nothing about other systems but thinks that anything that is shiny and bright and has an Apple logo on it must be by default usable.
Again, the iPods are not bad; but they are certainly not the beacon of usability people like you make them out to be. Mostly, the reason to buy them is because they look nice, they work OK, and they integrate well with iTunes.
*wry grin* Wouldn't it be nice if all of these devices allowed you to just drag-and-drop the files on? Instead, Apple forces you to use iTunes, Gateway's players force you to use WMP, several other programs have proprietary interfaces... How long will it take for some of these music companies to require that these access programs check for certain bits indicating that the music was legitmately bought from an online service or transferred in an otherwise unusable DRM-laden format?
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
Can't have insightful comments here on Slashdot... It would totally confuse those of us who are here for tired retread jokes.
Regardless, good marketing can make people buy things regardless of the relative quality of the product. Do you think Britney Spears became popular because of word of mouth caused by everybody just liking her music SO much?
Actually that is a classic worth of mouth case. You and I may think her singing lacking in talent, but that's not what the majority of the teenage populace thinks. The whole teenage market is rife with kids following what other kids do an marketers working from the outside to convince teens that something is cool.
It's actually a great demonstration of how much more powerful people are than marketing nowadays especially to the fickle youth group. There are other artists that have been marketed to the extent that Spears have and have never taken root, or have taken root but then aged and fell. New Kids on the Block? They marketed the HELL out of them coming back with zero traction.
Again ask any iPod owner if they've ever even seen an iPod ad, or if they bought an iPod because a friend liked it. The evidence is all around you.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
'grok' means more than understand. You need to read a little RAH instead of just dabbling in the jargon file.
I am considering one of the cheapo MP3 players, there's one at Frys for under $40 now that uses regular compact flash. I have things like episodes of The Goon Show in MP3 that I'd like to be able to stick in my pocket and listen to on headphones at work.
resigned
Not to mention, how the hell do you organize 30 gigs worth of music on CDs?
You put your 'playlists' each on a CD, is one approach. Why would ANYBODY organize 30 gigs of music on a little thing they haphazardly carry around in a pocket is my question.
Please don't be an arrogant snob and imply I 'don't get the whole point of the ipod.'
resigned
Great idea -- if you only listen to one playlist at a time, or you like carrying a binder around. Sorry, you don't get the point. Not to mention, with the iPod, you don't have to organize 30 gigs of your music manually. Unlike other crappy players, it actually catalogs your music and lets you dynamically create playlists. Still, my point is, don't diss something if you have absolutely no clue about what it does or how to use it.
What I really want is a Rio Karma that unlike ipods supports OGG Vorbis and FLACC and is 20GB for only 200 bucks.
Some people complain about FM in a MP3 player but actually praise the inclusion of video in the ipod... I say bloat...
And about Grok, doesn't it mean 'to drink'? But colloquially it is supoussed to mean 'to have intuitive knowledge about something'.
But... the future refused to change.