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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?
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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!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Oh great, just what we all needed more skins for a media player. That's essentially what this project amounts to.
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.
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
...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".
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.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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 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.
Who's ready to grep their music?
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
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."
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.
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 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
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?
I love Rockbox, but it has a lot of shortcomings. Although it has tons of great features, as is, it wouldn't stand a chance against the iPod IMO. Aside from being way behind and still not supporting some of the most basic iRiver features (like recording), the user interface is terribly sloppy in a lot of areas. It took a lot of hassling and arguing just to get them to do away with the painfully slow "read as you go" directory handling. The interface is improving, but it's a got a long way. Fortunately they're writing it so that it can easily be ported to other devices.
The primary problem is that open source developers design their UIs from a stubborn programmers "least common denominator" philosophy. They have to look up the word "intuitive" if you mention it. It takes a lot of arguing to convince them of the most basic User Interface 101 pricipals.
[sigh] No, I didn't say that. You just said that.
Show me a single open-source project that goes from end-to-end (source to end-user) and gives you a seamless natural way of doing "it" (whatever 'it' is) like the [itunes store][mac or pc][itunes software][ipod device][ipod interface] does. And it does it well, even under extreme loads like several thousand songs - the click-wheel made sure of that. There's nothing that Open-Source does like that. Not one thing comes to mind. Linux ? You must be joking! Apache? Yeah, right! Both of these are aimed at highly technical and able people. My sister (and you'd have to know her!) has an Ipod!
Open source is excellent at doing a task. "We want an OS". Great - here it is. "We want a webserver". Cool - here you are. As a paradigm it's less good at the whole shebang. It's a cog in the wheel, not an end, in and of itself.
I should probably point out that I've been using Linux since it came on floppies, that I ditched a DECstation 3100 to run it on an early '486. That I set up one of the earliest webservers (on the ditched DECstation, actually) in the UK - when you had to email CERN to tell them there's a new webserver in the world. I'm familiar with open-source, have used it, have contributed. I'm in no way a foe of open source. I just don't think it's a panacea.
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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?
What iPod user records with their iPod? What iPod user even knows what Vorbis or FLAC are? Who cares?
The people who do are the ones who will look at the alternatives before blindly going out and buying an iPod...
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!
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
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.
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).
How about $199?
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.
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
Do you have any live albums on your iPod? How do you like those gaps of silence between each track? ;-)
;)
I'm not the original poster, but I'll respond to this. I hate the gaps. That's the one thing about the iPod that I absolutely despise. It upsets me that Apple continues to ignore this problem after 4 years and now in the 5th generation of iPod (not to mention 3 other companion models).
But let me ask you this. Does your Rio Karma support anything analogous to iTunes' Smart Playlists (playlists that update on the fly based on arbitrary logical rules)? Does it automatically sync with your music library when connected to the computer, or do you have to manually drag files around? Does it update metadata on a per-song basis like "last played time" and "play count" every time you play a song? Does it play AAC? In terms of maximum compatibility, AAC is just as "stupid" of a choice as OGG; some things support it (Mac, Windows, iPod, Linux/BSD), some things don't (most other hardware players).
If the answer is "no" to any of the above, is there any non-iPod player that can truly answer "yes" to all? (AAC would be nice, but isn't 100% necessary; like you with OGG, I could reimport if I absolutely had to; would really rather not)
I've become spoiled by these features in the iPod and its seamless integration with iTunes, and much as the gaps irritate me, I'm not willing to give this up in order to get gapless playback. I have a lot of Smart Playlists based on metadata that changes on a regular basis (see above), and I can't imagine going back to simple playlists, or worse, only artist/album/song navigation. I want every time I listen to a song to be counted in metadata, because it's interesting to see my listening habits fall out of the data.
The gaps annoy me enough that I've been searching for a replacement. I have no loyalty to Apple, but I won't give up the rest of the excellent experience. A proper replacement has to give me everything I have now, plus gapless. I haven't found anything that qualifies yet, but I still search.
The project in this article is intriguing, but it has a huge amount of work to do to win me over. Cramming features into the player doesn't cut it if the library software is crap and doesn't synchronize seamlessly. Call me a skeptic.
Say hello to zMac.
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.
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.
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 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
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
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
Can Open Source Outdo the IPod?
(...checking open source user interfaces screenshots...)
No.
Alexis 'jeriqo' BRET