Samsung Steals the Brain Behind the iPod

An anonymous reader writes "The New York Times reports that Samsung has hired the same programming genius who helped make the iPod so great to design its own music player. They imply that the new Samsung device is just as innovative." From the article: "Samsung's choice of Mr. Mercer also shows how much consumer electronics now rely on the powerful computing capabilities that defined personal computers two decades ago. Samsung is betting that it can win a share of the music market dominated by Apple by using new software that mimics what is found in powerful PC's. The Z5, shaped like a stick of gum, has a 1.8-inch color screen and a 35-hour battery life, and is priced at $199 to $249 to compete with the iPod Nano, which costs $149 to $249. Early reviews have been positive, and Samsung is hoping that the Z5 will work smoothly with the range of subscription music services that support the Microsoft PlaysForSure digital music standard."

Comments

I wanna know what happened to

[mswope]

Z1 - Z4?

Re:I wanna know what happened to

[springbox]

It's just like a version numbering system: It doesn't HAVE to make sense

Re:I wanna know what happened to

[kalidasa]

Z1, Z2, and Z3 were destroyed by terrorists. Z4 simply disappeared, mysteriously; nobody knows what happened to it.

Re:I wanna know what happened to

[Nikademus]

Z1, Z3 and Z4 are BMW cars :)

Re:I wanna know what happened to

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy sh*t!

A direct link to nyt that works?!?:

What happened to sell-your-soul registration to nytimes.com? WHen did this get ditched? Inquiring minds want to know...

I guess I'll stick to the captchkas or whatever you call it.

Re:I wanna know what happened to

[denebian devil]

Which would make the Z5 our last best hope for peace? That's a pretty big burden to place on a lil ol' mp3 player.

And while I'm here, let me say MOD PARENT UP FOR BABYLON 5 REFERENCE! Do it for G'Kar

Re:I wanna know what happened to

[CdXiminez]

Z1 through Z4 were developed by Konrad Zuse in the 1930's and 40's.
I wonder if this Z5 is also largely mechanical...

Re:I wanna know what happened to

[SQL Error]

Nah. Z4 burned down, fell over, and sank into the swamp.

Re:I wanna know what happened to

[Anonymous Coward]

What happened to sell-your-soul registration to nytimes.com? WHen did this get ditched? Inquiring minds want to know...

Does not apply to this link but relevant. I navigate to the major publications via the RSS feed and am never asked for a log in. Otherwise, it's hit or miss. Generally, if you come from another site (say google news), they let you read an article or two but as you navigate around, the login usually kicks in at some point.

Re:I wanna know what happened to

[PTS Tech]

Somebody please mod this a +1 for the B5 reference...

Re:I wanna know what happened to

[AndroidCat]

The Z stands for Zathras. And Zathras, Zathras, Zathras and Zathras aren't as good as Zathrus at playing music. Zathras is the best at that, except for Zathras. Zathras used to being beast of burden. Zathras have sad life, probably have sad death, but at least there is symmetry.

Re:I wanna know what happened to

[AndroidCat]

Are Samsung and Kawasaki connected? If so, here's your Z-1. I think I can see why the user interface needed some work for playing MP3s.

Re:I wanna know what happened to

[zodiaccat]

Z4 didn't just disappear. He'll show up again as Player X! And, after every race, he'll say something obvious, like "Z5, I'm not sure *who* your brother is."


...and no one will get it!

Re:I wanna know what happened to

[Stalemate]

Ask Leonard.

Re:I wanna know what happened to

[elcid73]

I guess I'm alone in when I think of Zaino show car polish.

Re:I wanna know what happened to

[wittmania]

Isn't Samsung a German company? I sink zee ferst fahr vere unsuccessful. Zis is zee numbehr fifz one zey have made so fahhr.

Re:I wanna know what happened to

[adjusting]

Does Samsung sound German to you? No, they're Korean.

Re:I wanna know what happened to

[njh]

Sadly zathrus is dead. All of him.

Re:I wanna know what happened to

[noidentity]

Come on, this is Slashdot! What about Z0?

Re:I wanna know what happened to

[Basehart]

Wow, it's amazing how they could shrink such a large MP3 player as this down to the size of a stick of gum!

Re:I wanna know what happened to

[Ziviyr]

You might be more surprised to find Samsung includes over a quarter million humans and aliens in each Z5. 1,600,000 milliounces of not-spinning metal, all alone on your desk.

standard?

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft PlaysForSure digital music standard

That word does not mean what you think it means.

Re:standard?

[Rocketship Underpant]

Samsung is [b]hoping[/b] that the Z5 will work smoothly with the range of subscription music services that support the Microsoft PlaysForSure digital music standard. Heh, yeah. Shouldn't they KnowForSure(TM) if it'll work smoothly?

Re:standard?

[gronofer]

How do you mean? "Standard" has been meaningless marketing gibberish for years.

At least it's better than that proprietary Apple stuff though eh.

Re:standard?

[Total_Wimp]

Microsoft PlaysForSure digital music standard

That word does not mean what you think it means

Sure it does. It means the same thing as "FairPlay" or "Patriot Act." I'm sure they'll stop using 'em when we stop falling for 'em.

TW

Re:standard?

[noamsml]

My thoughts exactly, I have an iRiver T30 that supports PlaysForSure MTP, and now I can't use it with my Linux laptop, and am forced instead to download songs to it using the family Windows computer. Fortunately, most of the music I tranfer is being ripped from CDs anyway, so it's not such a problem. It still sucks though.

Re:standard?

[Frankie70]

My thoughts exactly, I have an iRiver T30 that supports PlaysForSure MTP, and now I can't use it with my Linux laptop, and am forced instead to download songs to it using the family Windows computer.


Ok - that's going to inconvinience the Linux users for sure.
Maybe Samsung made a marketing choice to target the remaining
95% of all potential users.

Re:standard?

[EraserMouseMan]

Hopefully it won't be a 100% propriatary locked-out standard like iTMS.

Re:standard?

[daveschroeder]

Actually, no, "standard" still means what it always has.

And no, it's not better than the "proprietary Apple stuff", because:

Windows Media Audio is NOT a standard by any definition. It's closed and proprietary[1]. Microsoft's DRM is also proprietary (but DRM is by its very nature, so that's somewhat irrelevant).

Apple uses MPEG-4 Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) (more info), an open, international standard. Again, the DRM is proprietary, but all DRM essentially is.

So while both are "closed" because of the DRM, if anything is more "standard" and non-proprietary, it's Apple's. Also, if how many people use something has any bearing on whether it's considered something of a de facto standard, Apple also wins here too, since it utterly dominates this market.

Nice try, though!

[1] Yes, Microsoft has submitted Windows Media Video 9 to SMPTE as VC-1. However, it must go through a very long process before it's standardized, and also, this was a very empty gesture meant to calm critics who said Windows Media wasn't open.

Re:standard?

[digidave]

"Ok - that's going to inconvinience the Linux users for sure.
Maybe Samsung made a marketing choice to target the remaining
95% of all potential users."

But a USB mass storage device would have targetted 100% of all users. It's not like they had to decide between 95% or 5%.

I can't think of many non-computer businesses that are willing to turn away five of every hundred people who walk through their door, yet that practice is common in the computer industry.

Re:standard?

[Theatetus]

Again, the DRM is proprietary, but all DRM essentially is.

Why? There's no need for DRM to be proprietary. Frankly given the generally better quality of open-source encryption technology, I'd imagine you could write a more effective DRM suite with open-source tools than with proprietary tools. Sure, it would not be impossible to crack but no DRM is. DRM only needs to make the cost of bypassing it enough to deter a large portion of copyright infringement. The security of any cryptographic system (including DRM) is and must be in the keys, not in public ignorance of the encryption scheme.

Re:standard?

[samael]

It means:
"An acknowledged measure of comparison for quantitative or qualitative value"

Which is exactly what PlaysForsure is - a set of criteria that a digital music player has to fulfil in order to get the stamp of approval.

I do wish people would learn to speak English before they criticised others.

Re:standard?

[Anonymous Coward]

Locked out standard? How about locked out of the interface. I am legally blind can't use an ipod. I don't like the lock down apple not invented here mentallity. So I carry a 100gb 2.5 hatachi usb drive and an XM roady with a battery pack for when I am away from my pc, my work-ststion or laptop.
most tech is to 1 degree or another unusable or totally inaccessable to the disabled PDA's and cell phones are a real challange. Voice dial only goes so far and not at all in a noisy envirament.

Re:standard?

[Anonymous Coward]

and it also means: "A flag; colors; a banner; especially, a national or other ensign."

So you look a bit of a dickhead quoting from one of the several definitions
in the dictionary whilst ignoring the context.

Re:standard?

[soupdevil]

Plays for Sure is a standard, if only in that most (all?) subscription music services use it. That includes Napster, Rhapsody, Yahoo, Walmart, and certainly Urge, the new service from Microsoft and MTV. Apple's DRM cannot be a standard because it is only used by Apple itself.

Of course the only real standard is mp3, which is by far the most popular music file format. Any alternative, like AAC, WMA, OGG Vorbis, or any other, whatever its advantages, is a pretender.

Re:standard?

[samael]

I quoted the exact correct meaning of the word standard _for this context_.

Which of the other meanings did _you_ mean? I can't think of one under which PlaysForSure wouldn't count.

Re:standard?

[aristotle-dude]

Plays for Sure is a standard, if only in that most (all?) subscription music services use it. That includes Napster, Rhapsody, Yahoo, Walmart, and certainly Urge, the new service from Microsoft and MTV. Apple's DRM cannot be a standard because it is only used by Apple itself.

Umm... no. Regardless of how many companies license the technology, there is only one source for that technology. It is also not a published standard describing how it works. Since MSFT is the creator and sole licenser for the DRM scheme and you are required to use WMP or it's related libraries, it is not a standard.

Re:standard?

[daveschroeder]

Plays for Sure is a standard, if only in that most (all?) subscription music services use it. That includes Napster, Rhapsody, Yahoo, Walmart, and certainly Urge, the new service from Microsoft and MTV. Apple's DRM cannot be a standard because it is only used by Apple itself.

If it weren't for the fact that all of the other services combined are dwarfed by Apple's share of this market, which is over 80%, your argument might hold some water. To say nothing of the fact that the most popular digital music player, also with over 80% of its own marketplace, doesn't work with any of those other services. If you want to whine about Apple, go for it, but Windows Media's DRM - aside from being licensable for the purpose of direct and significant benefit to Microsoft, not because of any altruistic reasons - is just as closed as Apple's.

Also, AAC is most definitely not a pretender. It's an internationally recognized standard, and has been since its creation. Now if you're talking about what was used most for online music outside of online music stores, sure, of course it was MP3. But that doesn't make AAC any less of the open international standard that it is. Not to mention that AAC is higher quality than MP3 at the same datarates. And this argument is off-point because no (major) online music stores use MP3; they all use either protected AAC or protected Windows Media. And AAC is by far the most used among all online music stores.

So any way you slice it, AAC is the most open (by virtue of it being an international MPEG standard), and the most used.

Re:standard?

[itchy92]

The decision is actually very easy to make:

USB Mass Storage Device = Geeks happy, but no .WMA compatibility, so it won't work with any legit online music vendor other than eMusic (that I know of). You've captured maybe 15% of the market, and left 85% pissed that their Yahoo! or Napster or Buy.com music does not work on your player.

PlaysForSure compatible device = Geeks unhappy, but who really gives a shit? You've opened your product to 90% of the market, and if it's really good enough, to 100%, since geeks will realize that you can still play MP3 files on the player without the DRM hassle.

Despite my usual support for Microsoft's products, I wholly agree that their tactics for muscling into the digital media market were unadmirable. Their DRM has pretty much become the de facto standard for next-gen media, and they are the only DRM competition to Apple's M4A standard.

Having said that, it is clear why companies like Creative, Samsung, and all the others have chosen to comply with their DRM scheme (no pun intended)... they can't afford to be incompatible with all the legit music download services.

Re:standard?

[gronofer]

I reluctantly concede the point about the "proprietary Apple stuff".

However I still think "standard" is a meaningless word, in practice. I'd never use a product or specification just because it was "standard", I'd instead look for something that was widely supported with multiple independent implementations, and preferably available for anyone else to implement without licence fees or documentation costs. The fact that it's Microsoft or Apple's standard, or even an ISO standard, means little to me.

Re:standard?

[samkass]

I'll bet Samsung a billion tracks that their player with Microsoft's service isn't going to displace the iPod.

Any non-iTunes Music Store capable player is about as likely to kill the iPod as any non-Win32-running OS is to kill Windows.

Re:standard?

[geekee]

"Ok - that's going to inconvinience the Linux users for sure."

How so? The Samsung player also supports OGG Vorbis

Re:standard?

[Ahnteis]

non-iTunes Music Store capable => non-ipod

Apples FairPlay is about as closed as anything can be.

It's proprietary, DRMed, and unlicenseable. They've even sued Real who reverse-engineered compatibility. (NOTE: Real is terrible etc etc. Real did NOT however, engineer a method to remove Apple's DRM. They merely reverse-engineered a way to make their music play on Apple's player. Something that /. geeks would normally applaud or even do themselves.)

Re:standard?

[arminw]

.....DRM only needs to make the cost of bypassing it enough to deter a large portion ......

Without the DMCA the cost of bypassing DRM is the cost of a quick download of the tool that anybody can use. Since the Internet is global, the DMCA doesn't really work anyway. All it means that you can't buy such a tools in your local software store if you live in the USA. If you send me a secret message (video or song) that you want me to be able to play, you also have to give me the key. It doesn't matter if the key is 16 bits long or 16000 bits. If you send the identical encrypted file to a million people you also have to include a million identical keys. Hiding the key in hardware is like putting in a safe. At some point the key has to come out and decrypt the message and the decrypted message can then be sent wherever the user wishes.

DRM is a bothersome encumbrance for honest people who wish to use the content they bought in fair use ways, other than what the content makers envisioned. The methods of DRM may be public, but the keys have to be unique and proprietary.

Re:standard?

[Anonymous Coward]

Check the fucking spec sheet. It doesn't say it works on Linux. Okay, this doesn't mean that it won't, but I know Gnomad (A linux program for Creative's mp3 players) won't work on the devices that have the firmware upgrade that gives them MTP/Plays-For-Sure compatibilty which means it is unlikely other devices which use MTP (such as this one) will work under Linux.

Re:standard?

[UnknowingFool]

Inconceivable!

Re:standard?

[outZider]

They sued Real? Nope. Certainly not for that.

Re:standard?

[larry bagina]

It won't work with a Macintosh either.

Re:standard?

[noamsml]

UMS has nothing to do with WMA compatibility, it's a protocol allowing transfer of files over USB.

Re:standard?

[jcr]

It's proprietary, DRMed, and unlicenseable.

Got two out of three. They licensed it to Motorola, and would probably license it to other manufacturer who actually had something to offer. Real Networks brought NOTHING to the table. Glaser was just begging for Steve to throw him a lifeline.

-jcr

Re:standard?

[itchy92]

Well, it does, actually. Not with WMA files, but with DRM'd WMA files. I'm pretty sure that in order for portable media players to be compatible with new DRM WMA files, they have to have a "media library" functionality that can keep track of whether the license for the file is valid. So a UMS player would not be compatible with Microsoft's PlaysForSure "standard".

Re:standard?

[IntergalacticWalrus]

Apple uses MPEG-4 Advanced Audio Coding (AAC), an open, international standard.

Wrong. AAC is NOT an open standard. It is patent-encumbered. Just like everything that comes out of MPEG, including mp3.

What I like about the Koreans

[BadAnalogyGuy]

You give them an idea and they can clone it better than anyone. Even the Japanese lose to the Koreans in the race to copycat technology.

I just hope this sPod lives up to its reputation, unlike that "running" robot which was supposed to compete with Honda's Asimo.

Re:What I like about the Koreans

[afaik_ianal]

You give them an idea and they can clone it better than anyone.

No, no. They just claim to clone it. On closer inspection, you'll see that they faked their results :P. /ducks

Re:What I like about the Koreans

[Total_Wimp]

Consumers buying cheap knock-offs instead of pricey designer names? Sure. If they make it white, with a circulare click wheel and call it an Aple iPud. I'll buy one to go along with my Rolux.

Meanwhile, everyone else will think, "I can't use iTunes, the defacto standard for legaal online music, plus my friends won't think I'm cool," and they'll walk down the isle and buy an iPod.

TW

Re:What I like about the Koreans

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you seen the Hyundai Sonata recently? The taillights are nearly clones of the 2003-2005 Honda Accord. I guess Honda was aware of that because they changed their Accord taillight design for 2006.

Re:What I like about the Koreans

[mfehrenbach]

Hwang Woo-Suk

So now Steve Jobs Throws a Chair?

[putko]

So does Steve Jobs throw a chair now, and yell, "Anybody but Samsung!!"

I bet not.

He probably meditates on it, then eats a miso sandwich.

Re:So now Steve Jobs Throws a Chair?

[AKAImBatman]

He's probably doing what's he's always been doing: Laughing all the way to the bank.

Samsung's hiring of the same designer is nothing more than marketing hype. What Samsung hopes the public fails to realize, is that Steve Jobs is the guy who made the iPod what it is. PortalPlayer (the design company) actually delivered many iterations of the iPod that was much different from the final product. Each time, Jobs sent the device back with a laundry list of things wrong with it. Stuff that seemed completely out of place (e.g. extra bass boost because Jobs was slightly deaf) went into the design. PortalPlayer thought it was going to flop horribly after all the demands that Jobs had made. It was quite a shock to them when the iPod grabbed the market overnight.

So I would take this story with a grain of salt. If Samsung doesn't realize that they've got a cat in the bag, they will soon enough.

[Reference Article]

Re:So now Steve Jobs Throws a Chair?

[prichardson]

Miso is used to make sauces, not sandwiches. It's a salty ingredient made through fermentation. Get your asian foods straight before you keep making yourself look like an ass.

Re:So now Steve Jobs Throws a Chair?

[mqj]

"Meso"?

Exellent a type of soup, what was you wager?

"horny"

Re:So now Steve Jobs Throws a Chair?

[Anonymous Coward]

He'd spelled it right, iirc.. Man, those celebrity Jeopardy sketches were absolutely hillarious!

Re:So now Steve Jobs Throws a Chair?

[Crayon Kid]

Miso is a goddamn turnip.

Re:So now Steve Jobs Throws a Chair?

[Uber Banker]

I believe the GP was being funny.

Miso is used to make sauces, not sandwiches. It's a salty ingredient made through fermentation. Get your asian foods straight before you keep making yourself look like an ass.

And I believe the word you were looking for is 'umami', the supposed fifth taste, as salt should be far from the main taste in miso (soup, etc).

Re:So now Steve Jobs Throws a Chair?

[chudgoo]

Bean paste attack!!!

I wondered if anyone was going to call him out on that...

Re:So now Steve Jobs Throws a Chair?

[tpgp]

Miso is used to make sauces, not sandwiches.

Miso is a paste made from soy beans, and its most common use is as a base for soup. However, it can be used for pretty much everything, here's a guy who uses it mixed with sweetcorn as a spread (presumably for sandwiches).

Get your asian foods straight before you keep making yourself look like an ass.

Hmmmmmn, no comment.

Re:So now Steve Jobs Throws a Chair?

[poot_rootbeer]

Stuff that seemed completely out of place (e.g. extra bass boost because Jobs was slightly deaf) went into the design

I doubt Jobs' specific hearing problems had anything to do with that decision.

Take a look at any consumer audio product built in the last 20 years; chances are it has some sort of "Super Mega Bass Boost" function available on it (low-end shelftop units in particular embrace this feature).

People tend to think that audio with overemphasized low frequencies sounds fuller and louder, and therefore better, than well-equalized, true-to-life audio. Stereo manufacturers, Apple included, are simply giving the public what the public believes it wants.

Re:So now Steve Jobs Throws a Chair?

[corngrower]

I sure hope Samsung didn't send Igor to steal the brain. He would have taken the one labelled A.B. Normal.

Re:So now Steve Jobs Throws a Chair?

[Hal_Porter]

"Super Mega Bass Boost" yeah right.

Even cheap hifi these days has "Ultra Mega Bass Boost" and my hifi at home has at least "Hyper Mega Bass Boost".

Re:So now Steve Jobs Throws a Chair?

[prichardson]

I believe the GP was being funny.

I believe the parent to your post was also trying to be funny.

Perhaps neither of us have working humor detectors right now. I know mine's been on the fritz; it keeps telling me that I should be laughing at Jeff Foxworthy.

Re:So now Steve Jobs Throws a Chair?

[prichardson]

Miso sandwich implies that the sandwich uses miso as the primary ingredient. No sane person would do that.

Also, please see my reply to one of your sibling posts (that would make it the cousin of this, if you like forum genealogy).

Re:So now Steve Jobs Throws a Chair?

[AJWM]

No sane person would do that.

Be fair. He was talking about Steve Jobs.

Re:So now Steve Jobs Throws a Chair?

[prichardson]

Nice...

That's all I have to say.

Re:So now Steve Jobs Throws a Chair?

[Anonymous Coward]

Miso is used to make sauces

It's a soup you retard, eaten before most japanese meals.

neatish kinda

[akhomerun]

this is probably going to a great MP3 player.

but since it's not Apple, it's not going to really sell well at all. Plays For Sure doesn't really get you anywhere, either. The device will only sell well if it truly is a good device and is marketed.

If I remember right, Samsung really wanted to make it big in the MP3 market. They had some statement a while ago saying they wanted to eventually be in Apple's position. This kind of stuff makes me think they truly are serious, but what they don't understand is that you can't just follow if you want to control a market, you absolutely have to lead.

Re:neatish kinda

[seven of five]

you can't just follow if you want to control a market, you absolutely have to lead.

M$ has been copying stuff since day one. Innovation is good but aggression is better. If you have tons of cash, aggresive mkting, and a sharp legal staff you can kick ass. You just won't be admired for being innovative.

Re:neatish kinda

[ciroknight]

It's also worthwhile to note how this thing stacks up to its "competitor", the iPod nano.

Dimensions:
Samsung's Z5: 1.66" x .45" x 3.54, 1.8" LCD, 35 Hr Battery Life
iPod Nano: 1.6" x 0.27" x 3.5, 1.5" LCD, ~14 Hr Battery Life


Take two Nanos, stack one on top of another and you get a realization of how thick this thing is. But, with that extra thickness you pick up twice as much battery life (that should be a no brainer, seeing as doubling the size would double the available room to stash a battery). The screen is larger, but only marginally, and from the pictures it's at a strange aspect ratio (like that of a Cellphone) compared to the Nano's more naturally shaped screen (4x3?). Also worthy to note that the interface is going to be strikingly different, and that the Nano has Apple's FairPlay DRM vs. Microsoft's WMP10-DRM and some other DRM system called "Janus" (according to its product spec sheet). The Samsung unit will only ship with DRM compatibility for Windows (Media Player 10, sorry Mac users), and the unit comes in Black and Silver.

My opinion? It looks like a cellphone and an MP3 player got in a fight and the cellphone lost in a serious way. It's not particularly attractive looking with it's goofy offsized display, and the interface is questionable to say the least (the touchpad's square shape alone leaves one to question). It'll be interesting to see what impact, if any, it will have on the market.

Re:neatish kinda

[mblase]

this is probably going to a great MP3 player.

I'm not so sure. From what I've read over the years, Jobs himself was a big driving force behind the design of the iPod -- pushing for smaller size, a cleaner interface, meeting with designers weekly if not daily to provide his own input on the device.

He didn't do the grunt work on it, but I don't think there's much question that the iPod is Jobs' creation at least as much as anyone else's.

Re:neatish kinda

[Anonymous Coward]

"But, with that extra thickness you pick up twice as much battery life"

You mean 2 and a half times as much battery life. 35 > (14*2). That extra 7 hours that you conveniently shaved off is a lot of play time.

Aside from that, I've had a Samsung YP-T7Z for some time and I love it. It offers the best sound quality of any portable MP3 player on the market and is smaller than most (including Nano). I have often noticed iPod users on the Metro jealously eyeing it.

Re:neatish kinda

[Anonymous Coward]

1.8" is 20% larger than 1.5".

Re:neatish kinda

[Kuvter]

goofy offsized display

I don't even have an MP3 player and I see a great reason for this specifically shaped screen. You're going to be scrolling though songs. Because it is taller than a normal screen you'll be able to see more songs to choose from on the screen at the same time.

I use Winamp on my computer. The program is all I need for the musical listening. The shape of the interface of Winamp is something that resembles the shape of this screen pretty closely.

Think function when you look at the form. Don't think oh this isn't as attractive as the iPod.

Re:neatish kinda

[pintomp3]

unless you r watching video on this tiny screen, aspect ratio doesn't matter. it's actually better to have it longer for scrolling through songs.

Re:neatish kinda

[Dahamma]

A couple comments:

1.8 vs 1.5 is about 40% larger by area. The reason cell phones have more vertical pixels is that most of the UI is lists & menus... (not unlike an MP3 player!) Of course viewing photos/movies is different, but who wants to look at either on a 1.5 OR 1.8" screen??

"Janus" is just the code name for WM DRM. And you could argue "the iPod only ships with DRM compatibility with iTunes"... (it's somewhat of a tradeoff - support Windows & Mac for one piece of software and hardware, or support Windows only with multiple software and hardware). WM DRM is pretty useful when combined with Yahoo Music Unlimited...

Not that I am arguing that this player is any better than the Nano overall - I have a Nano and apart from not having WM DRM (the necessary evil at the moment to access several interesting services like YMU) it's damn near perfect at what it tries to do...

Re:neatish kinda

[cyberphotographer]

...you can't just follow if you want to control a market, you absolutely have to lead.

25 years of following seems to have worked fine for M$.

Newton cost Apple a billion.

iPod was NOT the first MP3 'Walkman'; iTunes store was not the first music download service.

Re:neatish kinda

[akhomerun]

okay, you got me there.

although you could argue that M$'s business practices and methods of getting Windows on every OEM out there could be described as innovative, even if their products are not.

Stop me if you have heard this before

[antifoidulus]

"We have this great new device that will kill the iPod! Just take our word for it! iPod=dead, yeah, our device is awesome!"
They haven't shown that they can do anything the iPod can't do, so why would consumers switch?

Re:Stop me if you have heard this before

[ErichTheRed]

I'll bet they're relying on the next wave of buyers. It's the same strategy the cell phone vendors rely on. Ever notice how cell phones are pretty much designed to mave at least one thing go wrong with them in 2 or 3 years? I think Motorola figured out that those monster grey flip phones, while built like tanks, didn't give them a recurring revenue stream. So they made them good enough to not break within a product's release cycle, and that's it.

Same with the iPod. Unless you sit on the couch listening to your music, your iPos is exposed to the elements. It's dropped, sat on, and just plain wears out in a few years. Time to buy a new device.

Now Samsung comes in the picture with feature X that the iPod doesn't have. They win the business even if they're not superior. Samsung is probably hoping to be everyone's iPod replacement device in a year or two.

Re:Stop me if you have heard this before

[Chabil Ha']

They haven't shown that they can do anything the iPod can't do, so why would consumers switch?

That's a good marketing question. Any company with a good marketing department needs to consider such a question very carefully. From my perspective, the digital music player market is pretty saturated. There are too many devices from too many manufacturers, and so the product with the most visibility and word-of-mouth advertising usually gets the market dominance.

For example, for those of you who opted to watch at least part of the Olympics, how many athletes who were listening to music had a Archos AV 500? How many of them had a Creative Zen? Ok, how many of them had some sort of iPod? I am safe in saying that all the athletes that *I* saw had an iPod.

This says a lot. The iPod didn't get where it is today simply because it plays music. It's the top music player because it's easy to use, there are a myriad of accessories for it, it has an easy to use music download service (which is done in house) and it just looks aesthetically appealing.

So, what does Samsung have to do? For starters, thier music download service MUST BE USER FRIENDLY! One of the biggest things that I hate about WMA's is that once they have been tied to your computer, they are inextricably tied to that instance of your OS *FOREVER*. If you reinstall your OS fairly regularly, then paying $0.99 to listen to a song for a few months is a joke.

iTunes corrects this problem by 'authorizing' a computer to play back songs purchased through their service. Before I destroy my computer, I simply backup my music, 'de-authorize' my machine, and no more hassles. In fact, I can authorize up to 5 computers to play my music. So, if I want a copy on two home machines and a machine at work, I'm still left with 2 spare licences.

To do just that would be very costly for Samsung--especially when it comes to negotiating music prices with the RIAA execs. I would expect things to be ruthless and costly since they are no longer happy with people paying $.99 anymore.

Next, how do you catapult your product's visibility beyond that of a well entrenched competitor. Here is the part that requires creative marketing. You could launch a smear campaign, alleging that an iPod creates some insane amount EMI radiation that causes cancer. Maybe you could even pay some basketball stars and other athletes to use your product. This also would be very costly, but does not garantee any success.

Finally, you would need to convince 3rd party vendors to make brand specific accessories for your player. iPod spawned a multi-billion dollar industry in just accessories. These accessories can't be generic. They have to be convincing enough to manufactorers that they incorporate some part of your identity in their name and packaging or other form of sneaky co-branding. How many products have been released with the *i-something* identity?--some of them totally unrelated to the iPod or Apple related!

So, you see the nearly insurmountable task of killing an iPod. There are too many of them to kill them at once. Samsung, you have a long and winding road to the day you put it 6' under. Good luck, your going to need it. Maybe if you would lower your price I would consider.

Re:Stop me if you have heard this before

[arminw]

...Samsung is probably hoping to be everyone's iPod replacement device in a year or two......

So you really think that users will throw away all the music they paid for from ITMS? Do you think that Apple will stand still until all the currently in use ipods wear out?

ogg vorbis

[Florian]

It should be of more relevance to Slashdot readers that the player supports Ogg Vorbis according to its spec sheet.

-F

Re:ogg vorbis

[toQDuj]

Wehey!.

Not sure anyone cares much about OGG. sure, it's good, but not radically so. It doesn't really support much new, and it doesn't integrate well with current media player apps (yes, that's iTunes and the iPod).
I haven't heard anyone in my vicinity (university) ever talk about OGG at all. I take that as a hint.

B.

Re:ogg vorbis

[Anonymous Coward]

But unfortunately it uses MTP as a comunication protocol, so Linux and Mac users are out of luck.

Is it really so hard for companies to make their players mass storage compatible for use in other operating systems or as a last resort?

Re:ogg vorbis

[Iron E]

The iriver, Cowon iaudio and IOPS players all support OGG Vorbis - all three korean brands, so it seems that some people do care about the format. iriver and iaudio also have a big market share in korea (iPod is third, IIRC), so of course Samsung, a korean company will release a product that has at least the same features as their competitors.

Re:ogg vorbis

[Valdoran]

I own an iriver H10, which is an MTP device that can be used as a UMS device as well. (Hold a button while powering the thing.) Maybe a similar feature will be introduced for the Z5?

Re:ogg vorbis

[cab15625]

So do a lot of iRiver products. Problem is, the iRivers like the T30 use a mangled PtP and PlayForSure so you can ONLY get them working with media player 10 under XP (that is the way the north american models operate BY DESIGN). Sure, you can find stuff on the web and flash your player with an unoffical patch to make it work properly, but if you can't make it talk to your Linux computer out of the box, why bother giving them your money? There are plenty of others who are willing to make ogg/vorbis an option without snubbing the Linux community. This thing is going to be P(l)ayForSure, which means Linux will be officially LockedOutForSure. So, don't bother.

Re:ogg vorbis

[noamsml]

That's a trap. If it only supports PlaysForSure, the fact that it has ogg vorbis support doesn't matter all that much, since it won't connect to any OS and media player other than Windows and WMP 10+. I bought an iRiver T30 with ogg vorbis support, and I have no use for its ogg capabilities since I can only transfer music from WMP.

Re:ogg vorbis

[DogDude]

I'm sure that Samsung is really worried about the 10 or so Linux users that won't buy their product. [snicker]

Re:ogg vorbis

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to note here -- MTP is *specifically* designed to enforce DRM. This protocol offers nothing over a simple USB mass storage transfer (you know, the thing that allows you to just treat your camera/mp3 player like a plug-in hard disk)... MTP exists for one reason -- to cripple the device by enforcing DRM on transfers. It's a massive backwards step that screws over customers and ties the player to Microsoft.

Re:ogg vorbis

[cab15625]

Yeah, I know.

It's just frustrating/silly. Why do they bother with ogg support if they're going to lock out the people most likely to even know what ogg is, let alone use it. Seems like a waste on so many levels.

Re:ogg vorbis

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, DogShit: get some new material.

It's really too bad there's not a '-2, Redundant troll' mod.

Re:ogg vorbis

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it just seems that Korean garbage is often designed by people who believe in the shovelware approach - if it costs nothing, include it. Says nothing about the utility of Ogg, the "look at me, I'm politically correct!" option.

Re:ogg vorbis

[zopf]

That's why I love my iRiver. I can't imagine why anyone would want an audio player that couldn't mount as a hard drive.

Oh yeah. The whole DRM thing. Allofmp3, here I come.

This will be a good data point...

[jmp_nyc]

It will demonstrate which of the following theories is closer to the truth, without being enough to be conclusive. Either:

A) Steve Jobs is a creative genius who controls every bit of design and implementation of his great ideas, allowing the people working on his teams to come up with successfull products.

or...

B) Steve Jobs comes up/recognizes good initial ideas, then micro-manages his team too much, coming up with great products that might be even better if he let his senior team members have slightly more freedom to innovate.

Don't get me wrong. I love my iPod. I really enjoy using OSX. They're great products. I just wonder if Jobs's micro-management gets diminishing returns...
-JMP

Re:This will be a good data point...

[chowhound]

The FA said that Mercer left the company before Jobs' return. His company was hired freelance to help with the very first iPod's interface.

Samsung, the way to go?

[Kranfer]

I have always been very happy with all my samsung products that I have. Cellphone, LCD Monitors, My microwave (yeah I know, but it was like $40 on my discount when I worked at the blue beast (Best Buy)). Anyway, now that Samsung is delving into the mp3 market with an ipod like device, I have to say I am going to place 100% of my faith in their innovative abilities to come up with something with an edge much like apple did with its ipod. I for one am looking forward to seeing what exactly they come up with that will propell them into a competing market with apple. It should be interesting, and hopefully, healthy for pricing.

Re:Samsung, the way to go?

[Viol8]

Samsung? Innovative?? Name one thing they were first to market
with.

I'm waiting...

Re:Samsung, the way to go?

[chrispolarized]

Well..

2001: SAMSUNG Electronics develops and produces world's largest 40 inch TFT-LCD.
2001: SAMSUNG SDI develops world largest 15.1" full color Active Matrix Organic Electro Luminescece Display

There's two - and the list goes on.

Also they have won several design awards. It would be unfair to say that they are not innovative. Apple even invested $100 million (link above) in Samsung in 2000. Samsung is certainly not your ordinary low-cost copycat manufacturer - they spend huge amounts on R&D.

Re:Samsung, the way to go?

[ettlz]

Samsung is certainly not your ordinary low-cost copycat manufacturer - they spend huge amounts on R&D.

And from what I've seen, the items they make that "may have been developed by others in the past" are not "cheap Korean knock-offs"; quite often, they're does-what-it-says-on-the-tin items marketed at a reasonable price. iPod is all about Apple brand snobbery. However, I must say I'm disappointed at Samsung for eschewing USBMS in this product. Naughty!

Re:Samsung, the way to go?

[Viol8]

I was talking about new stuff. Not displays a couple of
inches bigger than the competition.

Re:Samsung, the way to go?

[chrispolarized]

I think most people would say that a 40 inch OLED TV qualifies as 'new stuff'. And clearly, the world's best GSM cellphone of 2005 must have had something new to it. Furthermore, having over 14000 patents is also usually a sign of being innovative.

I like my iPod

[antifoidulus]

but throw in a Korean woman and I will change my music player in a heartbeat!

Re:I like my iPod

[ZiakII]

but throw in a Korean woman and I will change my music player in a heartbeat!

In Korea a lot of their women are really men.... you've been warned...

Re:I like my iPod

[kklein]

... Wow. I don't even know where to begin. So I won't.

Re:I like my iPod

[Anonymous Coward]

He owns an iPod and probably a Mac as well. It's unlikely he'd be at all put off by a male sexual partner.

Re:I like my iPod

[Anonymous Coward]

If you hadn't of spent all that money on an iPod you could have just BOUGHT a Korean woman.

Re:I like my iPod

[Anonymous Coward]

That's only enough for one night though. Or three if he actually took a vacation there.

Design

[omeg]

So they've got a great programmer. Big deal. We all know that people really buy the iPod because it looks so cool. A lot of non-Apple MP3 players that I've seen look awful. If they make sure to do the design aspect correctly, they might have themselves a viable product. Until then, I wouldn't put my money on it.

Re:Design

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you are partially right.

Programmers do very little to create a product. Programming is a dime a dozen trade -- anyone can do it and honestly, the brightest and best just do better jobs optimizing the code. That and optimization is not a be all end all these days -- it is a dying art...

For instance, I've never considered myself a real programmer -- I am a developer. I create pseudocode in scripting languages that get the job done while showing off the interface I need and the design. I know what I'm doing isn't programming but more to the point of rapid design. I can get down to C or ASM if I *REALLY* need to, but there are people that live and sleep this stuff that I can ship my code out to and they can do it much faster, cleaner, and actually take care of the garbage collection that I seem to always miss in low level coding.

In my last major app I wrote, 10 years ago, the code was such that it could deal with 1 item minute in its standard C. Modernizing just the algorythms (this was academic work that was highly based around theory...hopefully used for my disertation in a few years, but already having been licensed to a few commercial companies) and workflow, I was able to do 10x that in a scripting language. After doing this, I gave it to my real programmer to throw it into C++ for the DLL portion (yeah, it was done in Wind'rs) and that increased another 10 fold. A few years later, using the scripting language of my choice in unix, I'm able to smoke what the last compiled version does (and when sending it out to be compiled this time, I only got a 2x speed up -- for the price, I could have bought 3 extra machines).

But the point is, the programmers job is tightening things up -- thats it. Most programmers can do this, a great programmer can do it even better. Big deal. He isn't there to make decisions about how the application reacts or come up with ideas about what hardware to use. For instance, Jobs was unsatisfied with the physical wheel that the original had and had someone create an analogue for it using touch technology...and that wasn't good enough, so he found someone to redesign it -- and having tried it out, its better than the original. Same with the interface, it is intuative -- that wasn't a programmers decision, that was Jobs and his team of interface designers. And the idea that it had to fit in a pocket easily...that too was one of the design specs that didn't happen with most of the rest back then (they were all odd sized that needed to fit into a bag, not a pocket -- I had a few and they sucked...the iPod was the first I didn't want to take back the very next day and honestly, I thought it was going to suck with its 'lame' feature list, but I tried it out anyways as a friend from Apple offered to buy it back off of me if I wasn't satisfied).

It will take a lot more than just a programmer to get their technology off the ground. All in all, if Jobs is upset about this move, its probably because he forgot to give the guy a great severance package so he could brag about it to the Samsung guys. He knows he can replace that guy and not skip a beat -- and probably already has.

Late for work and my thoughts are probably incoherent because of it...sorry for the lack of editing...

Re:Design

[pimpimpim]

Design is not as sleek as a nano I would say: http://www.samsung.com/Products/DigitalAudioPlayer /MP3Players/files/yp-z5.pdf Too much like a ipod-ripoff mp3 player would look like: "Nothing to see here, please move along". They could have made something really nice of it, a bit oval form, buttons at the edges, anything better than an ipod with a square menu-wheel.

But look, it actually has screws! Nice for maintenance (batteries?) or people that want to rebuild it into a mini-server or whatever a nerd can come up to!

Yeah.. but...

[PeterSomnium]

Does it run linux?

Re:Yeah.. but...

[afaik_ianal]

An can it perform cunnilingus on a hardwood floor?

Re:Yeah.. but...

[SharpFang]

Nope, a single one, no chance, too weak CPU.
But a beowulf cluster of those...

Re:Yeah.. but...

[PeterSomnium]

I think you need 200 of those to get some work done :P

Steal ?!?

[Mr Europe]

Why to use word "steal" when somebody is fed up with company "A" and moves to company "S" ? He was owned by Apple was he ?

Re:Steal ?!?

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

He was owned by Apple was he ?

Silly rabbit. With modern capitalism you don't own someone. You just own their thoughts after they leave!

Re:Steal ?!?

[ebooher]

We, as average /. reading Joes, do not know the whole story. You can not say that he was fed up with working for Apple, because his voice isn't in the article. In this instance we are supposed to read "Steal" as Apple paying $100,000 to do a job and Samsung coming along and saying "Hey, we know you're happy over there, but see we have these buckets full of cash that are going to waste and all and ...." then offering $900,000 to do the same job.

However, *neither* viewpoint is accurate as referenced in the article as it states that Paul Mercer was *not* working for Apple when he developed the software that ran the iPod. He owned and operated his *own* company called Pixo that was contracted to provide the software for the iPod. He did, however, work for Apple back in the System 7 days as a Programmer

He also is not working for Samsung. His new company, Iventor, Inc., has been contracted by Samsung to provide the software for their new Z5. It's a very small thing, grammatically, but an important one.

Re:Steal ?!?

[diegocgteleline.es]

Right, in the XXI century people doesn't change their jobs because of their salary, because they don't like the company where they're working, they're "stolen".

Re:Steal ?!?

[jridley]

It's not even clear to me that he is working for Samsung. It sounds to me like Mercer works for a small-device firmware company that he left Apple to start/join, and they happen to have contracted to Samsung to make a firmware for the Z5.
But of course, it's a much better sounding headline if you put words like "steals" in it.

Cliche time

[lisaparratt]

No video. Less easy to use transfer software. Lame.

Re:Cliche time

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, you don't have to embrace cliches just because they exist.

Re:Cliche time

[teslar]

Well, I don't know about video, but according to Cnet:

The sucker punch here may be the transfer software -- there is none. Samsung has wisely avoided the self-destructive policy of companies like Sony, which uses a proprietary transfer software hot from the depths of hell. Samsung's new player is drag-and-drop, which means it works just like an external hard disk -- making the YP-Z5 completely platform independent.

Now I don't know about you, but to me this sounds like a Very Good Thing (tm), esp. for those of us who don't use Windows.

Re:Cliche time

[lisaparratt]

Veyr good - if you're a geek.

If, on the other hand, you're Joe Q. Public, then it will seem like a nightmare to use compared to an iPod.

The reason the iPod is so wildly successful is because it doesn't just cater to geeks. Until Samsung realises that, they'll never kill it.

Re:Cliche time

[teslar]

How can it be a nightmare to drag'n'drop Mp3 Files onto your player using Windows Explorer and nothing else? As opposed to having to install software, figuring out how it all works, and then maybe be able to copy stuff over?

Re:Cliche time

[NeMon'ess]

Highlighting files in iTunes and drag-and-droping them into an Explorer window copies them to it. So loading this player is as simple as using iTunes, highlighting the songs, and dragging and dropping them into the player.

But since the player shows up as a removable drive, people can also drag and drop their photographs to take over to their relatives without being concerned over what software the other computer uses.

Re:Cliche time

[lisaparratt]

Except that you don't do that to load up an iPod.

This is what I do to sync my iPod:

1) Plug it in
2) Wait until it says I can unplug it
3) Unplug it

That is the level of ease of use Samsung need if they're to kill it.

Re:Cliche time

[NeMon'ess]

I disagree that it has to be that easy. What does iTunes do when there's more than 2GB of songs on the HD and the new player is a 2GB Nano? What does it upload then?

It has to be said

[Anonymous Coward]

Fine, good for them, but whatever they release won't be cool.

Cannibalism for market share. Eww eww eww!

[flowerp]

WTF! OMG! Samsung has stolen a brain!

Did they just put it in a jar? Or did they slice it up and fed it to their employees? Eww...

Cannibalism for market share is really bad, you think that in current time, there are more civilized means to gain market share. Bribery, illegal bundling and abuse of monopolies, unfair competition. You know, those kind of things...

Re:Cannibalism for market share. Eww eww eww!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just don't try be funny, please.

Re:Cannibalism for market share. Eww eww eww!

[SharpFang]

Nope, they sold it for lots and lots of $$$!

Re:Cannibalism for market share. Eww eww eww!

[flowerp]

Sometimes it works, I have a nice gallery of +5 Funny on my roster. There are occasional duds. Oh well.

Re:Cannibalism for market share. Eww eww eww!

[PrescriptionWarning]

I wonder if it came from Abby Someone. Abby... Normal

Plays for Sure

[mnemonic_]

PFS is pretty worthless; no one cares about WMA compatibility. And since the iPod and iTMS don't conform to PFS, any PFS device ignores 80% of the market. The iPod/iTunes/iTMS trinity has evolved as a natural "standard," and it's a good one. PFS is the underdog currently, and doesn't stand a chance. Apple's winning the digital music war because of good engineering, while PFS struggles with its corporate backing and half-assed partnerships.

Re:Plays for Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

iPod only got 80% market share if you count like Steve Jobs, he doesn't count the endless stream of cheap tawianese players. Steve only counts big name like creative and possibly iRiver.

Re:Plays for Sure

[Haeleth]

The iPod/iTunes/iTMS trinity has evolved as a natural "standard," and it's a good one.

Can something be called a "standard" if the people who make it refuse to license it to anyone else, and indeed do everything they can to stop other people (e.g. Real) from interoperating with it?

Sounds more like a monopoly than a standard to me.

Apple's winning the digital music war because of good engineering

Yeah. Sure. And not at all because their initial marketing advantage enabled them to lock in a huge customer base, who are now unable to switch away from Apple even if they want to, because their iTunes music won't work anywhere else.*

When Microsoft pulls this kind of trick, they rightly get demonised. But apparently vendor lock-in is absolutely fine, as long as the vendor you get locked into is Apple?

* Yes, I know all about burning it to a CD and re-ripping it to whatever format you like. Now, would you like to have to do that for a collection of 2,000-odd tracks? I thought not.

Re:Plays for Sure

[Yahweh Doesn't Exist]

>When Microsoft pulls this kind of trick, they rightly get demonised. But apparently vendor lock-in is absolutely fine, as long as the vendor you get locked into is Apple?

yes, because you fail to understand the fact that Apple EARNS its market share whereas MS's desktop dominance means it obtains market share automatically.

Also, IMO all of Apple's so-called lock-in is really just good integration of good products, whereas MS's lock-in practises make no sense other than to be anti-competitive, for example IE needed for Windows.

Re:Plays for Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever, for the consumer it makes no difference how they got locked in. The fact is that they are locked in by Apple.

Re:Plays for Sure

[TerranFury]

Microsoft also earned their market share. Face it: For grandma, Windows is the superior operating system. It has better hardware compatibility, and it comes with everything she might need built right in -- and with good integration (Outlook, IE, WMP).

Sure, other companies did GUIs first. But Windows ran on IBM PC hardware, and that made it a killer app. Just like there have been tens of dozens of MP3 players on the market before anybody learned the word "iPod."

It doesn't matter how vendor lock-in starts.

Re:Plays for Sure

[Karlt1]

How did Apple lock customer in? The iPod was already the leading mp3 player before iTunes Music Store came out for Windows in October 2003. Any song files that people had on their mp3 player could have easily been moved to another player.

Re:Plays for Sure

[jcr]

Can something be called a "standard" if the people who make it refuse to license it to anyone else, and indeed do everything they can to stop other people (e.g. Real) from interoperating with it?

They licensed it to Motorola, and they'd probably do likewise with other companies that actually brought something to the table. There was no benefit at all that Real could offer to Apple. Glaser is just a failure who was snivelling at Apple for not throwing him a lifeline.

-jcr

Re:Plays for Sure

[2nd Post!]

Except they aren't locked in.

In 2005 only 7% of music was via music stores, and only 80% was from the iTMS; or about 5%.

So only 5% of all music from 2005, and probably only 1% of music owned, is locked to any device.

Meaning of the 80/100 people who own iPods, only one is seriously stuck because of content from the iTMS.

The rest, who have ripped to ISO standard MP3 or AAC, are free to move from the iPod to the music player of their choice.

The irony is, due to Apple's update and release cycle, that increasingly another iPod is their music player of their choice, from Photo to Mini to Nano to Video.

Re:Plays for Sure

[arminw]

....For grandma, Windows is the superior operating system. .....

Until her computer becomes inoperable by the latest of the thousands of malwares circulating on the Internet. I have repaired many malware hosed Windows systems, but no Mac systems rendered inoperable by anything that came off the Internet.

Apple's iPod will play the only TRUE standard, the mp3 which has no DRM. Will the "playsforsure" services allow the burning of Cds, the way ITMS and iTunes does? If so, make a CD, and rip that to mp3 and copy to iPod. There, the ipod is now compatible with all other music services as well.

Re:Plays for Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

PFS is pretty worthless; no one cares about WMA compatibility

Err.. no. Plays For Sure To Go supports music subscription services, such as Rhapsody - which I think is significantly more awesome than iTunes. Let me emphasise this for you:

Rhapsody > iTunes

A Rhapsody subscription is the only way to go for someone who listens to a lot of new music - with instant access to 1.5 million songs. It's more comparable to a library service than a "store", although you can also purchase tracks.

If you only to listen to one or two albums in a year, iTunes is okay - but you should just buy the CD instead.

And since the iPod and iTMS don't conform to PFS, any PFS device ignores 80% of the market.

Who's fault is that? Not certainly Microsoft's! Microsoft would be perfectly happy to license their DRM technology to Apple. When Real tried to make PFS work on the iPod, Apple sued them.

Apple does not want Plays For Sure on iPods because it would destroy iTMS overnight. If Apple users find out that they can fill their entire 60GB iPod with any music they want from Rhapsody - for the cost of a single album from iTMS, then iTMS is dead - instantly.

How's that for iTMS supposedly being superior, if it's dead the second it faces Rhapsody on a level playing field?

Apple's winning the digital music war because of good engineering

How is a 24% failure rate on some iPod models known as "good engineering"? That's one in four!

PFS struggles with its corporate backing and half-assed partnerships.

WMA / PFS is open to any company to license. How is that bad? There's even a PFS player for PalmOS which runs on my phone (Pocket Tunes). It's not half-assed, it's awesome!

Re:Plays for Sure

[AJWM]

Microsoft also earned their market share.

No, IBM handed it to them, by your own admission. They leveraged it from there. (The backstab to IBM they did with the OS/2 bait'n'switch helped establish the Office monopoly.)

Re:Plays for Sure

[Kadin2048]

You're all wrong -- stop spreading FUD.

Apple isn't locking all iPod owners in, there's nothing about ripping a CD using iTunes that makes it impossible to put on another player. The only music that you can't transfer to another player is stuff purchased from the iTunes Music Store, which is a very, very small percentage of most people's music collections.

I seriously doubt that anyone (except the very, very rich) have thousands of dollars of iTMS music. Most people I know -- myself included -- have a handful of purchased songs, with the majority of music taken from other sources. There's nothing keeping me from switching to another player tomorrow, if I really wanted to ... but I don't.

There's not any "vendor lock-in" inherent in using iTunes and an iPod, assuming you never use iTMS. And if you use iTMS, you probably know what you're buying (and it's not as though they've ever kept the fact that they only play on an iPod a secret). If you drop two grand on iPod-only songs, that's your decision. But virtually nobody does.

Re:Plays for Sure

[flapingokan]

PFS is pretty worthless
Depends on the implementation. And context, of course.
http://www.kniel.de/en/f.php#1_4_1

It will fail for one reason...

[bbzzdd]

...it's not an iPod. It's like at Christmas getting a cheap Korean knockoff of the year's hot item. To beat the iPod you have to leapfrog it not clone it.

Re:It will fail for one reason...

[16K Ram Pack]

It's also about being a lot more than say 10-15% better. To displace the brand leader, you either have to be sufficiently different, or much better.

Re:It will fail for one reason...

[thogard]

Samsung makes phones. They will leapfrog it by building a real phone into it if they are smart. With a bit of work, I think you could pull the 2 gig flash card out of a nano and replace it with a phone chipset assuming you can get access to audio in. Add in some firmware to run it all and then all you would need is a pair of external mic for noise cancelation and you've got a phone, in an ipod and people will stop carrying around another device.

Re:It will fail for one reason...

[bbzzdd]

Jack-of-all-trades devices are rarely successful. The iPod can be used as a PDA via its contact management and calendar functions, but I don't know one person who uses that functionality (and Apple has not expanded on it since its introduction).

The iPod does one thing really well -- play media. I will admit that Apple are encroaching on shark jumping territory by adding video functionality to the device, and if they don't integrate it correctly it could be the point where the iPod's dominance falters.

Thank goodness the leak shots of the new iPod Video are fake. Sacrificing the awesome ergonomics of the iPod to incorporate a wide screen display would be nothing but detrimental to the brand.

Re: It looks bland.

[DancesWithBlowTorch]

Actually, their player looks worse than the iPod. Look: here. While it's an obvious rip-off (the menu looks especially familiar, and, oh look, it's a click-square...), it just looks cluttered and cheap compared to the reference product from Cupertino.

With a

[Anonymous Coward]

With a quality brand like Samsung, and my Walmart PlaysForSure (as long as I don't change my motherboard), music. It's a winning combination thats sure to succeed.

Size is relative

[Half a dent]

"The Z5, shaped like a stick of gum, has a 1.8-inch color screen"

Big stick of gum!

Re:Size is relative

[djonsson]

The fact that it is shaped like stick of gum doesn't really mean it's the same size! Cargo freight containers and some tall buildings also share the same shape.

Re:Size is relative

[Half a dent]

Have you recently checked out the height of a stick of gum compared to the length and width? Yes it will probably be slimline OK, but that thin relative in scale to the stick of gum? Maybe, but I'll wait and see.

BTW the clue was hidden in the title.

PaysForSure?

[Anonymous Coward]

I did not know the name of Microsoft's service. But I read it as in the title. Freudian slip perhaps, or deeply ingrained paranoia about everything Microsoft.

Is it just me? Or is it another PlugAndPray?

Re:PaysForSure?

[srpatterson]

Probably, I was more amused by it being listed on the spec-sheet as PlaysForSure/Janus

Janus being the 2-faced Roman god of gates and portals
http://www.pantheon.org/articles/j/janus.html?esc

It's the hardware.

[Morky]

Two elements of the iPod's hardware made it great: the scrollwheel and the firewire connection (pre USB 2). The software is good, but nothing extraordinary.

Ipod Killa

[FidelCatsro]

Nice battery life .. other than that I see no reason to choose it over an iPod . In fact several disadvantages.
Now Ogg support is nice (something which apple could easily do ,hopefully this will spur them on) , but it just doesn't have the ipod interface or iTunes.
It looks fairly clone-ish though a bit rougher in design.
I can't comment on sound quality , and the battery life claims are known to be exaggerated in the industry.
All in all it looks like just another iPod Killer , like all those that have gone before it.
Actually , it kind of looks like the creative Zen Micro

Re:Ipod Killa

[16K Ram Pack]

I say this as someone who'd like more adoption of Ogg Vorbis. How many people really use Ogg outside of slashdot? Google has 100 times more pages about MP3 than Ogg Vorbis.

Even my mates who are technical don't use it. MP3 means it will run everywhere.

For smaller makers, they need every edge they can get. For me, if I wanted a player I'd be divided between the Cowon iAudio which gives me a radio, voice recorder, Vorbis and data storage and buying an iPod for simplicity/iTunes integration.

Kleenex...

[canning]

The iPod is the "Kleenex" of the mp3 world. Samsung is going to have to hire more than just the programmer.

Let be honest, it's mainly not what's in the iPod that makes it sell, it's how it looks.

Re:Kleenex...

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Let be honest, it's mainly not what's in the iPod that makes it sell, it's how it looks.

I'd argue that it's more the surity of the product.

With an iPod, you know exactly what your getting, and are, more or less assurred of the end product. With most other mp3 players, somethign has been reduced, fudged, removed, etc, etc, and you're not too sure if you should get it or not.

I have to say were it not for the lower hard disc space on this Z5 player, I would go for it.

Re:Kleenex...

[tpgp]

Let be honest, it's mainly not what's in the iPod that makes it sell, it's how it looks.

Lets be really honest, it not what's in the ipod or how it looks - it was the first mp3 player to be heavily marketed.

God - if looks was all it took, then Sony's new mp3 player would be dominating (it is gorgeous, buggy, slow & overpriced with sod-all storage)

Re:Kleenex...

[hitmark]

bingo. it have become the device to have if you want to appear as if your part of the "in" crowd.

hell, just look at the number of snowboarders sporting ipods the the winter olympics...

Taint?

[cortana]

Will he not be tainted by having had access to (and, in fact, creating) so much of Apple's intellectual 'property'?

Re:Taint?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget the taint.

To beat the iPod...

[Nexum]

It's not about the device it's about iTunes as much as anything else. The device is just one part of the equation - this is why this product and the countless ones before it (see Sony discontinuing the 'bean', Dell discontinuing hard-drive based players etc.) will fail.

I don't understand it sometimes... companies like Samsung have incredible resources, and could easily start to build an iTunes software competitor, which also works with PlaysForSure, rather than relying on WMP. It's just symptomatic of a 'me-too' technology industry culture that attempts to eat like a cancer at the few innovators left.

It's not just about the iPod. iPod has powerful friends in iTunes and iTMS. You might stand a chance if you can get two competent and competitive products out of the three in the music-chain (Device-Software-OnlineStore), but concentrating on the iPod is like shooting blanks... that's not how to attack the problem.

Dodgy Analogy: It's like in any number of old-time video games where you come up against a boss enemy, and you can expend all your ammo shooting him in the chest (iPod), but you have to go for the weakspot (eyes, exposed brain a la HL etc.) which is the rest of the chain.

Re:To beat the iPod...

[MaestroSartori]

The iPod was slightly successful before iTMS. And from what I gather from my non-technical friends, iTunes isn't all that friendly to non-techies. Especially if you try installing it on older PCs.

I'm not entirely sure why the iPod is so successful. I think it was largely a matter of luck to begin with, which has then been capitalised on wisely by Apple. Certainly I can think of many ways I'd prefer an iPod to operate - many of them are taken care of by iRiver, but it's a much geekier and less attractive bit of gear so I can see why it hasn't taken off. iPods look cool - I think that's a big part of it... :)

Re:To beat the iPod...

[16K Ram Pack]

Talking of video games, "iPod killers" are a bit like what always has happened with video games and movies.

How often does a game or movie come along that sets the world alight, and is swiftly followed by a whole bunch of "me too"s, most of which get an average performance.

Re:To beat the iPod...

[Anonymous Writer]

The iPod was slightly successful before iTMS.

I think it was one of only a few MP3 players that used a hard drive on the market at the time when it first came out. I think the only other well-known one at the time was the Creative Nomad Jukebox.

Re:To beat the iPod...

[Anonymous Coward]

Samsung players are really nice. I bought one back in December, and I like it better than any iPod I've seen.

iTunes really isn't as popular as people think. Most people with iPods don't use iTunes, they download from other sources, rip from CD's, etc. In fact, since iPods have been around, I've yet to meet one person who buys music from iTunes, but I know at least a hundred that have iPods.

I do, however, know a few people, including myself, that pay for subscription music such as Napster. What Samsung should do is bundle itself with a subscription music service, with a good interface, and a good advertising campaign. If people see that there are other players out there, there is sure to be some migration.

I think people are starting to move away from downloading music illegally. In all honesty, it's so much easier to just open up my music player and be able to listen instantly to anything I want. No worries about slow hosts, no ill-named files, none of that crap.

Re:To beat the iPod...

[Anonymous Coward]

Samsung only needs to make a compact player that can play all formats and is not bound to any particular formats to succeed.

Re:To beat the iPod...

[mx.2000]

I don't understand it sometimes... companies like Samsung have incredible resources, and could easily start to build an iTunes software competitor, which also works with PlaysForSure, rather than relying on WMP. It's just symptomatic of a 'me-too' technology industry culture that attempts to eat like a cancer at the few innovators left.

The software competitor already exists: Yahoo Music Store. They sell subscription-based music, and Yahoo surely has the money and the engineers to seamlessly integrate an MP3 player.

I really don't get it why they don't form a joint venture with a company like Samsung. Yahoo+Samsung could really attack Apple's near-monoploy.

Re:To beat the iPod...

[pintomp3]

very true. problem is, a lot of the consumer electronics guys getting into making mp3 players don't have experience writing good software. apple not only has experience with that, but makes some of the best looking and easiest to use interfaces out there. of course i am a fan of ums, so interface doesn't matter to me. but the software component is a huge factor to most people. and it doesn't hurt to have a huge advertising campaign either.

Re:To beat the iPod...

[CCFreak2K]

It's not just about the iPod. iPod has powerful friends in iTunes and iTMS.

I have a friend who has an iPod, only because he got one for Christmas. After observing said friend for the past few months, it's become appearent to me that iTunes is almost as important as the iPod itself. All of a sudden, not only could he download some select songs (maybe there's only one good song from some artist's album), he could easily send those songs right to his iPod. Wham bam thank you ma'am.

Re:To beat the iPod...

[jcr]

The iPod was slightly successful before iTMS.

No, the iPod was the top-selling music player already by the time the iTMS opened for business.

-jcr

Oh joy

[EiZei]

Expect a torrent of lawsuits if they make anything that even vaguely resembles an apple product.

But is it iconic?

[Anonymous Coward]

Features smeatures. Apple understands the power of the icon. Just look at their logo. If you were in a mall, would you go into a store that simply had the Microsoft flying rainbow Windows logo on top of its door? The bright white Apple lures us. The iPod's body with click wheel are just as iconic. iPod commercials don't even have to show the device. I don't think the Z5 has this...perhaps it's because of the hipster phrase 'SAMSUNG' emblazoned in blocky, bold letters smack in the center.

What makes an iPod an iPod is not the programming

[dimer0]

The programming/programmer isn't what made the iPod an iPod. When I turn on one of my 3 iPods, I don't say "man, that coder sure r00leZ!".

Something to do with style, quality, user interface, ...

Good for Samsung

[ROOK*CA]

Competition is always a good thing for the consumer, although given Apple's dominate position and the excellent iPod/iTMS combo it's going to be a real challenge to even come close to unseating them from the top dog position (especially given that Apple could always just start licensing Fair Play if anyone looks to be getting close). It does however appear that the Samsung device is missing a few things ... podcasts? video? (yeah I know who watches video on their little iPod screen anyways? well until you get on a plane or sit in the back seat on a long car ride). Audio Books? I for one won't be trading in my 60GB iPod anytime soon for a less capable "clone" of one, however I'm sure there's a market for this thing out there ....Somewhere.... that Steve Jobs hasn't looked yet :)

sTunes

[mwvdlee]

Isn't a big part of the iPod's appeal the "connected" iTunes site?

FWIW, the Samsung thing looks like "iPod with everything round made square" to me.

Re:sTunes

[ROOK*CA]

Yep....although more and more it seems independent sites are "getting in" on the iPod content act .... i.e. (with things like Podcasts and Video).

Not to mention is just such a damn nifty little device to begin with... :)

Why so many iPod killers failed.

[mstefanus]

Apple has created a strong concept for iPod, while many competitors failed to do so. Think of it as Mac cult, but different & has a wider follower. This Samsung player will probably fail like so many iPod killers because of that & looks ugly too.

Women.

[16K Ram Pack]

I'd like to do a poll on this question: how many women have you seen with a creative/iriver etc?

I've never seen any women with anything but an iPod.

The Cowon iAudio products are quite nice looking. Most of the rest have products look like they are trying to hard.

Re:Women.

[jesterpilot]

i see them always use the most ugly cheap-ass nondescript 128Mb usbstick-players. Only my girlfriend has a nice one. A Samsung. Birthday present. Plays ogg vorbis, of course.

Re:Women.

[16K Ram Pack]

I should have clarified that. I've seen women with cheapo 128mb usb ones. I was thinking more about the market in 10GB+ players.

Genius?!?

[ultrabot]

The New York Times reports that Samsung has hired the same programming genius who helped make the iPod so great to design its own music player

"Genius" indeed. Since when did you need to be genius to implement something as trivial as an mp3 player?

Re:Genius?!?

[Detritus]

"Genius" indeed. Since when did you need to be genius to implement something as trivial as an mp3 player?

If you have to ask, you don't understand the problem.

Re:Genius?!?

[hattig]

"Genius" indeed. Since when did you need to be genius to implement something as trivial as an mp3 player?

Have you seen 90% of the mp3 players on the market?

And having a good interface on this player will not fix the usability issues in other areas, such as the software side of things on the PC. I don't know what this player uses, and I hope it isn't MusicMatch, but the player's interface is only half of the usability equation. It's got to be easy to:

1) Rip music from CD onto the computer
2) Manage your music on your computer
3) (Optional) Buy music online
4) Sync your music collection from the computer to the player, being able to select various rules for selecting the music to sync
5) Access music on the player via multiple methods (artist, playlist, etc)

The iPod (with iTunes) has all of these things perfected. Most other solutions have (1) perfected and the others done, let's say, 'adequately'.

Also the iPod looks nicer than this Samsung player, but looks aren't a big issue (looks at his scratchy nano) when the player will be in your pocket most of the time. Fancy GUI effects are nice though, if they work to enhance the usability of the interface.

Personally I don't think this guy is a genius, but he is hard working and he has enough brain cells to grasp the concept of simplicity and usability. And that is something that a lot more programmers could benefit from learning.

Jonathan Ives

[Anonymous Coward]

The key thing about the iPod isn't the software, it's the hardware. So unless Samsung get hold of Jonathan Ives I don't suppose Steve Jobs will need to throw a chair at anything.

Not with cars

[Anonymous Coward]

Not with cars. Korean cars really are crap.

And if you bought one, maybe next time you'll have a better job. Please spare me your rants about how your korean cars is the greatest/best whatever. They're crap cars. Even GM laughs at Korean cars.

Pathetic

[ThePhilips]

That sounds so pathetic.

[Rants On Unjustified=SoTrue]
First companies put their own engineers to ass feeding them with shit work. Then they hire "cool consultant" to do the job, claiming that it's own engineers are "incapabable". When own engineer tells management "We need X, Y & Z to make the product rock", management tells them to "Too expensive, you know shit, sod off, file an issue with our issue tracking system, etc." When expensive consultant tells management "You need X, Y & Z to make the product rock" - they listen, after all they have cashed so much into him. Pathetic.

Steven Jobs (as much as unpleasant the person he is to work for) is well known to give people's ideas room to grow, *not* to flush them to toilet and then complain that engineers can shit.
[Rants Off]

I doubt we will ever know details of the deal, but it all sounds so familiar...

Why Steal the Brain?

[kerouacsgp]

Why steal the brain, when what made the iPod sucessful, is the design? They should hire Jonathan Ive.

Re:Why Steal the Brain?

[ROOK*CA]

Or... do something crazy like push the envelope a little, like perhaps..

a device with the library (i.e. iTunes) and the store (iTMS) software on the device itself, then throw in a wireless interface and a swappable battery pack. Oh yeah will your at it, it would be nice if it could run FreeBSD and double as a cappuccino maker too :)

Re: It looks bland.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah but to give 'em their dues, that does play Ogg Vorbis.

Re: It looks bland.

[j79]

Visiting the link you mentioned, the one thing that REALLY stood out to me was the "Sweet Sounds" image.

Did they pluck that from a "$19.99 -500,000 clip arts + 10,000 Fonts" 8 Disc CD-ROM collection from 1998?!?!

As far as the player goes - reminds me of an iRiver. Except, with the center "strip" wider.

picture of Paule Mercer

[hedred]

Put a picture of a hot Korean chick on the screen instead of Paul Mercer. That will help sales.

Stupid PR piece.

[dr.badass]

The story they're trying to give you is "Samsung hired the brains behind the iPod", when really, the story is "Samsung hired a guy who founded the company that provided the OS on the early generation iPod, but who hasn't actually worked for Apple since 1994".

i.e., they want you to think that this means Samsung is going to kill the iPod, when really it just means they're desperate.

The iPod's interface is great, sure, but if it takes hiring this particular guy for them to come up with a better one, that's just sad. The only mention in the article is that the Z5's interface has "transparency effects". I'm sure that's going to make the difference.

Re:Stupid PR piece.

[Thrudheim]

I am often skeptical about articles from this author, John Markoff, concerning Apple. He often seems to go out of his way to tout competing products over Apple's, or just try to make Apple look bad. For example, he was the one who wrote the article, "Michael Dell Should Eat His Words, Apple Chief Suggests." In this article, Jobs did not say anything so confrontational. He only pointed out how Apple had passed Dell in market cap, noted that this may not last (it didn't), and marked this as a milestone given that Dell had one said Apple should be closed down. Although I know the headline was probably not his doing, the article still tried to make a confrontation where there wasn't one.

Re:Stupid PR piece.

[jcr]

The iPod's interface is great, sure, but if it takes hiring this particular guy for them to come up with a better one, that's just sad.

The funny thing is, Paul Mercer isn't responsible for the iPod's UI. That was done in-house at Apple, by a group headed by Jeff Robbin (now a VP in the Applications group).

-jcr

Re: It looks bland.

[Professor_UNIX]

The YP-Z5 plays MP3, WMA, WMA-DRM10, JPEG and OGG Vorbis formats.

Heh, you're right! Not many players out there support OGG Vorbis... I wonder if it'll do FLAC as well. Seems like an iPod killer for open source geeks. It says it supports all the popular music formats, but it doesn't support AAC or AAC-DRM files. I would think DRM'd AAC files are pretty popular with over a billion of them out there from iTunes Music Store.

Holy Shit!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

There will always be IDIOTS who will REFUSE to accept reality --- the reality that GOOG could be another ENRON...

Sad, sad, day

iTunes Default Codec

[Damek]

That all sounds well and good, but does it play all the music that Joe & Jane Q Public has ripped with iTunes? No? They'd have to rip it again to something else? Then why would they want it?

Re:ogg vorbis, but no AAC

[ernst_mulder]

But it doesn't support any AAC, DRMmed or not.

[All my self-encoded music is in AAC 224kbps (chosen after many listening tests).]

2, 4, 6, maybe 8? Who needs it?!?

[webagogue]

I realize I am likely in the minority overall DAP purchasers, but I am really disappointed at how crowded the lower capacity market is compared to the 30+ gig market. Come on, guys! Give me a decent iPod competitor at 60GB (because my Rio Karma is getting long in the tooth).

Re:2, 4, 6, maybe 8? Who needs it?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about a Nomad? I hear it's supposed to have more space than an iPod.

Re:2, 4, 6, maybe 8? Who needs it?!?

[ROOK*CA]

Come on, guys! Give me a decent iPod competitor at 60GB (because my Rio Karma is getting long in the tooth).

Gee, how about er..um a 60GB IPOD ! I hear it's got nearly as many features and is quite close in quality and price to a 60GB IPOD:)

Re:2, 4, 6, maybe 8? Who needs it?!?

[fartymenams]

How about a 60GB iPod with Rockbox on it so you can have gapless playback and FLAC support like you do on your Karma?

Re:2, 4, 6, maybe 8? Who needs it?!?

[webagogue]

Yeah.. that sound was the point rushing over your head. Thanks for playing. Buh-bye.

Free Beer

[Windsinger]

Link to non gestapo site pls?

PlayForSure Means

[cab15625]

I ForSureWontBuy

Sorry Samsung, but if you buy into this "standard" you will be locking yourself out of a certain portion of the market. You are betting that the RIAA and MS can legally generate not only a monopoly for themselves, but something more like a protection racket. Unfortunately, it looks like a safe bet at the moment.

The ipod killer isn't an ipod

[xtal]

It's an ipod-factor device with a hard drive, and the whole front of the thing is a screen. It's got 802.11 built in, and has slick, idiot-proof syncing and maybe PTP functionality.

It plays music, videos, and doesn't do much else - but has a programming interface available. Perhaps a wheel on the side. It's no thicker than the current ipod, and if at all possible, it's much thinner.

Hey, Palm. This is opportunity. Knock?

Re:The ipod killer isn't an ipod

[Anonymous Coward]

Palm is not available at this time, please leave a message and they might get back to you when they pull their heads out of their arses. Beeeeep.

Re:The ipod killer isn't an ipod

[ikejam]

oh something like... http://www.palm.com/us/products/mobilemanagers/lif edrive/ ?

Re:The ipod killer isn't an ipod

[xtal]

Try putting that thing in your pocket.

Price

[Raithmir]

So it's going to be a player that looks similar, but doesn't have the software/connectivity of the iPod, and for the same or higher price than a nano. Hmmm, I'm no apple fanboy, but I'd choose the nano every time. If it were to offer all that at a cheaper price, then it might do some damage to the iPod sales.

Why was this story downgraded?

[Tedium Unleased]

Wasn't it a main article at first? I guess it's not 100% flattering to Apple.

What is...

[hummassa]

this "iTunes" I keep reading about? Is it some sort of amaroK-like digital audio player, that can play virtually every digital audio format, shuffle my music collection in a variety of ways, show me the album covers, lyrics and info about the band, beyond playing podcasts?

Re:What is...

[marcosdumay]

If I understand it well, the killer feature of the iTunes is that it manages the musics that will go into the iPod. So, the users don't have to think about what musics they'll carry.

That means that the iPod is better because of the iTunes, not that the iTunes excels in any way. So, for the people that doesn't have an iPod, it doesn't make any difference.

Well, that is my case, and I'll surely try amaroK if I can find it at Debian.

Re:What is...

[Blakey Rat]

iTunes can download TV shows. And runs on OS X.

So there! Nyah nyah!

(Seriously, who cares about these "my penis [Linux software] is bigger than your penis" posts? Who gives a shit? iTunes is virtually the only music player software I've found that doesn't look like crap and has enough features to keep me happy. If you like Amarok better, fine! But don't make it sound like I'm some kind of idiot for liking iTunes.)

Re:What is...

[CottonEyedJoe]

>If I understand it well, the killer feature of the iTunes is that it manages the musics that will go into the iPod

Youre making the same mistake countless others have made when analyzing apple products. Interestingly, the same mistake Samsung is making with the Z5. Apple isnt about a "killer feature". You can take any single aspect of any Apple product and find a comparable or better implementation somewhere else. What makes Apple products so great is the total package. Its not the ONE thing thats so great its that EVERYTHING is very good and works together beautifully.

Re:What is...

[2nd Post!]

If you really want, amaroK, released in 2003, is more like iTunes, released in 2001, than iTunes is like amaroK, though there isn't any immediate 'cloning' going on.

Of course if you use Linux, you wouldn't have access to iTunes.

Re:What is...

[IntergalacticWalrus]

amaroK is really a clone of iTunes. IMHO amaroK is now superior to iTunes though. (I'm thinking about buying a Mac and moving out of Linux, and if there's one app I'm going to miss, it's definitely amaroK.)

Re:GOOGLE -- Insider Trading ;(

[Anonymous Coward]

What goes up, must come down at some point. You sound surprised...

Re: It looks bland.

[lowrydr310]

It looks like yet another off-brand MP3 player that's extremely late to the table. The way I look at it is that if you want to compete with the iPod, you're going to have to sell something significantly cheaper and offer the same features. I'd guess the majority of iPod consumers would choose the iPod even if it costs more, or if it had less memory and cost the same as the imitator. Just think about all the little kids and teenagers asking their parents for gifts. None of them are going to ask for a "Samsung Z5" - they all want their white iPods or nanos with pink and green silicone sleeves.

INCONCEIVABLE!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm just going to have to find myself a new giant!

hang on - vista

[RMH101]

MS Vista's out this year. Who knows how much "push" the PFS/portable media etc thing is going to get given by the OS and MS marketing? MP3 players are like browsers: people have their favourites, but they're "disposable" and it wouldn't surprise me if the MS one ends up a defacto standard just because they have a large userbase and can push for it by making it integrate better with their OS...Perhaps a PFS-compatible media player will "just work" much like iTunes and the iPod did...if it does, a lot of people who've not converted to digital music might well choose WMA rather than MP3 or AAC...

exactly...but

[RMH101]

I'd conjecture that a device that's produced in league with MS and PFS is probably going to have a pretty tight integration into Vista. This might be like Netscape vs Internet Explorer all over again...

Innovative?

[masklinn]

Excuse me, but what the hell has ever been "innovative" in the iPod? iPod is not about innovation, it's about user experience, ease of use, streamlined and beautiful piece of electronics, not about "innovation".

The first iPod was not innovative, the iPod micro was not innovative, the iPod Shuffle would not have been innovative 2 years before it was released, the video iPod was obsolete a year before it was released at least (innovation-wise). The iPod has never been about innovation, creating a product "as innovative as the iPod" means being years behind everyone technology-wise, it means having to care about the user experience, it means having to appeal to the masses, it means working for the lowest common denominator. And I wouldn't trust samsung to manage that in a million year.

Re:Innovative?

[ROOK*CA]

it means having to care about the user experience, it means having to appeal to the masses, it means working for the lowest common denominator.

Which if I'm not mistaken is pretty "innovative" in this day and age.... sort of like a VCR that your grandma can program (which apparently was something that was beyond the aggragate engineering talent available to the VCR "industry").

Re:Innovative?

[geoffspear]

Regardless of whether you call the iPod "innovative", I think we can all agree that creating a product just like the iPod using the same designer is probably the least "innovative" thing Samsung could possibly do.

Copying an innovative product isn't innovation. Copying a product that wasn't really all that innovative in the first place is just dumb. Either way, Samsung loses.

Re:Innovative?

[afidel]

The iPod was the first pocketable high capacity mp3 player, that was definitly innovative. Beyond that the user interface was 10x better than anything else on the market so I would call it innovative. So, other than the two most important things about the iPod it's not innovative =)

Don't We Outsource Programmers?

[GaryPatterson]

The iPod is not a software device only - the hardware is a big part of its success.

It doesn't take a genius to write the software for the iPod. It's well-written, yes, but my Nano has crashed a couple of times, so it's far from perfect.

The genius of the iPod comes from the hardware - the feel of the device when you first touch it, the click wheel that controls the menus so easily and intuitively (I've seen people learn to use the iPod is ten seconds from a standing start). The software is important, but the hardware is where the genius is.

Oh, and there's iTunes and the music store. They're good too!

Samsung employed the wrong person. They wanted Johnathan Ives, not some developer.

Re:Don't We Outsource Programmers?

[jdbartlett]

I agree. And first impressions on the Z5's looks?

http://www.samsunghq.com/content/view/183/5/

It sure is ugly..

Re:Don't We Outsource Programmers?

[pintomp3]

if someone gets the software right, we say it's the hardware. if someone gets the hardware right, we say it's the interface. if someone gets the interface right, we say it's the software. and on and on. the ipod has many strong points, like a well-rounded baskball team (and a little hyped like duke perhaps?). but it's straight fanboyism to always say "you got good shot-blocking? well it's not about blocks, it's about 3 pointers. you got good 3 pointers, well it's about rebounding."

Re:Don't We Outsource Programmers?

[Trogre]

The genius of the iPod comes from the hardware :%s/hardware/marketing/g

Re:Don't We Outsource Programmers?

[GaryPatterson]

Oh, someone who thinks the iPod is just a marketing thing.

How quaint.

Re:Don't We Outsource Programmers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, another iPod fanboy.

How annoying :)

Re:Don't We Outsource Programmers?

[GaryPatterson]

I wasn't a fan of the iPod until I used one.

I've seen people master them in under a minute, and navigate around the interface within ten seconds of picking one up. Non-technical people too, not just techs.

I'm hardly a fanboy, but I am happy to say that they're the best device out there today.

Sadly, it's fashionable in certain circles to write off the iPod as marketing hype rather than a really well-designed product. It's fair enough to criticise it on missing features (built-in radio would be nice, as would built-in ability to 'suck' images from a digital camera), but pointless if it's mere snobbery.

Re:Don't We Outsource Programmers?

[John Muir]

Quite right.

And I hate to play the spelling Nazi (usually I don't give a shit) but it's Jonathon Ive not Ives. Undoubtedly the most important person at Apple today besides Steve Job! :p

Don't call me tiny.

[ArtfulDodger75]

Does it have to have that picture of Mr. Sulu on it, or can that be changed?

Mea culpa

[PTS Tech]

Sorry, "a +1" should have read "up"...

It's already a failure, and here's why:

[Anonymous Coward]

Samsung is hoping that the Z5 will work smoothly with the range of subscription music services that support the Microsoft PlaysForSure digital music standard.

They're "hoping" it will work smoothly? When one buys an iPod, they have no worries about if it will work smoothly with the iTMS. "Plays for sure," indeed.

Re: It looks bland.

[aichpvee]

Here's the real iPod killer for open source geeks. Well, as long as the video playback features aren't important to you since it only does 15fps in some "JetVideo" format, wtf that is.

They've also got a newer model geared toward video that looks pretty sweet, but it also seems to have lost the FLAC support and costs almost twice as much.

Direct links

[Compile 'em all]

Here are direct links to the product on Samsung's website:

(4 GB) http://www.samsung.com/Products/DigitalAudioPlayer /MP3Players/YP_Z5ABXAA.asp

(2 GB) http://www.samsung.com/Products/DigitalAudioPlayer /MP3Players/YP_Z5QBXAA.asp

Re:Design...maybe not...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the iPod has succeeded not because of design, but because it's a complete end-to-end solution.

It takes what is a pretty geeky thing and makes it comprehensible for humans, with a way you can pretty easily buy music and have it wind you up on your MP3 player.

Anybody who can't replicate the end-to-end ease of use of the iPod is making just another MP3 player, and the shelves are already jam-packed with those. At the Fry's near me, you have half an aisle of iPod, iPod accessories, iPod cables, iPod cupholders, cases, speakers, adaptors, everything else. The other half of the aisle is full of all the other MP3 players, and no brand-specific accessories.

And while I'm at it, if Samsung is going to clone the iPod, I wonder if they'll make the EQ sound like ass, make it cut off VBR MP3s before the end and make the stupid clock drain the battery in a couple days - in the spirit of the cloning exercise, of course!

Re:What about the PSP?

[jagilbertvt]

Who'd you buy this for again? Because, initially it sounded like you bought it for your daughter, but it would appear that you purchased it for your own use.

Mp3 player

[Deliveranc3]

Cheap Storage + Cheap Controller + Fairly Cheap Battery = MASSIVE EXPENSIVE THINGIE!

Can someone explain to me why Mp3 players are so frikkin expensive?

Is Mp3 like 10 bln. to liscence?

Re:Mp3 player

[zpok]

um, the same reason every finished product is expensive? Duh...

the name on the front needs to change

[bitt3n]

"ipod" has the same elegant simplicity as the device. "samsung" sounds like what a snake would say if it sneezed.

Re:GOOGLE -- Insider Trading ;(

[NoData]

by Anonymous Coward ...
Don't say I didn't warn you.

Oh don't worry. When ths whole google charade goes to hell, we'll all know, the whole world will remember, and look back with regret and chagrin on the fact that you, yes you, Some Anonymous Coward Guy on this Nerd News Website That Like The Really Geeky IT Guy at My Work Swears Is Really Good, fairly warned us, nay, verily beseeched us, each and every one of us. Yes, you , you stepped forward, stepped up like a man to say, "I am not afraid of ridicule and derision, I am not afraid of accountability and responsibility. For I must do What's Right, and tell them all the Truth...on this I shall stake my Honor and my Good Name." And, truly, your Good Name will be on the lips of many fools when the unraveling of google comes. "O!" they will cry, "We were so blind! So deaf! What fools were we to not heed the sage and stern warnings of that kind and wise teacher, Mr. Anonymous Coward!"

"When he prophesied that BSD is dying, we did not listen!
When he foretold the second coming of SCO, we did not heed!
When he foresaw Apple's imminent demise, we turned our backs!
And now, when his fearful vision portends the certain unraveling of Google, we,
    like mindless lemmings, pay neither mind nor heed, but march
    ceasely off the windswept crags of our insolent hubris
    and toward our certain doom!

Save us, Mr. Anonymous Coward! Save us from our ignorance! Save us
        from ourselves!"

Oh, yeah. You'll show them all.

Re:What about the PSP?

[The_DoubleU]

Sorry.
I can't buy that or my geek license will be revoked.
Sony boycott you see.

No one's said this yet?

[trudyscousin]

"The Z5, shaped like a stick of gum..."

And in the device's promotional materials, there's an asterisk that points to: "Do not chew Z5," right?

Re:No one's said this yet?

[Blakey Rat]

I don't know where the hell the article writer buys gum, but this thing is twice the size of a NANO. Now a Nano isn't huge, but it's a lot bigger than a stick of gum. (The Shuffle is gum-sized, but this isn't even close to Shuffle territory-- it has a 1.something inch screen.)

Re: It looks bland.

[amliebsch]

I would think DRM'd AAC files are pretty popular with over a billion of them out there from iTunes Music Store.

Perhaps, but it's a moot point as Apple will not license the use of their patented DRM.

The Brains Behind iPod - Ives, et. al - and Jobs

[bstarrfield]

So, Samsung hired away a good software developer. Possibly an excellent developer / designer. But the real brains behind iPod are Jonathon Ive's design team, and Steve Job's and the business team that market the iPod. Somehow I doubt it'd be easy to steal them.

And PlaysForSure is so damn Orwellian that it's well - so damn Orwellian. I'd hope the Times would do a better job explaining the joys of MS's attempt to force us to a subscription model (or at least away from Apple.

Re: It looks bland.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, how dare they do compete. The other day I saw two chairs that were almost identical, but made by different companies, I wonder who ripped of who there...

Models 1 through 4 were not entirely successful.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Z5 is much better. Humans need no longer die on the way to the record store. Um, just be careful when trying to disconnect it though...

YAiPK

[Swift2001]

Yet Another iPod Killer. It looks good enough, though you can't see any "innovative" things about it, whatever they are. Looks like a Soviet nano. A little thick, a lot of bumpy ridges. But the real killer is this: Who needs a subscription store? With music that stops playing when you stop paying? What difference does it make which store you go to, when they all have the same music? The iTunes Music Store is bigger than the others, and you can find more obscure cuts on it than elsewhere. I would love it if all devices could connect. I would love it if there was no copy protection, and if it cost .50 a track. But until then, I've never seen another player that comes anywhere near the iPod.

Microsoft the great buzz killer...

[irritating environme]

A recreation of my thought process while reading the header:

Neat! A new mp3 player!

Cool! They're putting design effort into it!

Hey! Small and good battery life!

Microsoft? (cue skidding sound in background)

Next article.

The great advantage of a Samsung...

[jesterpilot]

is it has no "don't steal music" sticker on it.

Re:The great advantage of a Samsung...

[klang]

another great advantage: it will have no "don't chew on Z5" on it either!

Great Job Samsung!

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember a couple of years ago when the iPod Mini came out. I was shopping for an MP3 player and decided to "kick the tires" on the new snazzy iPod Mini.

Although many of the MP3 players I tried that day had excellent features, when I experienced the INTERFACE on the iPod I was iSold. The INTERFACE was absolutely breathtaking. I was so overcome by the iPod's INTERFACE I actually wet my pants. The apple store employees assured me that I wasn't the only person to urinate when experiencing the INTERFACE of the iPod.

Samsung has brilliantly decided to take away iPod's ONLY competetive advantage - its INTERFACE. I will try out the new Z5 when it is available because it will be the only mp3 player to match iPod's INTERFACE. This time I'll be sure to wear a diaper.

It has never been about the hardware!

[Slappytron]

When will Samsung and Creative learn? It's NOT all about the hardware! There's no chicken-or-egg argument, you have to have both the chicken (the digital player) AND the egg (the software and content) to succeed in this market. There are a lot of fine players that are as good or better than the iPod, but none of the music services utilizing WMA can compete with iTunes.

The problem? This whole music subscription model. It doesn't work, because it puts the concerns of the industry ahead of the concerns of the customer. Ask 10 people, and at least 9 will say they'd prefer to own their music. This whole licensing model is based on business to business dealings - it's not going to fly with everyday consumers. Say you subscribe to Napster for a year, you spend about $100 bucks, and left with NOTHING! With iTunes, spend that same $100 bucks and have the music for a lifetime.

Until these WMA content providers wise up and adopt the pay-to-own model, it doesn't matter what kind of player Samsung makes. Give the customers what they want and you'll succeed, as Apple has.

Re:neatish kinda iPod has the Quality Assurance

[aisnota]

> He didn't do the grunt work on it, but I don't think there's much question that the iPod is Jobs' creation at least as much as anyone else's.

Bingo, it is like his baby, he made sure it worked for him. Every iPod you buy has been refined by someone that gave a damn, maybe selfishly or maybe for you, but you still get the benefit!

Jobs is Quality Assurance incarnate.

Wozniak also chips in his two cents worth:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM .20060223.wxapple0223/BNStory/Front/home

--

Re:What makes an iPod an iPod is not the programmi

[tpgp]

The programming/programmer isn't what made the iPod an iPod. When I turn on one of my 3 iPods, I don't say "man, that coder sure r00leZ!".

Something to do with style, quality, user interface, ...

What? You don't think user interface has anything to do with programming?

From TFA

Samsung executives said they had engaged Mr. Mercer and Iventor to design a user interface for the Z5 because they were hoping to offer an ease of use that matched that of the iPod,

I'd also say that style & quality in a mp3 player are also heavily influenced by programming.

Re:What makes an iPod an iPod is not the programmi

[MrCopilot]

When I turn on one of my 3 iPods, I don't say "man, that coder sure r00leZ!".

You Really Should, you know. That Design & UI isn't all in the hardware.

The bottom line is, in my opinion..

[algerath]

Ipod=mp3 player to a very large percentage of people. I saw a guy at work who had another brand player, someone asked what it was, he told them it was a (insert brand/model, i don't remember) they get a blank look, he says it's like an Ipod they say "oh, ok". I can't think of any other product that has this effect to this degree. The earlier post mentioned Kleenex, Kleenex has Puffs. Coke has Pepsi. Legos has Mega blocks. To most mp3 player=Ipod. How many other players can you identify by the earbuds? I can't with any others. It would be very hard to beat this even with a far better player. I think the only one that can kill the Ipod is Apple itself, if it does something really stupid. I don't see that happening any time soon.

Tee-hee-hee

[jav1231]

These guys are a riot! I mean, great anecdote!...no wait, they're serious?
If you own Samsung stock you must be so proud of watching money thrown out on this venture. If only rival companies had gone after the OS market with such frivolty, we might have had stronger alternatives by now.
OT, I know, blah blah...

Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

That gives me reason enough to not buy the ipod.

Ugly

[wonkavader]

Compared to the Nano, this is just not attractive.

So I'm not buying THAT for the wife.

And for me, it would need to offer something new, something I really want -- playing ogg vorbis, but limiting me to windows, giveth and then taketh away any reason to buy this over the Nano.

Shaped like a stick of gum?

[Anonymous Coward]

What, rectangular, you mean?

Now THAT's innovative!

Did I miss something...

[farnsaw]

Did I miss something or did the article not say that Mr. Meyer left apple in 1994? He seems to have worked on Mac System 7 OS, created a handheld device running Mac OS, and then was put on the newton team. It did not say anything about being the brain behind the iPod.

ipod innovative?

[ronsta]

Really, on a scale from one to ten, the ipod was a 4 of innovation. It was the marketing campaign behind the product, and the incremental improvements over ipod generations that really made it a good/smart product.

A real disruptive technology: a portable mp3 player with 30 hours of battery life, bluetooth for wireless headphones, with a powerful enough of a UI and cellular access, allowing you to purchase songs as you hear them. Imagine if it could hear 5-10 seconds of a song, identify it by recording it into the product, and then it will download it for you, automatically billing it to your credit card or the debit points you have.

You'll notice I did not include that it should be a cell phone. Sometimes, a product doesn't have to do 80 things, but rather 1 or 2 very well.

Y.A.W.N.

[pascalpp]

Yet Another Wannabe Nano

Mercer Not Brain Behind IPod

[MojoRilla]

The brains behind the IPod (or at least the IPod software), if it can be boiled down to one person, is Jeff Robbin. He co-wrote SoundJam MP MP3 player, which became ITunes, and led the team who developed the firmware for the IPod.

Paul Mercer, and Pixo, created the user interface library, nothing more. As developers know, having a good user interface library is important, but doesn't really effect the elegance or usability of the user interface.

innovation?

[SashaMan]

the new Samsung device is just as innovative

I think they don't know what innovative means, either. Basically, the device looks like a copy of the iPod nano. Sure, they mention that the software has some improvements like transparency, but being a good copy of a market leader is pretty much the opposite of innovation.

Re:innovation?

[fbjon]

... being a good copy of a market leader is pretty much the opposite of innovation.

It's called "competition", and we're supposed to be embracing it.

C'mon, open source DRM?!!

[Arru]

Why? There's no need for DRM to be proprietary. Frankly given the generally better quality of open-source encryption technology, I'd imagine you could write a more effective DRM suite with open-source tools than with proprietary tools. ... The security of any cryptographic system (including DRM) is and must be in the keys, not in public ignorance of the encryption scheme.

While your statements after "no need for DRM to be proprietary" are factually correct, it misses the point in the case of DRM. The content holder is not protecting the transmission against third parties, but against the receiver. The only way to go with DRM (unlike information security) is security through obscurity, which we all know does not work. It is from these two conditions that it follows that no DRM scheme is uncrackable.

In the long term this is good news, because it reduces the likelihood of the 1984-ish DRM society we all fear. In the short term it does not matter because the content companies will try to f-up things for a while before they realize this.

ogg vorbis rocks

[twitter]

Not sure anyone cares much about OGG. sure, it's good, but not radically so. It doesn't really support much new, and it doesn't integrate well with current media player apps (yes, that's iTunes and the iPod). I haven't heard anyone in my vicinity (university) ever talk about OGG at all. I take that as a hint.

OGG typically takes 2/3 of the space a comparable mp3 does and is free of licensing and patent problems. If you want compressed music you want OGG.

As for media player integration, I see things the other way. Most available devices don't integrate well with my choice of free media player. There are many that are harder to get that I'd like.

The Z5 is not one of them, despite ogg support. As an AC pointed out, it uses MTP, a crappy M$ transfer protocol, which is still a pain in the ass.

Works for Sure is starting to mean just the opposite for me. If you want to see a real flop, look at the New Napster and others trying to make a buck for Bill. There you will find billions of dollars worth of hints. People don't want DRM, they want stuff that works. WMP has a well deserved horrible reputation.

In the mean time, I'm stuck converting ogg to mp3 or keeping everything in both formats for my cheap portable music device. That's not too big a deal and I can wait.

Re:ogg vorbis rocks

[IntergalacticWalrus]

Most available devices don't integrate well with [amaroK]

You might want to reconsider that. 1.4 beta1 features completely redesigned iPod integration, and it's truly awesome. I'm still trying to find something it doesn't support compared to iTunes. Oh, and there's now on-the-fly transcoding, which is a godsend to me, my iPod nano and my FLAC-encoded ripped music collection.

Not stealing

[Anonymous Coward]

How many times we have to tell you people. It's not stealing. It's copyright infringement.

Ha Ha LOL......

[Anonymous Coward]

"There will always be IDIOTS who will REFUSE to accept reality --- the reality that GOOG could be another ENRON...

Sad, sad, day"
                                  [quote]

Said "idiot" parent.... 3rd stage ---> DENIAL.... LOL

no.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because despite the article. Despite what Paul Mercer will tell you, Paul Mercer had nothing to do with the iPod.

Paul Mercer had already left Pixo before Apple licensed it. The work on the Pixo code was done by Mike Neil, Jeff Miller, Andy Grignon and Chris Wysocki (I think I'm missing one more here). Jeff, Andy and Chris work at Apple now, Mike Neil works at Microsoft.

Additionally, Paul didn't use the Pixo code in making this new player. And I'm not sure he even has the rights to do so.

If you can't tell, I was close enough to the development of the iPod to know what happened.

Re:no.

[bill_mcgonigle]

and Chris Wysocki (I think I'm missing one more here)

Mike Wysocki from over at Pixar? They modeled the click-wheel after him.

mtp iRiver fix

[cab15625]

The whole "iRiver only works with MTP" thing seems to be a north american phenomenon. If you google hard enough you can find a bios flash from outside the MS-RIAA zone of control that will allow you to enable the USB mass storage behavior these devices SHOULD come with. I'm sorry, I can't remember where I found it now, but they do exist. Still, if I hadn't gotten mine as a Christmas presant, I think I would have kept the money out of iRiver/Bill's pockets and in mine (or my mom's actually). It does play ogg very nicely now though.

Re:mtp iRiver fix

[noamsml]

Cool! Thanks, I finally got the iRiver to mount under Linux as a normal UMS device. For all those too lazy to google:

http://www.mtp-ums.net/

So they hired Steve Jobs?

[HappyUserPerson]

I work in the industry and guess what.. One creative genius does not matter. I would say between 1-2% of the people who choose to work in the programming/graphic design industry are true creative geniuses. Not a lot of people, but plenty for a company who has 100's or 1000's of employees (or even just 5 or 10 employees, but has had a few years to filter though them).

However, having a person like Steve Jobs (or Bill Gates), that have the risk taking prowess, the ingenuity (and knowledge of the business) not to make mistakes too often, and to know how to recover from the ones they make, is key, and VERY rare. There is a reason these people are million/billionaires.

Yes, you will get a completely innovation from one creative genius vs. the other, but with competent leadership it always means one thing: they will build wealth by building a product that fits a need.

Somebody's got some 'splainin' to do..

[Moofie]

"by using new software that mimics what is found in powerful PC's."

Say what?

Z4??

[SoumyaRay]

Z4 was sent back in time to destroy the creator of the first iPod.

PlaysForSure

[Vadim Makarov]

sounds like quite an achievement now that we are all used to DRM and proprietary standards, I suppose?

Good riddance

[Illserve]

So this is the same guy who designed a device that runs on a single platform, is fairly simple, and yet manages to crash periodically in a way that requires you to *drain the battery* to reset it.

Pardon me if I don't stand up and applaud.

The Ipod is an amazing piece of hardware and haptic engineering, but the software is pretty flakey.

Re:What makes an iPod an iPod is not the programmi

[rsborg]

What? You don't think user interface has anything to do with programming?

That comment would make sense if Samsung had some pre-existing cachet for non-software style. Unfortunately, they are far behind Apple in that area as well as in in software usability. So just getting the software part ignores the other parts... and the GP poster really just meant that programming is ONE part of the overall design, but if samsung borks the other parts, it won't make much difference.

IMHO, none of the product design really matters so much when iTunes (the app) is so strong a feature for the iPod. A player without a VERY strong sync software (or is not recognized by the #1 jukebox software) has a hard fight ahead for it.

Greatness doesn't always happen again and again

[mytec]

Sometimes greatness in one person (this programmer) because of the people around him. Just because he nailed something right the first time, doesn't mean it can happen again. Further, the iPod was a group effort.

For example, look at any individual in Led Zeppelin. While they all contributed to a group effort (much like the iPod) none of the individuals went on to have the fame they achieved as part of Led Zeppelin.

E aí Marcos, beleza?

[hummassa]

surely, amaroK is at (in?) Debian -- I have the "latest and greatest" (prepackaged for Dapper & Breezy, with all the goodies), but I'm sure Woody (and Etch) has it, too. The thing is: I have heard a lot of iTunes, but I surely don't know anyone that has it. Obviously, I don't see a Mac since the TiBook days -- as you know, they are waaaaay too expensive down here in Brasil (and here in BH, we only have One Mac store, and it's not in a mall or in the commerce region of Savassi -- it's quite out of the way). But I know a number of people that has iPods, and I don't know if they have iTunes (and, to boot, iTMS does not work down here in Brasil, does it?)

Back to iTunes vs. amaroK -- the cReative capitalizatioN wars -- AFAIK amaroK does manage your digital audio player, too... and it's not a question of it being "linux software", it's the fact that many Free Software thingies are better than the Proprietary Software thongies. (No, I'm not saying that the Gimp is better than Photoshop, we still lose on that one -- but I surely prefer k3b to Nero etc etc)

iRiver + Rockbox

[Anonymous Coward]

The way to go is a supported iRiver HD-based player plus the OPEN SOURCE Rockbox firmware. OGG, Flac, Apple Lossless, Musepack, Wav, Dolby Digital AC3, MP2, MP3, Wavpack playback - all supported now. AAC, MID and MOD are being worked on. For nerds, nothing less will suffice.

http://www.rockbox.org/

FLASH

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't apple buy up something like 50% of samsung's flash memory output last year?

So, iTunes == BitTorrent ??

[hummassa]

You know, it can download TV shows, runs on OSX?!

Now this: "Seriously, who cares about these "my penis [Linux software] is bigger than your penis" posts? Who gives a shit? iTunes is virtually the only music player software I've found that doesn't look like crap and has enough features to keep me happy. If you like Amarok better, fine! But don't make it sound like I'm some kind of idiot for liking iTunes." Ohboy.

You took me so wrong: I was being serious, not sarcastic, and I apologize if I made you feel like a fool for iTunes. I read a lot about iTunes, but I don't have access to it: none of my closest friends use it (not even the iPod owners), iTMS does not work in Brasil AFAIK. And, from the screenshots, I could only define iTunes as a "crippled amaroK that can play Fair". I am of the opinion that iTunes and amaroK look remarkably similar (compare the screenshots pointed to, and take in consideration that the amaroK screenshot is in the "full glory" mode -- it can me far more discreet [and is by default]) and that my (Free, not linux) personal choice of software is quite good.

Now, I asked, and noone answered: what's so special about iTunes? it's a fair and honest question -- and I doubt the answer would take me away from amaroK anyway (you know, KDE machines and stuff).

Re:So, iTunes == BitTorrent ??

[NMerriam]

It's hard to say how (if at all) iTunes is different from/similar to amaroK -- like most Apple software and hardware, the screenshots look pretty but the Apple appeal really isn't about cosmetics, it's about making things work elegantly. You can drag things from one place to another and they do what you'd expect. What was key to iTunes is that it was the first major audio player to treat music as a database, but ALSO make that database totally usable by the average person who has no clue what a database is. Tell it to play all the blues songs from the 60s that you like better than average, and it will do it. When you add music in the future, it automatically updates your ipod and your playlists. It just works (though it does require good ID3 tags on music to do all the magic, which was quite a pain for those of us raised on WinAmp .m3u style playlists and manual file organization, but worth the editing).

I suspect most other audio players have adopted this mechanic nowadays, but when iTunes started getting popular, it really was the only one that did it and wasn't totally geeky in operation (like Musicmatch, etc). I remember when I gave up my Rio for an iPod and was annoyed at not being able to just drag music onto it. Now I consider dragging music files around positively cro-magnon -- iTunes has all my music, I've told it what I like and how I want it. I just turn it on and it takes care of all the mechanics, whether I'm listening through my home stereo over the network or refreshing my iPod.

Battery life isn't everything

[Asakura_Joe]

Hey, I love long-life Lithium ion batteries as much as the next guy, but I would love to see an option for these devices to run on AAA batteries instead, even if means they last for a shorter amount of time. Why? I travel a lot. I try to visit a new country every year, and most countries do their own thing when it comes to their power grid. What this means is that if I want to bring along an iPod, I would have to buy (and carry) a power adapter for the battery charger for whatever country I'm going to - and at 1+ countries per year, this adds up to a lot of adapters over time! The other major reason I've never wanted an iPod or similar device is that they have micro drives as opposed to flash drives. I don't need moving parts (even if they are fairly rugged these days) when I'm in a dusty, wet, or freezing environment. Have any other outdoors-ey types had good experiences with micro-drives? Is this really a non-issue? Until Sony or Samsung offer a common battery version, I'm sticking with the smaller, solid-state MP3 player products.

Re:Battery life isn't everything

[Cid Highwind]

"Have any other outdoors-ey types had good experiences with micro-drives?"

My ipod doesn't hold up too well outdoors. If I take it above 11,000 feet, shake it, or let it get too cold, it starts making funny noises. Also, if I have a hard fall skiing or off a bike and it'll hang until I reformat and resync it (I suspect this means the microdrive's heads bounced off the platter and trashed part of the disc). The ipod's good for hiking or cycling on pavement, but if your choice of outdoors-ey activity involves high altitude, cold, vibration, or falling you might want to keep your flash-based player.

Then again, I see a lot of white earphones on the ski slopes so they must work for some people...

stole the wrong guy

[masada555]

It's not the programmer who made the ipod great. It's Jonathan Ive, the industrial designer. The Z5, even from the tiny picture in the NYT article, is not designed as well as the ipod. The materials are less engaging--those two types of metal finishes clash. Also, the symbols are weird--I *think* I can guess what the arrow means, but the "circle slash play pause" symbol is like wtf does *that* mean? Finally, the proportions are messy, just from eyeballing it. One reason that the ipod sells well it that it is aesthetically pleasing. The Z5 is not.

Samsung YP-T8X

[WeAreAllDoomed]

ironically, one of the reasons i bought samsung's most excellent YP-T8X is because it supported the open OGG format.

other nice features include accelerated fast-forward, time-out so you can listen as you go to sleep and not waste power, and auto-resume when you power off/on.

But does it support gapless playback?

[buddachile]

Let's hope so! I really don't understand why in this day and age it is rare to find a decent portable audio player that supports gapless playback. Geesh!

iPod is a two fold issue

[olddotter]

Its not just that the iPod is stylish, easy to use, and a good peice of engineering. Its also the iTunes software. I might buy a secondary non-Apple mp3 player, but it will HAVE to work with iTunes.

iTunes makes managing the transfer of songs so seemless and easy to use. I am an old time command line Unix geek, but to me iTunes is to MP3 management what http is to ftp.

non-compete clause?

[maccw]

I find it hard believe that Apple wouldn't have protected itself against intellectual property being used by an ex-employee to develop a competitive product.

Not really

[bogie]

Ogg is a solution in search of a problem that 99.99% of users don't have.

Re:Not really

[mabhatter654]

not really, OGG is the only "free" media format, true MP3 may be common but if you start selling music players, the patent owners WILL come after you to kill your business. They already have a new spec out and if you don't sign up for it too they will price the license so far out of reach you'll never be able to sell anything. The patents on vorbis [the mucic codex] were formally realeased to the coders OGG and licensed for use. It's really an issue at the core of what OSS is all about...it's a dis-service to discount what they're trying to do.

Re:Not really

[toddestan]

The original poster said:
It should be of more relevance to Slashdot readers that the player supports Ogg Vorbis according to its spec sheet.

Maybe you should brush up on your reading comprehension skills?

Geek friendly

[Trogre]

Most players in Samsungs latest generation can play Ogg Vorbis over an impressive range of bitrates.

That's the killer feature for me.

Speaking of compatibility...

[MacDork]

The reason the iPod does so well has a lot to do with compatibility. iTunes.app runs Windows and Mac. That is key. Before iTunes was ported, MusicMatch was the client for Windows. It sucked monkey balls, and as a result, the iPod was mainly a Mac user thing. I knew a few Windows people who owned them, but they all had problems because of the software-hardware interface. When iTunes.app was ported, the change was instant. People started buying iPods and music from iTMS in droves. The iPod became the MP3 player to have. So, does Samsunk have a decent app to go with that neat little player of theirs? Probably not.

You also have to consider the iPod as a platform. With so many people owning so many tunes encrypted with Fairplay, you're absolutely sunk in trying to get those folks to convert. Unless your player is twice as nice at half the price, your player must be compatible with Fairplay or else all those tunes must be purchased again, adding to the expense of the switch. Apple has faced this for all its history with the Mac OS, because even if their offering was better, switchers would be required to buy all new software to make the change. Hence no flood of switchers.

Since there's no way to offer twice as nice at half the price without eating a huge portion of the cost yourself, you must have Fairplay. That's why the RIAA wants Apple to license it, and that's why Apple will not. Finally, and most ironically, the very law that the RIAA and friends put into place in 1998 (DMCA) to maintain their iron grip on their music distribution monopoly is the key reason why the RIAA cannot simply reverse engineer Fairplay and retain their control of music distribution now. They've even started to consider unencrypted file schemes like watermarking so they can break Apple's lock on online music distribution. Of course, these schemes will ultimately fail, and the law they bought and paid for will be their own undoing.

Oh, and the final nail in the RIAA's coffin? Any band can get an album up on iTMS for about 20 bucks. Bands no longer have to give up their copyrights. They no longer have to sign terrible contracts or pay off million dollar loans. They no longer have to give up creative control and push to put out mediocre music to make quarterly numbers for some corporation. They just have to do what they like to do: Make music. Does Samsunk have all that in place? Nope.

It's beautiful. The RIAA labels are toast :-) Thank you Apple! Those guys deserve to wither and fade away after suing children and generally making an ass out of themselves at every opportunity. You've done us all a great favor. And to think... who would have ever believed, when the Beetles first sued Apple, that Apple really would become a record label :-D It's priceless.

Re:Speaking of compatibility...

[Kadin2048]

I think this is a pretty good analysis. Based on my personal recollection, most of my PC-using friends went from MusicMatch or WinAmp to iTunes as a music-management program, in many cases before they had iPods. The program itself was a massive selling feature; the iPod built on iTunes' reputation for ease-of-use.

If Samsung can't replicate this (and I haven't seen the state of other music players out there, but I'm not aware of many serious contenders to iTunes really) then they're probably screwed. The only thing I've played with is the new Napster music service client, and I can tell you it's worse than bad -- it gives me a headache.

The lack of a good library management app was what doomed several MP3 players that I investigated, pre-iPod. They all had fairly good hardware design, but it was obvious that the companies making them had decided that the software was an afterthought, something to be outsourced or bundled. Today, I think most of those companies are bankrupt and their pre-iPod footnotes will be nothing but footnotes because of their shortsightedness towards providing an integrated solution.

I don't really care whether Samsung succeeds or not, frankly as a Mac user I hope it and MS' DRM scheme both go down the tubes, but I hope that they have someone working on making some really good management software to run this whole thing. Otherwise, they might as well get comfortable with being Apple's memory supplier for the duration.

Re:Speaking of compatibility...

[IntergalacticWalrus]

Oh, and the final nail in the RIAA's coffin? Any band [tunecore.com] can get an album up on iTMS for about 20 bucks. Bands no longer have to give up their copyrights. They no longer have to sign terrible contracts or pay off million dollar loans. They no longer have to give up creative control and push to put out mediocre music to make quarterly numbers for some corporation. [...]

What about the DRM? Are independent artists on iTMS forced to use Apple's DRM? Can you tell Apple you don't want your own music to be crippled?

that article is incredibly wrong...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just ignore it.

Knauss never met Jobs, BTW. And PortalPlayer never went in front of Steve with a design. There was no iterative process with PortalPlayer and Steve, Tony Fadell, Jeff Robbin and Stan Ng were putting the device in front of Steve, not PortalPlayer. And when changes had to be made they were made by Apple employees and Pixo contractors, not PortalPlayer people.

The "PortalPlayer thought it would be a failure" thing is cover for why Knauss didn't see the project through. It is not true either. Knauss didn't see the project through for other reasons which I will not get into.

Re: It looks bland.

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh. Wow, you can view JPEGs on the 1.8" Color TFT-LCD. Judging by this picture it's 2-bit colour.

Yeah, open source it.

[Joseph_Daniel_Zukige]

Actually, not digital rights management, but network permissions management.

What we need is some way for me to put my family pics up and pass (non-identical) keys out to all my siblings and their cousins. (Auto-generate the keys against they user names they log into my site with, maybe?) With enough hackers working on it, we should be able to get something close to seamless functionality.

Then the MPAA and RIAA (sp?) or whoever could also use it, for whatever they want to use it for. Hackable? Who cares. It would give them the _feeling_ that they could keep control over their useless IP, and then they could start competing on who could give out free samples faster. (You know that's how it would end up.)

When it becomes clear that a workable system can be done without the DMCA and draconian copyright, Congress would probably quietly forget about it. (We'd rather they had the sense to repeal laws they realize should never have been made, but we know they always seem more interested in their version of the next big thing.)

Re:Yeah, open source it.

[arminw]

.....but network permissions management........

Handing out keys over the Internet works if most computes are connected thereto. That's why activation has worked for MSFT. If only say 25% of all computers were so connected, they'd need a lot of phone operators to give out keys. That would get expensive fast. It is not likely that every playback device, such as DVD players would be connected to the Internet in the foreseeable future, so such key distribution would not work.

As soon as the content creators learn, as they have in the past, that new tech means new opportunity to make $$$, DRM, just like software copy protection will die a quiet death and the DMCA with it. ITunes shows that millions of honest people are willing to pay a fair price for content that is accessible conveniently. The upcoming younger execs who will replace the old fogies now still running the music and movie business, will understand this and drop DRM entirely..

Re: It looks bland.

[soupdevil]

iPod killer? nice try. The battery life and sound quality are nice, but the inability to browse by genre, artist or album? Well, that's a death knell.

miso sandwich? (Maybe you mean goma?)

[Joseph_Daniel_Zukige]

Yuck.

Miso is not dolomite.

Hmm. Guess I'd better go home and try it before I diss it. I mean, I used to eat pickles on peanut butter. Probably soy miso since wheat or rice miso on bread seems kind of redundant.

Now, sesame paste (goma paste, or I think the Greeks call it tahini or something) is pretty good as a peanut butter substitute, especially with a bit of soy flour sprinkled on top.

One of these days, I suppose I should try natto as a sandwich spread.

Because YP-Z5AB really rolls off the ... oh wait.

[Kadin2048]

Kid: Mom, can I get a YP-Z5AB for Christmas?
Mom: What? What is that? No, you can't have a car.
Kid: It's this thing, that plays music. You know...
Mom: Like an iPod?
Kid: Yeah!
Mom: We'll see.

Later...the kid gets an iPod, because nobody can remember what the hell the other thing is named, two days before Christmas when they're trying to buy one.

Samsung already has better MP3 players

[peamasii]

I use the YH-J70 and it was cheaper than the equivalent iPod, plus it plays videos/radio and has some other cool extra features. The navigation interface is also better. Aside from all that, it also doesn't have some of the problems of the iPod (fragility, skipping, unwanted bootups, etc). So I think a newer Samsung will be even better than the iPods.

Re: It looks bland.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really, I wouldn't care about that at all. Make an m3u file for each album, sort the files into directories by artist and genre if for some reason you need such an idiotic thing (as if genre somehow matters, but maybe it does since your britney spears is in "pop" and your nsync is in "gay").

I'm still waiting for someone to give a reason to buy an ipod. Over-hyped, over-priced, and under-featured from what I can tell.