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The Latest iPod Assassination Attempt
Insani-CTO writes "David Pogue at the New York Times reviews Samsung's new Z5, the latest attempt at an 'iPod killer' He gives it a pretty favorable review, though doesn't quite count the Nano as dead quite yet. From the piece: 'The Z5, then, will not cause any discernible dip in iPod market share. It does, however, deserve to be a hit for Samsung. For someone who wants a Nano that's not a Nano, it's a close enough match in looks, sleekness, capacity and crystal-clear software design. In fact, if iPod didn't loom over every conversation as the screamingly obvious point of comparison, the Z5 could be the next little thing.'"
I guess I'm a Samsung fanboi, but it was without realizing it. I used to be a big Sony guy, but over the past decade I've lost all faith in the company. Now I slowly replace all my products with what I consider the best (through a lot of research and actual testing of customer service and warranty support).
Last year my Sony television finally died. I replaced it with a Samsung unit, and couldn't be happier. My cell phone needed replacement, and my Samsung t809 has to be the best cell phone I've ever used (I believe it earns me at least $300 a month more just through added efficiency in my life). The Samsung Origami unit is very promising. My next fridge will be a Samsung (based on my recent experience in India with the units I used there). Same thing with the microwave.
How is it that a quiet company from Korea can produce great products that actually work, and back it up with great customer service? When my cell phone gave me a few minor problems, Samsung replied within 6 hours. They offered to compensate me for my problems (I declined as most were just features I needed that weren't available).
The lady of the house has 2 iPods and she loves them. I know they're saving me time and money because we don't have to store CDs anymore, and the square footage savings alone reduces the clutter in my life. I personally don't like the iPod -- the interface is nice, but it isn't easy enough or fast enough.
I don't see the need to change things, yet, but as consumer goods go, for me it is more about time saved and my life made easier. I doubt there is anything they can offer to make me sell the iPods and buy the Z5. I wonder if there are enough happy iPod users out there to make the market ever-declining for the competition. Considering Samsung picked up the iPod brainstormer, it's possible they'll actually find ways to trump the iPod, but the momentum of sales so far will make it a very difficult path to take. It amazes me how much money is being spent by the competition for obviously sub-par products. What can Samsung do differently to attract the attention of the mass public who already is familiar with Apple's product?
Nonetheless, Samsung does have my attention -- here and in everything else they make. For those not familiar with their products, I highly recommend taking a look the next time you need a consumer appliance or product. I'm amazed at the pricing, features and overall service.
In fact, if iPod didn't loom over every conversation as the screamingly obvious point of comparison, the Z5 could be the next little thing.
Of course, that would have required that Samsung independently invent the Z5 rather than hiring away the people that produced the iPod. Thus, without the iPod, there would be no Z5.
If Samsung wants to beat Apple at their own game, they're going to have to do better than hang on their coattails. Unfortunately, every new revision of the iPod and iTunes from Apple raises the barrier to entry that much higher.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
...the ZWeb for everyone's busy ZLife, they can download ZTunes from the ZStore.
So they stole the guy who made the iPod and made him *not* make an iPod. I like the touch pad. Now I can stroke the music. :p
From the article:
And while the Z5 can't play songs from Apple's iTunes Music Store, it can play songs from Rhapsody, Napster, Musicmatch, MSN Music, Wal-Mart, AOL Music Now, Yahoo Music and other members of the "MMS-MMS" consortium (Microsoft-based Music Stores with Minuscule Market Share).
Recently on German news they covered CeBit and plainly stated that the next generation phones would be iPod killers. I was thinking by myself: WTF? Then they started to enumerate the advantages of having MP3 player in your phone. The main thing seemed to be that you could download songs on a whim. Essentially iTMS but over wireless. I fell over laughing. (I know that the device in the article is not a phone, but I just wanted to mention it)
So, I first am going to shell out money to get the song, then pay UMTS packets? Are you *insane*? How expensive will be a 3Meg song that way? Waaaaay beyond the current prices in iTMS.
The iPod is successful because it is simple and later on the seamless integration with iTMS was the big winner. Any competing product must at least match this and make it less expensive.
None of these so-called iPod-killers will fly. At least that is MHO.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
People know instinctively that this is an iPod-wannabe. That (nicely anthropomorphic) form factor is burned into the public consciousness (such as it is).
The thing that will erode Apple's domination is the inclusion of iPod-like abilities in other devices. The only thing in the world that is more popular than an iPod is a mobile phone. Its interesting, because of the wrinkle that is the ROKR. Remember the hype around that phone? Everybody knew this could be a killer combination but something happened and it rolled out the door totally crippled; so people wrote off the phone-as-iPod idea in a sense.
Go look at the latest batch of Sony Ericsson phones, extrapolate the direction of the hardware +1.5 years and each one of those phones will be at least as capable as a Nano. And while you don't strictly have to have an iPod, there are many who would agree that a mobile phone these days is strictly necessary... like the PS2 with DVD -playing, people will rationalize the fancy phone as a "junior iPod" over an iPod + Phone separately most of the time. And the fanciest Bluetooth gadget in the world will never integrate the phone with the iPod in the way that they are when shipped in one device (receiving calls and handing off, etc).
All this applies to point-and-shoot digital cameras, as well.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
The thumb naturally makes a ciruclar motion, lending itself best to the click wheel design. When I am forced to use a directional navigation system, its as if my fingers are forced to hold positions that don't feel natural. Anyone else get this feeling? If the device were $100 cheaper, and all things else comparable, I could probably be uncomfortable. Anything less though, why bother? -- Jim http://www.runfatboy.net/
Now Samsung will love you back...
Samsung Means To Come
(Warning: Flash-based and requires sound for full effect; content is all text but not necessarily safe for work)
I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
Some quick googling says it does!!! Woo Hoo!!!! I know what I'm getting for my birthday.
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
Really?
Nothing to do with Apple products?
If you had RTFA you would have seen that the article is a comparision of the Z5 to the Nano. Nano = Apple product = correct article title/placement.
Companies are always trying to get some extra press by talking up their next line of music players and how they are going to be "iPod Killers" (what ever happened to Microsofts iPod killer?) Then they release a music player like the Z5 that tries to mimic all the great features of the iPod but inevitably they fall short because all they are doing is mimicing to the edge of blatently copying.
The Z5 adds nothing to the table (no, extended battery life does not an iPod killer make). It is twice as thick as the Nano yet has the same capacity and most importantly, the same price point.
Why does everything have to be a Something-Killer? Why can't companies just make a good product and sell it without all the "Yeah!! iPod, you're going down!!!" wrestling-match garbage? It's entirely possible for the marketplace to have two really good MP3 players, without one having to totally "kill" the other one... and both companies make a ton of money. I think it probably already is like that. There are a number of good portable MP3 players. I understand about stock prices and shareholders, but this kind of stuff just gets old after a while, and actually makes me less excited about some of these new products...
I think that a lot of Apple's success comes from the marketing of the iPod. Pre-iPod it was considered "geeky" to have an mp3 player (in all fairness, mp3 players where horrible when they first came, buttons everywhere). Today, people think its "cool" to have their white headphones on and an iPod hanging at their side.
Although it may not be considered geeky to have another mp3 player today, the iPod is almost seen as a fashion accessory, whereas any other mp3 player is just that, an mp3 player.
To beat the iPod, I believe that the mainstream has to consider it "cool", and you have to have tons of accessories so your mp3 player can be cooler than the other 10million people who also have one.
Just my thoughts on a point I think was missed in the article...
This thing is basically a Nano, except that it's uglier, doesn't work with iTunes, and doesn't support Apple accessories (the fancy ones, not stuff like headphones that work on anything). Why would anyone choose it over the Nano itself? It's not cheaper and has no significant features to offer that the iPod doesn't (i guess battery life sort of counts, but once you're way up to 20+ hours it's not a huge difference. also, ask Sony how their ipod killer with great battery life did).
beware the jabberwock, my son! the jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Like almost all non-iPod music players, the Z5 is based on Microsoft's music-player software. That is, it doesn't work with the Macintosh. And while the Z5 can't play songs from Apple's iTunes Music Store...
It would only make sense that if this product was trying to "assassinate" the iPod Samsung would at least bother to make it Mac compatible.
bart is as bart does
At Samsung's suggestion, I tested the Z5 with Rhapsody's store, which is available directly from the copy of Windows Media Player provided by the Z5's installer. After banging my head on the keyboard for an hour, unable to get it to work, a Rhapsody rep finally let me know that, in fact, Rhapsody's subscription store doesn't work in Media Player -- only with Rhapsody's own software jukebox. (So much for the Microsoft "Plays for Sure" logo. Try "Plays for Some People.")
I don't want that experience.
Why is it that every time I read about an 'iPod-killer' the comparisons just make me want to go out and buy an iPod, even when the reviews are pro-'killer' (not this article is)?
#include "cunning_plan.h"
The article gives us several bullet points about why the iPod nano is so great, then shows how the Z5 almost does as well in most of them, but doesn't actually 'kill' the nano in anything at all. It has the same capacity, the same cost, it's larger, they obviously ripped it from apple (including hiring apple ipod design talent) it has a slightly clunkier interface. How is this a killer agin? It's only disernable 'better' feature is battery life (which is sort of cool, but it's not really that big of a deal for most of the buying public listening to their ipod at work or hooked into the car stereo.) It is a competitor sure, but there isn't anything even remotely resembling a feature (or amazingly different price, or anything) that gives people an overwhelming reason to choose it over the iPod. Another fairly lamely edited 'story' that should have a better title and probably not be in the apple section.
It's always much harder to overturn an entrenched leader in a field than to jump ahead of the pack - and the iPod has massive marketshare. The article has this really important observation:
That's the problem for other manufacturers. That's a damn near insurmountable hill to climb. Sony had some solid electronics but terrible software. The players that use PlaysForSure are doomed with the horrendous WMP system, terrible DRM, and electronics that are crappily designed. Even if you get nicely designed hardware and nicely designed software, you're stuck in a world where you can get iPod accessories everywhere, but nobody's going to carry accessories for your particular product unless you can get a credible amount of marketshare - which is hard when you don't have the accessories to spur sales.
The only way the iPod can be beaten is if Apple screws it up (which is unlikely, but possible) or someone manages to buy their way into market. The only company that could compete with Apple is Microsoft, doing what they did to the gaming market with the XBox. If Microsoft wanted to create a product that would be a severe loss-leader (priced well under the iPod) and could totally redesign WMP to be halfway usable, they might have a shot at unseating the iPod - but not a good one. Microsoft won't do that because the XBox division is currently hemmorhaging money as it is and Microsoft's bottom line would be adversely affected by trying to go toe-to-toe with the most popular piece of consumer electronics on the planet.
The iPod didn't get it first, but it got it right, and unless the cachet wears off (which may happen, but not for a while), trying to beat the iPod is not a particularly sound business strategy.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
The thing that kills all the "iPod killers" for me is the lack of integration with your music library, as compared with the iTunes/iPod combo. Nothing else comes close. Smart playlists, automatic sync when you plug in, two-way sync of metadata like play count and last played time (the iPod updates that data in iTunes after you've played songs on the go), etc. I use smart playlists in particular to give myself a level of control over my music listening experience that isn't remotely possible with albums and songs, or simple static playlists. I couldn't imagine doing back to that.
Every competitor I've looked at is sort of hit and miss, and none provides all of these features with such seamless integration. Many present only the simplest interface to the computer - drag and drop music files to the device as a hard drive. That's probably great for many people here, and before I used iTunes, I would have joined in saying it's all anyone could ever need. But the fact is that iTunes provides so much more to enhance the listening experience. I guess it's all in the bundled software, and who provides anything approaching the iTunes functionality?
The article says "Like almost all non-iPod music players, the Z5 is based on Microsoft's music-player software. That is, it doesn't work with the Macintosh." Well, that probably means it's definitely out for me. But out of curiosity, does anyone know how Microsoft's software stacks up against iTunes in the features I've listed? I've been on the lookout for a non-Apple alternative for a long time due to the ridiculous lack of gapless playback in the iPod. I know Apple has no intention of fixing it because their customer base doesn't care (and isn't even aware of the problem). I can find gapless alternatives, but none that give me the overall experience that iPod/iTunes does. How close is this one?
Say hello to zMac.
I am always amazed that people really think they can compete with iPod when they create GUIs that are that cluttered. What are they thinking?
You can beat the Ipod head to head.
Simply allow people to transfer files from mp3 player to mp3 player
That just requires a little engineering and a little software. Especially with usb 2.0.
The RIAA and music industry would flip, but you'd outsell the ipod. Make a decent price point don't make it look like crap, a relatively easy to use interface, and you have a goldmine.
Make a commercial
Kid 1 : "Hey what are you listening too?"
Kid 2 : "The ________"
Kid 1 : Cool....Hook Me Up [the tag line for the commercial]
Kid 2 : "Flips out usb connector - joins the players hits TRANSFER... hands kid 1 his player back
Kid 1: Listening to music - "Cool"
Just a thought.
Did anyone else watching the video notice that he referred to Rhapsody and Napster as song rental services and not subscription services?
A publicly traded company exists solely to make profits for shareholders.
ConsultingFair.com
Why would they try to make it compatible with less than 5% of the market?
If both sets of numbers are to be believed, vastly more iPods are connected to windows PCs than Macs.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
Any player that doesn't support Fairplay and AAC is out for me. I've owned 2 generations of iPod and have way too much purchased music to change. No I don't want to convert all those songs to Ogg or mp3 unless someone knows a way to do it in a batch job with no loss of quality.
are there any other players that are iTunes compatible?
:-P
I'm not aware of any, maybe someone should start an anti-trust lawsuit, say someone like Microsoft
It requires MTP which comes with Media Player 10. Can't find any information that says it's a drag-and-drop deal.
Gone!
Why did I get a mental picture of Ballmer throwing chairs at a big iPod...
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
You mentioned the fridge - about two years ago I was looking for a refridgerator, and after careful examination of all the fridges the Samsung really looked the best in a number of aspects. It was the only one that had an ice maker I could tolerate, I didn't want one really but she who must be obeyed did (as a sidenote it really is better to have one as then you can drink more water and less of other beverages, much healthier).
After many years of use, the report is that it is fantastic. I have never had an issue with it, the inside is well organized, and I actually like the ice maker/water dispenser. In fact this turns out to be one of the great things about the fridge. One thing you can't usually try in a store is the water/ice dispenser, and I have been to many people's houses over the interviening years and found all other kinds really inferior. Either they combine ice and water in one spout making you have to switch all the time between them (which mode is it in now?) or the spouts simply suck and deliver ice/water all over your feet and the floor.
So even a feature I didn't want just works without fuss. The Samsung fridge is truly the iPod of refidgerators.
We also bought a Samsung LCD TV for someone recently and that has been well received! It was a TV/monitor combo for someone with limited space and the Samsung unit was just might nicer than other comparible units.
With all that said, I agree with you on the iPods, we have two as well and the Z5 doesn't even sound close (the finicky scrolling control and lack of variabilty make it a no-show for me, not to mention lack of Mac support).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
..... We should be adding the iPod to this list on Wikipedia:
_ assassinations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsuccessful
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
>>My wife has an iRiver I bought her for her birthday and she's pleased with it, but it's very limited
iRiver, limited? Its supposed to be a power user thing! Any particular model in mind, or just some offhand generic rant?
I've 5000 songs on my iPod, split into 200 or so albums, and 300 artists. Click, or holding a button to navigate a list that long is unacceptable. Hell, I used to get bored scrolling though the menu on my old Nokia phone, a dial is the perfect interface.
I'm suprised Sony didn't include a jogwheel into their walkman. Seems like that would have made it more of a competitor (rather than the hideous phone like menu that they used).
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
the formats it plays includes
OGG!!
That is all, this has been a non-emergency broadcast system non-emergency announcement.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. Emo Philips
http://www.itunes.dj/ is for sale
[i]every new revision of the iPod and iTunes from Apple raises the barrier to entry [wikipedia.org] that much higher.[/i]
Mixed metaphor. If the barrier is raised, you can sneak under it! Unless it's a wall. Umm...I think. Ummm...never mind.
The navigation controls on this thing sound like a loser. One of the big problems with 3rd generation iPods was that there was no tactile feedback, no way to know if the button press you made just registered. Sounds like the same deal here, where "clicking" is a matter of squeezing harder than you already were squeezing. Plus, according to the review, the controls have other problems, like requiring you to be very precise with how long you hold your finger down, and only scrolling at one speed rather than allowing you to slow down as you get close to what you're looking for.
But then I'm just another iPod apologist.It's best not to get wrapped up in what the next thing is, or in this case what's going to knock off Steve Jobs' hat. The bottom line is, any Ipod is still a great way of listening to music today, and more power to you if you buy a 3rd party mp3 player.
I think of the ipod simply as a way of listening to music, and I will keep using my Ipod Color until I break it or forget it on the bus. Who knows what I'd use at that point.
Personally I think of the nano as a status symbol (much like a palm pilot back in the day), and the ipod video just seems like a way of draining the battery as fast as possible. Maybe it would be kinda cool if it played divx.
You'll meet a lot of people out there who have mp3 players with nothing on them. So whatever.
-makoffee
Did you happen to check out Sunfrost fridges and freezers?
If you are looking for well built and energy efficient (and possibly dual powered) look to the alternative energy community and what they use. When you are seriously measuring watts and cost and efficiency, etc, those guys got it down.
Don't forget about http://www.iaudio.com./
.ogg
I have a U3 and love it. Smaller than a Nano and even plays movies even though the screen is a little small for long term movie viewing. And yes you OSS guys, it even plays
-------
Bite Me Fanboy!!
I don't care for iPod nor for Z5 nor for any other portable player. What's the big deal anyway? Someone tell me.
The reason that it doesn't work with iTunes is licensing--Apple doesn't license their codec to be used in something portable.
OK, interfaces are nice, but for the most part, I can forgive most of an interfaces' shortcomings if the sound quality is there.
From what I've heard of my wife's nano, it's pretty decent. No background hiss - which seems to be the bane of cheaply put together MP3 players.
So here's what I've got now:
1. NexIIa - Frontier Labs' compactflash reading MP3 player : This was bought because I figured hey, got a digital camera, have spare CF card... but I hate listening to this player on low ohm headphones because of the background hiss. On a stereo input (higher impedance) not so much noise....
2. Palm TX - bought this as a replacement to my aging Palm Vx. Great screen, battery life, but the MP3/sound output is noisy. Sucks they can't put a decent DAC in a 300$ PDA.
Now, I do use a Creative Nomad Zen Xtra (200$, 30GB, owned for 2-3 years?) on a daily basis. I'd like to find a smaller player, and I'm just leaning towards the Zen Nano or perhaps their 8gb zen photo mini or whatever it's called, just from the standpoint that the sound quality from my Nomad is top notch. However, with this new "Plays4Sure" crapola, and not being able to drag and drop files (which I can do on the Nomad with their driver and explorer add-on) kind of miffs me. Almost enough to find another manufacturer... but... everyone seems to be going DRM now...
So, if anyone knows, how's this Samsung unit sound? Any hiss through normal (32 ohm) phones? Any crackling if you use the EQ and it's turned up loud?
Karnal
As long as you use Internet Explorer. Try the above link with Firefox.
The next step with portable music players is to break the link with the home computer. Think something that uses the cell phone network but doesn't make calls.
By using a square control nobody will ever notice that this is an iPod nano ripoff. They're pretty cunning those folks at Samsung.
"The White House is not an intelligence-gathering agency," -- Scott McClellan, Whitehouse spokesman.
It plays MP3s still, right?
.if you do a little digging and find yourself an old copy of Playfair or just grab a copy of Hymn. . . it *could* play those iTMS tracks.
Well. .
I just recently purchased a Motorola L7 SLVR and must say it is VERY nice. When I first saw the ROKR, I was very disappointed and hoped for something a little more eye pleasing and with a better UI. With the SLVR, I get the sleek elegant looks of Moto's top end phones, with all the usual whiz-bang tech (blue-tooth, quad-band world phone, usual apps) in addition to some killer extra features (microSD card slot, 512 MB microSD card, stereo headphone adapter, mini USB stereo headphones with built-in mic, USB data cable) AND a smattering of my music thrown in to boot.
I nearly cried the first time someone called while I was listeng to music and the playback paused, showed the caller ID info (can't wait until it can read it to you...) and I was able to take the call (also had the option of sending straight to VM) and once I hung up, playback resumed automatically right where it left off.
There's only one shortcoming as I see it. Lack of affordable blue-tooth capable stereo headphones. Motorola has a single pair for around 130 bucks. Considering I just dropped almost 300 on the phone and requisite accessories, that's a bit much to swallow. If third-parties get in on this and sales remain as brisk as they seem now (took me almost 3 weeks to get one and I had to snipe it by calling local stores every day to see what they got in their shipments) they could sell something similar for half the price and STILL make a killing.
If I were to point out some things I don't like about the phone, it's that I can't use any of my music as ringtones, nor are my ringtones played back via the headphones, it comes out of the phones speaker. Not horrible issues mind you, but little things that would make the integration of cellphone/mp3 player that much more palatable for J6P.
You sir are a freak: someone on a supposedly Linux friendly site who uses Ogg.
Most people here care about cool, that's it.
Sorry, that does it for me. 90% of iPod's appeal for me is the size. Where do these companies get off thinking that making a player a couple insignificant features different from the iPod but twice the size and the same price is going to be greeted with anything but apathy?
To manage .mp3s? Yes.
Blacker than my baby girl's stare. Black like the veil that the muslimina wear. Black like the planet that they fear...
Making the same mistakes as the iPod isn't the way to beat it.
You step through lists by lightly tapping the pad; you hold down to scroll quickly. The best part is that your thumb doesn't have to move between scrolling and clicking; after scrolling by touching, pushing harder to click -- in exactly the same spot -- does the trick.
In other words, the primary control is a force-sensitive device, which means that it will have to have a "lock" on the control when it's just in your pocket. They might as well give it a touch-screen.
I like having positive action controls on my iPod Shuffle and on my previous non-iPod MP3 player. Give me a music player with a shuffle-style directional pad for the primary controls and a thumbwheel + action button for rapid scrolling and controls, and I'll be all over it. I haven't seen one yet, so I'm sticking with my shuffle.
I gave my daughter my "real" iPod. She likes it fine.
I have no idea what you're talking about.
During a long drive your friend/gf asks you: "What do you want to listen to?"
Do you say:
"I really like band ______?"
or
"Itunes says I like band _______?"
What in the world are you talking about? You say, "I really like band _____", then use the search area in iTunes to find it quickly. If you are using your iPod at the moment, thumb through the categories and find what you want to hear.
All I want is something that can play and shuffle music with easily accessible volume buttons.
iPod shuffle? iTunes randomly downloads you new music when you plug it in, then it plays through those tracks. The controls are: Volume Up, Volume Down, Play/Pause, Skip Forward, Skip Back. They're arranged in a circle, so they look like this:Where "P" is play, and '-' is filler so my chart looks good.
You can clearly see the controls here. A regular iPod can be told to do the same thing, except that it can hold your entire music library at once.
Why is Apple pretending that your Ipod isnt just a hard drive/flash memory, a PCB and a battery? Why doesn't it work as a normal drive without Itunes?
They don't, and it does. When you plug in your iPod to a PC, you can see it as a new drive. (It used to show up on Macs too, but I haven't paid enough attention lately to note if this is still the case.) Many people use their iPods as portable hard drives in addition to music players. A practice, I might add, that Apple actively encourages. (I learned about it when I overheard one of the seminars they were giving at the local Apple Store.)
But I don't own a Ipod though
Well, that explains why your post is so confusing. I think you have the wrong impression about the iPod. You might want to take another look.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
The Z5 won't make a dent in iPod sales and here's why: It's ugly. iPod (like all of Apple's products) are sleek and sexy. I almost exploded in laughter at the big square button. Does a pocket protector and eyeglass repair tape come with it too? Seriously, it looks like someone took a mini-cassette voice recorder from 1987 and put a screen on it. I wonder if it has an orange record button on the side.
The other reason really isn't Samsung's fault. It's rhapsody, napster and the other WMA-file companies that insist on a subscription system for music that self-destructs when you cancel. It's nothing more than expensive on-demand radio. You mean I get to pay you $15 a month PLUS 79 cents per song? Oh thanks Rhapsody, I love paying you twice to hear music that doesn't become mine. This subscription model is nothing more than the hare-brained ideas of music industry grey-beards in ivory towers who have lost all touch with reality. Scratch that actually, the idea probably came from their half-wit imbeciles for-hire, er, I mean "consultants."
I know no one important reads this, but I have one thing to say to the RIAA, Microsoft, Napster, Rhapsody and every other cartel affiliate:
PEOPLE HATE SUBSCRIPTIONS!
Nobody wants *another* bill every month. I realize it just shows up on your credit card, but overall music subscriptions are a bad deal. Case in point:
Rhapsody charges $15 a month and 79 cents per song (last I checked), with iTunes charging 99 cents per song, it seems like a better deal. Well a simple division problem can dispell this myth: 15 / 0.20 = 75. Seventy-Five, that's how many song you would have to buy from Rhapsody EVERY MONTH, to just end up in a wash with iTunes. That's roughly 6 or 7 albums. I know no one who buys this much music.
I will close this rant with some free advice for any internet business out there:
Do not complicate your puchasing schemes, the more you make your point-of-purchase like a brick-and-mortar store (et. al. no subscriptions, you actually get to KEEP what you buy), the more successful you will be. THIS is why iTunes is number one, and will be for a very long time.
I'll do it one better: wireless. Give it bluetooth connectivity, so that every player within range is identifiable (people can have their own tag for their players, or just put their name). You hit the "share" menu option for a particular song, it brings up a list of players in range. You pick your buddy's player, it sends it over. He can listen (once or twice) to it, after that, the player deletes the file, but keeps the name and who it came from in a list so he can remember what song it was and buy it.
It brings the social aspect back to music, something that, with recent players, has been removed. It seriously wouldn't be hard to implement either. And the added bluetooth would enable you to sync your player with your PC/software without ever having to plug it in to the machine. Just set it on your desk, hit sync and you're done. Give the plug in option for ripped CDs or larger transfers, but if you just bought a few songs, you don't need the cable.
Seamless integration with iTunes?
If no, then NO SALE.
Why? Because I'm already using iTunes on Windows, and I'll be making the switch to OSX within 12 months.
I'm not necessarily in love with iTunes, but I'll be goddamned if I'm going to waste my time futzing around with a new music organization software suite.
In the course of every project, it will become necessary to shoot the scientists and begin production.
I have seen many posts wher Ipod users rave about how Itunes remembers what tracks they listen to and rank or suggest playlist based on your listening habits.
Is this not a feature of Itunes?
I said I didn't buy an Ipod, you're assuming I haven't even seen one? I have seen and used them, the finger "wheel" pad. I haven't used Itunes much, except for setting it up for a friend or two.
I have experienced plugging in a few Nanos in to PCs. It does not show up as a hard drive. It's an Ipod wihtout drivers until you install Itunes. Perhaps Apple has changed this? Can anyone else confirm this?
If it worked this way, you would me able to use any media manager with your Ipod. Can you?
Can you plug your Ipod in and use windows media player/winamp(without hacked plugin)/music match to sync tunes?
I have seen many posts wher Ipod users rave about how Itunes remembers what tracks they listen to and rank or suggest playlist based on your listening habits.
Well, you can rank your music. This affects the algorithm that iTunes uses for the shuffling. The online store also has a feature where it suggests music you might like based on what you've purchased and/or are listening to at the moment. (The latter part is togglable.) This is pretty similar to what Amazon does with books.
Personally, I've never used either feature. There are a few long dissertations I ripped from CD that I tell iTunes never to send to the iPod, but that's about the extent of how I let it interfere.
I said I didn't buy an Ipod, you're assuming I haven't even seen one?
Seeing one and using one are two separate things. <morpheus>iPods are like the Matrix. You cannot see what it is. You must experience it for yourself.>/morpheus< Err... I mean that iPods are very much about ease of use. If you're looking to "see" lots of features, you're going to be disappointed. But in actual use, they hold up extremely well.
I have experienced plugging in a few Nanos in to PCs. It does not show up as a hard drive.
I don't know about Nanos, but I know it works on Shuffles and regular iPods.
Can you plug your Ipod in and use windows media player/winamp(without hacked plugin)/music match to sync tunes?
Music Match has had an iPod plugin for as long as I can remember. (Obviously, it can't play Windows DRMed music, but that's a different problem.) I don't know enought about WMP to answer your question, but dragging MP3s to your iPod does work.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Rhapsody is Great! And is the best software for working with MTP based players. It would have worked first time if he had used the Rhapsody software the 1st time, not WMP. What I don't want is having no choices in where I buy music and having to pay heavily controlled prices like with iTunes.
I bougth this http://eng.iaudio.com/product/product_U3_feature.p hp and I'm very pleased. The FM reception is not that great but all the rest is very good. Plays ogg, supports firmware upgrades, works fine in Linux. Very cool.
Actually the lack of a name. I can't believe they've never noticed this. All the wannabees still insist on branding their products with the company name. The only thing you will find on the iPod is an apple, and usually it's barely visible (not to mention that it's on the back). Want to really compete? Make a product that relys on good looks and functionality sans advertising.
I have experienced plugging in a few Nanos in to PCs. It does not show up as a hard drive.
Fresh out of the box, an iPod does not have any flash-drive features. You have to turn those on in the iTunes software for your device. Once you do that however, any iPod will function as a flash drive on any PC you plug it into.
Can you plug your Ipod in and use windows media player/winamp(without hacked plugin)/music match to sync tunes?
No. Apple has made the decision that to sync music to an iPod you have to use iTunes. This distinction is the same as Creative Labs saying you must use their version of Windows Media Player or Samsung saying the same thing. Both approaches require special software, both sets of software are freely obtained.
An iPod is a good device, but it is not for everyone. Judging by sales patterns, it seems like most *are* convinced that the iPod is the right one for them.
So I'm a digital leper at any local store with my MP3 player - the Toshiba Gigabeat.
List of great features:
- 10gig for $170.00 (mine).
--- Also comes in 20 and 40 gigs (maybe a 60 too).
--- Soon to be released is a Video Gigabeat
- a large screen for data, pictures, and all other things.
- 16 hour battery life
--- internal battery so no need to buy batteries
--- charges vis usb connections too
- USB2.0 makes transferring files fast.
- An independent docking station - no more plugging in wires
- Slim
- Works with Windows Media 10 for file storage
- Operates as an external hard drive if needed
- The Gigaroom software takes a whole CD and transfers it to the gigabeat in about 3 minutes
--- users can change the quality of the ripping
- The button controls on the '+' makes navigating easy
- Equalizer settings - about 10 of them with the option for user settings
- www.mygigabeat.com
- www.gigabeat.com
Detractors:
- Toshiba's Gigaroom software that comes with it is kinda difficult to use at first, but it gets better
- Propitary encoding of all files onto the player - so one has to go through gigaroom, Windows Media Player 10, or napster (lord knows we wouldn't want to share anything)
- All accessories - like a case - required me to go through the web to get it.. but that's more the fault of those evil Ipods *shakes fist in the general direction of Apple *
- The earbud head phones that come with it are painful to wear (for me). Sony's $8.00 earbuds work like a charm.
So yeah, I am fairly jazzed about my player, though I hate the fact I can't just wander into WorstBuy or Compusa to find accessories. Actually I think I confused a WorstBuy employee when he couldn't get over the fact that I don't have an IPod. *shrug* It's their issue.
If you are looking for a solid player as an option to the Ipod wagon, serious check this out.
I think the only way ANY manufacturer could overcome that is if a large number of companpiens developed some interface standard, or made some easy way to integrate their players to car stereos (and other acessories) out of the box. That would also let companies make interfaces to things like older CD changers to retrofit the new standard on older vehicles, too. Then they might have a chance of putting a dent in iPod sales.
As it is, the only people I know buying non-iPod players are parents whose kids want an iPod but don't want to spend the money on it, and figure an mp3 player is an mp3 player.
The Nano, like all other iPods, absolutely works as a mass storage device, with or without drivers. That has always been the case; I'm not sure what the reasons are for your confusion.
You cannot manage the music tracks as if they were files, however. This is a choice made by most manufacturers because the file/folder paradigm does not fit well into a music player interface, where people want to select songs by artist one day and by album the next. The database format is supported by numerous programs besides iTunes, though.
iTunes does not have a "suggestion" feature. You can create playlists based on "most played" or "highest rated" if you choose.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
I noticed. It suggests a bias against subscription music services.
The term rental suggests paying for temporary use of specific items -- as in renting an apartment or a movie.
Subscription is a better way to describe paying for access to a large collection, which includes new items as they are published.
"Subscription Music" is a good way to descibe these services. No need for an alternative.
--Dale
No FLAC support? Sorry, no, thank you. Next!
...and aren't expected to know this one :-P but the reason the iPod is so successful is two-fold:
1-The advertising. Most people I know aren't even aware there is another mp3 player than the iPod. To them, there is only 1 option.
2-It's fashionable. A large amount of the population have iPods either because of point 1, or they've seen celebrities with them.
iPods will be defeated, but it'll be by the next fashionable mp3 player, not neccesarily the best one.
Apple iTunes is very one sided. It appeals more to the manstream than the underground and obscure. A good example of this would be Industrial Rock. Sure they might have Nine Inch Nails and Marylin Manson, but search for anything in the genre outside of that and you will find yourself sincerely dissappointed. There are a few songs by an EBM group called Mesh that seem to be lost in Europe right now as Apple continues to fellate to the RIAA music cartel.
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
Hye, I did give in even though I didn't want one! It's not like I hate them enough to be pathological about it - the real reason I didn't want one was the extra space they take up that could be used to hold more in the freezer, which always seems chronically short of space. I always found a tray or two of ice cubes to be more compact and not really much effort.
But like I said I'm happy now, the Samsung freezer space is well designed and so even though the ice maker is kind of large it doesn't seem to be in the way, and it works pretty much without issues. I think it also has the funnel design you admire (the ice maker chruns out ice which drops through a funnel in the door). I would get the Samsung fridge again in a heartbeat, even with an icemaker.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The article states that samsung missed the mark by using a touchpad instead of a wheel. Does apple have a patent on this? Regardless, I personally don't care for the thumb-wheel, as it's hard (for me, at least) to make circles with my thumb while holding the iPod with one hand. and would prefer some sort of thumb lever on the side with variable speed depending on how hard/far you push it up or down. This seems so obvious it's amazing no one has tried it yet (with music players, I've heard some smart phones/PDAs have this).
I have a Creative Zen Xtra that I'm looking to replace, but all I can find now are units that are under 6gigs or have oodles of video features that I'll never use. I'm personally more than a little upset that the neuros audio players didn't take off since they had so much potential with the open firmware, 80gb drives, and built-in FM receiver/transmitter.
90% of everything is crap. Also, crap is relative.
The Nano, like all other iPods, absolutely works as a mass storage device, with or without drivers
Fresh out of the box, an iPod does not have any flash-drive features. You have to turn those on in the iTunes software for your device.
I don't know about Nanos, but I know it works on Shuffles and regular iPods.
So that's a NO, NO and a YES.
I'm not sure what the reasons are for your confusion.
See above.
You cannot manage the music tracks as if they were files, however. This is a choice made by most manufacturers because the file/folder paradigm does not fit well into a music player interface, where people want to select songs by artist one day and by album the next. The database format is supported by numerous programs besides iTunes, though.
Sorry? Most manufacturers? You can't snow the snowman bud. I have used many, many, types of flash based and hard drive based players and I have yet to see one, aside form the Ipod, that doesn't store tunes in a normal file format. The file/folder paradigm doesn't fit well into the music player interface? Who says a music player couldn't cache all of this tag/usage info into a 50k file and leave the files system, the one that everyone knows, the one that is compatible with every OS on earth, as is.
Do you really think the Ipod uses a propritary file system/format purely because the file/folder paradigm doesn't fit well into the music player interface?
... for my Rio Karma. Mine is over two years old, and it's still the best one ever made, IMHO, albeit not necessarily the prettiest. Beautiful sound quality, true gapless playback, multiple formats including Ogg, ethernet-enabled dock with built-in webserver. Hell, gapless playback alone is all I'm asking for - is that so hard?
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
what's hysterical is that his comment is moderated higher than mine. good old slashdot.
beware the jabberwock, my son! the jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
>>true gapless playback
apparently only you and I are the only people who want this.
If it wasn't for the wheel snapping off issue i'd get a karma off of ebay.
I've had loans of various friends mp3 players and the ever-so slight gap annoys the hell out of me.
Rio RIP
Acid House saves Souls
this is a much better reason that people might buy this thing than 'ogg vorbis support.' guess which gets more mod points? :)
beware the jabberwock, my son! the jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
or rather he was very wrong then, but he'll be right one day. wifi is the key.
The only thing that could knock the ipod off its perch is a player that provides the same nearly-transparent play-you-anything service as an ipod and itunes do together, but without needing a computer to connect it to the world. The mp3 player as computer satellite is a solved problem.
I don't think it's going to happen any time soon, either. There are two factors that prevent the mp3 player from functioning as a standalone device:
1. everyone has cds that they still want to use
2. by the time you've got the size and brainpower to present an effective itunes-type interface, you might as well be a laptop.
The first obstacle will dwindle: how many teenagers buy cds now? The second is the key, the reason why microsoft keeps trying to get into the living room and why the only credible threat to the ipod comes from the phone people: because it's the connection that will matter. In five or six years time wifi will be ubiquitous, a designer who is currently in art college gold-leafing her shoes will have a brainwave and find a way to put a useable open-ended record shop on a tiny pocket device, et viola: the ipod is in the corner getting drunk with the walkman. Unless she's working for Apple.
And that, in turn, is another reason why Apple are so right to focus on tying up the content and the means of content-creation. The only way to supersede the ipod is to provide even more direct and personal experience of the media, and the way things are going now, only Apple will be in a position to do that.
Nokia and Amazon together might have a chance, I suppose, but my guess is that in a few years time Microsoft will be suffocating in a shrinking corporate-desktop niche and AppleDisney will be toe to toe with Viacom and Time-Warner (and Sony, if they manage to get PS3 out the door with decent networking).
Fresh out of the box, an iPod does not have any flash-drive features. You have to turn those on in the iTunes software for your device.
Ah, now I understand your confusion, though not your vitriol. This statement is untrue, though I see where you might have come to believe it.
When iTunes IS installed (but only when it IS), by default it automatically updates and then ejects the iPod when it is connected. To use the iPod as a flash drive, you must configure iTunes to NOT eject the drive by clicking the box that says you want to use the iPod as a flash drive.
This doesn't in any way reconfigure the iPod or change the way it is accessed. Even when iTunes updates the iPod, it's accessing the device as a USB Mass Storage one (or in the case of Firewire, as a regular Firewire disk). There is no voodoo.
As for the proprietary database, I doubt you can suggest any OTHER reason why it's used. The format is simple and was reverse-engineered long before the iPod was even very popular, so it's not as if it's much of a roadblock to people either loading music to the iPod or retrieving music from it.
Your proposed solution would work, obviously, but it doesn't address all of the issues. Consider, for instance, play counts and user ratings, both of which change while on the device and in between syncs. When you connect to your computer, iTunes wants this information, but how would it accomplish that without examining every file on the drive? So you need a database in any case. The cache you speak of adds complexity to the system and doesn't gain anything, in my opinion. Everyone I've seen with a large music collection uses software to manage it anyway, so it's not like the integration between the music device and the management software is unnatural.
I'm sorry that I said "most manufacturers"; I don't have a count, so I can't support the statement. Creative is an example of a manufacturer that takes the same approach. Many manufacturers (including Sony and Creative) have also made non-Mass Storage devices in the past, which makes them much harder to work with than the iPod. Consider PlaysForSure devices, which implement the "Media Transfer Protocol", not Mass Storage.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
I've never heard of the Karma's wheel snapping off, but I have heard that the HD inside is tempramental, bordering on unreliable. Mine has performed flawlessly, but I suppose I just got lucky.
BTW, a good article on the whole gapless issue is http://www.pretentiousname.com/mp3players/.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
OS/X has it, but not linux. :-)
it seems like most *are* convinced that the iPod is the right one for them.
Ahhhh, yes...and theres the issue. The great unwashed masses will believe anythin won't they? Especially if some tweaker in a black turtleneck tells it to them.
Everybody I have met who has one did not buy it on based on any sort of technical merits. They bought them because they have heard that they are "cool". Most of those people barely know how to use the device, or the software, but they have one "isn't it cool?". Apple could package up shit and people would buy it. Oh, wait...they did
-Piss Off
I bought an earlier cousin, the Samsung YP-MT7Z, but quickly returned it. It was a cute, well built player with tons of features. The problem: it does not connect like a regular USB drive. It uses a special transfer protocol called MTP. On XP it sort of shows up like a flash drive, but I noticed that I couldn't do some move/copy operations like on a normal drive. IIRC you had to allocate a fixed size partition if you wanted to use that part as a normal flash drive. It works on XP only . You cannot use it with macintosh, linux, even win2k. So I said piss off and returned it for an iAudio U3 (2GB, similar features, battery life about 20 hours). The iAudio G3 also looks great. It has a plain screen & is SLIGHTLY larger, but supposdedly gets 36 hours on one AA battery. I liked the Samsung but I wasn't going to change my OS just to lock into some BS, DRM scheme. I want an open standard and not this hassle.
so, so very tired of that song and dance... *sigh*
Technology is fascinating but vicarious corporate bean-counting is a queer sport for free men. Titling this story with an assassination metaphor isn't witty or even cute; it's a sign of the banal elevation of corporate identity in a certain flat imagination. Remember: the tech is supposed to set you free, not call you to your prayer rug.
Here in NZ, Telecom offers a music download service, so far supported on ONE phone, the Sanyo 9000 (could have a different name in America, Japan...)
/.)
The songs are $3.50 each, a half-arsed conversion would be something like two dollars american.
The songs "download in a minute or less", but here comes the kicker, "1000 songs on a GB card", so that means the songs are a MB each?!!! a full song, taking a MB? I know that Telecom tells you to backup to your pc, but YOU CANNOT PLAY YOUR SONGS ON YOUR COMPUTER, so it could be some queer format.
I dont think the price is overly expensive, I think "tru-tones", which are like chorus long song snippets, were $5 nz.
the Telecom website is www.telecom.co.nz, I would link direct, but my slow as hell dial up....(NZ is very backwards in Broadband generally, low uptake etc, mainly due to Telecom restricting its growth for whatever reason, this has been a very big upset in NZ news, hopefully I can get it covered on
---
* Palestinian music critics say its got a nice base line but is derivative and far inferior to the Jew-hating songs of yesteryear.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
>>Judging by sales patterns, it seems like most *are* convinced that the iPod is the right one for them.
So, going by the same logic, Windows OS is definitely right for a lot of people. And if I take the liberty to extrapolate it further, it (sheer number) may also mean its better.
Now how about exposing the hyporcisy of Apple whores who used to swear by LESS number of people (LESS = SMART) for the low sales of Mac v/s Windows machines, and are now suddenly swearing by market domination of iPod to establish its superiority? It stinks.
I'll stick with my Creative Muvo Micro N200. As a dj, I love the line in recording for mixes and the voice recording is nice for those long business meetings.
The newest iPod trend is about selling you music from a source, which upon my last look didn't even let you preview the song before you buy it (has iMusic changed that yet?) You can't even download Quicktime anymore without the bloated iMusic bundle.
Ah, ok. Thanks for the clarification.
The iPod does try to prevent you from getting music from the device to a PC as well, but instead of transcoding the music, they try and obfuscate the music under some weird folder and file-naming structure. Plenty of folks have deciphered this structure, though. I use a program called sharepod that will copy the mp3s from my ipod to a Windows PC grouped by album with all the files named properly. It's a great little program.
I don't really have a huge problem with Toshiba's method to prevent one from getting to the music, but it seems to me that it would be a pain in the ass to rip all of my CDs and THEN have to go through a transencoding to get everything onto my mp3 player. One, it wastes a lot of time--transencoding is pretty CPU-intensive. Two, you always degrade the quality a little bit with a lossey (sp?) encoding. I prefer the iPod's method to "protect" the music on the device, if only because it's easily-circumventable and it doesn't waste my time.
I'd suggest you don't use Slashdot as your only news source, or you will suffer permanent brain damage.
Oh yeah, I didn't mention that because the post wasn't supposed to be about gapless; that was just a side issue. But yes, I've known about the join tracks feature for a long time, and it's simply no good to me. When you do that, you lose the ability to skip around among different tracks like you can on a CD. You also lose the ability to track per-song metadata, which is absolutely a must for smart playlists to be of any value to me. And of course, you can't drag individual tracks from a "joined" CD into various playlists. It's truly all or nothing. No good.
Some people have suggested ripping gapless CDs twice: once as tracks and once joined. While it gives you more options, it's a terrible workaround to a problem that shouldn't exist in the first place. Not only does it waste twice the space, but metadata is not shared between the different copies of the album. When I play the joined version, the individual song versions don't get updated play count and last played time. Same the other way, obviously.
Look at it this way: a 20-year-old CD player is ancient in technology terms. It can play gapless albums with seamless audio transitions between tracks, and it can also skip around among tracks at will. iTunes and iPod are light years ahead in overall complexity and capability, yet neither can do both at the same time. You either get gapless and no skipping (join tracks), or skipping and gaps (normal import). Pretty ridiculous when the ancient technology performs this aspect of the common task so much better. Even more so when you realize how easy it should be to have proper gapless support, given a half decent design. Either Apple's team is incredibly lazy, or it's incredibly incompetent to the point that the design totally precludes the tiny amount of buffering that would fix this forever.
Say hello to zMac.