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.'"

Comments

Yeah, but does it support Ogg Vorbis?

[dfn5]

Looks cool, but does it support Ogg Vorbis...?

Some quick googling says it does!!! Woo Hoo!!!! I know what I'm getting for my birthday.

Re:Yeah, but does it support Ogg Vorbis?

[cab15625]

Careful ... the spec sheet says it only supports MTP under windowsXP with mediaplayer 10. So you may have a very exciting time getting it to hook up to your linux box. Then again, you may be one of the XP users out there who use ogg. Why do they do this? At least Apple had the sense to support their iPod stuff under non-apple OS's.

Re:I don't get it

[darkmeridian]

The Samsung device supports Ogg Vorbis. It also has an aluminum case that avoids scratching. Battery life is 24 hours, which does matter because not everyone recharges their electronics once a day.

Re:MMS-MMS

[Kufat]

Sorry, no. The iPod can't play protected WMAs ("Playsforsure"). Napster, Wal-Mart, MSN, and the other Microsoft partners use this format.

To the best of my knowledge, the only protected music store that's compatible with the iPod is iTunes. (There are stores that use unprotected files such as eMusic, but they tend to have limited selections.)

Re:Itunes=Feature?

[AKAImBatman]

I know what tunes I like, I don't need software to recommend a playlist.

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:

--^--
<<P>>
--V--

Where "P" is play, and '-' is filler so my chart looks good. :D

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. :-)