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Apple to Face iPod Clone Attack
chr1sb writes "The Age has a commentary piece outlining how Apple's domination of the online media market is continuing to grow, but speculating that significant competition from the likes of Nokia and Motorola will rapidly relegate Apple's presence in the market to a corner, just as clone manufacturing of IBM PCs dominated the initial success of the Macintosh. From the article: 'The iPod/iTunes system will move into a niche with Macintosh computers because Steve Jobs has again stuck with closed architecture and total control. This will happen quickly because mobile phones are being turned over about every year.'."
I have got to stop getting so surprised.
This will happen quickly because mobile phones are being turned over about every year.
Given the buying habits of people I know with the devices, so are iPods.
Funny, this post shows up right after I ordered an iAudio U2 after looking at the Vorbis Hardware wiki. Since Ogg Vorbis is the nerd's audio format, we nerds must have a Vorbis-compatible player, and Apple's offering, while stylish, doesn't have that. Unfortunately, a lot of portable Vorbis compatible players have limited storage size (mine is 1GB), but I'm never away from my laptop long enough to hear more than that much, and so can fill it up with new music when necessary.
Bender: Maybe you don't understand just how rich he is. In fact, I think I'd better put on a monocle.
Judging from what I have seen, no. Cell phone companies seem to want to LOCK people into buying songs over their networks. And, the two phones out that work with iTunes limit you to 100 songs. What would replace an iPod is an iPod with cellphone features. I don't need games on my phone. I like having the camera, but it is a pain to get pictures off it (I have a RAZR).
Give me something like a Treo, except in the size of an iPod or RAZR and I'd be happy to donate my iPod with video to someone.
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
I came in thinking this story was about Natalie Portman in that ripped midriff from Attack of the Clones. Uh... that part where she was naked and petrified of course.
Yes, and an Xbox will have to become a Playstation, lions will lay down with lambs, and Apple will be forced to give up on OSX and move to Windows.
I have a phone already. I have an iPod.
The important quote is buried towards the end of the article:
One device in my pocket or two? It's a no-brainer if you ask me.
Begun, this iPod clone war has.
Alan Kohler's piece in The Age just seems to be an unfocused piece of non-analysis. What was the point of all this? A warning against the siren call of the little white box? A broad survey of the digital media playback marketplace?
Oh, I see ... after a paean to Apple's iPod (well, he seems like a happy customer), he goes all gloom and doom as he thinks the mobile phone operators will be chomping on the iPod for their din din. Right.
Of course that's real perspective on the way the market is going, but Kohler doesn't provide and facts, figures, reasoned arguments, etc ... And someone needs to submit this to the Apple Deathwatch folks from TFA: "It is quite a thrilling time to be alive. We will witness the creation and destruction of a market dominance in the time it used to take to work up a business plan." Sure, um, ok.
Please, lets try not to promote, sloppy, lazy journalism and opinion pieces ... Kohler's sub should have sent this story back.
Correct me if I'm wrong (about my argument or the phones), but that looks more like cooperation than competition...
This year they [cell phone makers] will start releasing phones with the same storage as iPods -- up to 30 gigabytes. iPods themselves will have to become phones.
This makes perfect sense. We all know cell phones are amazingly easy to use with simple and consistent interfaces. I can't wait to run out of batteries from listening to music so I miss important phone calls.
There is also the consistent leapfrogging Apple seems to do. This generation of iPods might be able to be almost feature-matched by the next generation of cell phones, but by the time the next generation of cell phones come out the iPod will be a VCR/TiVO as well as a music player.
I'm sure journalists then will be saying the iPod will die because the next generation of cell phones will play videos.
__
Elephant Essays - Custom-created essays and research papers.
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
When will people get over the Killer App mentaility? The iPod wouldn't sell nearly as well without network effects. I'll explain:
:(
iPod connects to iTunes, which does an excellent job of managing your music.
iTunes connects to the iTunes Music Store, which is a cheap(ish) and easy way to get tracks, as well as easily manage podcasts and subscriptions - if TV shows were available in the UK, I'd be using iTunes to get them, almost definitely.
iTMS connects with pretty much ALL the major music companies, so that when you buy tracks from X, it suggests Y and Z, which you may be interested in.
The combination of all of the above leads to Apple not only having market share, but DESERVING market share - their products are good, and if anyone comes up to me wanting to get into online music, I suggest iPod everytime.
However, as others have said, Ogg Vorbis support should be in iTunes, and either converted within iTunes or playable on the iPod. I can't see it happening anytime soon though
How many times have people written about some new device that's going to be THE iPod killer? Well, it hasn't happened yet. Who cares if it's a phone, a video jukebox, or a pocket toaster that plays MP3s, nothing's slowed down the iPod yet. I don't see any of the handset manufacturers getting there any time soon either.
That only works if they can work with peoples existing music collections.
People have already bought a massive amount of music through itunes. Thus for those with an itunes locked in collection, it will need to be compatible with Apples DRM. So sony and motorola have to either partner with Apple, figure out a way to migrate Apples DRMed files to their service without an Apple partnership, or go after those individuals which have yet to purchase music through itunes, or who went with one of the competing services.
LetterRip
I agree that one device would be a lot easier than two, however I wonder if the battery life of these phone ipods to come will be tolerable. Thestorage space on these phones may be greatly improved, but if I can't listen to my tunes for 3 hours+ while studying and leave my phone on all week, then I'd rather keep my iPod and cell phone separate.
Here today, gone tomorrow.
Obviously, the hardware and its capabilities don't matter. Apple didn't get this market because they were first (they were not) or because they are best (they are not--other players have better UIs, more capabilities, more storage, etc. at less money). Apple got this market because of integration with their on-line store, and a good deal of branding, marketing, and design.
"The iPod/iTunes system will move into a niche with Macintosh computers because Steve Jobs has again stuck with closed architecture and total control. This will happen quickly because mobile phones are being turned over about every year."
Not if all the mobile phone users have died of cancer... ROFL! :)
THE HONOUR OF THE KNIGHTS - CC Licensed Sci-Fi Novel
Waah! Apple makes better products!
Waah! Steve Jobs is smarter than us!
Waah! Apple makes it work while we have meetings!
Waah! We want total control and Apple won't let us!
Waah! Competition is too risky! We want a monopoly instead!
Of course, these are the exact same people who probably said "it'll never work" when the first mp3 players were announced. And they said "it'll never work" when Apple built iTunes. And they said "it'll never work" when Apple said they would make money on digital music. And they said "it'll never work" when Apple put it all together with OS X and the Mac and made the best computer system on the market, period.
And, as usual, they were wrong.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
If they want to kill the iPod, they have to kill iTunes, the iPod and MusicStore in one blow. The iPod success is not just a result of better hardware. It's the whole package, the iLife integration, the fact that it simply works without any hassle.
I organize all my music on my Mac, plug in the iPod, and whooops, shazam or whatever, it's all in my pocket without any technical fuzz.
This may not be the right crowd to voice this opinion in... But in this case I don't want umpteen technical options, and I can live with Apple as a music industry near-monopolist. As long as it works. If someone does it better, fine. Good luck. A colleague just told me that he finally could use his iPod without iTunes due to some hack. Nice! To me, that is a solution without a problem.
Techie stuff is work. Music is play!
And I'm not waiting for an iPod-wannabe (aka iPod-killer).
I'm waiting for something new.
-- somewhat_distant
The problem is that battery's won't keep up with both devices. My Cellphone can last 3-4 days with moderate usage (although if I do mobile web on it, the battery usage goes up). If I used it as a MP3 Player which I can already do, the battery would crap out in an hour...
To truely integrate a iPod and a cellphone, it would have to be as large as my last analog only cell phone which was quite large (I lived for a while without a phone). The reason is for the battery. The biggest thing holding a converged mp3 player and cell phone back is the battery. Only fuel cell tech or an advancement in bettery technology will drive this.
Gorkman
Posted a week ago in Daring Fireball: http://daringfireball.net/2006/03/ipod_juggernaut Anything familiar?
I'd rather not have an iPod that could render me infertile.
There is a plug in for iTunes that enebles playback and encoding of ogg files
http://www.illadvised.com/~jordy/
For what you pay for a Motorola phone you could have another brand's bluetooth-capable phone and a USB bluetooth adapter. Motorola and Apple both make aesthetically-pleasing hardware. Apple has been an innovative software company for years, but Motorola simply can't cut the muster. My Nokia 6230 supports mp3 natively and has an MMC card reader that can handle up to 1 GB. I can have as many songs as I want, never use jukebox software such as iTunes, and transfer to and from any PC that recognizes my bluetooth adapter. My mother's Motorola phone supports mp3 natively, has bluetooth, and costs a fair deal more than my phone, yet Motorola charges its customers for PC software to connect via bluetooth.
When choosing a device that has several functions, the ease of using these functions and the added costs of using all of the functions should play a major role. If you want a camera and a phone and a music player, you should buy something that can be used for all three out of the box with no extra gimmicks.
I'll be your candy shop of infinite deliciousity if you'll be my discotheque of endless rump-shaking.
if you wan't to use your songs purchased from itms (without cracking the drm or throwing away yet more quality by burning and re-ripping) you have to buy ipods
if you wan't to legitimately buy major label music for your ipod over the you have to use itms
so ipod owners are likly end up with some music from itms and the only portable they can play it on will be the ipod. So when thier ipod breaks or they wan't a player for thier spouse or whatever they are going to buy an ipod.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Realistically, service plans usually make phones cost about a thousand bucks. That being said, the prices do fall rather fast. And certainly from eBay, you can often find phones at 1/3 of their real price only a year after they were brand new.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
The long and short of it is, unless you can point to a million customers who would buy an iPod if it supported vorbis, and wouldn't otherwise, it's simply a non-issue to Apple. You are a vanishingly small proportion of their potential market.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
That looks like a qtek s200. Those things are rebranded under 100 different names and still seem good. T-Online MPA II, Vodafone VPA III and so on. Be sure to check out the qtek 9000 , with UMTS, a 500 Mhz processor and 640x480 pixes, it's even more impressive. Still, they're a little larger than the form factor the original poster was talking about, and they don't have the 20/30G of the phones the article was talking about.
I've been posting on the net since 1994 and I still haven't come up with a good sig!
Someone obviously hasn't been reading John Gruber's latest pieces. Idiots.
Maybe TMO could start an "iPod Death Watch" to go along with their "Apple Death Watch", which, IIRC, is up to something like 60 now.
No, I didn't dignify the glaring fearmongering of The Age by reading TFA. That was exactly what they wanted you to do, and Slashdot fell for it, hook, line, and sinker.
In Korea, long hair is for old people!
"..competition from the likes of Nokia and Motorola will rapidly relegate Apple's presence in the market to a corner"
Doesn't anybody realise that the music player on the newer motorola mobiles IS iTunes? I have an apple logo and all on my SLVR! I wish people would do their RESEARCH before writing this nonsense.
It says:
"The only place you can easily buy material for your iPod, as opposed to stealing it, is the iTunes online store."
and refers to it as a "closed system".
Total nonsense. You can "easily by material for your iPod" on CD. Or, you know, from that dodgy Russian MP3 store.
But it's by no means a "closed system". I have 2,000 songs on my iPod and a total of 12 are from the iTMS.
Ain't gonna happen in my lifetime.
According to Kohler's Wikipedia stub he has been at it for 35 years. He is ubiquitos here, turning up in the middle of our TV news with some of other spin graph to punctuate the too familar droning to the day's 'numbers'.
He is trying to become his own industry, in pale imitation of the likes of Crikey who have actually been prepared to do the hard yards and enjoyed some deserved success. But I've yet to hear Kohler say anything perceptive. Certainly this piece lacks any suggestion of coherence.
-- Our systemic servants do not good masters make.
http://www.listwanted.com/
Yes, I know people love these 'mobile phones will kill *insert device here*' stories but it never happens. The biggest problem for the mobile phone companies is that their phones, devices, whatever will not play iTunes songs, so an iPod killer is a bit of a problem unless they want to completely replace peoples' entire iTunes collections. Yer, a huge NGage, mobile phone iPod brick that is way, way, way, way too fiddly to use (and will have several dozen firmware upgrades to get it to work ;)) is going to take over the world!
Another problem is that the only people who talk about mobile phones killing the iPod are analysts writing these stupid articles. Consumers aren't going for it. They use mobiles to call people and their iPod to play music. I mean, that iPod Nano is easily small enough to fit alongside your phone in your pocket, and it means that when you take a call you don't need to faff about with the headphones you've plugged into it or anything else.
Take this comment:
Here is what we know: music and video are going entirely digital. It won't be long before CDs and DVDs are obsolete as storage.
Utterly wrong. The CD and DVD market utterly dwarfs digital sales by a factor of many times, and people simply do not completely trust digital only purchases. There are several other comments that are just utter tosh as well. Basically the article boils down to this:
"Oh my God! Apple and the iPod are streaking into the distance and leaving mobile phone companies, and especially Microsoft behind, so we'll dredge up the same crap about this universal mobile and music device that won't exist. We'll also dredge up the usual rubbish about Apple having the early market and Microsoft taking over later due to economies of scale, like in the PC era, painting over the fact that they simply do not exist in the brand conscious consumer market."
It's the usual Microsoft wishful thinking over the iPod's death, painting over the fact that they have nothing to replace it with and...well...nothing basically. Not worth the read or the time.
Author of "Attack of the Clones", a.k.a "It's April 2 and I don't know what to write about, so I'll write one trashing the iPod and you can all listen to it on PODCAST which I advertise on the bottom of my page".
When Nokia and Motorola make a phone that's as easy to use as an iPod (have you seen mobile phone menus?), is as simple as an iPod (have you seen mobile phone navigation?), is as reliable as an iPod (my brand new Sony Ericsson crashes every 3 days, my previous Nokia would crash every two weeks or so), with the battery life of an iPod (how long does your phone last while playing sounds? mine lasts about 1 and half hours max), the capacity of an iPod (this one I belive will happen sooner than the rest) and the tight integration with iTunes, which is god's gift to music store software and jukeboxes, then I'll believe an article that an Australian hack in Melbourne wrote on the day of the Melbourne Formula one.
Check out the nPod: http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?N OV-MP3B1G !
This may be off topic but how good is ipodlinux http://ipodlinux.org/ (the linux kernel on the ipod)?
Is it legal? And would it work with itunes?
Sent from my desktop computer
call me old fashioned but I like a phone that is good at keeping my phone numbers handy and making calls. I always go for the cheapest Nokia. Because it's easy.
And I don't see that changing soon. Maybe I'm not typical. Or maybe I am, most people with iPods lack the interest or capacity to handle all those superior iPod killers out there. So maybe they won't buy a phone that adds ten more features to replace their stupid simple iPod?
I think, therefore I am...I think.
Who needs that much space. Yeah right. I have heard that one ever since I bought a HD floppy.
There have always been devices that do it all and there have always been devices that do one thing only.
There are washing machines that can also function as a dryer. Funny thing, do you know you can still buy JUST washing machines + a seperate spin dryer + a seperate warm air dryer?
Yes thats right, spin dryers still exist despite the fact that nearly every washing machine can do it that function nowadays. Just not as well as a true purpose spin dryer.
Oh and the whole camera phone argument is faulty. NOBODY uses a camera phone as a replacement for a regular phone. The camera phone is the replacement of the throwaway/rented camera. Its function is to be always with you for those moments when you do not have a regular camera with you.
In fact that is the function of all the extra's on the mobile phone. Games? Fun for when you got your phone but not a real game system. Calendar? Usefull for when you do not got access to your real calendar. Music? Nice for when you forgot your real music player.
Offcourse some people will be happy with the limited capabilities that their phone offers them. Just as some people are happy with a 10 dollar MP3 player they got from the bargain bin.
That is not Apples market. Apples market is what used to be the Walkman->Minidisc/CD-man market. They effectivly replaced sony for portable audio.
Oh and if you think your phone MP3 players is not going to have DRM your insane.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Lets see: The article claims that this year phones are going to be launched with 30gb storage, the same as an iPod.
Mmmm, what they really mean is that 1 phone is going to be launched, possibly this year, in japan, that is going to cost a fortune, eat batteries for lunch, not going to tiny while having the storage of the smallest 5th gen iPod.
Doesn't exactly sound like it is going to sweep the market. In fact the mobile phone market is incredibly fractured with not a single manufacturer having the kind of market share that apple enjoys in the mp3 player market. Let alone that a single new model will achieve anywhere near the penetration that iPods have.
Oh but there is the anology to the PC's where IBM clones pushed Apple into a corner. Yup that is true.
Except that how does this relate to mp3 players? The "clones" arrived first in this case. It was the tiny asian "clone" companies that launched first and only later did Apple join the party and even later did the real big boys like Sony get involved. If anything this is the exact opposite of what happened with PC's. This would have like if Compaq and the other clones had their PC market gobbled up by IBM.
For some reason when it comes to IT most people seem to loose common sense. Surely we all here remember how the N-cage was supposed to take over? Nintendo better watch out with its GBA.
Didn't happen.
Some people point to camera phones as to how the mobile phone can replace single purpose devices by combining them into the phone.
Except that this did not really happen. The camera phone did not replace regular camera's. Or do you really record your kids birthday party on your mobile phone? No the quality seperate camera market is still there. What the camera phone replaced is the throw away camera and incredibly cheap, good for 1 holiday, market. What it mostly did however was expand the market. There are now simply more cameras about then there were before.
I think the same will be true for mobile phone MP3 players. They will partially replace the very cheap players and partially expand the market so that people who never owned a portable music player before will have one now.
The iPod is as threathend by the mobile phone as the SLR camera is by the camera phone. Or the GBA is by the N-cage. Or the computer is by the PDA.
Offcourse the PDA is under threath by the smart phone and one day it may be true that the mobile phone will be so powerfull that it can replace the iPod. Looking at current tech I think that is still years if not decades away.
But a headline off "Business as usual" does not sell ads does it now.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
This is clearly one in a row. Follow the money and the ads.
Should become "Apple's iPod survives sustained Clone funded Media Attack"
'nuf said.
--------
* Sigh *
Please mod up the parent comment - it definitely deserves a "+1, Insightful". If you put every last bit of functionality into one device, you'll end up with one gadget that can do everything but excels at nothing. I don't want to say camera phones aren't useful, for example, but the fact that my cell phone has a built-in cam does not mean I'm going to get rid of my digital camera. The former is good for taking quick snapshots when you don't care about what they actually look like (for example, when you just want to show something to a friend at a later point), but if I want lasting pictures, I'd never use a camera phone.
The same goes for MP3 players and other things, too.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
"The Age has a commentary piece outlining how Apple's domination of the online media market is continuing to grow, but speculating that significant competition from the likes of Nokia and Motorola will rapidly relegate Apple's presence in the market to a corner, just as clone manufacturing of IBM PCs dominated the initial success of the Macintosh. From the article: 'The iPod/iTunes system will move into a niche with Macintosh computers because Steve Jobs has again stuck with closed architecture and total control. This will happen quickly because mobile phones are being turned over about every year.'.""The Age has a commentary piece outlining how Apple's domination of the online media market is continuing to grow, but speculating that significant competition from the likes of Nokia and Motorola will rapidly relegate Apple's presence in the market to a corner, just as clone manufacturing of IBM PCs dominated the initial success of the Macintosh. From the article: 'The iPod/iTunes system will move into a niche with Macintosh computers because Steve Jobs has again stuck with closed architecture and total control. This will happen quickly because mobile phones are being turned over about every year.'."
The game is much different this time. This is not any kind of repeat from the initial IBM PC clone days.... For example:
- Apple never had an 80% and growing stranglehold of a marketshare - across multiple product categories no less.
- The "clones" were just that - all making the same thing. Here we have a couple different clones all keeping closed systems and fighting each other.
- The integration between content and player and where the money comes from is much trickier this time. Everyone having to license from the record companies for content - or shipping a player as-is and in effect sending them to piratebay - a clusterfuck to deal with. There were no dinosoar calculator paper companies besieging the early PC market.
- The content providers havent caught up with technology - while the culture has. There was no war between what a device can do and how we need to limit it.
- Imagine if Apple was allowed to sell the iPod we want. Bluetooth and/or WIFI music sharing, FM tuner and line-in. Step 2. sell a few hundred million - its would just be that easy if it werent for factors holding the entire industry back.
Just a few points to consider when comparing today to the PC (not Mac) clone days.
---- The real Slashdot is still here. You just have to browse at -1 to read the comments.
This is stupid. Part of the industry has kept making these predictions ever since the iPod and iTMS came out (respectively). I don't blame them for having those thoughts in the beginning, since neither was immediately successful, and Apple hasn't had similar success in the past. But despite being proven wrong by facts constantly, they keep predicting the same thing over and over. At this point, it's not unlike making the prediction that in three months, we'll all use Macs, and I'm not sure anyone here would take that even slightly seriously.
The only part of these predictions that might turn out correct is that mobile phones that can play music are on the rise. This is only true because more and more mobile phones now have the ability to play music, not because the same percentage of mobile phones can play music and more and more people are taking the extra steps to hunt out them specifically - it's like claiming more and more people do supercomputing because more and faster computers are being sold. Additionally, sales of dedicated music players - like the iPod - are *also* going up with a vengeance, so if there's market being stolen here by either side from the other, I for one don't see it.
This is how I imagine the part of the industry that keeps making these predictions working:
WMA-based music stores (or hell, any other music store) will suddenly and violently overturn iTunes Music Store (currently at around 70-80% market share) at the drop of a hat, mobile phones with the ability to play audio will suddenly and violently take over half the market for iPods, and all other music players will suddenly and violently take over the other half of the market for iPods, all going almost completely contrary to documented recent developments and general momentum, and it'll all happen... Nnnnnnnow!
Okay. Good. Didn't happen. We were early. Forward-thinking. But I swear, it's gonna happen! Nnnnnnnnnnow!
Uh... nnnnnnow! Damn it! Nnnnnnnnnnnnnow!
Nnnnnnnnow! Nnnow! Nnnnow!
That was cooperation all right, but it fell through. I remain hopeful, though, for events and reasons completely different. And my hope even comes with its own half-assed speculation. Follow:
Apple and CompUSA got together many years ago to create an Apple Ghetto Store within each CompUSA. It sucked. Apple pulled out, created their own retail outlets at a time when critics said they were crazy to do so, and they took off.
Apple and Motorola got together years later to create an iTunes/phone. Judging by the reports, it sucked too. Apple pulled out.........and the rest of the story hasn't been written yet. But you can probably guess the rest.
It's a wonderful dream, but probably won't work. To create the standalone Apple Stores, they needed retail space in many different malls, with relatively little competition between them (distance is a limiting factor on competition). Mobile phone carriers have almost total overlay of coverage, which makes them bitterly competetive. Furthermore, they're competitive in a "screw the customers who want to leave" scorched-earth kind of way. To make the sales of an iPhone work, they'd need either to set up their own network (and they don't have enough experience with that yet) or build the iPhone to work with existing digital networks, which will do their damndest to lock whatever phone the customer tries to put onto it seven ways to Sunday.
I don't think Apple wants to build a phone which the customer will want to throw away annually, even if it means a boost in sales.
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
If you read who the person is who wrote this article, it's Alan Kohler... who is the finance correspondant for the ABC here in Australia. It's like listening to your local grease monkey about space travel... while he/she may understand some rudementry mechanics, they are definately not a rocket scientist.
It might be true for current gadgets, but I don't see why it will be true for future gadgets. Is this just lack of fantasy on your side?
I have no problem imagining a single gadget the size of a 9 volt battery that does everything very well and then some, including serving web pages and running seti@home, all while fed by a betavoltaic batery that lasts 20 years. Actually, looking back at the last 20 years, I find this all rather plausible, and I am only annoyed by the wait.
Check out my blog http://convergence.in/blog/archives/18 This is sold on Rediff.com(Google of India, Courtesy: Jim Cramer) LOL.
IBM held an absolute lock on the hardware and software of computing for many decades. They had the monopoly and the anti-trust investigation before Mcrosoft was a significant player. Apple never had a chance to be dominant since they didn't have the business computing side of things.
Microsoft was able to take over IBM's monopoly. They did this because IBM gave them control of the OS, and then Compaq reverse engineered the hardware and IBM lost control of the platform. The conclusion is that the reason that Microsoft succeeded is because they took control of a long established monopoly. The lesson is absolutely not that Apple would have won if only they had allowed people to clone the Mac hardware.
Giving away control of the hardware for the iPod would do what? Lessen the cost $50 and allow crappy interfaces and second rate design to proliferate? If that would work, why hasn't Microsoft's recent effort paid off? That was just their theory about consumers wanting choice. If anything, it would confuse the marketplace because it would be harder to distinguish the difference between an iPod and the rest.
Meanwhile, Apple's marketshare has only increased as the market has grown.
has anyone managed to hack any other mp3 player, so that it is compatible with itunes? or has anyone made an ipod hardware compatible mp3 player than the ipod firmware could be loaded onto?
I actually read the FA:
1) He reference some "fact" that apple used to own the PC market via the Macintosh, but because it was proprietary, it lost the lead to the IBM PC.
2) He says "this will happen quickly because mobile phones are being turned over about every year". Yes, and they've turned over 5 times since the iPod has been around. One has nothing to do with the other. If Motorola and/or Nokia had the ability to make an iPod substitute, they would have done so a long time before now.
3) He actually buys all his songs via iTMS. The sure sign of a guy who makes very little money and then spends what little he has on overpriced, heavily compressed music.
As clueless as people can be on slashdot, this guy is 10 times worse.
Brain Recorder. If a machine was built that could record everything that you seen heard smelt And felt. We are talking about probes attached to your head and hooked up To a computer. Could the RIAA sue you for the contant if you shared it over the internet. Say you went to see a movie and sent the data from what you recorded from you brain to a machine , not machine to machine. could you be sued ? if so is our own brains going to be covered under the DMCS act ? I know this sounds far fetched but so did the PC, Cell Phone and the Ipod 20 years ago. http://delflyzero.somee.com/
Cell phones are too confusing for most people who use them beyond making a phone call. I can't for-see any cell manufacturers writing a well established program that would handle their music and make the transfer of songs to the device easy and transparent, let alone provide content that is affordable (these are the same people who sell ring tones for up to $3.00 USD for a piece of a song at really bad quality). What are they gonna use? Windows Media Player? Have you ever set up an MP3 player that uses WMP? I have seen average users get rid of non-iPod MP3 players because they couldn't figure out how to get music on it.
What about sound quality? Apple's first step in designing the iPod was to make sure that it was an excellent sounding piece of audio equipment. I don't think a cell manufacturer is going to share the same passion as Apple to make a great audio experience. The iPod has always been an audio device first and foremost and its great at what it does. The recent video capable iPods display video as a secondary feature and the focus is indeed on playing music, not watching it. Maybe they will create a device that is the reverse of that one day, but that's another discussion altogether.
The last thing is customer service. Do you call Motorola when you have questions about you phone? Not me, I have to call my carrier. My carrier also sets the bar for me for the worst customer service experience possible. Do you think a convergence device is going to make the carriers beef up their customer service departments? Neither do I.
Sound waves should be free!
...of a long line of morons predicting the demise of Apple.
So far, Apple has been hurt more by expectations (by the media, investors, us) that every MacWorld, press conference, and birthday is going to bring some earth-shattering device or service. 2006 has be rough in that regard for Apple. Along the same line, there are press reports that sales of the iPod are down, but don't say relative to what...how could the sales continue at the pace set in the Christmas season? Apple is not Jesus.
Of course, neither were the Beatles and they weathered that ok.
a phone and music player would be great... one device wonderful... PDA and phone in one device would be great... but... i do not think these manufacturers understand how to compete with Apple on user interface... of all the years of using a cellphone... we still have inferior interfaces on the leading phones... my razr sucks... its not easy to store and retrieve a phone number for a person who has multiple phone numbers... or a voice name... and that there is no voice navigation of the menu system is lame... a nd how about the way you setup/hookup a bluetooth device... its to hard to get a call from my family and take the bluetooth receiver off the phone when my bluetooth receiver might be close by... Apple's ipod however... works... its easy... its easy to download music and its easy to listen to music... its easy... there are a few problems like when i switch computers etc.. and have to transfer my music over to my new computer ... it would be easier to have a feature where i could download my previously downloaded music... but when it comes to a dependable easy to use device when i want to listen to music... i have two choices my nano or my video ipod... sorry guys... i think we will not have a single device until someone figures out how to do it right... and it will probably be apple
Instead of making ad hominem attacks on everyone who disagrees with you, why don't you add something of value to the discussion?
The iPod has dominated the personal music player (PMP) market since its introduction in 2001. In this quarter alone, iPod sales are expected to approach 9 million units.
With sales numbers like those, it's easy to see why other companies have been trying (unsuccessfully) for the last five years to take market share away from Apple. It's equally easy to see why Apple has the R&D budget to stay one step ahead of its rivals.
What you don't seem to grasp is that the iPod devices drive music sales on iTunes. Apple can afford to break even or to lose money on each iPod sale because the average iPod buyer loads the iPod up one $.99 song at a time through iTunes.
To compete with Apple, a company would have to develop an business model in which PMP sales were subsidized by later music sales. That means creating a viable iTunes competitor. So, how do you convince the record labels to sign on with your music store and how do you get prices from them that are as good as what they give Apple? You don't have an installed base of millions of PMPs, so they aren't looking at a tempting market that they need to reach. Many other companies have already tried to compete with iPod and failed, so what makes your venture more likely to succeed?
But let's suppose that you have pictures of all of the major record execs having sex with donkeys and that's how you get the same music availability and pricing that Apple does for iTunes. Now how do you convince your company's management that you can out-iPod Apple? How do you get them to give you the massive sums of R&D money needed to build something that is as pleasing to the consumer as the iPod? How do you make them believe that your efforts will be any more successful than those of Creative Labs, Archos, Samsung, SanDisk, or the myriad other players, most of which came and went with little fanfare?
Now how do you convince your vendors to provide you sweet deals on everything for lithium-ion batteries to headphone jacks? How do you get the prices for components that Apple does? Toshiba knows that they will sell 30+ million hard drives through Apple, so they are willing to give Apple the best pricing possible. How do you propose to get that kind of pricing? By saying "we're going to sell a lot, too"?
I've owned personal music players from Creative Labs, Rio, and Archos because I was loathe to give Apple my money. But the fact is that the other players were large, clunky, and poorly constructed when compared with the iPod offerings. Go into any Best Buy and look at the personal music players. The iPod simply looks like a product from five years in the future when compared with the competitors.
While I expect that some well-heeled competitor will come along to challenge Apple, I don't expect it to happen soon. The only way that I see it happening anytime soon is if a court rules that Apple's iTunes/iPod bundling is illegal and orders Apple to open up its DRM and allow competing products to use iTunes for music purchases.
Hopefully, that was a lot more thought-provoking than the "Waah!" stuff that you posted.
The clones aren't on the way, they're already here. Note that this has a voice recording feature, uses easily-replaceable batteries, and supports more format (wma, which admittedly I won't be using.) than Apple's iPod nano. CompUSA has these things for $100.
SanDisk Sansa c140 1GB* MP3 Player
Model: SDMX5-1024
Not only can you jam to your favorite downloaded tracks on this sleek MP3 player but you can also enjoy your favorite radio stations on the FM tuner with 20 station presets.
1GB* internal flash memory stores up to 500 songs
Ultracompact design measures just 1" deep and weighs only 1.7 ounces
Supports MP3, WMA and DRM WMA audio formats, plus JPEG, BMP, TIFF, GIF and PNG image formats
Color display with easy-to-use controls
Built-in digital FM tuner with FM recording and 20 station preset; integrated voice recorder
Picture mode displays small photos and supports JPEG, BMP, TIFF, GIF and PNG image formats
EQ modes include rock, jazz, classical, pop and custom for an improved listening experience
High-speed USB 2.0 interface for blazing transfer speeds
Liquidmetal back casing protects against scratches and cracks
1 AAA battery provides up to 15 hours of playback
PlaysForSure compatible
PC compatible
Upgradable to future formats and features
http://tinyurl.com/4ny52
There'll always be a market for standalone mp3 players, but I think the article is right to suggest that that market is going to get squeezed by mobile phones, mainly at the low end.
My Wife's new mobile phone has half a gig of memory in it which she can store songs on, and she can upgrade it with a memory stick if she wishes. The phone came free with a new phone contract and she's not paying any more that she was on her old plan.
So she's basically set up with an mp3 player without having to spend any more money than she would have anyway. Sure, she'll probably get a memory stick to boost the capacity, but that'll still not cost her that much, and considerably less than an iPod nano with a similar capacity would.
Now, I'm sure all of you with high-capacity iPods are scoffing at my Wife's meagre storage space on her phone, but many people just don't need that high capacity. My current mp3 player (A Rio Carbon) holds 5Gb, and I don't have any space problems on it. It'll not be long before phones with a similar capacity are commonplace.
So for those who don't require high capacity, a phone with mp3 playing is going to be an obvious choice; especially as you then only have one object to carry around.
I think it's interesting to compare it with low-end cameras and PDAs; Camera phones nowadays are approaching the quality that they can be a reasonable replacement for the low-end pocket point-and-shoot cameras, and phones now do many of the simpler functions of a PDA. Those who wish for a large collection of music at their fingertips will stick with their iPods, but many others (and I suspect this is a large chunk of the market) will migrate to mobile phones.
Okay, we know sony et al. have the disadvantage that their players can probably never play stuff that users bought from the itunes store. I think they need to come up with some marketing gimmick. What I personally don't like from the pay-and-download music model is that it gives me nothing "tangible". When I buy a CD I have, well, a tangible CD with a tangible booklet. So maybe Sony/Nokia can come up with some store that, after I payed for and downloaded a song, will send be something tangible, as a proof that I own that song. I am thinking of a "plastic chip" or something (like you have in casinos) with a print on it showing a nice image (like on the cover of the CD). It would be really cool to collect those thingies! (and of course to listen to the songs :-)
Anyway, just my 2 cts.
Some may think that the author is just stoking a burnt out campfire, but there really is a lot to this story.
It's clear that technology is converging - the only limitation has been interface. All electronics are fundamentally the same - a plastic housing, transistors, battery, and I/O. That's it.
Phones are a natural communications device - communications are intrinsic to their purpose. And all of these other devices, from the iPod to the digital video camera to the glucometer are the just variations of the same thing. And I argue that they all need much better communications capabilities. Users of the future will DEMAND it.
Convergence is happening, and the iPod will eventually fail.
The iPod replacement device will be centered around the cell phone, and will include the features of the best iPod, digital video cameras, GPS navigators, televisions, and sex toys.
If it was, then the ipod would never have made it at all, and we would not be talking about macintoshes..
A good part of why apple is still around is the total customer expirence, ( sales, support ) and the higher quality of their devices.
A cheap clone is just that, a cheap clone. Will people buy them? Sure, people are cheap. Will it destroy apple? No, of course not.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
http://daringfireball.net/2006/03/ipod_juggernaut
...batteries. For instance, some of my portable multiband radios have two battery areas, one set is for playing the radio, the other is for keeping the programmed data intact. They could use a similar arrangement for these convergence phone devices if they wanted to. Two batteries with a software tweak would mean you could play music but it would automatically shutdown music playing if the battery levels dropped too long to continue to have the phone in standby mode to use it as a phone. A matter of setting the priorities.
...the "convergence" buzzword since the early 90s. It was bullshit then, and it's bullshit now.
When you cram the functionality of a handful of different devices into a single form factor, you get something that does a lot of jobs poorly due to the inherent compromises that must be made. Word quickly gets out, and the product dies. The most glaring example I can think of right now is the original N-Gage.
History has shown that despite what the asshole markeeters claim as they try to cram "convergence" down our throats, people don't mind carrying multiple single-purpose devices that do their jobs very well-- especially if the alternative is a piece of shit that almost does everything they need it to do.
~Philly
This is the umpteenth time I've read an article that has been published online that outright fucking lies about iTunes by saying it's the only place you can get music for your iPod, besides pirating it. Anyone who's ever even used iTunes once knows or should know you can import music from any bloody source, be it CD or music downloaded (I'm sure there's a tool for you Ogg Vorbis folks to change it to MP3 or somesuch) from any other online music store; this is the way it is now and the way it has always been. I'm sorry, but the author of TFA, this guy named Alan Kohler, is a retard.
Ex nihilo nihil fit.
Because there are times when a mediocre quality picture with no zoom is acceptable for a few one-off pictures.
The camera phone is increasing in pixels, but still has poor quality, lots of digital enhancements rather than using quality optics, a poor interface, lack of features, lack of flash, lack of any optical zoom, red eye removal, etc.
Having a few bells and whistles is always a plus, but in the end, a phone needs to work. Combining a phone and a PDA is a great idea, as the device is always on you and there's a lot of cross (address books for example). Crossing the camera is for the occasional time when you need to grab a picture (insurance, profile picture, fully scene, etc) where you wouldn't carry a camera... but don't think for a second that you can replace a camera with a phone.
-M
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
The reason people buy iPods and love them so much is the same reason people buy pre-packaged vacations or use travel agents. Sure, you could go book your tickets with an airline, find a hotel and book that, research a dozen locations to go to at your destination and when they are open, and do all the logisitcs, or you can just have somebody else do it. Sometimes its worth the fee to save your time.
Sure, my iPod cost more than a lot of other stuff on the market, and it doesn't have video, but it's so freaking easy to use. Now, I love playing around with tech toys like the next guy, but ease of use is ease of use. Pop in a CD, rip it and file it away without worrying about setting up the files and folders correctly. If I hear an artist Ilike, I can download their latest album in 4 or 5 clicks instead of driving over to Best Buy. Pop my iPod in, and it puts all my new music on, updates my playlists, puts my photos on, and updates my Outlook calendar. Simple. I didn't have to do anything. I didn't have to open up 4 programs like I would have to with other playesr or a cell phone.
So why would I possibly buy one of these merged cell phones and music players. All of their synching software I've seen in bloatware with extremely slow upload speeds. Very few allow native mp3 playing, so you have to run their converter for half an hour. And given my level of trust for the cell phone industy, I can only assume there is some low level spyware involved so that I can get some fun text messages telling me I'll enjoy the next Black Eyed Peas single. Then I can hop in my car where my cell phone won't play to my radio, so I hve to use headphones. My battery will be dead by the time I get to work. Gee, what a fun end-user eperience that will be.
All of that being said, I really do want to see what a rael iPod killer would like like. My bet is it will probably come from Apple themselves (PowerPod?). In the mean time, I'm happy with a product that I get a kick out of playing with that is also simple enough for my mother to use (seeing 60 year old woman who can barely surf the internet be able to plug in a Shuffle and use it correctly is amazing).
It's not stupid. It's advanced.
Because cell phones are an open platform.... =/
The iPod is not the "killer app," *ASIA* is. In Asia and many developing countries, the cell phone is the primary computing device. When Nokia [or any other cell phone manufacturer] hits the right combination of their captive audience(s), a good-enough music ordering and download system, and massive cell phone deployment, the iPod will be relegated to its tiny, elegant, black-and-blue-jeaned Cupertino corner while the rest of the world moves on in the mainstream.
With respect to the article's comments on marketshare, it's absolutely correct...but nothing new. The discussions about cell phones and digital music playback as iPod competitors have been ongoing over the past few years. It's really only a matter of time...probably within the next 1-2 years that Apple will be eclipsed.
Furthermore, flash and battery technology are evolving, so all the storage and power arguments are really a non-issue. Practically speaking, a cell phone battery only has to make it through one-day's worth of usage to be reasonably functional. My Treo650's battery life is not perfect, but also not too shabby...and I have a spare battery. Do you think that maybe there will be a single phone battery that can last an entire day under reasonable use, even with a phone as the primary mp3 player? Unthinkable!
The current Apple strategy, while great as a source of market definition, is not sufficient to maintain control. For example, as soon as the music industry re-establishes control of the channel and negotiates new deals, Apple will no longer set the pricing. You can bet that the music industry only tolerates the current deal with Apple because it is better than piracy and an interim money-maker.
What Apple IS good for is a straw-man negotiation point. Cell phone companies that want to compete with Apple and negotiate with media providers will be willing to pay more for songs for large audiences, such as the non-iPod-primary-phone-computing Asians. Once that happens, Apple will be marginalized and will no longer be able to demand their current, optimal pricing. You can also bet that to get to a price-point above Apple's, the media companies will be willing to initially subsidize the pricing model with phone companies. So, for example, they might get the same pricing as Apple, but be contractually obligated to sell it at a higher price with some additional commission going back to supplier.
Of peripheral interest in the category of corporate stupidity, ego, and the inability of companies to capitalize on obvious synergies, we have the Apple Corps vs. Apple iPod lawsuit. Instead of joining forces to make millions on the Beatles' legacy through an ideal channel and taking advantage of Jobs' brilliant marketing strategies, there is now another lawsuit that will cost both companies millions. Even if the Beatles win, the settlement would only be a fraction of what they could earn as a premiere iTunes partner...or *GASP* a joint venture. In any partnership between the two companies, the Beatles could ask for any tune price they wanted, as long as the market would tolerate it. But NO! It's time to sue! Look at their fancy Wiley Coyote Suuuuuuuuuuuuper Geeeeeeeenius business cards!
Apple is certainly working on their own phone technology, but unless it's in partnership with a major phone company, like Nokia, it will never achieve prominence and is probably a huge waste of money.
I will not buy a cell phone with music capabilities. Or, if not given a choice (something the cell phone networks seem to just LOVE to do), then I will disable/ignore the music features.
When are the cell phone companies going to realize that most of us just want a simple voice communications device? We don't want music, video, web, still camera, video camera, etc. etc. in our phones. All of these features are seldom used and clutter up the interface, not to mention sucking battery. We want a compact phone with as much battery life as possible and the best sound quality possible, and that's IT.
It's the content providers who screw things up, the the cell phone makers.
I've worked with handling their requirements for a phone manufacturer, all of the service providers have weird requirements. I'd never buy a phone with a service plan, I always get them unencumbered.
If we view the iPod as just another appliance, then there no evidence to back this claim. There are millions of televisions, DVD players, stereo stytems, etc. sold every year that do not have an open architecture. Most people do not need access to the architecture of these devices. They just want them to work when they use them.
On the other hand, if we view the iPod as a Personal Server gussied up to look like an music player, then there may be something to this. The real question is how closed is the iPod platform, and how quickly could Apple open it if or when they needed to?
Apple doesn't make it's money on the iTunes Music Store. They make the money on the iPods themselves. The RIAA gets the benefits of your iTunes purchase.
The future is not in a simple ipod, Apple knows this so let them try to clone old product and stale ideas. The real advantage is in future devises such as an iPod with built-in phone and mini computer at around the 400Mhz mark running an adapted full operating system and connected to the internet fulltime thought digital cell connections. You will be online all the time running your favorite applications while riding the bus downtown. Downloading your music and watching movies and surfing the web, emailing and whatever else blah blah blah. This new mobile computer system will eventually make the desktop computers obsolete and turn millions of people in to walking zombies or driving maniacs. If you think text messaging is bad, just you wait to see the near future. The Hive mind is becoming a reality - resistance is futile
I don't get the iPod.
Back in the 80's when the Walkman was all the rage, I think I got one for a birthday or something. I used it a couple of times and then it, too, went into the dustbin of seldom-used things.
I just don't have the opportunity to really use something like an iPod. When I'm in the car, I turn on the CD player. When I'm at work, I very very seldom listen to music and when I do have the urge I just let my desktop PC play the tunesfor me. When I'm not at work or driving to or from it, I'm doing activities that don't really avail themselves to or require headphones.
I suppose it might be cool to have a large digital device to store my music on to play in my car, but I wasn't impressed with the quality of the FM transmitter used in my XM radio, and I don't feel like trying to figure out how to hard-wire it into the radio. I just have a handfull of RW CDs that I keep re-burning with different tunes for the car.
Now that I think of it, the single biggest place I listen to music is in my car. Is there a good car stereo system with built-in support for the iPod? Something where I can just plug in a jack and go? Ideally, I'd like a "hole" in my dashboard the size of my iPod where I just stick in the iPod and it plays.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
What is happening is fascinating and scary, and anyone in the entertainment business anywhere in the world -- nowhere more than in Australia -- needs to understand it.
Nowhere more than Australia? Since when was Sydney the burdgeoning hub of the music industry?
The music industry fled into Jobs' arms in desperation as it watched piracy erode its sales
No, I seem to recall that Jobs had to do a lot of work to get all five major labels to agree to a $0.99-per-song pricing structure with minimal DRM.
We will witness the creation and destruction of a market dominance in the time it used to take to work up a business plan.
iPods have been around for, what, five years now? And they've been dominant for at least three.
I'm sorry, but half of this article sounds like an April Fool's joke, and the rest just sounds like wishful thinking.
nokia said a year ago they were planning to be the biggest camera manufacturer. and now nokia its the camera largest manufacturer, they shipped 100 millions of cameraphones. outpasing kodak sony and canon by alot!. they also shipped 40 million music phones. and they plan to double this year. knowing nokia its possible. cellphone popularity is growing and nokia being the market leader with 35% of market share (thats around 250 millions phone sold every year) nokia already have 4gb music phones. with SEARCH feature and good audio quality and 11 hours of play time. the ipod will be outpaced, the lose of market share will happen after some time. when the phones start getting high quality replacing all the other devices
they target now the music phones and the ipod will probably will be leave at home. you can go out without your ipod but not without your cellphone =)
btw: my name is joseph i was just to lazy to register, and sorry for my english
Well, this "attack of the clones" does at least sound like it'll be better than the movie was
chr1sb?
Seriously, is he 12 years old?
nevermind his analogy is fatally flawed and has perspective of i dunno, someone who wasn't born in until after 1980.
...begins you, this iPod clone war does.
-- Boycott Shell
Apple is so safe with the iPod that it's not funny. Just look at how many people they're licensing the dock interface to. It's available in new cars, in aftermarket cart stereos, it's in all kinds of accessories. The prevalence of the dock connector simply makes the iPod more desirable than its competitors, and the fact that it's proprietary gives Apple a lot of safety.
Microsoft has implemented their "play anywhere" USB interface, and some car stereo makers are starting to implement it. Eventually, it will provide an alterenative to the iPod dock, but it looks to be somewhere in 2007 before it achieves any uptake.
The catch is that the "generic" MP3 player makers will be fighting each other on price, while Apple will be able to maintain much better margins on the iPod. So the iPod will eventually drop some market share, but it will remain profitable for Apple. Meanwhile, Creative and iRiver and all the others will be beating their brains out trying to undercut each other.
He who owns the interface owns the market. I didn't say it's good, it's just a fact of life.
Do you have MBA from the University of Cerealpacket?
No, but I will next month!
Something where I can just plug in a jack and go? Ideally, I'd like a "hole" in my dashboard the size of my iPod where I just stick in the iPod and it plays.
r ies.html
There are quite a few systems and adaptors available. Here's a list:
http://www.apple.com/ipodnano/ipodyourcar/accesso
"Hey boss, wouldn't it be great if we sold 30GB phones that people could play MP3's on? Nokia's got one coming out."
"Yeah, that would sell millions"
"Exactly"
"Of downloads."
"What?"
"We take the MP3 standard, we encrypt it with a wrapper so that nobody else can play it back, and sell it to the user at three dollars a track over our online phone-based music store"
"That's not what I meant"
"Then if the user wants to transfer that track to their PC, we charge them the download cost again. Or the ringtone version. Then we sell them concert tickets over their phone, and if they want a working signal in the concert venue we hit them with roaming fees."
"No, No, that's all wrong."
"That's a great idea. Now we just need a name. MP3Me? Not that it would play actual MP3's... that would eat into download sales."
"An MP3 player that can't play MP3's?"
"Stability doesn't matter, so we should be able to get it up and running quickly. Billy, make it happen in a month, or you're fired. Now if you'll excuse me, my masseuse is coming."
"You're the devil, aren't you?"
The ______ Agenda
Please, lets try not to promote, sloppy, lazy journalism and opinion pieces.
You must be new here.
The ______ Agenda
And here's the problem: the man has stopped using his stereo system and now listens exclusively to his iPod through his Apple speakers.
"And it sounds great."
No it doesn't. Unfortunately the tin-eared are making it increasingly difficult for the rest of us to find actual music in a format which doesn't compromise the sound.
I don't need games on my phone.
So which handheld device would you use instead for playing independent games? Both the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP use a lockout chip business model.
Lack of content was one of the main problems faced by the nGage.
On the other hand, with media players, you don't need to wait for content to be specifically produced for your device : there's plenty of music and other media around already. (The only exception being the PSP and all this "Movies in UMD format scam")
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
...but can we get over this ogg vorbis thing already?
1. stupid, stupid, stupid name. i know it makes geeks think they're cool because they think it sounds like a spell from dungeons and dragons, but it's insipid.
2. it will never catch on. ever. ever. there are already standards that have been adopted. asking itunes to work with ogg is like complaining because you can't buy a beta tape played combined with a dvd player. (i know you can, of course, but not for regular home use. you get my point.)
3. it's a petulant, stamp-your-feet complaint. like getting cranky because your car gps system doesn't run linux.
go get it
I disagree that iTunes music store is excellent.
1. iTunes music store has a selection of music no better than what can be bought on amazon.com (on CD) - it should have stuff that is out of print - particularly if it is out of print but was once available on CD.
2. iTunes music store should let you redownload music you've bought for no charge.
3. iTunes music store should offer apple lossless downloads - this is particularly important because if I wanted to switch to a non Apple player in the future I would want to be able to reencode from the raw PCM and not have to do any transcoding (or worse be locked into, or even theorecticeally have music my orphaned by Apple)
Until these issues are fixed I only buy from emusic.com (for price and -APS encoding) or on CD (small price premium for freedom)
Nevermind what he says. Apple makes money selling iPods. Apple breaks even, at best, with iTunes.
That tends to back up my point - iTunes drives iPod sales. I have no idea why this simple assertion got modded into the ground.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
This article is just one of many that makes the mistaken assumption that a device with more features, in this case a phone that does nearly everything, is superior to one that has fewer features but does them well.
:MK5-2A player has an integrated FM tuner and takes voice notes?" The assumption is that the quality of product is in the sum of its features, regardless of the fact the addition of these features usually increases the complexity, and reduces the usability, of the device.
t icle%20-%20Feature%20Fatigue.pdf
We see this argument frequently from iPod competitors, who contend that their device is better because it has X feature, while the iPod does not. "Why would anyone buy an iPod when the
Recent research explains why we see this feature creep. In an article called, "Feature Fatigue: When Product Capabilities Become Too Much of a Good Thing," researchers found that consumers responded to sales pitches that emphasized the number of different features. Features, in short, are good marketing. The addition of more features, however, often leads to a less usable product. In this study, once the consumers had a chance to actually use the products for a while and were asked to re-evaluate their purchase, they tended to choose a simpler product with fewer features.
Here is a relevant paragraph from the article: "Consumers can now purchase a single product that functions as a cell phone, game console, calculator, text-messaging device, wireless Internet connection, personal digital assistant, digital camera, MP3player, and global positioning system. However, although purchasing this highly complex product may give the consumer bragging rights, each function the consumer does not actually use adds to the difficulty of learning to use the product without providing any functional benefit."
This research helps explain why the iPod generates such high levels of customer satisfaction. Apple's excellent marketing, and word of mouth from happy iPod users, overcomes the arguments of competitors that the iPod lacks features. Once people own an iPod, they are not overwhelmed by its complexity. It does what they really want and does it well. This is what separates Apple from most consumer electronics companies.
My cell phone is not an mp3 player. It can't even take grainy photos. It makes and receives calls quite well, on the other hand, and the battery life is good. I like it!
The study I cite is here:
http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/marketing/pdfs_docs/Ar
I think the premier audio codec for nerds -- audio nerds anyway -- is FLAC. There seem to be a lot of people who trade concert bootlegs and stuff encoded with FLAC, and a lot of discussion of it on various audio forums.
But there we're talking about a subculture of a subculture, it's so far from mainstream it's not even funny. I think if you went to most readers of Slashdot's homes (parents' basements, whatever) and scanned their hard drives, you'd find that the most common formats were probably straight MP3, followed perhaps by AAC, Windows Media, and then maybe OGG or Apple Lossless as a distant fourth.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
People will be smarter this time. Choice of hardware and concerns about what's inside do not matter outside a certain pseudo-technical elite. Those who want a player with which to enjoy music seamlessly, know who makes it and where to get it. Apple will probably continue to give the seamless experience and push it a little farther. Competitor products tend to be rougher. Whatever premium you pay with the Apple product... if there really is a premium... is compensated by the elimination of a lot of user frustration. The cheaply made product on the other hand brings a lot of frustration and responsibility for making it work to the user. I think that is not what people want this time.
"In fact there is a good chance the whole thing will end up like the
Macintosh computer: early dominance through its beautifully designed
integrated package of hardware and operating system, but later obliterated
by Microsoft Windows, which was licensed to any manufacturer. More on that
later."
That's not true.
While Apple had an early lead in personal computers (when the market was
small), the Macintosh *never* was dominate. I believe the Mac reached a
peak of less than 12% market share.
While licensing helped Microsoft, it wasn't really a technical option for
Apple at the beginning since much of what made the Macintosh was the
hardware at the time. What really hurt Apple was the poor transitioning
from the Apple II line to the Macintosh, and poor product management of the
Mac line early on.
Also:
"The only place you can easily buy material for your iPod, as opposed to
stealing it, is the iTunes online store."
I think he meant, the only *major* place you *will* be able to...
Currently, you can buy CDs and legally rip to your iPod and there are
several iPod compatible online stores (just no major label backed online
stores).
Also one thing he left out in forming his conclusion was the weight of
people's iTunes libraries. I have a 400GB iTunes library. Transitioning
out of the iTunes/iTMS/iPod/iPod dock/ ecosystem would be a huge hassle and
cost for me. Not everyone libraries my size, but still, the more music that
has been sold, the more cars with iPod integration, the more accessories
like alarm clocks and boomboxes, the more resistance there will be to
change.
Sadly, that's more truth than comedy!
I forgot the part about estimating the number of times per month you would listen to that MP3. 3 dollars for the first 10 times, 2 dollars each additional time.
The ______ Agenda
The iPod/iTunes system will move into a niche with Macintosh computers because Steve Jobs has again stuck with closed architecture and total control.
This is becoming extremely annoying. I can't say it any better than Jon Gruber already did: these writers need to stop pretending that 2006 is 1985.
As for the old saw about cellphones overtaking iPods, this is exactly why nobody has come close to toppling the iPod so far. People who take this view insist that because cellphones are ubiquitous, they will miraculously overwhelm the iPod. If that were true, we'd all be watching TV from our refrigerators.
If I were a device manufacturer attempting to go after Apple, I'd: Think about what works for users. Recognize that if the hardware and software work together extremely smoothly, customers will be happy and will gladly fork over the dough for your device. Don't think about how many features you can cram into the feature list. Don't insist that the form factor of a freakin' cellphone is actually suited to use as a music and video device. Don't think about how happy Verizon will be if you team up with them to make exorbitantly-priced music downloads over crappy networks. Don't dismiss design as an afterthought ("I know, we'll make ours RED!"). Maybe, just maybe, think about how to work with Apple, rather than with Microsoft. After all, past performance is certainly no guarantee of future performance, as Microsoft's botched efforts in digital music have already demonstrated.
The hidden assumption in all of this prognostication about Apple's supposed weakness in iPod/iTunes is that somehow the 800 lb. gorilla from Redmond will eventually swamp Appple. Microsoft has tried everything it can to unseat Apple in this market, and they've fallen flat on their face. Apple has sidestepped Microsoft's OS dominance, and made iPod/iTunes the dominant player. Market effects don't just work in Microsoft's favor.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Wow. Such a sure and confident report. Microsoft hasn't been able to deliver anything on time since before Window for Workgroups. Google is sure to offer a digital media download service... and i guarantee the iPod model contemporary to such a service will be able to play such files. The iPod already plays MP3, WMA, and AAC (mp4audio) files as well as MP4 video, all industry standard file formats. Most songs downloaded from other services will play on the iPod natively or can be easily converted by free third-party software. The thing that will need to change is the music industry's definition of Piracy. The RIAA, here in the states, wants to make it illegal for me to make a digital copy of music *I BOUGHT*. They want to cripple the new technology of HD Radio/Digital Radio so I can't record songs "off air". When I was a kid, recording songs from FM radio was how I got most of my new music. My paper route money wouldn't afford buying new cassettes every other month. Plus, often only one song was worth listening too from an entire 10-12 song album. Now, I can get that one song from iTMS for $.99USD *legally*. Musicians need to embrace digital delivery and eschew the traditional recording industry. Not only will the customer's wallets be better served, but the death of "only-for-profit, corporate pop" that dominates the airwaves (read Brittany Spears, BackStreet Boys, N'SYNC etc) is sure to follow. And wont that be better for everyone?
Here's the thing that I don't get about iTunes and iPods. Why don't they have an interface for other people to write compatible plugins? This is a feature of nearly every other pc music player (although not many hardware players.) People talk about how the open source community isn't enough of a market to warrant extra effort, but the fact is that the open source community will support itself if they have the tools to do it. Given a well documented interface, and a simple tool for flashing the ipod, I'd be willing to bet that we'd see ogg vorbis support in 2 weeks. I'm sure someone out there is willing to do the assembly hacking it would take to decode it with the same hardware.
I won't buy an iPod, but not because it doesn't support ogg vorbis. I won't buy it until it supports arbitrary formats, i.e. if you need the support you have the option of reasonably writing it in, or finding someone else who already has.
I am always surprised that most attention is given to the players and not the desktop application one uses to manage one's collection of songs. When I was looking at players, most used Windows Media Center which is a horribly clunky way to manage one's collection.
Then I checked out iTunes and while it has it's limitations for a power user, it is still the best way of managing a collection I have seen yet. Their iPods are overpriced and missing key features for me so I have a noname $30 flash card based mp3 player for around town (I just manually copy songs to each card!). But while at home or work, I listen to songs through iTunes.
I have seen (at least one?) open source type interface for managing songs but at the time it was still too limited compared with iTunes. I wish someone would make an interface that would work with most players but be as easy to use as iTunes and yet extensible for power users. A previous poster mentioned Google's possible foray into the market and I can see them creating such a product.
Anyhow for me it is more about the desktop app to manage huge collections - get that right and then I'll get a player that works with it.
Steve Jobs has again stuck with closed architecture and total control.
I'm not sure the author understands either the iPod or the cell phone world. If anything, cell phones are more locked down and hobbled to the carrier's wills than the iPod is, and where the iPod is hobbled, the hacks seem easier to apply....
Tweet, tweet.
The article over-states the ease with which mobile phones will displace the iPod technology.
1/ Can you plug your Nokia into your TV and play videos?
2/ Do you want to carry around a clunky mobile phone to listen to your music when you could use a Nano?
3/ Do you want to plug your mobile phone into your car so you can listen to music -- what happens when you want to use the phone while driving?
4/ Can you burn CD's from your mobile phone?
5/ Can you store your entire CD collection on your mobile phone? [like on your computer, taking only part of the collection for your iPod]?
Finally, 6/ do you believe mobile phone companies can make a reasonable user-friendly interface to access your music?
Except, it's 4 times as thick as the Nano, has a pretty hard to use UI, doesn't work with iTunes and the DRMed store, oh and a really really really really really awful stupid name.
Can you imagine the latest hot player to beat the Nano being called the "Sansa c140"? Ick, so stupid.
Oh and it's ugly and for an extra $50 you can get a nano that is 1/3 of the size, with the ipod user interface, itunes, and something "cool."
Apple's lock on the market is a weakness, just as the wireless phone companies' lock on their market is a weakness. The question is really who blinks first: Apple, the wireless companies, or us. I guess the smart money right now is on us - we seem thus far to have accepted whatever the market hands us. But the cell phone/ipod split is interesting.
Consider this: I have a Samsung t809 phone from t-mobile. This little baby has a transmedia flash card, which holds up to a gigabyte. And t-mobile seems to be pretty smart about not crippling their phones. I spent several weeks dithering over the fancier phones and networks that Verizon and Sprint offer, but finally just got disgusted with their attempts to squeeze the maximum amount of blood out of me and went with t-mobile, who bent over backwards to make me happy.
So now I've got this cute little phone, and guess what? It doubles as an iPod killer. Granted, 1G isn't very much storage, but it's early days. Wait for it. When t-mobile starts shipping 30g phones, things could change suddenly.
The bad news for Verizon, Sprint and their ilk? I don't have to pay t-mobile to listen to tunes on my phone, but I do have to pay Verizon and Sprint. This is a no-brainer to me - the cost of being with the big providers is too much. (Don't talk to me about Cingular - they're even *more* expensive). So now t-mobile, which arguably has a worse network, has a competitive advantage: they aren't assholes. So what if I'm a little bit harder to reach? I don't really like being interrupted anyway.
What does this mean for Apple? Simple: I can't use iTMS music on my phone. It's not an apple product, it doesn't support fairplay, and so I am shut out. My solution: buy CDs, rip them, load them into the phone. Sure, the CDs cost a little extra, but it's worth it to escape the DRM. Oh, right, you're running Windows, so the CD installs a rootkit on your machine. Consider a different operating system. Ubuntu is nice. No CD-based rootkits, no autorun at all. Your favorite artist uses too much DRM? Well, either buy the music from iTMS and burn it to CD and then rip it, or consider whether or not you really like that artist as much as you thought you did. There are a lot of other fish in the sea.
I was fairly enthusiastic about iTMS to begin with, but when the DRM started biting me in the ass, I stopped buying iTMS music.
So I think the author is right that Apple's clock is about to get cleaned, and he's right that cell phones will be the vector for the cleaning. But I think he's wrong about how it will actually happen. I think what will really happen is that nobody will blink, we the listeners will leave Apple, Verizon and Sprint in droves, t-mobile will take over the world, and I'll happily listen to music on my phone.
That reminds me: it's time for me to burn and rip all my iTMS music, so I can load it on my phone...
Cowon makes excellent feature rich players that are very competitive with the iPod and play ogg Vorbis and FLAC.
http://www.cowonamerica.com/
yeah that should have said "over the net" sorry i missed a word there.
yeah there are easilly rippable cds for the moment at least in the uk and the usa (some contries are apparently having theese copy protected cds shoved down thier throats a lot more often). but theres nothing other than itunes that
1: supplies major label music
2: supplies instant gratification and al-a-carte song choice
3: works with the ipod
4: is undeniablly legal (yes there is an argument that the likes of allofmp3 are legal because they argue that the copy is made in russia but it seems a fairly tenuous one to me)
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
If that were true, we'd all be watching TV from our refrigerators.
People don't sit down in front of their fridges.
People do carry around mobiles in their pockets.
People have a limited number of pockets.
Da Blog
I can just see Steve saying to the record company execs "if we allow other players to use DRMd iTMS files, it'll be only a week before someone has leaked important encryption info all over the net. You wouldn't want your music files to be easily available on the P2P networks do you?"
True or not, they'll believe it and then send their emissaries to Congress to lobby for not opening up Apple's DRM to other players.
When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
People have a limited number of pockets.
That's certainly the strongest case I've yet heard for the Cellphones Will Destroy the iPod argument, but I still think that some sort of new device that incorporates both cell communication and music playback features has a much better chance of unseating the iPod than cellphones. The interface on cellphones sucks, even for their intended purpose. Even some sort of completely redesigned device might not unseat the iPod. I'd rather have two purpose-built devices, one for interactive communication, and the other for passive listening/watching, than a miniscule, cramped device that does many things poorly.
I also can't help but think about how I use my iPod. When I'm at home, I frequently plug it directly into my speaker system. When I'm out for a walk and I want to listen to music without interruption, I'll often turn off my cellphone entirely. For me, the cellphone and the iPod represent two fundamentally different states of being. When I want to interact with the world, I'm on my phone. When I want to become engrossed in a task, or simply zone out on some music, I use my iPod. That's just the way I interact with these devices, and I understand that there are differences relating to age and cultural factors. Still, I think that in general much of the push to cram features into cellphones has been driven by cellular carriers looking for greater revenue, rather than from actual user demand.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
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A large number of people that have iPods are students. Students ride buses or walk to school. A signigicant number of professionals also ride mass transit to work. A large number of people also exercise and work out where they prob do need headphones to listen to music.
I need to get out more.
Swedish Study Finds Cell Phone Cancer Risk
Dave Barnes 9 breweries within walking distance of my house
Gee.. PORTABLE MUSIC!!!! OMG!!!!
oh... and
PORTABLE MUSIC PLAYER MAKERS COMPETE!!!!
the internet has dumbed down nerds in general...
There are several reasons this article is complete crap. The first is that its assumptions are incorrect. Others include (but are probably not limited to) misjudging the portable media player market in several different aspects, as well as a general failure to understand the current status of the computer industry.
I knew something was wrong when I read this line in the second paragraph: "Never before have we seen global domination by one retailer in a product category.". Um, hello? Without even reaching outside the computing/electronics industry, we can already come up with examples like Microsoft and IBM.
The second instance of shaky logic comes just two paragraphs later: "Here is what we know: music and video are going entirely digital. It won't be long before CDs and DVDs are obsolete as storage.". This is not only incorrect on a technical level, but on a functional level as well. This is wrong technically because CDs and DVDs are digital. Secondly, there will always be a need for cheap, mobile data storage. We've used punch cards, tape, and floppies. Now we use CDs and DVDs. We will likely use Blu-Ray in a few years. iPods will not supplant cheap media, because they lack a quality these formats provide: cheap media.
Secondly, the article misjudges the market in regards to portable media players, and the media industry in general. It accepts the FUD that the recording and movie cartels put forth, uncritically accepting the (incorrect) assertion that the Internet will somehow bring down the house. But wait, audio tapes and the VCR didn't kill off the media industry. Once again, bullshit.
The other misjudging is on the consumer side of the portable media market. iPod is a status symbol. The iPod has the best built-in UI of nearly any DAP (cf. clickwheel). I could go on nearly ad infinitum, but we all know why the iPod has the market share it does.
Then we come to the computing industry in general. Claims that phone makers or Microsoft will somehow supplant Apple don't add up, at least not at this point in time. The biggest offensive waged here is the one by MS with Playsforsure and various hardware makers who are strangling each other for a piece of the market that Apple doesn't have. But I really don't see this as a serious threat to Apple. There is no player that matches the iPod, nor are there players that offer something you can't get from Apple. Of course, there are some fringe areas, such as some formats of flash player and more multimedia-centered devices, but these don't make up the vast bulk of the market.
And I really don't see phone services taking off any time soon. Phone companies (especially in the US, land of unstandard cell service) are most definitely going to be as protective of their services as Apple is. This means no copying to your computer, and no copying to a competitors' phone. In addition, most phones don't have much storage capacity, and listening to MP3s is going to put a big drain on battery life, reducing the usefulness of both the audio component and the, um, phone component of the phone.
Basically, there are of course always cracks in the armor of something. The writer of this article thinks the cracks in the iPod monolith add up to doom for Apple. Unfortunately, his assumptions are wrong. Even if they were correct, there's a pretty hard case to be made here, given the facts of the current situation. Obviously, the iPod will fall someday, but I don't see it happening right now.
Who is doing that? I've had the same cellphone for about the last 3 years. The only reason I got it then was the old cell phone company was bought out, the plan I had was axed, and I didn't like the replacement, so I moved to a different company. Are they being treated as disposable fashion accessories now?
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
They want to, but higher-end multimedia phones allow easy end-runs.
1. Plug Sanyo MM-9000 with 1GB miniSD (only $50 these days) into your PC; its miniSD shows up as a removable USB drive. 2. Drag all your .m4a (AAC) and .mp3 files from the iTunes Library window to the MEDIA folder of miniSD. Done! If your phone doesn't show up as a USB device, you can always remove its memory card and plug it into a cheap reader, or use the open source BitPim software.
Maybe you mean phones that work with songs downloaded from the iTunes Music Store. Yes, Apple's protection and iPod lock-in sucks, and DVD Jon's fine DRM removal tools don't t yet work with iTunes > 5. So I simply don't buy songs from iTunes store. (The burn CD, rip songs back unprotected workaround doesn't appeal to me.) Apple must be praying that lots of people commit to an library full of songs from the iTunes music store, forming a barrier to entry for multimedia phones.
I agree 100%. I'd love a better music player UI than the current multimedia phones.
So you and many large-pocketed Slashdot readers keep saying about every higher-end phone feature. I love having a do-all device, so do half a billion other people, and YES THIS WILL CUT INTO (though not eliminate) EVERY OTHER DEVICE'S MARKET!!! Wake up and smell the coffee, digital camera, music player, dedicated PDA, and portable game player fanbois! My other pocket has money and keys in it, so if Apple doesn't come out with a multimedia phone, my limited space and money goes to someone else.
Try BitPim, otherwise make sure your next phone has a USB driver and removable flash memory card.
(Note to self: try converting the SouthPark scientology episode to .m4v format to play on the phone.)
=S
I wonder when Apple will become a convicted monopoly. Some iTunes alternative is going to go all netscape on Apple, and the simplicity of i* that you all love is going to be a thing of the past. Before you bury my post, I really hope it doesn't happen. If it did happen though, Apple would likely lose, considering the precedent. Then again, Apple doesn't have as much money as Microsoft did and probably never will, so they might not be as attractive a target.
Like Apple putting address book, video playback, and some games into the iPod? :-)
But you're right that there are compromises. I have a hard time remembering which button does what on the sides of my multimedia phone and Palm phone
It's the other way around. Multimedia phones do so much that most users are unaware of all the features; and magazines and Web reviewers do an awful job of telling you which features are well implemented. This suits the cell phone carriers trying to cram $2 ringtones, $3 songs, $6/month mobile applications, etc. down their users' throats, but the hardware manufacturers are still competing on features and they're all slowly improving.
You're joking?! Who are these people? The tiny fraction of the cellphone market that carry around a portable game player? The few people that always carry their digital camera with them? The average person doesn't have a Batman utility belt.
All the Slashdot whiners who get upset that phones are relentlessly eating into the markets for other portable electronics should introduce shareholder resolutions at Nokia, Sony-Ericsson, LG, Samsung, Sanyo, etc. to return to making back-to-basics quality phones. You are a lot smarter than the people running these companies, who are apparently clueless despite their 100,000,000's of users.
=S
Those who claim that Apple should license its DRM and APIs ot all its pitiful, Dickensian competitors are always making up arguments out of their behinds. You either want things open -- eliminating DRM -- or you don't. The labels and the studios will NEVER go along with non=protected product. NEVER, until they go bankrupt and nobody wants to be their friends. Well, it might happen, if they keep with this silly business model. (We need a good open source record label for this to work, you know?) These whiners want Apple to license their DRM, that's all, so their lame players can work with iTunes. These are no brave lads, striking a blow for freedom. They just want a piece of the pie, while keeping the music DRM'ed. Well, there are lots of competitors now. Are they opening up their DRM, so that all men can listen to wonderful music without restraint? Why, no. They want to piggyback on Apple's hard work, but they don't mind treating music fans like vassals. Screw 'em. Today, there are breathless stories about Movielink selling downloads!!! So, for twice the price, you too can download a less-than-DVD version of popular movies, whichever ones the studios want to hype right now. Oh, and it works only with Windows 2000 and XP. How much of the computer press are going to complain about Movielink? Answer? Zero. Well, why? Because as long as they act like that, they're not going to get any customers. BLOCKBUSTERS IS BETTER! Don't they get it?
As the post insightfully argues, Apple's future is not entirely in Apple's hands. Not Apple but the music industry, through price-fixing, will play the decisive role in determining whose technology succeeds.
Cellphones won't replace iPods until Nokia manages to invent the Zero Point Energy battery that taps the quantum vacuum for power.
My old Nokia "bar" phone, with its black-and-white display and big fat battery pack could go a week on standby. My new phone is smaller, cuter, and if I forget to drop it in its cradle Friday night it's dead by Monday... even if I don't place a single call on it.
Unless you don't actually care whether your cellphone is actually usable as a cellphone, you're not going to be listening to music on it the way you can listen to music for hours on an iPod. It's a completely different market.
Easy to use software *IS* special!
"Do people really think that apple having "easy" to use software is so special? Nothing Apple does is really all that unique, it's just a matter of quantities of production and spending the time to develop the interface right."
And that *is* unique. The UI on most cell phones suck. I don't know one software engineer with a cell phone who wouldn't pay a reasonable amount of money to get the firmware source code - even if only for the UI part of things - so that they could hack a decent UI onto the thing.
I haven't seen one cell phone with a decent UI (or I'd own the thing, no matter who I had to sign up with to get it).
-- Terry
Real reverse engineered FairPlay
And they are still selling their "Harmony" product. Apple grumbled at them, but there wasn't (AFAIK) a lawsuit or anything that resulted from that, and they are still encoding music in DRM'ed FairPlay format.
It's not that hard to reverse engineer; the other people trying to be in the market are just being lazy.
-- Terry
how Apple's domination of the online media market is continuing to grow
Some incredible degree of domination, I'm sure. I think I saw an Ipod on the bus last week (well, the girl with the big tits was wearing white earpieces - so that means it's an iPod, doesn't it?), so I guess there's somewhere in town that sells them. Can't say that I've noticed the place though.
Apple computers? Well, my friend Bob used to have one. And I saw a second-hand one on sale a couple of years ago at a computer fair. Never seen one actually being used though.
There's a lot of room for growth with a market domination like that.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"