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iPod Killers For the Holidays
An anonymous reader writes, "MP3 Newswire has an excellent rundown of 29 new digital portables for the upcoming season. From the article:
'We have run the iPod Killers for Christmas/Summer series since 2004. In that time we [have] reported on 149 portable players and NOT one iPod killer from the bunch. That said, [this time] we may actually have a couple of genuine challengers to Apple. This holiday season will see Microsoft pump tens-of-millions of dollars to hawk their new Zune portable, and SanDisk's 8GB e280 flash unit is compelling high-end users. Both can realistically grab double-digit market share from the iPod... Whether they do or not waits to be seen.' The article also makes a good case as to why the Sony PSP should be included in market figures for digital media portables."
It looks like an amazing product compared to the video ipod of today. The battery life alone is enough to make me want to toss my ipod down the stairs. I wish I had known more about it before purchasing the apple brand. Oh well, I suppose I'll have to deal with my awesome 6 hour battery life for audio and 1.5 hour life for video. At least I have my video ipod running linux? If only that counted for something.
Does it vibrate to the beat?
But which ones run Linux?
and instantly thought that Santa just delivered a sleigh full of Sony batteries to the iPod factory.
"MP3 Newswire has an excellent rundown of 29 new digital portables for the upcoming season. From the article: 'We have run the iPod Killers for Christmas/Summer series since 2004.'"
You'll note the fascination with "killing" something. Not "can't we all just get along". Up next, Adobe get's the "chair".
Nobody gets to call something an iPod killer until it, you know, kills some iPods.
"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to do it by not dying." -Woody Allen
I don't think anything that i've seen really has the power to kill the iPod, or even in any way harm the iPod. Sure SanDisk has an 8 GB model. But I just checked the Apple site, and they have an 8GB model for the same price as sandisk. The Zune does look kind of interesting. It has a nice price point for the features, but I don't really see it being an iPod killer. Where do you buy videos to play on it? Nobody knows, but everybody knows you can buy videos for the iPod from iTunes. Same goes for songs. Although it's nice to see a couple of real competitors, I don't think either of these will take top spot.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Seems like what makes a DAP qualify as an iPod killer is being small and overpriced. The addition of video playing is nice but not new. I do like the fact that Vorbis playback is becoming more standard.
That said, I would not willingly own any of these, and my next DAP will probably be a Cowon iAudio X5.
"Knowledge is power. Power corrupts. Study hard. Take over the world."
In talking about iPod killers/replacements, anyone have any idea of the best portable music player for an audiophile?
It would need to play lossless audio and also have a great output sound.
The PSP is a digital media platform for the simple reason it was basically built for it. It has a bigger screen then most devices, and it has games on it as a bonus. I purchased one and have used it quite a bit in the 2 monthes I've had it. Probably 90 percent of the usage is with anime eps that I convert myself, or Mp3s.
The biggest problem with the article is thr's little data on price ranges for some objects. If the Ipod killer is stylish but costs 1000 dollars, what's the use? On the other hand, if it's 100 bucks and looks like crap (those football helmets for most people) who cares what size the ram is?
The Ipod is stylish, "inexpensive" but with a good sized ram. Now however they have made them more expensive then they should be but still easy to use. Competitors go for so many markets but they fail to miss the reason why the ipod is the killer is because it's a status symbol as well as a mp3 player, and it's easy to use (supposidly)
I do like the iPod's size but my primary use would be in the car or visiting a friends house, or my bedroom for that matter (much lighter than a laptop). I guess if you were walking around a campus or just plain need something that will comfortably fit in your pocket the iPod or similar product is for you.
Is older iPods.
Anyone been to a Walmart/Target/Best Buy/Circuit City/Fry's/Apple Store lately? Notice the insane amount of accessories available for the iPod? Anyone notice that more and more car manufacturers are including ports or docks for iPods in their cars?
I'm not sure what the 'average' consumer is thinking about when purchasing a digital music player, but to know that there are a gazillion after-market items I can get for an iPod is somewhat comforting. Plus, the ubiquitity of the iPod means millions of websites devoted to tips, info, hacks, etc. for the iPod. And don't forget the 'cool' factor (which is hard to put into words).
Do not get me wrong. I have a couple of issues with the iPod. I used to own a Minidisc player (EXCELLENT hardware, TERRIBLE software). It had swappable, rechargeable, gumstick batteries. Plus, the exterior didn't scratch easily. And the battery life was incredible.
But come on, iPods are INSANELY easy to dump music to. I don't even use iTunes and it's still insanely easy. Drag and drop will always be the best way for us geeks to get our music on these things, but the ease of use, the ubiquitity of accessories and information, and, finally, the cool factor will make it very hard for any other player to make strong inroads into the market.
I thought this was going to be about a special iPod with a skin of "The Killers" Carry on.
I've been thinking about getting an mp3 player for a while now. All I want is to play music, and have enough storage for my collection, plus room to grow. Say about 20GB. So, if I don't want to pay for a fancy screen and get a hard drive based player, what player should I be looking at? Does one exist at this point? All the hard-drive based ones seem to be video players too now.
[Setting: the Slashdot editors sit around a meeting room] ... Killer.' ... there's something fresh and new with the word 'killer.' Print it, push out the plum.
CmdrTaco: Ok, it's Saturday night and anyone with a life is out doing stuff. But we need more material to keep our ad revenue coming in.
*Everyone nods*
CmdrTaco: So what have you got?
kdawson: KILLER!
CmdrTaco: Quiet, kdawson, Zonk is speaking.
Zonk: Well, I could write in as an anonymous reader and we could talk about MP3 players. The kids love those, don't they?
kdawson: KILLER!
CmdrTaco: Kdawson, I don't want to have to warn you again. I love it, Zonk. But what will we title it?
Zonk: How about 'Some More Electronics for You to Buy.'
CmdrTaco: Nah, not enough edge, anyone else? kdawson, do you have something constructive to suggest?
kdawson: Yeah, 'The Killer Devices that Kill iPods in the Killing Fields for the Killing Season
CmdrTaco: You may have something there, kdawson
kdawson: Killer.
My work here is dung.
I mean really...how many times a year do we have to hear about "iPod killers"? There has been so many and yet somehow the iPod share keeps going up and up....When will they learn, the war is lost and waisting money on more battles is just that..waisting money. There is no iPod killer and there wont be until Apple releases one.
The problem with any ipod killer is that the ipod has set the bar. When people think about what they want/need they think about what they know they like, which for most people is the ipod. Telling somebody you're DAP has an FM radio may be true, but only adds value if it's something the person wants. Somebody who's happy with their ipod isn't going to see a radio as a feature that makes them want to change DAPs. People don't listen to radios anymore because they've all got ipods. I didn't listen to the radio when I had an ipod, I just listened to my ipod which didn't have commercials or play songs I didn't want to hear or make me listen to annoying DJ's/announcers. Any product that wants to take mind and marketshare away from the ipod has to do it with new features, things people don't know whether or not they won't be able to live without. Either that or make something more convenient. Apple made portable music players more convenient and easier to use, which is why they're at the top of the hill. The Zune had a chance to beat the ipod by being the first to introduce a wireless connection to their DAP but from everything I've heard, they messed it up pretty badly and it's just going to frustrate users rather than become something they can't live without. That said, I'm not buying another ipod until Apple supports Ogg Vorbis.
I've always pictured the color of OS zealotry as a sort of bright flamingo pinkish hue
I think if any had a chance of actually competing against the iPod, it would be the Sansa. I've actually seen ads on the side of buildings and on buses/trains around here.
And I've heard people actually mention they think it "looks pretty cool".
Ah.. Seperately they don't have a chance, but if they all combine to form voltron then they shall prevail.
"That make 146000 unsuccessful human hunts in a row. But I have a good feeling about tomorrow."
Thats why the batteries are not replaceable and they die quickly >2yrs.
They should make some fcc rule that says you cannot sell devices without ability to change batteries
in the event of explosion or fires. That'll screw em. Imagine if mobile phones came with none changeable
batteries.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
I own both a PSP and iPod.
Unless Sony comes out with something similar to iTunes... the PSP is little more than a novelty music player. It's much larger than the iPod, more expensive (when you add a good sized memory card) doesn't hold as much music, doesn't have a music store, doesn't have the market share [must I go on?].
I could buy a nice 2GB iPod mini for $149... or hundreds more for a PSP with similar storage.
In my case, I purchased both... because they both have their areas where they excel. The iPod for portable music, the PSP for portable gaming.
Are these going to be iPod killers or more along the lines of those henchmen sent to kill James Bond? The iPod's still going strong after years of predictions and they're still making Bond movies. On a more serious note, why is everyone so obsessed with making an iPod killer? How about just making a damn good MP3/music player? When companies become so obsessed with killing the iPod, they will inevitably try to imitate it and box in their own thinking. Maybe the iPod isn't the thing to focus on at all.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
Find a refurbished iRiver ihp-140 or H340.
Install Rockbox.
Load up with (FLAC, SHN, MPC, WAVPACK, OGG, MP3, M4A) and enjoy lossless playback with pure-integer decoders and a really nice DAC to boot
Oh, and the iHP-140 has an optical output which is _very_ useful if you have digital inputs on a custom DAC or amp.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
The writer (Richard Menta) has a well-known bias for PSP. For example:
PSP is the most user-hostile portable device out there, complete with awful, proprietary technologies usually found in Sony products. That's the reason why DS/Lite is eating Sony's lunch. The market even rejected PSP on its own turf.
Plugging PSP into the iPod competitor column is disingenuous. My cellphone can play MP3s too, I don't see it on there.
That's a great idea. Why pay for frisbees for my nephews, I could just use some Ubuntu CDs. They'll even ship directly to them, and none of this costs me a dime.
Finally, we've discovered the true power of Open Source.
How can one of these Janus(DRM) players kill an IPod when I can use an IPod with nearly every OS compared to these Janus players that require WinXP w/ WMP10.
Calling a product an "e280" is completely uninteresting and stumbles at the first step of competing with iPod. "I bought an MP3 player." "Oh, which ipod?" "Not an ipod, an ... er... e280" "a what?"
Of course you can't have brand product recognition immediately, but you can't build it with just another anonymous product number, swimming in a sea of technology with similar numbers.
For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert. - Arthur C. Clarke
There is no iPod Killers there. All I see is a list of Media players. Nothing more.
There only way to kill the iPod is to change they way we think about Media players and make it stylish to boot.
I see the ideal iPod killer as a device that can kill both the need to carry laptop and ipod around. It would have a fairly decent screen size. A screen that's much bigger then PSP's screen but easy to carry. It can browse the web, communicate with friends, coworkers, or clients on the internet, ability to use VOIP on it, have a decent media player for both mp3 or divx, support for 802.11g, and works with nearly all bluetooth phones or desktop adapters for internet access.
BUT -- Who can afford these so called killers when PS3 will probaly break the bank for many people this christmas? Or the high priced games of 360/PS3 games? Who could be stupid enough to pay $60 for a game? Video game publishers are scam artist.
\
eom
God spoke to me.
I got you an Ether Killer for Christmas.
My bad.
I'll say up front I don't know the Ipod but I have to date not got one because (as I understand it - please enlighten me if I have this all wrong)
- battery issues (can't I change the battery myself?)
- Have to use Itunes?!
- Why does it do that stupid conversion each time you try and put a file onto it (see next question)
- Why can't I just drag mp3 files onto it in my computer
- And I don't think it looks so cool either (I don't see what the fuss is all about)
Please enlighten me, why should I get a music player with battery issues that locks me into using Itunes, does a funky conversion to a special format each time you try to put a file onto it, doesn't let you copy files off onto other machines and won't let you just drag mp3's onto it?
Why would anyone get this player other than the "ohhh look at me I have an Ipod, I'm soo cool" crowd?
I've been using a portable MiniDisc recorder for my field recordings, but the limited capacity, noise from spinup and short battery life are annoying.
A year or so ago I bought an iAudio 5 (by Cowon) which has a built-in mic and line-level input, but no mic input.
Is there any portable audio device (preferably flash-based) that has a mic-level input? Support for OGG or FLAC is a plus of course.
I'll just stay with my 60gig iPod! It works perfect!
I am so sick of seeing that phrase attached to devices that never make any sizable impact on iPod marketshare and many times cease to exist themselves first.
There needs to be some kind of rule that until a new media player has been shown to effect the marketshare of the iPod at least 20% (I know it sounds high but we are using the term "killer" here) it cannot be mentioned in any press release or news story that contains the phrase "iPod killer" unless the sentence is "iPod killer strikes again, slaughtering another competitor!"
Saw Ladytron (a relatively-obscure UK techno group) in Seattle last night. Microsoft bought the rights to paint their whole tour bus black with a large "ZUNE" logo on it. So even if the player sucks, it's nice of them to subsidize non-RIAA indy bands with their marketing budget, I guess.
Itunes may be nice and all, but it still runs like the PC is 200mhz or emulating a PPC 601.
Why so slow, even a DHTML version of itunes in mozilla would be faster, is apple just that crap at coding
windows apps?
It even skips like its a 66mhz computer, winamp never drops.
Someone should tell apple, just drop all the 1 layers of emu of carbon / osx wrappers, and re-write the damn application
from scratch using some cool high end gui or even 100% in directx so its faster, not 100% GDI windows cpu crapola.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
The market losers are all concentrating on killing the iPod. Makes sense. But anybody who wishes for that is asking for disaster.
Know what happens if the Microsoft camp gets hold of the music player market? Service will stagnate, prices go up and everything will be DRM up the wazoo. Not just for the sake of the RIAA, but DRM so they've got you by the balls. One bright day all "your" music and video will disappear until you repurchase it, locked in to their own proprietary format. That's what Microsoft has done to every other market they dominate. They just sit up, point a gun at you and demand more money. Is that what you want?
While they're jumping around in your music library, they'll even hose your MP3s which don't bear the Mark of the Beast. Hell, the RIAA would PAY for that to happen.
Forget all the other stuff you wish players did. In time, Microsoft will even get rid of MP3 playback. Microsoft only wants to ship what they can get paid for - WMA. In contrast, Apple has been going to bat for all the end users, keeping prices down against RIAA pressure and expanding capabilities, all in the face of almost no competition. Apple competes with themselves. Nobody would have guessed that in 5 years the iPod would be playing cheap downloadable movies at you. I wish Apple would support more codecs myself and I'd like to see more [attempted] competition for the iPod, but be careful what you wish for.
Most of the stuff on
... the same way as the iPod uses iTunes to manage songs. I was hoping for an old-fashion drag and drop. I haven't tried on a non-MS OS yet and I am not sure yet if Plays for Sure manages the library like iTunes does (partly meaning that it's "hooked" to one computer.)
You don't have to use your iPod this way if you don't want to. Uncheck the automatic sync option and you can drag and drop to your heart's content (from within iTunes, but you still have full control and can update from any machine you want).
When does iTunes or an iPod ever "rename[d] the songs for no good reason?" I've never seen that.
(I'm not trying to say an iPod is everyone's dream music player... just trying to counteract some of the more common FUD.)
If the PSP is an iPod killer, so is my GP2X. And unlike my PSP, it can do stuff without requiring a firmware downgrade after every time I play a game.
So, is there any non-emotional reason why I should bother to listen to these guys?
Back in 2004, after extensive research, I finally moved my large MP3 collection off of my linux server and on to my first MP3 player, an iPod, and it was a slam dunk. For me and my music collection it's all about iTunes, and back in 2004 the only alternative was WMP 9, which I'm sure we can all agree is complete junk, so the choice then was obvious. And since then Apple has continually updated and improved both the desktop and client software, while adding new features such as podcasts. As I said, for 2004 it was an absolute slam dunk.
Since then there have been lots of attempts to entice me to upgrade my old iPod; features like Photos, Video, FM Tuners, etc., from either Apple, 3rd parties, and other MP3 manufacturers, all of which have meant nothing to me. I've been quite determined to keep the old iPod until its hard drive dies. With all of the new competition on the market, including Microsoft's Zune, it's ironic that the only new product I've seen that has made me even consider upgrading is iTunes 7, with its gapless playback and additional playlist fields (Skip Count, Last Skipped, etc.) which aren't available on the old 3G iPod.
The other MP3 manufacturers have added lots of technical features to complete against the iPod, but in my opinion Apple still does the best job of addressing the needs of the real music fan.
ENDUT! HOCH HECH!
How many times have we seen the iPod killer story? If it's not the sony "walkman" it's the MS Zune. There've been iPod killer stories ever since Gen 1 hit it big. And yet everyone keeps buying iPods, more or less ignoring the so-called competition.
Something, somewhere will make the iPod obsolete, but it isn't going to be another mp3 player, and it's definitely not the Zune; having said that, I can't wait to see what it's going to be. Til it gets here, I'll just continue adding to my iPod collection. The latest edition just arrived Friday morning by Fed Ex and it's gorgeous. Sorry, MS.
Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo - H. G. Wells
No player that's currently on the market can do podcasts half as well as the iPod/iTunes combo. For some people podcasting may be irrelevant. For others it's the sole reason they bought an iPod. Apple keep their player on the edge of what's new end trendy on the net and that's why they get the lion share of the market as a result. Until those "also ran" copycats manage to emulate all of iPod/iTunes great features they are doomed to languish in single percentage points of market share.
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
What Apple has done, and is continuing to do, is forcing the "content producers" to stop the chain of forced redundacy. My father replaced discs with 8 tracks with LPs. I replaced tapes with LPs with CDs. Now with music in MP3 form, will I every have to buy an old song again. No. Do I think it was easy for Apple to convince the music label to give up this cash cow. No, even though the labels had little choice because it was the only way to have sales. However, Apple has done us a great favor by insisting on a reasonable price.
Now that the labels have done the hard work, all the other electronic manufacturers are on the band wagon, claiming superior products. The problem is that I buy music in WMP format, I am not any better off than just buying a CD. So I have a choice of buying a player whose songs might have a limited lifetime, or a player that will likely be supported for a long time. Face it, MS has already given up on play for sure, so how long will those songs be useful?
But music isn't really the issue. Apple is moving against the movie studios, and right now video is not even a huge issue. A good quality half hour show is going to be twice as big as a good quality copy of a CD. Other than hugely popular shows, the level of sharing of movies is not as great as music. And despite the fact that the movie studios are not a present threatened, Apple is still forcing them to make deals that will force a new model of making money, even more so than the VCR, which was a huge cash cow, and now the DVD.
And the competition is responding by making MP3 players with radios and 'wireless' sharing, even though we have been sharing "wireless" for years. Maybe if it was a HD radio I might be impressed, but style has always been secondary to content. Look around you. The 12-25 year old demographic is thinking which one of these can I get free music on. It is like the the 12-25 demographic 20 years ago, buying computers based on what had free software. One kid buys a CD, rips it to WMP, ops, can't give load it onto another play for sure player. Another kids rips the CD to ACC. No problem loading it onto many iPods, or burning it onto a CD. As the past 50 years of widely profitable Music has shown, the kids will eventually buy music. And everyone will be rich beyond belief, but the labels ignore history. Just remember how much they hated MTV, and in a large part was responsible for the lack of music on MTV, even though MTV was arguably a major player in the revitalization of music. I see the same thing with iTunes, with people buying music for the first time in years.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
I am not sure why some apple fans are so keen on keeping apples DRM.
DRM only works well as a monopoly.
If many companies have their on DRM, then consumers get burnt on all DRM, as the media is single use.
In this case, non-DRM (mp3,ogg,flac) wins because it plays on all the players.
If Microsoft did actually win the DRM music market, others (perhaps even apple) would enter the non-DRM market.
By its nature DRM only really fits the rental, timed purchace market. There will always be a non-DRM media market.
The fact their objective is to be "Ipod killers" is enough to notice how hard it is going for them to conquer market share. I think that no matter how good a product is it would take it at least a year to start being an actual competitor for the ipod.
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
I thought the PSP was just a portable media player. Its not like it has any games on it.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
and instantly thought that Santa just delivered a sleigh full of Sony batteries to the iPod factory.
and instantly thought of Santa saying Ho! Ho! (and breaking the timing) *BOOM*
Saw an add for Coby 20gig Mp3 for only $120-140.
Not bad.
Fuck you asshole
Why is a media engine such a threat for you?
Um, I regularly fly LHR SFO. I always get 2 movies-worth out of my Ipod.
That is all.
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
29 new digital portables you'll probably never hear of again after you finish this article.
No reviews, just product info and links to Amazon with their affiliate ID in it. Is Slashdot running advertorials now???
Why cannot the winamp guys who made millions or AOL at least just put in a solid 6months * 10 people work on winamp to be as good
as itunes, as pretty, and as cool. Add import itunes db options in even if its 3rd party.
And AOL then could partner with who ever and try to out do itunes, hello time warner idiots.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
...or at least nip at its heels enough that it'll need new shoes.
Make your song management software a easy to use. I always hear people complain that their (non iPod) player's management software is utter crap. I often hear people say iTunes is half of what makes the iPod so great. But I rarely/never hear the opposite comment/software combination.
I don't know the legal environment involved, but if not the above, then perhaps making your player sync-able with iTunes? Either through patching iTunes or making the player "look like" an iPod.
Plays AAC, the format isn't a proprietary Apple format, right? Searching the article, only two players are readily noted to play AAC files. How do you expect iPod owners to switch if they can't bring their music library with them?
Make it truly Macintosh compatible, and advertise that fact like a madman. (I'm looking at you MobiBLU.) I don't just mean the filesystem drag & drop method of transferring songs. Firmware updater? Macintosh version. Media converter? Macintosh version. Hell, it doesn't have to have a pretty interface, it just has to work and I'll be happy.
Yea, the Mac platform is just a single digit market share, but it's growing, I'm seeing more and more Apple laptops around campus. Peoples' impressions (or at least what I'm experiencing so far,) is that if one has a Macintosh, the iPod is the only music/media player option.
Make it look nice without resorting to some bizarre shape. Yes, I realize this can be difficult, it seems making an elegant interface is a trade off versus trying not to look like an iPod rip off.
lemonade was a popular drink and it still is
I don't have an iPod and I doubt I'll ever have one but it's pretty ironic that these are all iPod "killers" when iPod's pretty tough to beat, hasn't yet been killed, and for years now there hasn't been anything near as popular. They should only be called iPod killers when they get to the same level as an iPod both in sales and popularity. On second thought I might just pick me up one of those 60gb ones.
Then you've never looked into the way the iPod actually stores its files on that 30g (or 60g, etc.) hard disk. Apple, apparently in a concession to the music industry, obfuscates the file names of mp3s as it transfers songs to the device. "James McMurtry--Iolanthe.mp3" will become OTKO.mp3 on the device, stored in the folder F47 (and yes, there is an F01-F46), all with the express purpose of making it difficult (though not impossible) for you to find a song and copy it back by hooking up your iPod like a hard disk.
Which I find disappointing, but understandable. At least they don't force conversion of the song like some other players have done--it's still your mp3 file, and with pluck or the right software, you can still do just what you want to with it--I appreciate that.
I strongly suspect that at this point, the iPod killer will not be an iPod-like device, but instead will be some device which will shift the paradigm.
At this point, the best contestant in the horizon seems to be the mobile phone which can play MP3s. My reasoning is as follows:
- Nowadays most people already have mobile phones.
- The cycle of replacement on mobile phones is about 3 years. Mobile phones that can play MP3s just came out.
- Carrying around just a mobile phone is always lighter than carrying around a mobile phone plus a dedicated MP3 player.
- Playing MP3s isn't such a special thing anymore. The technology is widespread and the processing power inside a mobile phone is more than enough for the task.
- Mobile phone manufacturers have an enormous amount of experience with things like saving batery power.
- The competition on making portable MP3 players with more storage has long reached the point of diminishing returns - unless you're going on vacations, carrying around weeks worth of music is of little use. One can already see the consumers changing tack by going for smaller devices which use flash memory and have less storage capacity (for example iPod Nano). This makes it easier to build MP3 playing functionality on a mobile phone with an amount of storage which is acceptable for consumers.
- Ever since the number of new mobile phone users started falling (because in some countries everybody and their cat has a mobile phone), mobile phone manufacturers have been trying to differenciate their products by adding cool new features to them. The ability to play MP3s is just another of those.
My expectation is that, slowly, as people change their old phones for newer ones, more and more people will have mobile phones that play MP3s (if it takes off like cameras on phones, people will be hard pressed to find mobile phones that don't play MP3s) and leave their dedicated MP3 players at home since there's no point in carrying around 2 devices that do the same.
Eventualy dedicated MP3 players (including iPods) will be a niche market.
The Sandisk players are collectively called "Sansa," a little easier to build brand recognition around than the e280 model number. However, don't discount the power of good marketing. Ever hear of something called a '386? A Z-28? A-1 Sauce? The list goes on; meanwhile, everyone had to be told what an "Eye Pod" was the first time they heard of it.
I can't stand the 18mm Apple earbuds inside my ears for more than 2 hours. I think the diameter of my outer ear is 15mm, because I use the 16mm Sony PSP earbuds and they also make my ears sore after a while. But no way I can stand either of them more than 8 hours straight...
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Is there any reason why the Sony NW-S205F looks like a probe? Here it is with earphones. I can't wait for the integrated phones! Slogan: Popular with the inmates! Batteries not included.
"You're everywhere. You're omnivorous."
1. You can download iTunes without Quicktime. No one is forcing you install it.
2. Quicktime is necessary for viewing video in iTunes.
3. Quicktime is one of the most versatile players on the market. It was the first way of reliably playing most of best codecs; MPEG-4 and H.264 were both supported way ahead of their time. It's also a neat editor and file conversion tool if you choose to pay the incredibly measly $29 for the tool.
When the posters fear their moderators, there is tyranny; when the moderators fears the posters, there is liberty.
1. Not by Apple
2. Does NOT run Microsoft Media Center
3. Uses SD or Compact Flash
Apple, apparently in a concession to the music industry, obfuscates the file names of mp3s as it transfers songs to the device. "James McMurtry--Iolanthe.mp3" will become OTKO.mp3 on the device, stored in the folder F47 (and yes, there is an F01-F46), all with the express purpose of making it difficult (though not impossible) for you to find a song and copy it back by hooking up your iPod like a hard disk.
You can get the files back onto the desktop and into a sensible naming structure quite easily using itunes. Just copy the ipod's music folder (which can be accessed if you show hidden and system files and mount the ipod as a disk drive) to the desktop, and import it into itunes, with the itunes option to reorder the library to its own format enabled. Instructions can be found here.
I once read an interview with someone who worked on the ipod (no idea where or when), who claimed that the renaming and folder structure has nothing to do with the recording industry, but rather with the limitations of the early hardware and the requirement that playlists of thousands of files "open" instantaneous. Limitating filename lengths and the number of files in a folder apparently helped, as did storing the files' information in a central database. I don't know if this is true, but it sounds reasonable.
Oh, I'm chilled. I suggest everyone open their eyes. Microsoft has taken many technologies that were "free" and ubiquitous and demanded money for them later. They've cost me dearly running their servers so I switched most of it to OS X Server and Linux.
Haven't looked at Magnatune yet but eMusic? Are you serious? Half the links to music that appears interesting lead to liner notes and paragraphs from people who have actually heard the music. You can't hear it there but there's a good description of it. The music you can hear is way off Broadway. I tried to download my 20 free songs and couldn't find 20 songs I wanted.
DRM is for the music moguls. That's the only way they'll allow music to touch the Internet. It's not Apple or Microsoft's doing. Or is it? Microsoft has already spoken of plans to use some sort of DRM locking for Office documents, touting it as a security feature. Half the planet knows they'll use it to force software upgrades and lock out OpenOffice users. That's why they're in court all the time in Europe. Nobody trusts them. Apple is locking their hardware and operating system so PC owners don't steal OS X. That I can take. WGA malware I can't take.
If Microsoft gets the upper hand in music distribution, I firmly believe there will be a EULA on some patch which alters their agreement and it will cost everyone their music libary... unless the user pays. They'll call it "PAYS FOR SURE".
Most of the stuff on
The REAL name is the SanDisk Sensa and is the #2 player on the market.
The name 'e280' is the internal model number for the 8GB version.
Also not mentioned on the site (though it is for other players):
FM recorder
Video player
Voice recorder
EXPANSION SLOT (sandisk also anounced 4gb micro sd cards for Q1 2007 for a total of 12GB)
I love mine and it was essential to a long plane trip with a 2yo.
Can't spend 6 hours sitting w/o some Backyardagains.
I thought everybody already had AOL free hours CDs as frisbees!
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
And still nothing amongst this crop which even comes close to match the Rio Karma's OGG/FLAC support, awesome on-the-fly playlist editing and superb user interface. :(
*goes make certain his own Karma is still secure in its silk-lined pouch, ready to continue surviving for another year*
$349 a pop ........
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Apple already has the Zune Killer on the market. Game Over.
Most of the stuff on
http://myoldkyhome.blogspot.com/2006/09/microsoft- zune-product-demo-review.html
IN the link above is a blog that reviews Zune and it has a photo with the program that works with it.
Bill Gates said:"I dare anybody to do that once a month on the Windows machine" My favorite number is 09 F9 11 02 9D 74
/me ducks and runs....
Fair enough, but two things to point out about that solution:
The reason both of these things is true is that, in importing your "Music" folder back into iTunes, all iTunes did was dig into the media files and drag out the original internal tags (ID3 or equivalent) and arrange them by those attributes (Artist, Genre, Title, Album, etc.). Moderately useful, but if you want to actually, say, go into your music library and drag the files onto an mp3 CD compilation you're making for your car, you can't do it outside of iTunes anymore. And more to the point, you can't really manage those files very easily without iTunes (or some other library manager) because of the obfuscated file names. The ID3 tags is all you can manage them by, whereas once you could have done it by file name.
All of this is irrelevant if you're the kind of joe who wants iTunes to manage everything for you. But this is
I've played with a Zune this past week and it's a joke iPod ripoff like the rest of them. Microsoft wants to dominate another consumer electronics space and thinks a warmed-over player from another company will do the job. Sure. It is badly made junk. Blech. End of story.
There is a simple way to make an iPod killer:
Make it more reliable, the iPod case is beautiful but it's also scary scratchable, also the battery issues suck.
Make it sound better, having owned several creative players and several iPods I'd say the creative players sound significantly better than iPods.
A 40Gig HD, if I'm too lazy to change my music every 5 months of playtime, bury me, I'm dead.
The problem with all this is that releasing such a product would offer no chance anyone would ever upgrade it.
Conclusion: the Chinese will come out with an iPod killer, why? Because electronics are just electronics to them they don't try and specialize in miniscule upgrades to technology that no one really needs (CPU's, GPU's, iPod 20-30-40 rev1 rev2 rev3 ad nauseum). They'll make one that lasts 20 years make em cheaper and cheaper until they're commodity (like walkmans were) then move on.
Western MBA's are scared of the business model of the pencil, 5c but it works.
Unfortunately, the device does not rumble. Sony reps have claimed that including rumble would interfere with the pedometer's motion detection.
Yes, a lot of CHEAP speakers with cheap being the operative word - and they are not really electronics in the sense other devices are. Speakers are furniture just like a couch, as they are by necessity in the same room with other furniture.
But even if there was some time when consumer acceptance of wooden electronics devices came to the mainstream, that's not what we are talking about anyway - the Brown Zune is not wood toned, it's a fairly odd dark brown. It's hip in a 70's sense but not in a sense that will garner many sales.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I couldn't help a acquaintance get his DRM to play on 7.x, he has to stay on 6. Not everyone can upgrade.
Come on, that's pretty unlikey. At worst a re-auth of that computer would be required. Did he try it on a totally different PC, that he could also auth?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
--bdj
You actually think the battery lasts as long as the manufacturers claim?
Normally no. That's why so many people are a fan of Apple, because when tested the battery life is actually in line with published figures. It's refreshing to see honesty in tech specs.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'll say up front I don't know the Ipod
And just like countless other critics that have never seen or touched what they are critiquing, I stopped reading right there. Critics only listen to other critics and as a result never actually understand why people like the things they like.
Walk a mile in someones shoes, or music player, before passing judgement.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Read the headline again - 29 digital music players for the holidays.
The problem each and every one of them face is not the iPod. It is in fact that they face - each other! For something to take on the iPod it has to grow a substantial user base and it's hard to do so when it's a little fish in a small mpond with many other fish. Every move each of these players makes to "take out the iPod" shifts the dynamics of this tiny pond and disturbes the players within.
What would have to happen before a playre could really take on the iPod, is for the portable music player count to shrink substantially so any given player would have a base from which to try and assault on the iPod market share. Instead none of them last long enough to really try. The Zune might be an exception there since Microsoft can loose a billion or so a year for a decade without a problem, but it's the consumer base that will be key and that cannot simply be bought.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
does it work with iTunes? Or, failing that (and it is a big failing) does it have something better?
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
I have precisely one criteria that has never been met by ANY DAP... NORMAL BATTERIES
I don't want crappy, low capacity, hard to change batteries. I want to swap a few AAAs (or AA) in 10 seconds, and have my DAP working non-stop. No need to be plugged-in to a cord for hours every day. Not to mention that battery capacity is continually increasing, and CD players that had a 10 hour battery life some 10 years ago, now have about 30 hours thanks to newer rechargable batteries.
Just add that simple feature to a couple DAPs, and you'll have something that might actually appeal to people like me who wouldn't ever consider an iPod. Meanwhile, I'm sticking with my MP3 CD player that gets 50+ hours on a pair of rechargable AAs.
My other criteria are large (40GB+) hard drive and FLAC/Musepack/Vorbis playback, and any rockbox-supported players will handle those easily.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Bill Gates is a STUPID nerd, Louisiana, Houma, see.
... seamless integration with iTunes (not to be confused with ITMS, which is a topic for a different article)
iTunes is a pretty good juke box package, and it provides for uploading to a player (and synchronizing, too) from inside the application. I won't touch any portable media player unless I can manage it (ie upload) via iTunes.
In the course of every project, it will become necessary to shoot the scientists and begin production.
Most girls and women will only buy iPods.
It's a symbol for them of coolness.
It is total brand identification with their music.
My Music is My iPod.
If you are a guy and don't have an iPod, you are not cool.
You are going home alone.
This leaves the remaining portable music market to guys who aren't going to get laid.
Microsoft can service that market.
If you have "Keep iTunes Music folder organized" checked, than iTunes will indeed rename and sort your files into an Artist/Album/Song.mp3 structure. If that isn't good enough, there are plenty of third-party tools that will rename MP3s based on ID3 tags in any possible fashion you could want.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
Then hard drive based players are not for you. I had a RIO with replaceable AA batteries and I hated it. I like all my devices to have rechargable batteries because all I have to do is plug them in at night and don't have to worry about them suddenly dying during the day. Nothing sucks more than a dead battery half way through a train ride. And really, with the battery life of hard drive based players, and the same with cell phones, I wouldn't really want to carry around AA batteries.
I'm not knocking your preference, I have a MP3 CD player too and it does everything you said, but not to fit in my pocket.
I don't get it.
1. A better player at a better price. Hard to do if you don't buy as much flash memory as Apple.
2. A better PC-based app than iTunes for sync and commerce. That'll cost a lot of money, and it will be very difficult to do better on the first try no matter how much you spend, so count on it taking three product lifecycles before you are even in the game. That is, count on spending 3X what Apple spends now on a rev of iTunes, before you even begin to take away market share.
3. Something unique... that Apple can't copy... that nobody has thought of yet.
Which are points to Microsoft. Now you would think Microsoft would be willing to throw the RIAA/MPAA under a bus and give the customer a big hug, but it isn't going that way. Anyone else think that is a mistake?
I wrote parts of this stuff
1. A company name that people (rightly or wrongly) trust.
2. A commitment to maintaining the same hardware and software interfaces over the long term.
3. A user interface that looks good and works better than the iPod.
1: Microsoft does have this. So does Apple. Sony used to but it's thrown a lot away with years of deliberately broken players.
2: When you introduce the device by breaking compatibility to a commitment you made to "Plays for Sure" you're not likely to get the kind of accessory ecosystem the iPod has, and that accessory ecosystem is one of the main reasons I went with the iPod. Apple's not been 100% consistent with this, though. The new shuffle breaks compatibility with existing shuffle hardware, for example.
3: This is not as hard as it sounds. The click-wheel isn't all that it's talked up to be, a D-pad and a jog-wheel are at least as good for playlist navigation and MUCH better for anything else. It's a pity that the D-pad-and-jogwheel interface seems to have been abandoned even by Sony in favor of trying a radically new design on every device (which is NOT the way to convince people you're on top of #2).
Another more dubious feature is a new DRM system that will be exclusive to Zune and an updated MSM Music, mimicking Apple's proprietary system that locks users to the iPod/iTunes pairing.
If Microsoft thinks that the proprietary DRM is an advantage for the iPod, and they're trying to push that as part of the deal rather than because they're trying to keep the Zune-to-Zune stuff locked in to the Zune, they got another think coming.
When the iPod came out, most MP3 players didn't have DRM, Microsoft and Sony each had something in play and neither was really there. Apple hadn't started out behind DRM... Steve Jobs was on record as saying DRM was a bad idea... and where they've used it since then has been very minimal. Anyway, they realy didn't have a choice but to do it their own way... and they weren't seriously trying for a closed system: their files are regular MP4 files under the DRM. Having a lock on the DRM has turned out to be moderately useful once they won the lions share of the market through other means, but it's not going to help get you there... and since it's not that hard to get around, it's not much of a barrier.
DRM is basically not a feature that people want. It's something they put up with. They don't care what DRM you use, so long as it doesn't get in their way. When it's actually effective, THEN people look for other alternatives. And ineffective DRM (like Apple's) is only useful as a check-box for dealing with content providers.
Microsoft DID have some traction with their own proprietary DRM, but they just shot it in the foot. I for one welcome their incompetance.
Samsungs K5 could, atleast in my opinion, pose a viable threat to the current iPods (iPod Video excluded), especially the Nano. Even more so the new Nano. It looks better, is better behaved (you can use Windows Explorer without any additional software to transfer files, if I understood correctly). But the speakers...those god forsaken speakers... I mean, yeah, sure, it's a nice feature, but what the hell were they thinking? "Hey! Let's make a true rival to the Nano. But wait a minute. Who wants a thin, slim MP3 player nowadays? I have an idea! Let's put speakers on the back of it! That will surely make it thick enough not to be the perfect Nano-buster!" Atleast they could have, or should in the very near future, release exactly the same player, except without the speakers. Personally I would like a player with the look and feel of the K5 but with the size and weight of a Nano.
where iz the 300$ embedded notebook?
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
10 iPod vs Zune Myths
10 Ways Microsoft can Salvage their iPod Killer
Why Microsoft Can't Compete With iTunes
"Here's the secret answers that expose a series of myths concerning Microsoft's ability to own new markets, why its monopoly position won't be of any help, and why the company's consumer retail strategies aren't working."
The problem with this is that I don't want my music organized as "Artist/Album/Song.mp3". I want it organized as "Artist - Song.mp3", *UNLESS* I have the complete album, in which case I want it to be in a folder called "Full Albums" as "Artist - Album/TrackNumber - Artist - Song.mp3". I'm not really familiar with iTunes (I installed it and used an early version of JHymn to purchase some tracks and convert them to MP3 without the need to burn a CD), but I don't recall seeing any such option. The reason that the "Artist/Album/Song.mp3" method doesn't work for me is that 1) I play music through WinAmp, not iTunes; and 2) I have a number of songs in my collection that are the only song from that artist (or from that particular album) that I have. It's rather annoying to have to drill through artist and album folders to get to a single song instead of being able to load up a playlist with a bunch of songs from a single spot in the filesystem.
--Ender
Loose things are easy to lose. You're getting your hair cut. They're going there to see their aunt.
It's also called market saturation.
I once read an interview with someone who worked on the ipod (no idea where or when), who claimed that the renaming and folder structure has nothing to do with the recording industry, but rather with the limitations of the early hardware and the requirement that playlists of thousands of files "open" instantaneous. Limitating filename lengths and the number of files in a folder apparently helped, as did storing the files' information in a central database. I don't know if this is true, but it sounds reasonable
It sounds even more reasonable when you realise that :
- lots of people in the world do not use only ASCII characters like english speaking people do
- the filesystem for Windows iPods is surely some FAT
Mix these two things. You just won't put any file with, say, a ':', on your FAT fs (try it if you don't believe me). This fs is pure sh*t, and it doesn't support UTF-8 well. Even NTFS doesn't support UTF-8 well. And guess what, the iPod is international, and has to store all these characters (including kanjis for example) and even the ':' that you put in your albums or titles names.
I can do all that on my Linux OS, but few OS can, and actually, WinXP can't do it correctly by default, even less using FAT.
So, I think the iPod software uses ASCII characters (perhaps with a hash algorithm) to store the files on your iPod FAT fs, and keep a record of equivalent filenames in its database, in true UTF-8. That's why I can have french named files (with ':' in titles) mixed with kanji/kana named files (for some of my japanese titles) on my iPod, seen equally well by iTunes, Gtkpod or my Linux FS. Yes, because gtkpod can export your files back to your ext3 fs (no need to burn anything to CD).
I don't know for the Mac OS X FS, so I can't talk about it.
Given that iTunes destroyed all my notations, or all my files each time (twice) I tried it, I'm glad I had this option on Linux.
I think it has more to do with indexing and sorting/searching quickly than withpreventing copying. The file names and folders are just hash codes designed to be easily searched and indexed. There is no hidden consipracy theory here, jut sound Computer Science. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hash_code
If you have a large cap Ipod like 40+ gigs it would be nice to scoll threw things by letter and not go threw every artist name. I have a 4th G 40G ipod
At 75% market share, I'd say the iPod remains pretty unkilled.
Grandpa Joe's old tin lunchbox is tougher, more spacious, and will last longer than some prissy little Booq computer bag, but that's not going to change what most of us carry to work on the train.
Market research, kids. The car-elite took a collective dump on the Volkswagen Beetle for decades but it still outsold and outlasted dozens of other makes & models.
Time to put the spec sheets down and ask why people buy short-lived flowers, overpriced lattes, clunky American trucks, and boring Ikea chairs. Why they stuff themselves into uncomfortable jeans, line up for overpriced movies, and sign up for service in the armed forces. Why most of us don't care who Darth Bane is, or who's directing the new X-Men movie, or what color they're painting the Transformers. Until the iPod killers get the market, the market's probably going to keep on getting iPods.
Latest model does not have the issues mentioned.
I have ran on tunnels and the new Garmin Forerunner happily picks up the distance (on a straight line of course) and adds it to your running statistics.
And most importantly, for serious runners the shoe is more important than the gadgets. What about if no NIke shoe fits the shoe I need to run?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
They make infuriatingly difficult to connect your phone in a standar way to your computer.
You want to do so? Then you have to buy their special propieatary USB cable and software. Which will be overpriced as hell.
And then they will put all kind of restrictions in how you can use the music in your phone. Oh yea, and it will not accept standard earphones, but the very special ones from them, overpriced as well.
YOu are right on the money, but the mobile phone companies are not.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
They are all well known brands in the market.
Iriver and Samsung is good enough support if you really want to use the format.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Have got a WiFi connection? Then you PSP will grab podcasts transparently and keep them on the memory (you need to upgrade to version 2.0 of their firmware I think, so no home brew stuff for you, until the lock in is broken again).
The iPod is a good compromise, but others are doing things far more inventive.
The genius of Jobs is the marketing. He is reselling the same tired device (there is no much functional difference between a first generation iPod and an iPod nano lets say) as if Apple was innovating.
In the meantime others have devices that do what the iPods do and then some (voice recorders, FM recorders, functioning as a simple disk device in any OS, WiFI connectivy like the PSP, you name it).
Hats of to Apple for they marketing people. Not mightly impressed with the technology (the wheel is the most innovative feature, but I don't think that is a clincher).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Well, so what you are saying is that they created a solution for a problem that very few people have.
Who needs thousends of tracks in a music player?
DJs perhaps. Not you, not me.
SO in reality we go back to the issue of marketing. They sold a solution wanting a problem and hyped it up with snappy advertisement.
That is Steve Jobs genius. It is good time that this is recognized but on the technical side the iPod offers precious little as have been explained elsewhere in the thread.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You can't claim all what you are claiming without investigating first.
If the music proto monopolists were providing the same service they would surely take clients away from Allofmp3...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Being the obsessive ID3 tag freak that I am, I have tons of AAC files with bizarre UTF-8 characters in the Title tag, and therefore (letting iTunes do everything automatically) with those characters in the filenames, which causes no problem whatsoever in OS X on an HFS+ volume. It took forever for the lightbulb in my head to flash about why the Finder kept aborting the copy when I tried to copy my entire iTunes folder to an NTFS volume over a network, and leaving inaccessible files of death on the NTFS volume. I believe OS X should handle this situation by automatically changing illegal filenames when copying to an SMB share, but it doesn't. Be forewarned.