Ah, but if you want to play AIFF files, an flash-memory MP3 player with no HD is not a valid solution anyway, unless 90 seconds of music is all you really want.
2. USA Today pads their circulation stats by counting all the free issues that are dumped in front of almost every hotel-room door in America. They print 2.3 Million copies, most of which are given to people who didn't ask for them and don't care about reading them.
When I said "stacks of paper," I was mostly talking about books, which is still the medium in which 99% of the world prefers to read their text-based fiction. Project Guttenberg is great, but all those public-domain books they host still get sold at your local Barnes & Noble store.
Can anyone realy imagine a future 50 years down the road where anyone is interested in buying a piece of plastic with music on it?
Electronic transmission of text has been easilly available for several decades now, yet people still buy stacks of paper with words printed on them.
As long as owning an album one a removable storage media means actually owning that copy, people like me will pay for it when the music is good enough to be worth buying.
By the way, if you take a look at the Apple store right now, you will find that Apple has closed the price gap with Archos a little bit. It still costs more, but for iSync alone, it's definately worth it to me. I'm seriously considering selling my 10G iPod to a friend and moving up to a bigger one soon.
I didn't say it was the cheapest on the market, just not the most expensive, which I think you will agree is almost completely unexplored territory as far as Apple is concerned.
If the Archos had the iPod's feature set, in particular iSync support, I would consider it a very good buy... and even as it is, I wouldn't hesitate to reccomend it to my friendly neighborhood Linux zealot. For the features I listed in the earlier post however, I still see the iPod as the best choice for most of us.
They are not laptop drives. They are about half the size of the drive inside your Dell Latitude, and that smaller size doesn't come cheap. Shop for an external Firewire drive that's the size of the iPod, and you will discover that it costs about the same.
Psst. Not to be rude, but at 128kbps MP3 and AAC will take the same amount of space for the same length track. Since you need to record at 192 VBR in order to approach the quality of 128-bit AAC, I consider AAC to be a space-saver.
1. The iPod has a remote control feature. I don't use it. The iPod itself is smaller than a lot of my remotes.
2. FM Radio would have been a spiffy feature 30 years ago when radio didn't suck. There are very few markets left that have stations worth listening to.
3. Also available for iPod, although it's an external device.
4. That's not a bad feature, if you have an amp that takes digital/optical in, and has better D/A logic than the player.
5. Unless I'm bootlegging a Phish concert or something, I would never use that feature. If I want to record, I will be doing it in my studio, which has a desktop machine for that.
Now let's talk about the iRiver's lack of anything like iSync, the piss-poor interface, the horrible and fragile-looking game-console style thumbstick controller jutting out of the front, total lack of either AAC or OGG support (they promise it as a future "firmware upgrade,"), meaning you will need to encode VBR MP3 at 192+ to realize any kind of worthwhile sound, 1970s Volvo-like boxiness... Unless you need the FM radio or recording capabilities, it is an inferior solution that costs more.
I have to agree about the 8 hour battery life, though; it's not enough to commute to and from work and to use at work, which is what I'd like.
I use the Belkin 12V cigarette-lighter adapter, which also uses the firewire port's line-outs, to listen in the car. If my iPod is slightly depleated in the morning, it gets charged up for the day during the commute, so I've yet to run the battery down while in the office.
As for battery replacements, some hackers have already done it, and it's not quite as hard as you would think, as long as you can get your hand on the right battery.
1. Firewire connection for fast synchronization. This feature is huge. When I add a couple albums to my iTunes playlist, I can dump them into my iPod almost instantly.
2. Small and light. When I unplug the headphones, it's less weight or bulk than my wallet, and I often carry it in the pocket of my jeans. This not only makes it nice for jogging, but at serves double duty as a "pull out" media player for my car when I park in bad neighborhoods.
3. AAC support. Okay, Ogg Vorbis is more Stalmanist, blah blah blah, but AAC at 128 sounds as good or better, at least to me, as VBR MP3 while taking up less space on the HD.
4. It can double as a portable Firewire/USB2 hard drive. It serves as massive storage for your digital camera, or a great way to "sneaker net" a Linux distro to another building.
5. Price. For once, Apple is not selling the most expensive product on the market. The iPod sells for very little above what the HD alone would sell for.
If there's something I would improve about the iPod, it's RAM. Bumping up the memory to 64MB would mean even longer battery life and better support for really long tracks. If an iPod were available for $100 more that doubled the memory, I would definitely trade up.
Another improvement that would be nice would be to somehow get rid of the momentary pause between tracks. I hate joining tracks just to avoid that interruption.
Actually, users quickly become accustomed to thinking, "asking for my password means it's about to either install software, or edit my operating system," which will hopefully lead to thoughts like, "hmmm... why would a jpeg of Anna Kournakova need to do that? I should ask one of my computer geek friends before doing this."
I would also like to see a way to play a song once for a lower price than buying it outright.
You will probably never see that happen, because almost everybody who says they want to pay to "play it once" really intends to rip the stream and make their own copy, getting the song permanently for the price of a one-time use. The record companies know this. It's the reason why they encourage DJ's to talk over the intros and outtros of new songs on the radio.
WiFi would drain that poor little iPod battery in no time, though.
Besides, if they just added IR remote control to the Dock and designed it for racks & cabinets, it would be an even better solution than a stereo with built-in MP3. It would take the place of your CD player on your stereo shelf, plugged in to the amp, pre-amp, or receiver of your choice.
Integrated, does-everything devices are far more popular in Japan than over here. Cheaper land allows us to have bigger houses or apartments, which means we don't mind having a lot of separate components for everything in our home. (This is why a lot of the pre-iMac all-in-one Macintoshes were sold to the Japanese market only. They care a lot more about economy of space over there.)
It's just you. Japan has a sun on their flag, and consider the sun to be a symbol of their nation. Try not to be so hypersensitive about political correctness.
It kind of reminds me of the time that an inexperienced editor for the WSJ once changed a stock report to say that the market was "in the African-American."
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, but if you want to play AIFF files, an flash-memory MP3 player with no HD is not a valid solution anyway, unless 90 seconds of music is all you really want.
Not striving for ambiguity. I feel strongly about all three choices.
Boxer briefs are superior to boxers or briefs.
Macs are superior to Windows PC's in most ways, except when it comes to games... and old PC's can be turned into very cheap Linux servers.
Apache rocks, IIS sucks.
1. Newspapers are obsolete.
2. USA Today pads their circulation stats by counting all the free issues that are dumped in front of almost every hotel-room door in America. They print 2.3 Million copies, most of which are given to people who didn't ask for them and don't care about reading them.
As of right now, "Users who bought this album also bought"
The Neil Diamond Collection
Ultimate Manilow
Quadrophenia
iTunes users obvioulsy have much more varied tastes than one would think.
Boxer Briefs
Both
Apache
Carter never pronounced nuclear right either, and he was a "NUCULAR" engineer in the Navy. It must be a southern accent thing.
When I said "stacks of paper," I was mostly talking about books, which is still the medium in which 99% of the world prefers to read their text-based fiction. Project Guttenberg is great, but all those public-domain books they host still get sold at your local Barnes & Noble store.
Electronic transmission of text has been easilly available for several decades now, yet people still buy stacks of paper with words printed on them.
As long as owning an album one a removable storage media means actually owning that copy, people like me will pay for it when the music is good enough to be worth buying.
They might say they do, but the Cookie Monster can claim prior art.
By the way, if you take a look at the Apple store right now, you will find that Apple has closed the price gap with Archos a little bit. It still costs more, but for iSync alone, it's definately worth it to me. I'm seriously considering selling my 10G iPod to a friend and moving up to a bigger one soon.
It's now even cheaper.
If the Archos had the iPod's feature set, in particular iSync support, I would consider it a very good buy... and even as it is, I wouldn't hesitate to reccomend it to my friendly neighborhood Linux zealot. For the features I listed in the earlier post however, I still see the iPod as the best choice for most of us.
Badly worded. I was saying the fact that it's that small makes it nice for jogging, as well as taking with me when I leave the car.
They are not laptop drives. They are about half the size of the drive inside your Dell Latitude, and that smaller size doesn't come cheap. Shop for an external Firewire drive that's the size of the iPod, and you will discover that it costs about the same.
Psst. Not to be rude, but at 128kbps MP3 and AAC will take the same amount of space for the same length track. Since you need to record at 192 VBR in order to approach the quality of 128-bit AAC, I consider AAC to be a space-saver.
2. FM Radio would have been a spiffy feature 30 years ago when radio didn't suck. There are very few markets left that have stations worth listening to.
3. Also available for iPod, although it's an external device.
4. That's not a bad feature, if you have an amp that takes digital/optical in, and has better D/A logic than the player.
5. Unless I'm bootlegging a Phish concert or something, I would never use that feature. If I want to record, I will be doing it in my studio, which has a desktop machine for that.
Now let's talk about the iRiver's lack of anything like iSync, the piss-poor interface, the horrible and fragile-looking game-console style thumbstick controller jutting out of the front, total lack of either AAC or OGG support (they promise it as a future "firmware upgrade,"), meaning you will need to encode VBR MP3 at 192+ to realize any kind of worthwhile sound, 1970s Volvo-like boxiness... Unless you need the FM radio or recording capabilities, it is an inferior solution that costs more.
I use the Belkin 12V cigarette-lighter adapter, which also uses the firewire port's line-outs, to listen in the car. If my iPod is slightly depleated in the morning, it gets charged up for the day during the commute, so I've yet to run the battery down while in the office.
As for battery replacements, some hackers have already done it, and it's not quite as hard as you would think, as long as you can get your hand on the right battery.
1. Firewire connection for fast synchronization. This feature is huge. When I add a couple albums to my iTunes playlist, I can dump them into my iPod almost instantly.
2. Small and light. When I unplug the headphones, it's less weight or bulk than my wallet, and I often carry it in the pocket of my jeans. This not only makes it nice for jogging, but at serves double duty as a "pull out" media player for my car when I park in bad neighborhoods.
3. AAC support. Okay, Ogg Vorbis is more Stalmanist, blah blah blah, but AAC at 128 sounds as good or better, at least to me, as VBR MP3 while taking up less space on the HD.
4. It can double as a portable Firewire/USB2 hard drive. It serves as massive storage for your digital camera, or a great way to "sneaker net" a Linux distro to another building.
5. Price. For once, Apple is not selling the most expensive product on the market. The iPod sells for very little above what the HD alone would sell for.
If there's something I would improve about the iPod, it's RAM. Bumping up the memory to 64MB would mean even longer battery life and better support for really long tracks. If an iPod were available for $100 more that doubled the memory, I would definitely trade up.
Another improvement that would be nice would be to somehow get rid of the momentary pause between tracks. I hate joining tracks just to avoid that interruption.
Actually, users quickly become accustomed to thinking, "asking for my password means it's about to either install software, or edit my operating system," which will hopefully lead to thoughts like, "hmmm... why would a jpeg of Anna Kournakova need to do that? I should ask one of my computer geek friends before doing this."
And we have a winner. Good call, ynohoo!
Not to "greenhouse effect" zealots, it's not!
You will probably never see that happen, because almost everybody who says they want to pay to "play it once" really intends to rip the stream and make their own copy, getting the song permanently for the price of a one-time use. The record companies know this. It's the reason why they encourage DJ's to talk over the intros and outtros of new songs on the radio.
Besides, if they just added IR remote control to the Dock and designed it for racks & cabinets, it would be an even better solution than a stereo with built-in MP3. It would take the place of your CD player on your stereo shelf, plugged in to the amp, pre-amp, or receiver of your choice.
Integrated, does-everything devices are far more popular in Japan than over here. Cheaper land allows us to have bigger houses or apartments, which means we don't mind having a lot of separate components for everything in our home. (This is why a lot of the pre-iMac all-in-one Macintoshes were sold to the Japanese market only. They care a lot more about economy of space over there.)
1996 called. It wants its naive rhetoric back.
Which reminds me, I really should consider changing my sig. Is there really anybody left that I'm mocking with it?
It kind of reminds me of the time that an inexperienced editor for the WSJ once changed a stock report to say that the market was "in the African-American."