I know that I can do that with WAV. But we're talking about trasnferring 40gig of files. FLAC makes me able to do that half as often. I'm not sure how fast 40 gig transfers over USB 2, but it can't be real quick.
I think you're discounting the most important thing: Price. Honda and Toyota weren't making more stylish cars than the big 3, they were making cars that had better features at a better price. Dell didn't become the largest computer maker by making pretty computers, they did it buy offering the most for the least. No one will ever come out and say that you're stylish or cool if you shop at Wal-Mart, but more people shop there than anywhere else.
The amount of people that care about style over substance/price and want an MP3 player are a minute % of all consumers out there. When MP3 players start becoming commodity items it will be the people like iRiver and Creative that are selling the majority of players and Apple will sell MP3 players just like they sell computers, to a minority of people.
Nobody knows what an iRiver is. Most people don't CARE what an iRiver is.
At one time you could have said the same thing about Honda, Toyota, Nissan, or even Dell. But if/when you start selling a superior product and a better price you often times will gain mind share and market share.
I don't believe the other iRiver HD player supported FLAC, so I doubt this one would either. If it did it would be perfect. I want an HD player that supports FLAC and has an FM tuner... i need to combine the iRiver and the Rio Karma.
Whether or not it beat the nitrus to market is debateable. We'll have to see which one you can actually get in your possession first.
I of course don't really think there is much of a market for the nitrus either. Maybe there are 1000's of people out there that want this kind of product, but I just don't see it. I think the flash based players cover their target really well, and the large HD players pretty much take over right were they start. I don't see either of these products as having a very big auidience.
The battery life is a big deal. For two reasons. First if at all possible a device should have a battery life long enough to play everything on it. This just makes sense because it is trivial to load new songs at the same time you charge it. Now for jukebox players this isn't practical, as you probably don't reload it very often and they have the ability to hold 1000's of songs. But with a player like this, the longer the battery life the better because it can go longer without charging getting me closer to the holy grail of being able to play the entire catalog between charges. I never listen to my MP3 player for 8 hours straight, but it often goes weeks between battery changes (I have rechargeable AA). 8 hours would never be enough life for me because I would have to charge it mid-week. I have a one hour commute, which equals 10 hours of listening a week. So the longer the battery life the better. The second reason the longer battery life is better is that the battery will last longer if you charge it less times. Li-ion batteris (especially the iPod battery) aren't cheap. Charging it less will extend the life of the device.
Once again I'm still unsure of the target of this device and the devices like it. If 30% of all MP3 players are flashed based players I can't imagine more than 20% of that market wanting one of these. That is really a small number of consumers, especially when you divide it by all the manufacturers.
Consider the customer of the Rio Nitrus. It is 2.0 oz, 3" x 2.4" x 0.6", and holds 1.5 GB of storage for $199. The iPod mini is nearly the same size and heavier, but has more than twice the storage for $50 more. That's one product that is being targeted.
Of course Rio then announces a 4GB nitrus, with more battery life and a street price equal to the new iPod (which means it will be found signifigantly cheaper).
I have much more music on my computer than the average slashdotter I would assume. I have about 500 CD's and am working at putting them all on my machine as FLAC. Yet I only have a 192MB flash player? Why is that? I don't feel it's necessary to carry my whole collection with me at all times. I only need enough music to get me through the day. Of course that's also why I haven't bought the iPod yet. It has more space than I really need. Now if it could use FLAC it would be perfect for me as the 15 GB model would hold just about a perfect amount of music.
I finally am considering a Rio Karma because it does support FLAC. The only thing that's keeping me away is the lack of an FM tuner. Someday, someone will make a perfect MP3 player. Until then I refuse to spend much on one. I own two mp3 players now, and both were inexpensive.
I don't think the mini iPod is a train wreck. I think it's an average player with a not so average price. I also don't think there is much of a market for it. They will sell some (apple could paint steve jobs shit white and it would sell), but it's not really that great. When the iPod came out it was a better player than everything else for quite a while. I don't believe the mini iPod is even the best in it's target at it's release.
You are assuming that customers of flash-based players need any or all of those features, just because they bought one. A good number of them simply want a portable music player, but cannot afford hard disk based alternatives.
If affordability is an issue at all, you will not be buying an ipod. You will either be spending much less and purchasing a much cheaper flash based player (i bought my nomad, extra memory and different sync software for less than $100), or you will be purchasing a different branded player (the dell dj, nomad zen, and rio karma are all about $250 or less and provide many more features)
The 15 GB Dell player is 4.1" x 2.7" x 0.86" and weighs 7.61 ounces. The iPod mini is 3.6" x 2.0" x 0.5" and weights 3.6 ounces. In other words, the Dell is 9.5 cubic inches compared to the iPod mini's 3.6 cubic inches, and more than twice as heavy. Just because the size difference doesn't matter to you doesn't mean it won't for somebody else. Can you really not imagine a percentage of customers who value the extra portability over raw capacity?
Sure, there are a few. But many of them go after the truly small devices. The muvo's and other pen type devices. If size is really important to you, they seem to make more sense. This player is a compromise. Not as small or cheap as a flash based player, but not really that much smaller and with much less capacity than the other HD players.
I was the target audience for a flash player. I wanted something that would hold enough music to get me through the day. It also had to have enough battery life to get me through the week. The mini ipod only fits one of those two categories. My player has a longer battery life off of one rechargeable AA battery than the ipod does. Not to mention I keep a couple of spare AA's in my bag just incase.
The iPod, on the other hand, doesn't require you to carry multiple pieces of memory along with you. Expensive memory, memory that's small and easy to misplace. And as for "other devices"... WHAT other devices? I only have one set of ears!
If you read my entire post you would have noticed that the other device was a digital camera. One of the things I looked for when purchasing a flash based player was that the memory was the same as my digital camera. it's not unusual to carry extra memory for the camera. Why not put music on it first? I can erase the music if I need it for the camera.
It's right smack in the middle of the category that accounted for 30% of all portable digital music player sales (by unit) last quarter. The same category, incidentally, that sold about the same number of units as Apple sold iPods.
I really don't see this. I don't see this competing heavily with flash based players which are much cheaper and were often times bought on price not capacity (my player was less than $100 with extra memory). Sure if I was considering spending $200 on a flash based player I might consider the mini ipod. But I don't think the market for $200 flash players is huge.
I didn't necessairly say it was a good thing. It just adds flexibility. One of the top reasons I bought the flash based player that I have is that it takes the same media as my digital camera. I carry a couple of extra memory cards for the camera on a long trip anyway so it doesn't hurt to load them up with music before hand.
shouldn't we actually give IBM all the credit for this one? I mean dell will build a computer on a 90 nanometer process as soon as intel gives them a proc.
two songs of the same bit rate will always be the same size regardless of the compression scheme. The bitrate tells you exactly how big the file is. A 3 minute song will be 2.88 MB if recorded at 128 Kbit/s regardless of the compression scheme.
a 128 kbit/s AAC file is exactly the same size as a 128 kbit/s MP3 file. They are both 128 kbit/s. Now the arguement can be made that the 128 kbit AAC file will sound better than the MP3, and you could get off recording at 96kbit/s. If you do record your AAC at a lower bitrate then the AAC files are smaller.
Well flash based players are a different target audience. They have no moving parts. They have better battery life. Many times they have removable memory that can 1) be used in other devices and 2) allows you to carry multiple pieces with you on long trips.
Exactly what category is the mini iPod in? for the same price I can get an HD mp3 player from a different manufacturer with much more storage.
The iPod is more expensive than what the rumors said but it also has bigger hard drive (4Go/249$ vs 2Go/100$). I think that makes it the best deal by far in its category.
And what category is it? The flash based players that have less memory but much longer battery life and no moving parts? Or the HD players that offer 3 times the capacity for the same price? The problem is that I think they picked a category that their is no market for.
Who says yahoo hasn't been designing a search algorithm for a year, or two? Just because they're making this announcement now doesn't mean that they're just beginning work on a new search. Besides yahoo search is one of a vast number of things yahoo offers. I don't search on yahoo. But I do use yahoo mail, yahoo maps, yahoo messenger, etc almost daily.
I for one welcome this. At best yahoo designs a great search engine that betters google. At worst they push google to make a better engine.
Well if you like pink floyd try bands like The Soundtrack of Our Lives and The Super Furry Animals. They sound like what Pink Floyd would sound like if they had continued making music. If you like Led Zep, try the Darkness... it's a little cheesy and over the top but it's good none the less.
If the blu-Ray is the one format that can not be made to be read by the mulit-format players it will loose. Simple as that. If you had to choose between two DVD players identical in every way except on played CD's and DVD-Audio as well as DVD, which would you pick? If joe sixpack knows more is better.
You could've said that about cassette tapes until fairly recently. Do record companies still release music in that format? More to the point, who cares? Likewise, in 5 years time, who'll care if stuff is released on VHS. At the moment they have a place (IE I have a vhs recorder, but no dvd player or writer), but not for too much longer.
As far as I know they still release music on audio tape. It may be hard to find, but it is out there. But the point is they continued to release music on audiotape for 25 years after CD's were introduced. If the same holds true for the future VHS won't completly dissapear until about 2020 and it'll be 2030 or so until DVD's are gone.
No-one's suggesting a step backwards. When something better is available, you'll simply read your DVDs onto your PC and write them out in the new format, just like I've been doing with my CDs to that I can listen to them on my mp3 playing cd player.
Or better yet you'll just put the DVD in your new player because it will be backwards compatible. In fact I don't think the format wars are going to be a huge deal because they're all using the same size disc. Everyone said there would be a huge format war for SACD/DVD-Audio. But then players appeared that played both. I imagine the same thing will happen in the future. 10 years from now you'll be able to buy a player that plays: CD, VCD, DVD, DVD-Audio, SACD, HD-DVD, and Blu-Ray.
I like my 256 MB solid state player, thank you ver much. It easily holds everything I need to get me too and from work, and I get 12 hours or so off of one rechargeable NiMH battery. It's small, light, and there are no moving parts.
Perhaps one day I will replace it, but not until there is a player with the feature set I need:
Support for FLAC. OGG Vorbis would be nice, but I archive my music in FLAC so I would like this much more
An FM tuner. We do have good FM radio in seattle, plus I'd like to listen to NPR or the news sometimes on the way to work
At least 10 hours of battery time. (that's one work week worth of listening)
Priced around $200
Basically I want to combine the features of the Rio Karma and iRiver players. Hopefully such a player will exist in the next year or so.
The fighting in Kill Bill did not impress me at all. Even some Hong Kong B-movies have fight scenes that were more technically impressive to me (The Twin Effect), and the best of Chinese Cinema (Hero, Shaolin Soccer) just stomps the stuff I've ever seen in American films. Most of the time in American Films, as impressive as the fights are, they seem very coreographed. Where in HK cinema, the fights seem much more spontaneous and real.
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I know that I can do that with WAV. But we're talking about trasnferring 40gig of files. FLAC makes me able to do that half as often. I'm not sure how fast 40 gig transfers over USB 2, but it can't be real quick.
mounting as a filesystem would be nice, but the ethernet/java stuff the rio has makes up for it. The FM tuner and FLAC are the deal breakers for me.
I think you're discounting the most important thing: Price. Honda and Toyota weren't making more stylish cars than the big 3, they were making cars that had better features at a better price. Dell didn't become the largest computer maker by making pretty computers, they did it buy offering the most for the least. No one will ever come out and say that you're stylish or cool if you shop at Wal-Mart, but more people shop there than anywhere else.
The amount of people that care about style over substance/price and want an MP3 player are a minute % of all consumers out there. When MP3 players start becoming commodity items it will be the people like iRiver and Creative that are selling the majority of players and Apple will sell MP3 players just like they sell computers, to a minority of people.
Nobody knows what an iRiver is. Most people don't CARE what an iRiver is.
At one time you could have said the same thing about Honda, Toyota, Nissan, or even Dell. But if/when you start selling a superior product and a better price you often times will gain mind share and market share.
I don't believe the other iRiver HD player supported FLAC, so I doubt this one would either. If it did it would be perfect. I want an HD player that supports FLAC and has an FM tuner... i need to combine the iRiver and the Rio Karma.
I don't think that's a fact. It has some exclusive content. But so do all the services. For 99% of all music they are going to be identical.
Whether or not it beat the nitrus to market is debateable. We'll have to see which one you can actually get in your possession first.
I of course don't really think there is much of a market for the nitrus either. Maybe there are 1000's of people out there that want this kind of product, but I just don't see it. I think the flash based players cover their target really well, and the large HD players pretty much take over right were they start. I don't see either of these products as having a very big auidience.
The battery life is a big deal. For two reasons. First if at all possible a device should have a battery life long enough to play everything on it. This just makes sense because it is trivial to load new songs at the same time you charge it. Now for jukebox players this isn't practical, as you probably don't reload it very often and they have the ability to hold 1000's of songs. But with a player like this, the longer the battery life the better because it can go longer without charging getting me closer to the holy grail of being able to play the entire catalog between charges. I never listen to my MP3 player for 8 hours straight, but it often goes weeks between battery changes (I have rechargeable AA). 8 hours would never be enough life for me because I would have to charge it mid-week. I have a one hour commute, which equals 10 hours of listening a week. So the longer the battery life the better. The second reason the longer battery life is better is that the battery will last longer if you charge it less times. Li-ion batteris (especially the iPod battery) aren't cheap. Charging it less will extend the life of the device.
Once again I'm still unsure of the target of this device and the devices like it. If 30% of all MP3 players are flashed based players I can't imagine more than 20% of that market wanting one of these. That is really a small number of consumers, especially when you divide it by all the manufacturers.
Consider the customer of the Rio Nitrus. It is 2.0 oz, 3" x 2.4" x 0.6", and holds 1.5 GB of storage for $199. The iPod mini is nearly the same size and heavier, but has more than twice the storage for $50 more. That's one product that is being targeted.
Of course Rio then announces a 4GB nitrus, with more battery life and a street price equal to the new iPod (which means it will be found signifigantly cheaper).
I have much more music on my computer than the average slashdotter I would assume. I have about 500 CD's and am working at putting them all on my machine as FLAC. Yet I only have a 192MB flash player? Why is that? I don't feel it's necessary to carry my whole collection with me at all times. I only need enough music to get me through the day. Of course that's also why I haven't bought the iPod yet. It has more space than I really need. Now if it could use FLAC it would be perfect for me as the 15 GB model would hold just about a perfect amount of music.
I finally am considering a Rio Karma because it does support FLAC. The only thing that's keeping me away is the lack of an FM tuner. Someday, someone will make a perfect MP3 player. Until then I refuse to spend much on one. I own two mp3 players now, and both were inexpensive.
I don't think the mini iPod is a train wreck. I think it's an average player with a not so average price. I also don't think there is much of a market for it. They will sell some (apple could paint steve jobs shit white and it would sell), but it's not really that great. When the iPod came out it was a better player than everything else for quite a while. I don't believe the mini iPod is even the best in it's target at it's release.
You are assuming that customers of flash-based players need any or all of those features, just because they bought one. A good number of them simply want a portable music player, but cannot afford hard disk based alternatives.
If affordability is an issue at all, you will not be buying an ipod. You will either be spending much less and purchasing a much cheaper flash based player (i bought my nomad, extra memory and different sync software for less than $100), or you will be purchasing a different branded player (the dell dj, nomad zen, and rio karma are all about $250 or less and provide many more features)
The 15 GB Dell player is 4.1" x 2.7" x 0.86" and weighs 7.61 ounces. The iPod mini is 3.6" x 2.0" x 0.5" and weights 3.6 ounces. In other words, the Dell is 9.5 cubic inches compared to the iPod mini's 3.6 cubic inches, and more than twice as heavy. Just because the size difference doesn't matter to you doesn't mean it won't for somebody else. Can you really not imagine a percentage of customers who value the extra portability over raw capacity?
Sure, there are a few. But many of them go after the truly small devices. The muvo's and other pen type devices. If size is really important to you, they seem to make more sense. This player is a compromise. Not as small or cheap as a flash based player, but not really that much smaller and with much less capacity than the other HD players.
I was the target audience for a flash player. I wanted something that would hold enough music to get me through the day. It also had to have enough battery life to get me through the week. The mini ipod only fits one of those two categories. My player has a longer battery life off of one rechargeable AA battery than the ipod does. Not to mention I keep a couple of spare AA's in my bag just incase.
The iPod, on the other hand, doesn't require you to carry multiple pieces of memory along with you. Expensive memory, memory that's small and easy to misplace. And as for "other devices"... WHAT other devices? I only have one set of ears!
If you read my entire post you would have noticed that the other device was a digital camera. One of the things I looked for when purchasing a flash based player was that the memory was the same as my digital camera. it's not unusual to carry extra memory for the camera. Why not put music on it first? I can erase the music if I need it for the camera.
It's right smack in the middle of the category that accounted for 30% of all portable digital music player sales (by unit) last quarter. The same category, incidentally, that sold about the same number of units as Apple sold iPods.
I really don't see this. I don't see this competing heavily with flash based players which are much cheaper and were often times bought on price not capacity (my player was less than $100 with extra memory). Sure if I was considering spending $200 on a flash based player I might consider the mini ipod. But I don't think the market for $200 flash players is huge.
I didn't necessairly say it was a good thing. It just adds flexibility. One of the top reasons I bought the flash based player that I have is that it takes the same media as my digital camera. I carry a couple of extra memory cards for the camera on a long trip anyway so it doesn't hurt to load them up with music before hand.
shouldn't we actually give IBM all the credit for this one? I mean dell will build a computer on a 90 nanometer process as soon as intel gives them a proc.
funny... i use my mp3 player almost every day and it only holds 256mb.
two songs of the same bit rate will always be the same size regardless of the compression scheme. The bitrate tells you exactly how big the file is. A 3 minute song will be 2.88 MB if recorded at 128 Kbit/s regardless of the compression scheme.
a 128 kbit/s AAC file is exactly the same size as a 128 kbit/s MP3 file. They are both 128 kbit/s. Now the arguement can be made that the 128 kbit AAC file will sound better than the MP3, and you could get off recording at 96kbit/s. If you do record your AAC at a lower bitrate then the AAC files are smaller.
Well flash based players are a different target audience. They have no moving parts. They have better battery life. Many times they have removable memory that can 1) be used in other devices and 2) allows you to carry multiple pieces with you on long trips.
Exactly what category is the mini iPod in? for the same price I can get an HD mp3 player from a different manufacturer with much more storage.
The iPod is more expensive than what the rumors said but it also has bigger hard drive (4Go/249$ vs 2Go/100$). I think that makes it the best deal by far in its category.
And what category is it? The flash based players that have less memory but much longer battery life and no moving parts? Or the HD players that offer 3 times the capacity for the same price? The problem is that I think they picked a category that their is no market for.
Who says yahoo hasn't been designing a search algorithm for a year, or two? Just because they're making this announcement now doesn't mean that they're just beginning work on a new search. Besides yahoo search is one of a vast number of things yahoo offers. I don't search on yahoo. But I do use yahoo mail, yahoo maps, yahoo messenger, etc almost daily.
I for one welcome this. At best yahoo designs a great search engine that betters google. At worst they push google to make a better engine.
Well the postal service is on sub-pop records. Who are not a memeber of the RIAA.
:wumpscut: didn't do anything that skinny puppy didn't do 10 years earlier and 10x better.
I miss my Wumpscut and Lycia.
Well if you like pink floyd try bands like The Soundtrack of Our Lives and The Super Furry Animals. They sound like what Pink Floyd would sound like if they had continued making music. If you like Led Zep, try the Darkness... it's a little cheesy and over the top but it's good none the less.
If the blu-Ray is the one format that can not be made to be read by the mulit-format players it will loose. Simple as that. If you had to choose between two DVD players identical in every way except on played CD's and DVD-Audio as well as DVD, which would you pick? If joe sixpack knows more is better.
You could've said that about cassette tapes until fairly recently. Do record companies still release music in that format? More to the point, who cares? Likewise, in 5 years time, who'll care if stuff is released on VHS. At the moment they have a place (IE I have a vhs recorder, but no dvd player or writer), but not for too much longer.
As far as I know they still release music on audio tape. It may be hard to find, but it is out there. But the point is they continued to release music on audiotape for 25 years after CD's were introduced. If the same holds true for the future VHS won't completly dissapear until about 2020 and it'll be 2030 or so until DVD's are gone.
No-one's suggesting a step backwards. When something better is available, you'll simply read your DVDs onto your PC and write them out in the new format, just like I've been doing with my CDs to that I can listen to them on my mp3 playing cd player.
Or better yet you'll just put the DVD in your new player because it will be backwards compatible. In fact I don't think the format wars are going to be a huge deal because they're all using the same size disc. Everyone said there would be a huge format war for SACD/DVD-Audio. But then players appeared that played both. I imagine the same thing will happen in the future. 10 years from now you'll be able to buy a player that plays: CD, VCD, DVD, DVD-Audio, SACD, HD-DVD, and Blu-Ray.
Perhaps one day I will replace it, but not until there is a player with the feature set I need:
- Support for FLAC. OGG Vorbis would be nice, but I archive my music in FLAC so I would like this much more
- An FM tuner. We do have good FM radio in seattle, plus I'd like to listen to NPR or the news sometimes on the way to work
- At least 10 hours of battery time. (that's one work week worth of listening)
- Priced around $200
Basically I want to combine the features of the Rio Karma and iRiver players. Hopefully such a player will exist in the next year or so.The fighting in Kill Bill did not impress me at all. Even some Hong Kong B-movies have fight scenes that were more technically impressive to me (The Twin Effect), and the best of Chinese Cinema (Hero, Shaolin Soccer) just stomps the stuff I've ever seen in American films. Most of the time in American Films, as impressive as the fights are, they seem very coreographed. Where in HK cinema, the fights seem much more spontaneous and real.