Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Music Businesses Media Media (Apple) Apple

A Review of the iPod nano 671

Posted by Zonk from the tiny-screen-big-sound dept.
Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "Walt Mossberg has been testing the iPod nano for a few days, and he says he is 'smitten.' Mossberg writes in the Wall Street Journal, 'The nano has the best combination of beauty and functionality of any music player I've tested -- including the iconic original white iPod. And it sounds great. I plan to buy one for myself this weekend, when it is due to reach stores in the U.S., Europe and Asia.' Among other things, it has surprisingly good sound: 'Despite its small size, the nano sounded as good as any other iPod, and is packed with plenty of audio power. Plugged into my car speakers, it was able to belt out the new Fountains of Wayne rocker, "Maureen," loudly enough to be heard perfectly, even though I was going 70 mph in a convertible with the top down.'"
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

A Review of the iPod nano More

A Review of the iPod nano

Comments Filter:

  • Built-in power amp? Heh. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Kosmatos ( 179297 ) * on Thursday September 08, 2005 @12:29PM (#13510236)
    ...is packed with plenty of audio power. Plugged into my car speakers, it was able to belt out the new Fountains of Wayne rocker, "Maureen," loudly enough to be heard perfectly, even though I was going 70 mph in a convertible with the top down.

    Wow, the Nano has a built-in power amplifier with enough power to play that loud in your car? Cool :)
     
    ...Its your car's amplifier doing the job, not the Nano. The nano has a line-level or headphone-level power output... Nothing impressive there, other than that Apple didn't goof up, right?

    • iPod audio out... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 08, 2005 @12:32PM (#13510274)
      The iPod audio out is very good. Much better then may other portable players. Of course you can't tell this with the earbuds they come with, but that's another issue.

      So with a good set of headphones or speakers, and the right music, you can easily tell the difference.

      • Re:iPod audio out... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        define "better"
        SNR/THD/A2D/SPL/HZ/BR ?

        • Re:iPod audio out... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Golias ( 176380 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @01:54PM (#13511099)
          define "better"
          SNR/THD/A2D/SPL/HZ/BR ?

          You actually have a very good point, AC.

          The portable audio world is long overdue for a serious evaluation of all the handheld players out there, with both subjective double-blind listening tests and electronically measured performance specs.

          The ideal test would first compare all players using lossless playback (if available), and then compare them once again using the "suggested" compression format for each unit (128 AAC for the iPod, WMA for the Zen, etc.)

          I've heard audio critics praise the lossless playback performance of various iPod models before, especially when using the line-out from the docking port instead of the headphone-out on the top, but to date I know of no serious audio magazine which has done the sort of comparison they would do when evaluating CD players or Tuners.

          Has anybody seen anything like that, and if so, do you have a link?

          • Re:iPod audio out... (Score:5, Interesting)

            by jrockway ( 229604 ) * <jon-nospam@jrock.us> on Thursday September 08, 2005 @02:06PM (#13511233) Homepage Journal
            > especially when using the line-out from the docking port

            This is placebo. The sound coming from the Line-Out jack is amplified to 100% by the iPod's internal amp. I have done some serious listening through the headphone jack (with and without external amps, and with rather good headphones - Bayer DT880s and Sennheiser HD650s). The best sounding iPod is actually the shuffle (unamplified)... it has really clean bass. The mini is sloppy generally, and the regular iPod is pretty solid. The Powerbook output isn't that great, the iPod is noticeably better. I have looked at waveforms with my oscilloscope that confirm these results -- the output stage caps on the mini and Powerbook discharge too quickly, making a 20Hz square wave look triangular. Not good. The shuffle does fine though! (I'm told it uses a 2-transistor push-pull output stage, but I'm no audio amplification expert.)

            Here are some results similar to mine (I haven't written mine up due to lack of interest and time :)

            http://home.comcast.net/~machrone/playertest/playe rtest.htm [comcast.net]

            • Re:iPod audio out... (Score:5, Funny)

              by Golias ( 176380 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @02:17PM (#13511386)
              The results you linked to are a little disappointing. The shuffle's smaller capacity makes it unsuitable for lossless playback, which I consider essential to a device which would be plugged in to my main living room stereo.

              AAC is fine for jogging and driving, but when I want to really sit and listen, I consider Uncompressed, FLAC, or Apple Lossless rips of CD's to be the minimum sound quality tollerable.

              Fortunately, I now have a home theater system built around my Mac mini, using a USB-TOSLink adapter to carry the sound digitally to my amp... which finally made hi-fi use of my iPod a non-issue in my home.

              • Re:iPod audio out... (Score:5, Funny)

                by null etc. ( 524767 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @05:00PM (#13512991)
                AAC is fine for jogging and driving, but when I want to really sit and listen, I consider Uncompressed, FLAC, or Apple Lossless rips of CD's to be the minimum sound quality tollerable.

                God bless you. I bet you're one of those audiophiles that I revere like God, who can hear that "an audio system resolves so clearly that you can hear Eric Clapton's 3rd nasal hair vibrate ever so lighly when he sings the refrain of Layla live, augmenting the tonal quality that he gives his chords when his thumb glides ever so slightly down the guitar pick."

                Personally, I can't hear the difference between Back in Black at 192bpm vs. played back on one of those newfangled devices that "adds" information back into uncompressed waveform, allowing us to hear the music as the artist truly intended.

                Then again, maybe it's because I don't have 24 karat gold speaker cords that were woven by maiden virgins under the full moon of an Aquaries retrograde.

            • Re:iPod audio out... (Score:5, Insightful)

              by nolife ( 233813 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @03:18PM (#13512085) Homepage Journal
              I can not speak for the iPod in general but typically, line out jacks provide at least 150mv and should be in the 47kohm range for impedance matching to other standard stereo components. A headphone jack typically runs much lower in the 32 ohm range.
              To follow the "standard", a piece of equipment should have different output stages to achieve the difference in impedance between the two different jacks. An impedance mismatch will result in distorted waveforms at different frequencies as will any encoding (I assume your testing square wave playback file was from a non lossy compressed or raw wav format audio clip) . Just my $.02

            • The real reason iPod sound is better (Score:4, Funny)

              by commodoresloat ( 172735 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @04:35PM (#13512744)
              It's much snappier! I thought everyone knew that.
          • This was done years ago.

            ahref=http://www.stereophile.com/digitalsourcerevi ews/934/index5.htmlrel=url2html-10671 [slashdot.org]http://www.st ereophile.com/digitalsourcereviews/934/index5.html >

            It did very, very well on all those regular THD, SNR, etc. tests. "better many CD players". Given the limitations of the size and availability of power (battery can't come close to a wall socket in ability to deliver oomph), it is a near miracle.

            Of course, much of that miracle came from Wolfson (the DAC used in the iPod), and so

      • Cruzer Micro MP3 companion (Score:5, Interesting)

        by ProfessionalCookie ( 673314 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @02:17PM (#13511381) Journal
        The same cannot be said for my Cruzer Companion. I was really disappointed by the output. I turn the volume all the way up and it's still pretty weak- or at least not loud (with the earbuds). I won't even drive low frequencies on my HD280.

        Additionally there is audible distortion using a Y to the RCA in on my car's amp. My friend's iPod (Gen 2) works great.

        Fortunately I only paid $10 for it. I love my Cruzer Micro USB drive, it's tiny and holds a gig, but don't expect quality from the MP3 Companion (I wouldn't pay more than $15 for it).

        For those of you who think it doesn't make a difference where your music is played from, let me assure you , it does!

      • Re:iPod audio out... (Score:5, Informative)

        by aclarke ( 307017 ) <spam@@@clarke...ca> on Thursday September 08, 2005 @03:09PM (#13512002) Homepage
        Overall I've been very happy with my third generation 15GB iPod's sound quality, AS LONG AS I don't use any post-processing. If I use the equalizer settings or turn on the sound check, the sound quality goes way downhill to the point where it's annoying to listen to using my Sennheiser HD 280 pro headphones.

        If I turn up the bass booster in the equalizer, I get overdriven bass which seems to become even worse with music encoded at a lower bit rate (most of my music is encoded with Apple's lossless encoder). The sound check (which is supposed to equalize the volume of all the songs) really seems to flatten the dynamic response of the music. I use it in the car since I'm just hooking the iPod to my stereo with a cassette adapter anyway, but I can tell if it's on when I'm using my headpones.

        Another semi-unrelated problem with the iPod is that it seems to not quite have enough processing power to play some of the lossless-encoded music. These songs can clock in at over 1000kbps which can result in the iPod halting play for a few ms while it rebuffers. This is while it's sitting on the desk, too, not while I'm jogging or something.

        All in all I LOVE my iPod and am very happy with it. I just wish it maybe had a little more processing power so it could do a better job maintaining its audio quality while playing high bitrate music and/or running it through its post-processor.

        • how to fix ipod sound when using equalizer (Score:4, Informative)

          by shank2001 ( 913508 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @09:58PM (#13515021)
          The reason the ipod sounds horrible when you use the equalizer is not really the ipod's fault. It is your mp3s that are at fault. The reason they sound so bad is they are recorded at a level that leaves no room to boost any frequencies without distortion... let me explain. The EQ in the ipod is a digital one, and a digital signal can only be so loud before it runs out of bits and is clipped. Most songs are recorded right up to this digital limit of volume level to get the highest signal to noise ratio possible, but this also leaves no room for boosting using a digital EQ. Therefore any EQ setting on the ipod that is trying to boost frequencies can lead to severe clipping causeing the sound to be horrible even at low headphone volume level. The solution is to lower the volume of your MP3s that you load onto your ipod leaving room for the EQ to do its job without clipping. You can do this using various software, but the one I like most is called MP3Gain (google search for it). You just set what target dB level you want, it it changes the headers of your mp3s to reach that level, without changing the actual data of the MP3 itself (it only changes the header to use a multiplier of sorts to adjust volume). When you load these adjusted MP3s into your IPOD you will find you can use all the EQ settings with absolutely NO distortion at any headphone volume. And because the final amp of the IPOD is so good you will still get ear shattering volume despite the MP3s being slightly lower in volume. The difference in sound quality is stunning! Try it! No more shying away from using the EQ (which is a very high quality one in the ipod). There is lots of info around about this topic, just do a google search for ipod EQ distortion, and you will find more detailed info on why this works. Hope this helps!

    • Re:Built-in power amp? Heh. (Score:5, Informative)

      by AKAImBatman ( 238306 ) * <akaimbatman@gmaYEATSil.com minus poet> on Thursday September 08, 2005 @12:37PM (#13510318) Homepage Journal
      I believe the reviewers point was that the iPod put out enough power for the car stereo to do its job. I don't know about anyone else, but a lot of previous generation equipment (from tape players, to CD->Tape conversions, to early MP3 players) often were unable to produce much volume, period. Many suffered from loud hissing that further degraded the quality of the sound.

      In short, the reviewer's point was that the iPod puts out a crystal clear audio signal that sounds good and can be easily amplified with no apparent loss in quality. Make sense?

      • Re:Built-in power amp? Heh. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by TLSPRWR ( 711680 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @12:44PM (#13510388) Homepage
        In short, the reviewer's point was that the iPod puts out a crystal clear audio signal that sounds good and can be easily amplified with no apparent loss in quality.

        How could he tell if the audio signal was crystal clear if he was "going 70 mph in a convertible with the top down"?
      • In Short: guys, why do you even read this? This guy is a journalist who has been given a nice gadget. I suspect him to mean nothin in specifig, but using stupid buzzwords. Open your eyes, it's a MP3-player after all! Of course, if you put high quality MP3 in it, unless the mpeg-chip is crap or they seriously messed up the board design the sound is going to be great. Not quite CD, but great. Do you ever suspect a Journalist to hear the difference, in a car, a open cevertible, at 70 mph ?????? And yes I'm

    • Re:Built-in power amp? Heh. (Score:4, Informative)

      by FFFish ( 7567 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @12:38PM (#13510329) Homepage
      And AFAIK, the iPod Mini has lousy sound quality. The Shuffle, surprisingly, has the best sound quality of all Apple's digital players.

    • Re:Built-in power amp? Heh. (Score:5, Funny)

      by anaesthetica ( 596507 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @12:55PM (#13510494) Homepage Journal
      ...even though I was going 70 mph in a convertible with the top down.

      Tangentially related, Mr. Mossberg drives a black Benz convertible with a vanity license plate reading "WSJTECH". How do I know? I once cut him off rather sharply on the Clara Barton highway in DC on the way to a company picnic. I only realized it was him later when he grumpily sped past me (cruisin' in my White '91 Toyota Camry) and I saw his vanity tag. Sucka!

  • I'm sure they used the same decoding circuit.

    Having a more powerful amp in the device is a tradeoff on battery life. Its nothing to get exited about.

    Still, wish they would have added a radio to this thing.

  • That's nothing (Score:5, Funny)

    by ReformedExCon ( 897248 ) <reformed.excon@gmail.com> on Thursday September 08, 2005 @12:31PM (#13510268)
    I was able to hear Dvorak's Enter the New World crystal clear on nano's lowest volume setting while jackhammers busted up the street outside my window and parrots squawked within a meter of my ear.

  • sucks to be me... (Score:5, Funny)

    by sTalking_Goat ( 670565 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @12:35PM (#13510296) Homepage
    came to work this morning and found out my company is buying Nanos for all the employees (Our CEO is on the Apple board and we've had a very good year). So I'm on the verege of creaming in my shorts until I find out that although I work harder and longer than half the people here, I won't be getting one becuase technically I'm an Intern.

    [bitter]If I see one more Nano story I will smash my keyboard over my crappy CRT. Nano can go fuck itself.[/bitter]

    • I am glad that the audio out is good, but what I worry about more, in any protable device, is durability. If it is dropped while fumbling for keys, will it still work? And also some degree of water proofing. For me, portable music devices are mainly for running etc. So I want to be assured that it can get some (or a lot) of sweat on it and still work fine.
      RE your post: The nano is $250- just buy one. As an intern you likely have bigger issues such as no employer-provided health insurance.
      • Exactly, as an intern getting a free mp3 player should be second fiddle to things like health insurance, or lack of 401k. sorry, but ppl are bought off too easy with junk that won't matter in a few years; health and retirement will be long term issues.
        • I get 401k and health insurance through school is pretty good unless I get cancer or sometime. The Nano (even though I don't need or even really want one beyond the new toy factor) would go a long way to make up for the low pay, 12 hour shifts and lack of appreciation. Its the principle.
      • My 3G iPod is two years old now. It has survived one incredibly careless owner (who had knocked it and dropped it a lot over the last two years) and still works. There is some slight discolouration around the top of the LCD, which looks like pressure damage (probably from putting it in the same pocket as other things for a few weeks when I temporarily mislaid the belt clip). The battery still works, and it doesn't seem to have minded being rained on lightly - I tuck it under my coat when I'm in the rain,

    • Re:sucks to be me... (Score:5, Funny)

      by hackronym0 ( 812439 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @12:49PM (#13510442)
      at least you may get to see them, because they'll probably make you go get them, hand write special cards, wear goofy costume and hand them out to everyone while whistling the company theme song. Then you'll get to do everyone else's work while they play with their nano's.

      have fun!

    • came to work this morning and found out my company is buying Nanos for all the employees (Our CEO is on the Apple board and we've had a very good year). So I'm on the verege of creaming in my shorts until I find out that although I work harder and longer than half the people here, I won't be getting one becuase technically I'm an Intern. [bitter]If I see one more Nano story I will smash my keyboard over my crappy CRT. Nano can go fuck itself.[/bitter]

      You can always bring one of Creative's players to wo

    • Re:sucks to be me... (Score:5, Funny)

      by cexshun ( 770970 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @02:00PM (#13511152) Homepage

      I work harder and longer than half the people here

      So this makes you an incredibly average employee, yes?

    • harder and longer than half the people here

      I'm told girth is where it's at, now.

  • We all know (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 08, 2005 @12:36PM (#13510310)

    that evaluating an audio products signal to noise ratios, total harmonic distortion, audio algorithms and audible compression artifacts, frequency response and sound pressure levels at 70mph with the roof down gives us a more than accurate reprensenation of the audio reproduction of a mass produced Taiwanese digital audio player

    glad we have such experts making these evaluations for us so we can base our now informed purchasing decisions based on the results of these tests

  • I have relatives who are teachers at various levels. They are reporting that many young kids have gotten these small music devices as gifts, and often listen to them in school during lectures. Because they're so small they are often quite easy to hide if the teacher does come along.

    That said, several of them have recommended the use of these portable audio devices. They can often allow those students who are easily distracted to get some work done in school. They also have been used in second-language cours

  • Yo Walt ... (Score:3, Funny)

    by JMZorko ( 150414 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @12:36PM (#13510315) Homepage

    Slow down, man! With the wind in your face and the music thump-thumpin' from the new iPod, not to mention the looks of the iPod itself, you might get in an accident :-)

    Regards,

    John

  • Not exactly unbiased (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mblase ( 200735 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @12:38PM (#13510330)
    I like Apple products unfailingly myself. But then, I'm not a newspaper columnist.

    Seriously, has anyone ever read anything by Mossberg about Apple products that wasn't either glowing, stellar, or outright raving?
    • Maybe that's because Apple products are just, well, good? I don't think Mossberg is biased. He just knows good products when he sees them.

    • Re:Not exactly unbiased (Score:5, Informative)

      by tritone ( 189506 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @12:49PM (#13510440) Homepage
      Seriously, has anyone ever read anything by Mossberg about Apple products that wasn't either glowing, stellar, or outright raving?

      Sure. He finds the "Mighty Mouse" inferior to the Microsoft Wireless Optical Mouse 5000. Check out this article [macobserver.com].

      • Re:Not exactly unbiased (Score:3, Insightful)

        by mjpaci ( 33725 ) *
        you beat me to it. I find Mossberg to be a very fair reviewer -- he doesn't pitch one platform over the other. A true Apple Fan Boy would answer all of the emails related to viruses on Windows by saying, "Get a Mac!" He doesn't do that.

        --Mike

    • Re:Not exactly unbiased (Score:5, Interesting)

      by inkswamp ( 233692 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @12:55PM (#13510505)
      You know, as a long-time Mac user who watched every interesting idea that Apple had in the mid- to late-90s and in the early 2000s be greeted with words like "beleagured" and "struggling" and predictions that they were going out of business any day, I find it extraordinarily ironic to hear people complain that Apple is being treated as a media darling (which they are not.)

      Even today, there are still lingering attitudes about Apple. How many articles have we seen in the last two years predicting the imminent arrival of devastating viruses to the Mac? How many articles have we seen explaining why Macs are no more secure? How many articles have we seen trying to play up the nonexistent virus threat while downplaying the simple fact that there isn't a single virus for OS X yet.

      And yet, people compain that someone in the media might be too nice to Apple.

    • Mossberg was an Apple coup.

      Disclaimer: I've been an Apple fanboy and using Macs consistently since December '84. And also reading about them for all of that time. (I've put my favorite Apple quote below.)

      There was a time, not too long ago, perhaps ending in the mid- to late-90's around the time the iMac came out, when Mossberg was relentlessly ANTI-apple. In fact, as I recall, his name was pretty much synonymous with "Apple-basher" in the "beleaguered" Mac community (God, we hated that word...). Perhaps not

  • Size comparison (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mblase ( 200735 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @12:42PM (#13510372)
    I've actually found it hard to get a good idea of how big iPod nano is from the photos, because my brain wants that color screen to be larger than it really is. I finally stumbled onto Apple's iTunes sync [apple.com] webpage which overlaps iPod nano with a regular iPod to put its size into perspective a bit.

  • choking hazard? (Score:4, Funny)

    by mkiwi ( 585287 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @12:44PM (#13510394)
    The iPod Nano is so small I wonder if Apple also includes a notice (like the iPod shuffle) like "Do not eat iPod nano."

    Speaking of eating, Apple needs to sell a candy-like spray so one can "suck" on the iPod nano like a lollipop. Cherry, orange, and grape would be excellent starters.

    And if you're wondering about putting an iPod in your mouth, just imagine the other places an iPod could go on (or in!) the body.

  • I still like my mini (Score:5, Funny)

    by rampant mac ( 561036 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @12:45PM (#13510402)
    "The four-gigabyte nano costs $50 more than the mini of the same capacity, but it is even more stylish and easier to carry, and it includes a color screen where the mini's was monochrome. It also displays the album title for every song you play, which the mini omitted."

    I wonder how much the color screen on the new iPods affect the battery life? I currently own a mini and the battery life is very impressive; Showing the album title isn't that big of a deal for me, but I guess others might like that option.

    One downside I've noticed on my mini is that the screen is VERY bright while driving around at night. I'll sometimes DD for my friends and it's entertaining when the backlight kicks on while the drunks are trying to get some sleep during the ride home. "Dude, turn that shit off!" which usually sounds something more like "Douf, urn tha shy awf!" *wretch*

  • Cheesy endorsements... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Sponge Bath ( 413667 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @12:46PM (#13510408)

    I wonder if Apple will get Robin Williams to hawk the new iPod Nano Nano?

    Now with limited edition Mork & Mindy cover!

  • Mod me flamebait if you like but.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Chocolate Teapot ( 639869 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @12:47PM (#13510413) Homepage Journal
    Plugged into my car speakers, it was able to belt out the new Fountains of Wayne rocker, "Maureen," loudly enough to be heard perfectly, even though I was going 70 mph in a convertible with the top down.'"p? ....what a wanker! Where's the truck driver from 'Duel' when you need him?

  • Silly experiments (Score:5, Insightful)

    by slim ( 1652 ) <john@hartnupBLUE.net minus berry> on Thursday September 08, 2005 @12:47PM (#13510414) Homepage
    Why is he wasting paragraphs on trying things out that are there in black and white in the specs?

    "It has two GB of disk space. I tried putting 1.5GB of songs on, and there was room for another 0.5GB of data to spare!" ... or subjecting it to repeated drops to verify that it wouldn't skip. It's flash memory. Shocks and vibration are not going to be an issue.

    It does look like quite a nice gadget -- but I wouldn't personally buy anything with less than 20GB for songs.

    • Re:Silly experiments (Score:5, Informative)

      by Have Blue ( 616 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @01:17PM (#13510692) Homepage
      Firstly, a review that just regurgitated the spec page in English instead of tables would be boring. Secondly, if you ever look outside /., you'd find a lot of people who do not know things like "flash memory is more resistant to impact than hard disks" (not because they are dumb or lazy, but because they never had a reason to investigate it). Thirdly, the number he was talking about was not disk space, it was Apple's marketing line of "1000 songs"- again, not everyone is sufficiently knowledgeable about computers or their music collection to mentally convert that to gigabytes on-the-fly.

    • but I wouldn't personally buy anything with less than 20GB for songs.

      You know I felt the exact same way a few days ago. My music library is about 9GB and growing (I'm a Sound Designer so I can tax deduct my music library). I really would find it way more usable to have my whole library on a device so that I can always pick and choose from the whole thing.

      That nano is really nice looking though. Typically I wouldn't care much. I usually put function before form, especially in a device like this, bu

    • Re:Silly experiments (Score:3, Interesting)

      by deft ( 253558 )
      "Why is he wasting paragraphs on trying things out that are there in black and white in the specs?"

      Because often products do not live up to claims, and consumers like to know that a product acts as advertised. They like to know it is durable, as advertised. There's always how many HP the car is advertised to have, and how many it really dyno's at.

      If you believe all advertising, and no advertiser ever lied or exxagerated, then you'd have a point.

  • It's embarrasing to see the WSJ doing this (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @12:49PM (#13510444) Homepage
    There are only a few newspapers in the US in which you can't plant a puff piece for a product. The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal used to be the two leading examples. It looks like the WSJ is caving.

    Newspaper content today is embarassing. Huge sections like "Food and Wine", "Drive", and "Technology" (i.e. ads for buyable gadgets).

    A good exercise for students: Take a daily paper, discard all the ad sections, then cross out all remaining ads, then cross out all stories that promote products, then cross out all stories based on political figures saying something, and see what's left.

    News is what someone doesn't want published. All else is publicity.

    • Re:It's embarrasing to see the WSJ doing this (Score:5, Interesting)

      by s.fontinalis ( 580601 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @01:06PM (#13510612)
      Mossberg's column has been full of puff pieces for the past 5 years. I still remember a 4 megapizel digital camera review he did where he picked the HP (big WSJ advertiser) model over the Kodak model because the HP came with a far superior 32MB CF card standard, whereas the Kodak only had 16MB of builtin memory as standard you had to purchase a card extra.

    • Re:It's embarrasing to see the WSJ doing this (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Darth Cow ( 533706 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @01:13PM (#13510658)
      It's called a product review, dufus!

      Sometimes Mossberg's reviews [wsj.com] are negative. Sometimes they're positive. In this case, he obviously really liked the iPod nano.

      He's a well respected journalist and doesn't just write puff pieces promoting any product he gets sent to him (not even if it's from Apple [wsj.com]). I have no idea where you're coming from on this "embarrassment" angle. There is legitimate and valuable journalism in credible reviews, and you're nuts to say otherwise.

    • Re:It's embarrasing to see the WSJ doing this (Score:5, Funny)

      by Peter La Casse ( 3992 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @01:20PM (#13510727)
      A good exercise for students: Take a daily paper, discard all the ad sections, then cross out all remaining ads, then cross out all stories that promote products, then cross out all stories based on political figures saying something, and see what's left.

      Sounds like you are one of those old-fashioned, stick-in-the-mud conservatives who thinks "newspapers" should have "news". The main benefit of my newspaper to me is that I get a bunch of ads and coupons delivered to my door every Sunday morning for a small monthly fee (which is usually made up for by coupon savings.)

    • A good exercise for students: Take a daily paper, discard all the ad sections, then cross out all remaining ads, then cross out all stories that promote products, then cross out all stories based on political figures saying something, and see what's left.

      Stories about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie?

    • If the WSJ is caving, they've been headed down the road for quite some time. Mossberg has been doing technology review columns for as long as I've been reading the WSJ (8 years now), probably before then.

      He's no shill either--he'll freely and frequently criticize problems or missing functionality. The tech dev community comes in for frequent bashing, primarily due to their (IHO) utter cluelessness regarding usability. He'll also point out "good but could be better" things as well. Ars Technica he isn't,

  • Didn't Creative already do a 'Nano' mp3 player? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by millisa ( 151093 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @12:51PM (#13510464)
    Creative Zen Nano Plus [creative.com] Is Apple losing creativity or did I miss some division getting bought by someone else?

  • Any Price Reductions Coming? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by north.coaster ( 136450 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @01:02PM (#13510572) Homepage

    Is there any reason to believe that Apple will dropping the prices on any of the older iPod models in the near future?

    Of course, in this case older is a relative term...

  • This product is fantastic. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by piecewise ( 169377 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @01:07PM (#13510620) Journal
    This is the best iPod yet, though of course I do need more capacity. I think it's silly for people to complain about $199 for 4GB, though. You know, it's like looking at a Mercedes and saying, "$50,000 for four seats?!" Of course, there's more to a car than how many people it can hold. And the iPod is certainly the finest music experience out there - by far.

  • Market Penetration (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Phurd Phlegm ( 241627 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @01:11PM (#13510643)
    Sounds like a new Fox series, eh?

    I understand that a significant problem for Apple is that they've achieved so much market penetration that most of the people that want an iPod have an iPod. The solution to this is to produce new models that will encourage those people to chug their old purchase and get a new one.

    I find the sound quality on my Mini to be perfectly fine for my middle-aged ears. I don't miss the ability to "view album covers in full color" and if I want to share photos with someone, that's why God made the internet.

    The smaller size is great, but the Mini is already really small--much smaller than my wallet. The only part that seems attractive is that there isn't a mini-drive in there to pug out.

    I think that Apple has a tough row to hoe when it comes to getting people like to me switch up. I can't think of any features that could reasonably be incorporated in a new iPod that would make me dump my present one, except maybe if it could convert those miserable DRM files that iTunes sells to MP3s.

  • Thanks for the tip (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Red Flayer ( 890720 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @01:17PM (#13510689) Journal
    From the summary: "Plugged into my car speakers, it was able to belt out the new Fountains of Wayne rocker, "Maureen," loudly enough to be heard perfectly, even though I was going 70 mph in a convertible with the top down.'"

    Ooooh! He's trendy (new MTV music), he's rich and stylish (convertible), and he's a wanker (blasting noise pollution).

    Please, please, can I be like him? I'll definitely buy a Nano now!

    This is a prime example of why trendiness drives iPod sales.

    Not to upset the fans or anything, but why is this necessary in an article about a new product?

  • All that fancy technology.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by leonbev ( 111395 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @01:18PM (#13510712) Journal
    And the damn thing still doesn't come with a built in radio. I don't know what in the hell Apple is thinking, as almost all of the other MP3 player manufacturers added an AM/FM tuner to their products years ago.

    Sure, having 1000 songs in your pocket is cool, but what if I want to listen to a live news or weather report? What am I supposed to do, carry around a separate radio for that?

  • Underrated feature (Score:3, Insightful)

    by espressojim ( 224775 ) <eris@NOsPam.tarogue.net> on Thursday September 08, 2005 @06:50PM (#13513841)
    What impresses me the most about the new played is that it's flash based, instead of hard drive based. In the past, my mp3 players that were HD based had a lot of problems with durability.

    I currently use a Rio Karma (which I'd love and recommend, if it held up well), but I travel with my player too much, including biking. HD based players are much more easily ruined by jaring motions, drops, etc. Your HD begins to degrade, sometimes songs skip or the player freezes up. Perhaps you cant use the full capacity of the player for very long.

    Since an music player is mostly in 'read' mode, the fact that flash memory will eventually wear out is very acceptable. The nano should last until a much nicer player comes out that has a much higher capacity for the form factor.

    I've never been interested in apple products before (my rio does a lot more than the apple products do - ogg support, better playlist support, DJ modes, etc), but it's on it's way out, due to the HD. When it dies, I know where i'll be looking next...

  • Nano == Apple's Play for the Asian Market (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Xthlc ( 20317 ) on Thursday September 08, 2005 @07:04PM (#13513924)
    The reason the iPod has been doing so poorly in Korea, Taiwan and elsewhere in Southeast Asia is size. People there like their mp3 players TINY -- they don't give a guff for capacity as long as it's super-small and shockproof. The Shuffle was a step in the right direction, but without a display its capabilities were limited. The Nano is perfectly poised to make serious inroads into the Asian mp3 player arena, if they market it well enough.

    Now if they added recording capabilities (which Asian students often use to record lectures, for some reason), the Japanese manufacturers would really start to sweat.

Slashdot Top Deals

He has not acquired a fortune; the fortune has acquired him. -- Bion

Close