HP To Start Selling Its iPod

Dozix007 writes "Uberhacker.Com is reporting that HP said Friday it will start selling its version of the iPod in September. HP's white iPod will be sold in a 20-gigabyte and 40-gigabyte version for $299 and $399 respectively. Apple's prices are the same. It is essentially a clone of the current design, with no real modification."

Is this really news?

[Anonymous Coward]

What else was HP going to do with them? Eat them? Plant them in the ground and hope iPod trees sprout?

Re:If it works.....

[Anonymous Coward]

you know, bows and arrows worked pretty well for a time.
why change em?

Invent?

[caober]

HP should change their "Invent" tag-line to "Copy what works and will make us money".

Just in time for christmas...

[Anonymous Coward]

iCopy anyone?

Re:Bad bad bad...

[maddskillz]

Brand recognition and bling bling. Chicks dig Apple

<homer>

[Anonymous Coward]

mmmh.... iPod trees....

Not the Same at All!

[Anonymous Coward]

"essentially a clone of the current design, with no real modification"

But with the HP one, you can, like, print out stickers and put them on the front. Stickers, man! I think I will put flame stickers on mine, so that the firewire works faster.

Re:Why didn't they go with the HP blue

[Phroggy]

Maybe because everybody was calling it "strangled corpse blue" instead. ;-)

Re:If it works.....

[NanoGator]

"why change em? "

Cos my villagers researched ARMOR!

Re:If it works.....

[jimbolaya]

These are innovative. You manage playlists using Reverse Polish Notation.

Re:What's the point?

[$exyNerdie]

My guess is that HP is thinking that people will "throw in an HP iPod" when making an HP computer purchase.

My guess is that HP is thinking that people will "throw in an HP PC" when making an HP iPod purchase.

Re:HP worse than you think on this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Trust me, Carly Fiorina has her own reality distortion field. She managed to convince everyone that merging with compaq was a good thing, after all.

Posted annonymously as I am an HP employee.

Apple is dead... HP is selling the iPod

[beamz]

I knew it!!! HP bought Apple, I knew this was going to happen all along based on information previously on slashdot... I can't believe it took this long, BSD only took a year to die...

Oh crap, I didn't rtfa. Oops.

Re:Bad bad bad...

[Anonymous Coward]

lesbian bull dikes dig apple

Blow it out your ass, you smug fuck!!

[Scudsucker]

Wow, could you have been more patronizing in your post, or did you think you were talking to a bunch of 4 year olds? All of your observations that you think are so clever, like "the iPod is not the only MP3 player out there", could have been told to you by any kid who goes to third grade. On a short bus.

and have way better functionality than the iPod

Um, no. More (generally useless) features? Sure. Better functionality as an MP3 player? No.

I mean, forcing you to use iTunes to load music on it, or else it won't play? What's that all about? Just about every other MP3 player (ok, the creative ones suck in that way too) let's you use it as an USB Mass Storage device, no drivers, no software, and it will play any MP3 you put on there.. Nice and simple!

No its not simple, its a god damn pain in the ass to use regular file system transfers. You can start a transfer in iTunes, drag more songs to your iPod and it will add the new songs to the transfer queue. With regular file transfers, you either have multiple copies running at once, or you wait till one file transfer is over before you start the next one. And searching for songs on an iPod is fast and easy because it has a database of the songs that are on it. With your crab ass system, your player is going to have to rebuild the database on its own, or make do without one...and be slow, slow slow.

People who buy iPods are perfectly aware that there are other options out there. iRiver (iCant come up with my own iNaming scheme) and Sony are about the only other players out there in the size/capacity segment that Apple is in. Sony's player sucks unless you love Sony's format (the only one that will play on it), and the iRiver is about the same price with a couple of neat but mostly novelty features. Now this may come as a shock to you, but many well informed consumers consider the iPod to be the better buy. It has a great interface, great software, doesn't try to be a jack-of-all-trades, and it has a Firewire interface so you can use it as a boot device.

And get this, if you buy argos, creative, iRiver, or any other brand -- You're not contractually required to give Steve Jobs a rim-job..

Uh huh. It sounds like you need one...from those flesh eating beetles from The Mummy.

Re:Support

[commodoresloat]

Customer: Hello, Support? I'm having a problem with my iPod.

Support: What seems to be the problem?

Customer: It's making horrible wailing noises that hurt my ears!

Support: What you need to do is to open your iPod under iTunes, go into "Artists" and delete everything by Tori Amos or Celine Dion.

Customer: That worked! Thanks!

Re:HP worse than you think on this...

[legirons]

"the iPod's meteoric rise"

which direction would that be?

Re:HP worse than you think on this...

[DAldredge]

This is what happens when you have a medieval history major running the company.

Re:If it works.....

[fordboy0]

Requesting new moderation level Mod +1 Genius

Three Words: Approved Vendor List

[Nova Express]

Geek wants iPod.

Geek wants company he works for to pay for it.

Geek submits request for "40 GB external Apple FireWire HD"

Accounting rejects request. "Apple not on approved vendor list."

Geek submits new request for "40 GB external HP FireWire HD.

Purchase request approved.

Result: Apple sells another 100,000 iPods they wouldn't have been able to Geeks gaming the system in PC-centric corporate environments.