Sony's "iPod killer" Fails to Draw Blood 440
Mr_Silver writes "Walter Mossberg (of WSJ fame) managed to review the new Sony NW-HD1 and was distinctly unimpressed. The upsides: it's smaller, lighter and has a battery life of 20 hours. The downsides: goodbye MP3 - hello ATRAC3, slow upload (and converting) times and the confusing user interface on the walkman, PC software and the music store. When will someone pass Sony the cluestick?"
Battery life question (Score:3, Interesting)
Ideas?
Re:Battery life question (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Battery life question (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Battery life question (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Battery life question (Score:4, Informative)
2) LI-Poly isn't necessarily higher capacity, but it's not constrained to a certain shape. Normal Li-Ion batteries come as packs of pre-made cells, wasting a significant amount of space to their cylindric al size. Li-Poly batteries can be made in a much wider range of shapes, and so allow the manufacturer to fit more actual battery in a given space.
Re:Battery life question (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Battery life question (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Battery life question (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Battery life question (Score:4, Informative)
You know who makes good pro CD players? TASCAM. TEAC makes one good model too. HHB makes nice stuff. But TASCAM - we've had 3 of them in 24-hour-per-day heavy use at my old station for over 5 years. We've had to pull one once every 18-24 months for something minor, and their service department fixed our one fully broken one cheap and quick. Contrast that with the Denons we used to use, which would (without fail) break massively, usually the transport, at 6 months. And then we'd have to hassle the service department to get them to agree to even look at, much less fix, them.
Marantz's tape gear is great; we have a tape/CD-RW unit for doing straight-to-disc recording of the air signal and its pretty decent, but I've never used one of their pure CD players. Denon, on the other hand, makes crap.
Re:Battery life question (Score:3, Interesting)
Since Marantz has until recently been 50.5% owned by Philips any products it has on the street today were probably designed while it was part o
Re:Battery life question (Score:3, Interesting)
I would be somewhat unhappy if someone took a Chevy Tahoe, tarted up the body a bit and wanted an extra $50,000 - but hey they found plenty of people willing to buy the H2 Hummer before
Re:Battery life question (Score:3, Informative)
Some more googling turned up the news that Marantz and Denon merged in 2002. They keep their separate brands and salesforces but its the same R&D. The merged group is controlled by a company called Ripplewood.
Re:Battery life question (Score:4, Funny)
I always wondered why I was never really happy when listening to music with my iPod. Finally I know...
Exactly. (Score:5, Informative)
also the iRiver (like moi) (Score:3, Interesting)
Unfortuantely, you can't use the thing while it's docked... so the Karma wins in that respect (using it as a stereo system component). But it's got SPDIF optical in and out, and it can record to MP3 from the optical in; as far as I know, nobody has that feature.
Re:also the iRiver (like moi) (Score:4, Informative)
It's just a hard drive when you plug it in. When iTunes uploads music, it's via straight hard drive transfer. The *only* reason you need iTunes is to optimize the battery performance of the iPod. It writes an index file for every song uploaded into the iPod so that when you are browsing, seeking, and viewing title/album/artist info, you aren't killing battery life by thrashing the hard drive. Instead you are reading a roughly 11mb database.
Re:also the iRiver (like moi) (Score:4, Informative)
The iPod is 100% just a firewire/usb FAT/HFS+ hard drive.
I own one.
The music files are stored in a hidden (but otherwise normal) directory. I can browse it easily enough using the CLI of Finder as I like.
The files are raw; you can play them in iTunes if you so wish. Or any other music player.
The database, which I mentioned before, is how the iPod navigates this hidden directory; if they do not match, you won't find your music. So, as I said before, to preserve battery life and reduce hits to the disk, the iPod only browses the 11mb database file in memory to display album/artist/playlist/ID3 info until you actually hit 'play', and then the disk seeks, sucks data into memory, and plays.
Re:Battery life question (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong. The Karma plays mp3, ogg, wma and flac. So no need to use a lossy format, nor DRM...
The Rio Karma is also unsupported by Mac OS X
While the Rio Music Manager is Windows only, the Rio Music Manager Lite is Java and should run on any platform supported by Java [slashdot.org]...
Creative is one of the most consumer-hostile companies in the world
The Karma is from Rio (as the name Rio Karma hints...). Rio is know owned by [ign.com] DNNA (Digital Networks North America) in turn owned by Denon. I fail to see where Creative enters the picture.
Could someone pass character_assassin the cluestick, please?
It seems to me that character_assasin isn't the one needing the cluestick...
Re:Actually... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Battery life question (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Battery life question (Score:2)
This Sony seems like a reasonable alternative so long as you don't mind the interface and are encoding directly to their proprietary format from CD rather than converting an MP3 collection. I don't know how you'd move copy-protected CDs, though most of th
Re:Battery life question (Score:5, Insightful)
That's like saying prison isn't so bad as long as you don't mind getting fscked up the ass.
Guess what Sony - we mind. We have a zillion songs already on our hard drives in
Re:That's like saying prison isn't so bad as.... (Score:5, Interesting)
3 cheers fo you. (My sentiments exactly)
I bought a car deck (MP3, with hard drive, and rip ability MEX-1HD I think) a few years back. Found out quickly that the deck would play MP3, rip audio CD's to it's ahrd drive, but would under NO CIRCUMSTANCES allow me to move my mp3 CD's into it's hard drive.
3 days later, after tech support let me know it's a design fetaure to dissalow this kind of useful functionality. I removed the drive, and upgraded a laptop with it. (full format) Sony's idea of fair use had made it worthless to me.
Hey Sony! I don't buy your products anymore cause of that one. None of them. I even refuse to resell Sony to my customers. Great job there guys....
Miss on all three counts... (Score:3, Insightful)
non-MP3...
dead battery...
Sony R&D, try again. You missed the general populance.
Re:Miss on all three counts... (Score:5, Interesting)
But with the entertainment division and their lawyers jumping up and down about restricting the consumer's choice, the need for DRM and so on, they keep removing features, restricting things...
I really, really wish Sony would ditch SE, but they aren't likely to
Re:Miss on all three counts... (Score:5, Funny)
Sony's Business Model (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Sony's Business Model (Score:5, Funny)
Do you realize how far you could throw a mini-disc?
Re:Sony's Business Model (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Sony's Business Model (Score:5, Informative)
I got a MD recorder a few years ago to make recordings of concerts, lessons, recitals, and such (I'm a music major), and while the quality is decent and the portability useful, getting the recordings off the player is impossible to do digitally. NetMD doesn't support digital uploading unless the tracks were originally digitally downloaded onto the player, using their shitty software, which of course doesn't come for Mac, and didn't even work when I tried it on my family's PC. I understand you're limited to 2x speed uploading anyway. But the only option for Mac users, and anyone wanting to transfer home-made recordings, is analog upload. I wish I had researched this more beforehand, because this is infuriating.
I think the MiniDisc format had great potential, but Sony's insistence on idiotic copyright meaures just make it way too inconvenient to gain wide acceptance. I use it mainly because (A) I already invested in it and (B) it's easy to cart around, but the format is so needlessly crippled as to be sad.
Minidisc could have been great if... (Score:4, Insightful)
Poor hardware engineers (Score:5, Insightful)
One of these days, the hardware guys at Sony will get the upper hand again, and Apple really will have something to worry about.
Re:Poor hardware engineers (Score:2)
Re:Poor hardware engineers (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh...with the new iPod, there's much less of a difference. The iPod also weighs so little and is so small, it fits in a pocket just fine. The old ones were too big, but Apple hit it right with the 3rd/4th gen models. I don't see a need to make it smaller, sorry. If anything, the iPod is good hand-sized.
Reading about how the iPod is inferior because it weighs more and has "only" 12 hours of battery life is insane; Sony's figures drop quite a bit if you play "higher bitrate" files, which you'll invariably have to do because ATRAC3 blows goats. Why didn't he test battery life at a bitrate that showed(in his judgement) no degradation from the original Mp3 file? I'd be willing to bet it's the same, or worse, than an iPod.
Reading Mossberg's comments about how the iPod Mini is inferior because it has much less capacity misses the point- the iPod mini wasn't designed to compete with devices like the Sony player. It was designed to compete with all the high end solid-state-memory players, and it's done so nicely. I hate it when "technology writers" can't recognize distinct markets; it'd be like an auto reviewer comparing a corvette to a pickup truck. "The corvette sucks because it has no cargo capacity"...
Nevermind that both the Mini and the iPod cost LESS than the Sony by at least $100...
Re:Poor hardware engineers (Score:3, Funny)
Just say the name out loud (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Poor hardware engineers (Score:5, Informative)
I read the review last week, so my memory may be fuzzy. But Sony claims a 30 hour battery life, making the cardinal mistake of overpromising when it's unnecessary (22 hours is damn good; they also overpromised on song storage-- saying it could hold 13,000 songs was just a stupid thing to do). But in Walt's test, he got 22 hours of usage for 132kbps 8TRAC compared to 12+ hours for the iPod. It clearly is the winner.
Your other points are self-contradictory-- first saying that iPod is so small it doesn't need to be any smaller so Sony wasted their effort, then defending the iPod mini as being in a different class, so the comparison to the Sony is unfair. That's just wrong, as the Sony is small enough that many miniPod users would opt for the NW-1 instead. As for distinct markets, that's wishful thinking. There's a spectrum of MP3 players ranging from tiny flash based players,to larger (but still light) flash players to miniPod types, to the iPods and finally to the 60-80GB devices that are quite large. Apple did a very clever thing in trying to segment the market into 2 distincts, and then pointing out they have the best device in both markets. But just 'cause Apple says it, doesn't make it true.
Re:Poor hardware engineers (Score:5, Insightful)
Did you know that one of the major Playstation designers was heavily influenced by the Macintosh Classic?
Re:Poor hardware engineers (Score:2)
Re:Poor hardware engineers (Score:3, Insightful)
They did *not* manage to get out better battery life. The 20 hours of battery life apply if you use 48 kbps, which is even below the quality of your average kitchen-integrated radio. Going to a higher bitrate means more frequent hard drive access and higher CPU processing power requirements, and therefore more less battery life.
Kudos to Sony for being the only com
Nice hardware, when can we get good software? (Score:2)
Side note: it's pretty neat that they made it smaller. Assuming that it uses the same 1.8" drive, the ipod is already pretty close to that size [ipoding.com], so there isn't much remove for improvement.
Decision Makers? (Score:2, Interesting)
Cluesticks (Score:3, Insightful)
People still pay attention to sony? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sony Formats (Score:5, Insightful)
its quite amusing that Sony tries to promote its terrible formats but always fail, minidisc, ARTRAC, Betamax, MemoryStick the list of failures goes on and on
perhaps if they embraced worldwide standards instead of its own attempts people might accept them
do you think the PS2 would be quite as popular if they had used their own format of discs instead of DVD and CD's ?
perhaps they should take a leaf out of their own experiences
Re:Sony Formats (Score:2)
Re:Sony Formats - Betamax/VHS (Score:2)
You need to recall that VHS is also a Sony developed format. They sold the rights to it after developing Betamax, which they felt was a superior system -- and still got Betamaxs to the market first.
Re:Sony Formats - Betamax/VHS (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Sony Formats (Score:3, Interesting)
Out of the (6) boxes in my personal office...
Four of them support firewire. The two that don't are older motherboards from 1999 and 2001 (or thereabouts).
Almost every x86 laptop that I've looked at has FireWire. Sony's laptops have had firewire for quite a while (ever since DVD creation and DV hit the market).
People in the x86 world are just more familiar with USB 2.0 when it comes to external
Re:Sony Formats (Score:3, Informative)
The technology worked for some people, and Sony eventually created the Betacam format based on Betamax. I have never dealt with Betacam myself, so I can't say what resemblance the
Apple category? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not trying to bash Apple, I like their products (although my pockets aren't normally deep enough to afford their latest kit, I have a G4 cube next to my PC), but putting this into the Apple category just seems a bit odd.
Re:Apple category? (Score:5, Interesting)
Lots of things can change in a few years, but I never would have thought I'd be using "monopoly" to describe Apple.
Re:Apple category? (Score:3, Interesting)
In Case of Slashdot (Score:2, Informative)
By WALTER S. MOSSBERG
Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod digital music player has fended off every rival product handily, not only remaining the most popular digital music player, but becoming a cultural icon and spawning an industry of accessories and of legal music downloads.
Next month, however, the iPod will face its most potent competitor. This latest challenger is none other than Sony Corp., the Japanese giant that revolutionized portable music with its Walkman tape players 25 years ago. Son
Clue (Score:5, Funny)
Sony has probably received many cluesticks...but they haven't been proprietary like the Sony memorystick, so Sony can read 'em.
Ugh thats slow! (Score:2, Interesting)
For my test, I used a very modest collection of 431 standard MP3 files. SonicStage 2 refused to transfer 15 of the files, posting a nonsensical error message. After that, it took an agonizingly long two hours and 13 minutes to transfer the remaining 416 tracks to the Walkman. By contrast, Apple's iTunes software transferred all 431 songs to an iPod in about four minutes.
What happens for the rest of us who have a lot more than 431 mp3s? Do we leave our computer running for a week just
Nothing new here (Score:2, Interesting)
The SonicStage reached the version 2.1 and it still gives you random Access Violation at error while importing media into your library. Even a malformed ID3 tag can kill it. And it does NOT run on Windows 2003 Server only Professional. This is a big drawback because I will NOT install an XP Prof just to feed my player or MD. And they do not have Linux support either...
When they sup
Re:Nothing new here (Score:2)
Really, the ideal interface for a device like this is for it to appear like a hard drive to the computer. So when you plug it in, either USB or Firewire, the computer sees a hard drive (and doesn't need any special drivers.) I believe the iPod did this, though they were hardly first (many cameras work this way.) This is what other companies should emulate.
If they want to ship a pretty GUI on top of that, fine, but don't force us to use it.
Oh, and support the entire USB pro
I think it says a lot (Score:5, Insightful)
And as far as when Sony will find the cluestick, maybe it'll happen after the PSP totally fails as a media device in the U.S...
ATRAC? 8-Track, more like (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:ATRAC? 8-Track, more like (Score:2)
Indeed, transcoding in general drastically reduces audio quality.
A friend of mind bought a Sony mini disc player, and transcoded MP3's downloaded off the net.
I don't know what the originals sounded like, but the transcoded versions sounded completely awful. I had to tell him to shut it off.
The mini disc player was a good idea, back in the late ninties. However, its time has passed. I think the new Walkman's time will pass... quickly.
"weird, crippled formats"?! (Score:5, Insightful)
When will Sony (and other companies) realise that people don't want weird, crippled formats?
128kbps MP3s are weird and crippled, but kids love 'em. Cassette tapes are weird and crippled, too, and they were popular for many years. Lots of people seem to think VHS was weird and crippled compared to Betamax (PS: VHS won).
The average consumer will tolerate weird and crippled formats if they're not too weird, and not too crippled. You can degrade the signal quality to a remarkable degree before the average listener (or viewer) will care.
Who cares what the WSJ thinks? They're not the target market for this device. The kids at whom the it is aimed may make purchasing decisions based on a lot of factors, some more rational than others (e.g. what their friends bought, etc.), but "it sounds like ass" is not necessarily on their radar screen. Ass sounds fine to them. As long as they can tell which song is playing, that's good enough.
Oh. Ok. (Score:3, Interesting)
Seriously, did anyone not see this coming? ATRAC3, while technically competent, is still a Sony-proprietary scheme. How many other manufacturers even bothered to license it? Three?
I got into an argument with someone the other day about this very unit. This person actually believed that Sony actually "gets it" WRT consumer gear. He honestly thought that Sony had some chance in hell of putting a dent in the iPod's dominance with this piece of shit. The truly surreal/funny part was that this argument actually took place in an Apple store.
Re:Oh. Ok. (Score:2)
If I were in your position, I would have Atrac3 his ass right there on the spot.
Conspiracy Theory? (Score:5, Insightful)
All I can think of when I see this kind of thing is that the media companies are building a case for a future lobbying effort to outlaw non-DRM-locked hardware.
Sony just developed an eBook reader [eink.com] - the first to use an e-ink display, and then castrated it with DRM, and a total library of 400 expire-in-2-months books.
Obviously products like these are going to fail, and I just can't see their existance as mistakes. Sony may be smarter than they appear.
you're all forgetting (Score:2, Interesting)
Stillborn (Score:5, Insightful)
One major downside of the new Walkman is that it can't play MP3 files, or any of the other standard formats. It can play back only a proprietary Sony format called ATRAC3, or a variation called ATRAC3plus.
STEEEERIKE ONE!
This means that, when you transfer your MP3 files to the new Walkman, Sony's PC software must laboriously convert them first into ATRAC3 files.
STEEEERIKE TWO!!!!
To transfer MP3 song files from your PC to the Walkman, you first launch the software Sony supplies to manage the Walkman, called SonicStage 2.... ... the Sony software must grind away, converting all of them, one at a time, to the special Sony format.
For my test, I used a very modest collection of 431 standard MP3 files.... ...it took an agonizingly long two hours and 13 minutes to transfer the remaining 416 tracks to the Walkman.
STEEEEEERIKE THREE!!!! YOU'RE OUTA HERE!
WTF was Sony thinking? Let's see, right now, I have 8991 mp3s that eat 53.64 gigs of space on my drive. If it took him 133 minutes for 416 tracks, it would take me...ummm (open crackulator) 468 hours to convert my files to a Sony compatible format!!!!
that's only about Nineteen DAYS
I think I speak for many when I say:
Sony: kindly go FUCK YOURSELF - YOU MORONS.
think about it - RIGHT.... I'm going to let my machine Grind Away for what - the better part of a month, just so my mp3 collection will fit on their stupid little player?
Ummmm, No.
I'll take my iPod THANK YOU VERY MUCH.
Note to Sony: GAME OVER. Would you like to play again?
RS
Re:Stillborn (Score:5, Interesting)
HOWEVER, converting from one lossy format to another will cause artifacts (which I don't believe the article mentioned). And just as bad, it had better happen zippy-quick, at least on a relatively new computer. If the limiting factor is the speed of my CPU, then I don't want it.
And here's what I don't get. They're converting it to a format which is DRM'ed, but because they're converting it from MP3s you can't tell who owns it in the first place. That is, they can limit the distribution, but limit it to who? They can't tell if you own it or not.
Presumably the goal is to say, "You can use your MP3s, but they're slower to download. You'd rather get ATRACs from our spiffy music store!"
That could happen, I suppose. If the device is substantially cheaper than an iPod, then people will buy it on the shelves, and it's not clear until they get home that it's not compatible with the #1 music store. Or the #2 music store.
So it's a tactically bold maneuver, and it might work. Online music stores still account for a small percentage of music sales. Most people still buy CDs, with which this thing is compatible (albeit slowly). I'm not sure how much people would miss being able to buy stuff from iTunes Music Store and Napster and whatever Microsoft's version is going to be.
In the end, there's a lot said for being able to hit a lower price point for the same number of megs. Microsoft makes a huge living off the fact that people would rather buy a Dell/HP/etc. for a few hundred bucks less than the equivalent Macintosh, even if many people would prefer the Mac. (Not a religious war here, just pointing out that many people never look past the price tag.)
But this time, Apple already owns big market share, and compatibility with it may be the biggest problem for Sony here. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.
Corporate attitudes differ (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Corporate attitudes differ (Score:2)
Of HD based players and stuff (Score:3, Insightful)
Not everything Sony produces is outright bad. I recently purchased a Sony D-NE300 CD based MP3 player for $99 CAD. I can easily store more music on a single CD (128Kbps) than i can listen to in an entire day. Not to mention, that with some high capacity NiMH batteries (I use 1600 mAh) I get about 50 hours of playtime out of it. I remember my last (fairly old) Sanyo walkman only went for about 6 hours before it sputtered out.
Given this, why bother with an iPod or similar device at all? Blank CDs are cheap, and if I burn 3 or 4 I have more than enough selection to keep me going for several days.
Re:Of HD based players and stuff (Score:3, Insightful)
>10 and 12 hours. My days are longer than that.
The goal isn't to have umpteen hours of music to play sequentially. The goal is to have your entire library on hand, so you can hear whatever you want when you want, and not be limited to a 10 hour slice of your multi-thousand-hour collection.
I have an MP3 CD player in the car, and while it's nice - better than one of those stupid CD changers in the trunk - it still isn't as nice as an iPod.
Double lossy is SUPERIOR?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Er, right. So this is a magic format that restores the information in the lost bits from the original mp3 conversion?
And, Sony marketing says, it'll give you a pony.
Re:Double lossy is SUPERIOR?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Superior Sound - Huh? (Score:2)
Let me get this straight. Is Sony trying to say if I convert my compressed MP3 format directly to their compressed ATRAC3 format, my music will automagically sound better?
Re:Superior Sound - Huh? (Score:2, Funny)
The Only Thing Missing (Score:2)
SonicStage (Score:4, Informative)
Oh, man... SonicStage sucks so hard, I can't even begin to describe it. Even if SonicStage 2 is only half as bad as the version I recieved with my minidisc player, it's still enugh to keep me from even thinking about buying any player which requires it.
When it comes to terrible UI design, sonicstage has to be the absolute winner!
Obligatory Ogg Plug (Score:2, Redundant)
Obviously it doesn't play ogg :)
Rio Karma [rioaudio.com], iRiver [iriver.com], and Neuros [neurosaudio.com] all play Ogg well. I would definitely qualify my Rio Karma as a worthy iPod competitor; I won't post a review here because there's enough out there on the Internet.
Sony is incompatible with cluestick technology... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sony is rarely about putting out good technology, they're more about putting out technology that consumers will buy despite a higher-than-usual profit margin on the price. Sure, every consumer electronics company has to make a profit or it won't exist, but Sony products are always higher-priced than technically equal models from other brands. Basically, Sony's profits come only from people too stupid to notice there's a better choice on most items.
ATRAC will kill it (Score:3)
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=16999
To me, that is a win/win
The funny thing is that is simply doesn't work, again and again and again. Superior hardware, crippled by corporate greed and lack of vision. Gotta love capitalism.
-Charlie
Re:ATRAC will kill it (Score:3, Insightful)
But still
nonono (Score:4, Funny)
It's a Shame... (Score:4, Interesting)
They can't resist making everything proprietary, and they can't shake the Not-Invented-Here disease that used to plague Apple.
You know they could make a killer device - but two years late they delivery that POS. I'm sure they'll get some mileage off their reputation amongst non-geeks and the Walkman name, but what a dissapointment...
Maybe Sony is getting too big (Score:5, Interesting)
Though this seems to be a theme with a lot of Japanese companies, they end up trying to do everything, when they should only focus on a few core markets. In Japan, Mitsubishi manufactures a ton of things, from escalotors to trains to LCDs to automobiles. The red tape must be enormous. It probably ends up hurting them in the long run because it's easier to sweep a few small losses under the rug if you are such a huge company. But they will come back to bite you, just look at what is happening with Mitsubishi motors....
I'm gonna sound like a fanboy... (Score:5, Insightful)
Which brings to mind the iPod and it's perfect design. It's clean form-factor looks like it was designed by God. The most brilliant things in life are simple in design and concept. Like the wheel.
If Sony can't beat the iPod, maybe nobody can.
Re:I'm gonna sound like a fanboy... (Score:5, Funny)
Perhaps we need a player designed by Satan. I bet it'd be way cooler than God's one and you might get sex just for owning one (though not from any mac lovers).
Re:Apple has already been beat IMO (Score:3, Insightful)
People do care about volume, but not sound quality. They're listening to their iPods via earbuds on the subway. Sound quality just won't matter.
And bigger isn't fine for most people. When Apple wanted to expand their line, they built the mini. They knew what they were doing.
Re:Apple has already been beat IMO (Score:3, Insightful)
So many people seem to assume that if you have a built in radio and other features, or better battery life, that it "kills" the iPod. But it isn't enough for everyone.
Not everyone buys iPods and loves them because of just the style. I personally love the iPod because of the brilliant hardware interface for contr
ATRAC? more like SUCKTRAC (Score:3, Informative)
Sony is shooting themselves in the foot here, I don't understand why they are so obsessed with ATRAC. Especialy given they cell CD players that can play MP3 files off CD-ROMs.
Re:ATRAC? more like SUCKTRAC (Score:3, Insightful)
8-track? (Score:5, Funny)
Really sad (Score:4, Interesting)
Many digital photographers such as myself have large capacity inexpensive compact flash cards, and refuse to purchase stupid memory sticks which have less storage capacity for the same money.
This was such a glaringly obvious example of Sony regarding their own interests much more than the interests of their customers, and that ultimately made me not buy the otherwise fine product. (I'll probably buy a phone-PIM-PDA-gps-mp3 thing in a year or two anyways)
The pattern of Sony's schizophrenic boardroom screwing up their own products is becoming more and more obvious. Their DVD players initially didn't play home-burned discs, and I still haven't seen a Sony DVD player supporting SVCD, MPEG4 or MP3 content.
Their camcorders and digital video recorders have hyper-sensitive macrovision detection on their video inputs, and sometimes they "detect" macrovision falsely and accordingly refuse to record from a legit source.
The worst part is this ATRAC3 nonsense. Apple is showing the way by permitting the unprotected, popular what-the-people-want mp3 format to coexist with the house DRM brand. That's respecting their users and having business smarts.
If Sony tried the same, and perhaps included mp3 playback capability on all their products alongside ATRAC[3], people would have a choice.
For all I know, ATRAC3 is a better format, but I refuse to be forced to convert it to another lossy format in order to have the "privilege" of listening to it on a portable device. They must be out of their minds.
It doesn't have to be this way. Take Phillips. They have a music catalog (substantially smaller than Sony, granted), but they have repeatedly shown themselves as acting in the interest of people, such as when they refused Audio CD logo licensing to the crippled DRM-infested discs they sell in stores these days. Philips
Meanwhile, the MS submarine stealthily tracks iPod (Score:3, Insightful)
I believe all this talk of "iPod killers" having failed and that Apple cannot be toppled in the market is vastly premature.
Don't forget Microsoft is planning both a music store and a hardware reference platform...
This, combined with Microsoft's marketing muscle (and just imagine what they have at their disposal: an ad in every Hotmail message sent around the world, an icon on the desktop from XP SP2, every CNet headline for 6 months, etc, etc) could blow a hole in Apple's music initiative as large as a dinosaur killing crater.
In case you think I've strapped on the Gates & Ballmer Live Rock Cafe headphones, I've had both a 1st gen iPod and a 3rd gen iPod, and am responsible for encouraging about 12 people to get their own (I take no credit, it was as easy as saying "look at this").
However, I'm also old enough to have seen what Microsoft did to the Macintosh once they set their nuclear powered submarine sights on it. I predict history will repeat: an inferior store and an inferior player will blast iPod into niche status.
The market will not be better for it.
Re:iPod (Score:3, Informative)
But the "iPod" isn't a product, it is a product line. The original iPod of a few years ago is indeed obsolete. Apple is just riding the wave of tech progress by coming out with new versions every year (as most non-suicidal hardware companies do). I don't see that the iPod is an exception in this regard.
Re:iPod (Score:3, Insightful)
If the tool still does the thing you bought it to do, it's not obsolete.
Re:iPod (Score:4, Informative)
Re:iPod (Score:2)
Re:Yes but (Score:3, Funny)
Re:No MP3? So what? (Score:5, Interesting)
I think Sony, as a mega-meda-electronics conglomerate, wants to protect it's music business, so uses it's own propriatary format to make sure it can do DRM or whatever other controls it wants.