hate to say it but apple hit a grand slam edited now im not a fan

[John N]

Re: hate to say it but apple hit a grand slam

I was expecting the touch to come with flash in a thin body but also come in a thicker body to allow for 80GB or more storage. But it seems they didn't want to sully the thin touch with a hard drive version. So the iPod Classic has to fill that spot.

The nano is a nice improvement as long as you don't mind the chubby looks. I was expecting there to be a 16GB version especially now that video is supported. But it seems they want to drive people to the touch to get more than 8GB. Which is too bad because I was waiting for 12 or 16GB before replacing my iPod mini, so that I could have my whole music collection with me.

My guess (regarding capacity limit of the Touch) is that they needed to use flash for the iPhone for thickness reasons and they didn't want the Touch to have more capacity than the iPhone, esp. this close to release of the iPhone.

Personally, I think both the Touch and the iPhone should come in a 'thin' (flash) and 'fat' (HDD) version. The 'fat' version could also have a larger battery.

I'm also disappointed that they didn't up the capacity of the Nano in conjunction with offering video capabilities.

One thing that I haven't seen get much coverage is that AFAIK, they've killed 3rd party sync program support on the new players. Personally I use J River Media Center to play on my PC and sync to my Nano (1st gen). It's very slick. It syncs my DRM protected iTunes content and converts my lossless FLAC files to MP3 on the fly. J River has indicated it isn't clear if and when they will be able to support the new players. That means iTunes only. Bah.

This is a particular rub because it implies they are pushing you for your video content to iTunes and the iTunes store. Personally, my PC based PVR can record TV and product downsized videos for use on portable devices. Being able to sync that content to my fat Touch would be slick. The implication is Apple isn't going to make it easy for you to use random content with your new spiffy Apple players.

The products look nice. But what I want to see is:

- Forget the shuffle. Replace this with the 2nd gen Nano, max capacity 8GB is fine.
- New Nano gets increase to 32GB capacity*.
- The 'thin' Touch and iPhone get bumped to 32GB capacity.
- New 'fat' Touch and iPhone get the 160HDD from the Classic and a bigger battery.
- Open sync support to 3rd parties.
- Up the resolution to something like 640x480 on the Touch and iPhone.

-john


* I don't think they need about worrying about capacity on the Nano competing with the Touch -- serious videoaholics are going to want a larger screen anyway.

 

[Fallingwater]

Re: hate to say it but apple hit a grand slam

Yeah ipod is a great piece of equipment the only thing thats sad is that you are locked to itunes i rather use it with the drag and drop feature like most machines out there. But that will never happen because itunes is another revenue maker, just hope someone hacks the ipod and able to use a 3rd party firmware.

Have a look at Rockbox.
Good points: opensource, free, ogg support, mass storage (no need for itunes), games, skins, and a host of other features.
Bad points: not as polished as original firmware, and (last I checked) battery life decreases as Rockbox doesn't handle power options as well as the original.

lol truly ya are right 1 gig is really enough

No, it isn't.
Or rather: it might be for you, but it isn't for everybody, and it sure as hell isn't for me.
I've played around with two players for review purposes, with 1gb and 2gb memory. I used each one for a few days to get a general look'n'feel. They were nice, worked well and were ridiculously cheap, but even though I packed them full of low bitrate Ogg files (not having sensitive hearing can be a plus) I still often found myself wanting to listen to some particular song that was sitting somewhere on the hard disk of my Karma but which I hadn't uploaded to the flash players.
So flash players can be good if you have a small library and/or just want some mental background as you jog, work or whatever. But if you're the kind of person who often wants to listen to specific songs a hard drive player is a must.
Well, until cheap 16+gb players come along, anyway...

hell back when i was a kid we used to carry a walk man that played cassettes and we would put another caste in are empty pockets lol probably for a total of 4 cassettes .thats probably like a 256 meg mp3 player

I too used a walkman. A minidisc one, but a walkman nonetheless and I too always had my pocket filled with discs... but it wasn't a satisfactory solution. I used that because I couldn't use anything better. When cd/mp3 players came along I got one, and even then I had my pockets (or fanny pack for the hot season) packed full of CDs. Better, but not as much as I wanted.
Then I got my first hard disk player, and I was in heaven.

 

[geepondy]

Re: hate to say it but apple hit a grand slam

I bought one, summer of '82 for $120. A lot of coin for a college kid but I so fell in love with it after listening to a classmate's in '81 in what I believe was an original Walkman. I think it was the change in headphone technology with the use of the "rare earth magnets" that made it possible.

I'm currently still going on my four year old 1.5G mini HD Rio Nitrus. I've come close to buying a nano before but do wish they would include an FM tuner.

Sony used to sell walkmans for $300

 

[raggie33]

Re: hate to say it but apple hit a grand slam

i always loved music i mean loveddddddddddddd.my first good walkman was 69 bucks it was a huge sony with a 3 band equalizer .but i dont even have casstes anymore and only a few cds digital is so much more easier and stuff

 

[DocArnie]

Re: hate to say it but apple hit a grand slam

 

[Pistolero]

Re: hate to say it but apple hit a grand slam

I was *THIS* close to buying an Ipod Nano the other day.
Great form factor, great price point, lovely design, and the damn thing was calling to me like a siren.

Then I find out that they removed the video out function. WHY?!?
For me, personally, the ipod line is missing a couple of features that would make it a winner.

1. FM radio support. Sure, nobody listens to the radio, but it's handy to have for emergencies and also is a great feature if you exercise in a gym.
2. Expandable memory. Flash cards are dropping in price like mad. SD cards are at what? 8gb now? With 16gb just around the corner. MicroSD is a bit slower, but it's on the way up in terms of storage and price.
3. Standard features. Proprietary plugs bug the hell out of me. Yeah, it's a nitpick, but it's my nitpick.

I'd love to have an Ipod Nano, because I think they're a sexy form factor and somewhat of a status symbol. (Their price point has gotten very attractive too.) Realistically, I'll probably go with an alternative from Creative or Sandisk. Heck, maybe even Sony's player, if they mature enough. I'd love to have another walkman.

 

[Pistolero]

Re: hate to say it but apple hit a grand slam

Oh hey and is it really confirmed that Creative is totally OUT of the HD MP3/PMP market. That makes no sense given the importance of size in a video player.

I'm hoping that the Creative Zen might just be their flash line, and that after release or whatnot, they'll announce/launch the HD-based player. (They probably don't want the HD player cutting into their potential Zen profits.)

Of course, it could be true that Creative is out of the hd-based player market. Which would be

 

[Brighteyez]

Re: hate to say it but apple hit a grand slam

Yup, the decision was made to exit this market quite a while ago, even before the rumors leaked about the single platter disk versions of the Vision:M and Vision W. It was either late last year or in the early months of this year when they decided to rechannel their direction to flash based players. The HD players have never been a money maker for the company and since it focused it's attention on MP3 players as their primary product, the company's financials have been in a downward spiral. Hope they can recover by refocusing their efforts.

Oh hey and is it really confirmed that Creative is totally OUT of the HD MP3/PMP market.

 

[carrot]

Re: hate to say it but apple hit a grand slam

All current iPods can use the Apple Radio Remote, a $49 accessory that allows the iPod to have a spiffy radio tuner. A bit on the pricey side but apparently it works well. A bonus is that it gives your iPod a remote control to clip to your jacket or whatever, and with Apple's latest earbuds... a huge improvement over the older ones.

 

[Fallingwater]

Re: hate to say it but apple hit a grand slam

Oh hey and is it really confirmed that Creative is totally OUT of the HD MP3/PMP market

Sad, when you think the first Jukebox predated the first iPod by a fair while. Creative were the pioneers.
Then again, their last product I considered worth buying was the old Zen USB2.0 (and I bought it). Everything else afterwards has always left me with a sense of "nice, but it could be so much better".

 

[Brighteyez]

Re: hate to say it but apple hit a grand slam

Even though Creative's sales in Europe have represented the greatest share of revenue for the company for the last couple of quarters, the bulk of the sales appear to have been for flash players in countries other than Germany and the UK. Perhaps that is why they're abandoning the HD market that is clearly dominated by Apple.

As I understand it, Creative's reaction to the dot.com bust and the recession that followed was to lay off many of the engineers that had worked on the original Jukebox and move the engineering to Singapore. I also understand that some of those engineers found a new home in the neighboring community of Cupertino, home of Apple.

Sad, when you think the first Jukebox predated the first iPod by a fair while. Creative were the pioneers.
Then again, their last product I considered worth buying was the old Zen USB2.0 (and I bought it). Everything else afterwards has always left me with a sense of "nice, but it could be so much better".

 

[James S]

Re: hate to say it but apple hit a grand slam

james do ya think the apple product sounds better then creative labs ill tell ya to my ears the creative labs sounds way better.to my ears anyways

Hi Raggie,

I haven't done a side by side in a couple of years now I think. I did one with a friend with a new ipod after they switched to that new chip. The older iPods used a chip that was supposedly not as good in sound quality as the newer ones. With the newer iPods I cannot tell the difference between them and the creative ones playing the same source. I'm a violinist in some parallel universe where I dont need to hold down a job to make money so I like to think I have a pretty good ear But I just can't tell the difference as long as you use the same headphones. The iPod sounds as good as the best of them. The source material makes a HUGE difference though. AAC at 128k is far better than mp3 at 128k and the apple lossless codec is wonderful if you dont mind wasting your disk space. Those things make a HUGE and noticeable difference, much more so than any slight differences in the chipset that they use to reproduce the sound.

 

[raggie33]

Re: hate to say it but apple hit a grand slam

cool james..i am so amazed at the new ipods 160 gigs i was totally shocked i always keep my eyes open for new tech and never even seen a 160 gig 1.8 drive till the apple release thats just amazeing.and the price is very good... bet all the other companys are rushing to get a compatible product .

 

[raggie33]

Re: hate to say it but apple hit a grand slam

o ps i realy like this player to do to its video abilties and sd card add on slot
http://www.creative.com/products/mp3/zen/

 

[geepondy]

Re: hate to say it but apple hit a grand slam

Back to new fatty nano vs previous models, do we know if the earphones are better/different or the same? Seems like most any portable player performs much better with a good set of aftermarket earphones. I'm sure that's because the manufacturers have to sacrifice earphone quality to meet a price point as good cans cost a bit of coin.

 

[raggie33]

Re: hate to say it but apple hit a grand slam

i like the jvc marshmallows for a pair of cheap phones.but im sueing sony now.i realy like treble in my phones im odd that way.

 

[greenstuffs]

Re: hate to say it but apple hit a grand slam

You can't find anything worse than ipod headphones, if i were to go ipod route i will get a pair of Shure E2C ipod headphones are only good for kids playing music with plenty of bass that masks the lack of mids and highs, i'm not an audiophile but i still have enough hearing left (i don't listen music to 100%) to know that their headphones are cr@p big time.

I don't think people are sheepish just by using the ipod or have anything against them, i just can't stand the way people look at you because they got an ipod and you don't wear these white headphones or pull out something "unsual"

Back to new fatty nano vs previous models, do we know if the earphones are better/different or the same? Seems like most any portable player performs much better with a good set of aftermarket earphones. I'm sure that's because the manufacturers have to sacrifice earphone quality to meet a price point as good cans cost a bit of coin.

 

[James S]

Re: hate to say it but apple hit a grand slam

Do you know that the new video capable ipod all can do component output for video now? So you can hook them to your HDTV

 

[Towel_E]

Re: hate to say it but apple hit a grand slam

I guess this is not the place to mention how the RIAA and Itunes have teamed up to raid unsuspecting Torrent users @3AM sharing their downloaded and tagged Itunes (and you were worried GW was gonna get you ).. so ..I'll stick to the topic ...

Iphone .

if only AT&T had absorbed some of the cost of the phone for the two year contract users were F O R C E D into ..the phone might not end up costing 2k or more...

More to the point ..since IPOD now has the same GUI as Iphone ..why would you buy the phone anyway?

Ipod , Iphone , Itunes , I care .

(the good news is APPLE has shifted to INTEL chips and soon should be running windows)

 

[havand]

Re: hate to say it but apple hit a grand slam

I guess this is not the place to mention how the RIAA and Itunes have teamed up to raid unsuspecting Torrent users @3AM sharing their downloaded and tagged Itunes (and you were worried GW was gonna get you ).. so ..I'll stick to the topic ...

Iphone .

if only AT&T had absorbed some of the cost of the phone for the two year contract users were F O R C E D into ..the phone might not end up costing 2k or more...

More to the point ..since IPOD now has the same GUI as Iphone ..why would you buy the phone anyway?

Ipod , Iphone , Itunes , I care .


(the good news is APPLE has shifted to INTEL chips and soon should be running windows)

Actually, from what I read, it was Apple that wouldn't let ATT subsidize its price. They didn't want the Iphone to look 'cheap' compared to Ipods. Basically didn't want to devalue the Ipod through price comparison. Lame.