why do folks like the ipod so much over md?

well realy id have to say most people dont like md .yet love there ipods.i dont get it, dont get me wrong ipod and irivers are nice 20 gigs a music but to me why have 20 gigs a music and battery like that dont equal it ..now this is why i like my md player it gets amazeing battery life im guessing 25 thats at full volume way over both the ipods i owned. and far as sound i riped my ipod mp3s with lame at 128 .for this sony i rip it at 64 bit atac 3 plus it sounds just as good perhaps better to my ears. i dont worry about a hardrive it has a opitcaL drive.i still cant figure out why md hasnt caught on is it cause its atrac? that dont bother me it sounds good rips fast as hell on my pc .thoughts on this matter?

I've used MD for about 5 years, I've got a couple of MDs (MZR900, MZNH700) but recently got a nice 2nd hand Zen Touch 20Gb (not an iPod but same sort of thing).

I think MDs are really cool technology: cheap removable media; huge battery life; and great sound (Atrac kills mp3 at an equivalent bitrate), but they are let down by: 1- Sony's ridiculous DRM paranoia which forces you to use their bloated and restrictive windows only software to transfer files (unless you have an older MD which doesn't connect to a computer at all); 2 - relatively high cost and 3 - the fragility of the optical block (I've had one die after less than 12 months of very careful use).

I mainly use my Zen nowadays, despite a few interface shortcomings there's just something nice about having your entire music collection available whenever you want it. If you add the iPod's undoubtedly slick hardware and interface on top of this, it's easy to see why many people prefer them.

Unfortunately I think Sony might have lost the ball with MD, and are just pushing it to a niche market of existing MD lovers. For a while there MD was the main game for portable digital music. But nothing lasts unless you innovate, and there's been too little real MD innovation, too late to overtake HD and flash players.

Unless Sony rapidly come up with a MD which connects to any computer OS as a USB2 mass storage drive, and allows you to simply drag mp3s (and ogg, wma, atrac etc) to the device where they can be played, I think the format will slowly die.

That said, I won't be getting rid of my MDs any time soon!

It's a number of things...

No use in denying it, Apple has done a good job of marketing the iPod and helped make it "the thing" to have, but it seems to be doing better than "fad" -- it seems to have more staying power, so lets look at some of the reasons why.


Hardware Design: The iPod feels good in your hand. It's a solid device. It feels expensive because it is.

User Interface: I won't say it's THE best, because that's always open for debate, but the iPod has got one of the best UIs out there. It's well laid out and the click-wheel matches the UI perfectly.

Sync: Syncing with iTunes is effortless, on PC or Mac.

Entire library -- to go: You say you don't understand why we carry a player with more capacity than battery. That's not the point. The battery lasts acceptably long {for me anyway, and most other people with an iPod} and my whole music collection is there, in a logically organized fashon. If I want classical, jazz, oldies, rock, pop, muzak, it's all there. U2? John Mayer? Oscar Peterson? I don't have to plan ahead what I want to listen to, I just click click click and I've got a playlist.

Quality: This one is debatable. I personally have been very impressed with the files I have ripped to AAC and can hear the difference in quality vs. the same song ripped at the same bitrate for MP3. I could get the same audio quality from MP3, but it would take larger files. I haven't heard great things about the quality of Artac. Weather that is true or a myth? I don't know since I don't have any personal experience with Atrac files. The fact that Sony {used to} made/makes me convert my entire collection to ATRAC before it can go on MD sucks though. My iPod will do WAV, AIFF, MP3, AAC, Apple Lossless, and probably a couple other formatts. No Oggs. There are lots of myths out there about Macs, different cars, even the iPod itself. I personally am willing to accept the idea that the supposed horrid quality of Atrac is a myth, but since I've got no personal experience with it, and since audio quality is such a subjective thing, I personally will reserve my final judgement until I've heard it. Unfortunately, not everybody thinks that way and so I'm sure some MiniDisc sales have been lost on that myth. How many sales did the Newton loose because of myths of bad handwriting recognition? How many sales did Ford loose on the Explorer on the myth that all of them were equipped with faulty ties?



No design is perfect. Not iPod, not MiniDisk, not anything. So lets look at some of the flaws of the iPod.

Battery: Almost a moot point for me, but it's only fair to bring it up. Sure enough, you have to pop the back off to replace the battery. The battery has plenty of life for me and when it does eventually die replacements are reasonably priced. It's a tradeoff, and I'm willing to have the battery sealed inside for the absolute ridigity the iPod provides.

DRMed tunes: The iPod only works with the iTunes music store. This, again, is a moot point for me since the *only* online music store I can use is the iTunes music store, and I think it's the best out there. But if you want to use some other music store, iPod isn't for you.


Also, while some other MP3 players will work with Mac, the Sony ones -- to my knowledge -- will not. At all.


So that's my analysis of why the iPod is preferred so much over MiniDisc -- Apple's great design, their marketing team, the fact that most people who get an iPod truly find it to be a great product, and the fact that for a long time Sony was forcing you to convert all your tunes to Atrac before you could even move them to MiniDisc.

Another plus about HDD players is just that, they are a HDD. You can use them as such. I store movies and files on mine and transfer them from PC to PC occasionally. I back someones computer up on it if I am going to reinstall Windows for them. Its handy like crazy for those types of applications.

Then once you get into some of the more expensive HDD players, you get color screens and the ability to look at photos! That by itself is indeed incredible to me. To think where we were at just a year ago or less even. From there, whats next? It doesnt take a lot more to get video to play, now you are going to have feature motion pictures on an iPod size player? Thats awesome. The idea itself I should say is awesome, not useful to me though. They would have to improve battery life, but thats not a problem I bet. Something can be done to fix it. From the 3G to 4G iPod, they improved battery life by 50%. That was from one generation to the next.

I dont have a MD player, so I wouldnt know about it not being able to connect to multiple OSs, but I do know that the iPod is accesible on Apple, Windows, and Linux. Im sure it works on the few others too.

I think the idea of not having to insert something into a player is also getting people hooked. I tell the older generation of my family that I have 2000 songs in my iPod. All they can say is HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE! They still dont understand that a lot more information can get on to a HDD that any kind of cassette TYPE media. Except Blue Ray DVDs, they are on the verge of 20GB I believe...which is also incredible. Not having to remember what kind of stuff you have on a certain media cassette, cd whatever, is handy.

I dont know about speed of a MD player either. I dont know whether its able to pick up a song and start playing it NOW, or does it have to buffer, or what...

Then, lastly for me, a solid state HDD has the ability to "supply" more information on a streaming basis...if that makes any sence at all. From what I can see, MD players can simply say the name of the album and time. Thats all. On the other hand, an iPod allows you to listen to a song while searching through your huge library of media, deciding whats next, or getting a list ready. Also while listening, you can play a game, or check the time...all of something that you cant(?) do with a MD player.

Cameron

For me, my iPod battery has never run out on me, and I appreciate having my entire library with me. iTunes automatically syncs up all my songs, so I don't have to pick and chooose which ones I want. They are just all there for me, all the time.

Oh, thats an awesome point Bikr! I forgot about iTunes!

Honestly, that program is fantastic. I havent ever downloaded a song from it, nor successfully made a playlist(I have not ever tried either) but the syncing feature it has is superb! Not having to remember what songs you last got on your computer is so cool.

Cameron

Sony's got other issues too.

They've got massive corporate culture and strategic direction problems over there.

The massive investments in movies and music that Sony made in the 90's through 2000's have essentially put the now massive entertainment unit at odds with many of the electronics units. Obviously the entertainment unit is a massive supporter of the RIAA, and the equivalent movie anti-piracy orgs, and that makes them butt heads with the electronics units, where even without a direct intent to do so, most any new innovations has potential to make piracy easier. The entertainment unit has a tight grip on the cash bag, and can even deep-six a product line if they wanted to.

Even before the Internet MP3 piracy began running rampant, because of it's digital copying ability, the minidisc was the unwanted stepchild of the entertainment unit. It never got the backing from Sony it needed to flourish as a popular format, and other technologies passed it by. Battery life is rising as an issue among the consumer mass-consciousness, but not fast enough to save it.

These days companies we often thought of as "second-tier" like Korea's Samsung actually has the net worth to buy Sony, two or three times, if they cared to try, because of how the music and movie investments hamstrung Sony.

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IlluminatingBikr said:
For me, my iPod battery has never run out on me, and I appreciate having my entire library with me. iTunes automatically syncs up all my songs, so I don't have to pick and chooose which ones I want. They are just all there for me, all the time.

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Ditto. I will also add that the Ipod Mini (what I use) is just <font color="blue"> so damned cool! </font>

They are about the same size, but the iPod has a hard drive as big as 60 gigs for the larger photo model. Even the smallest is 20 gigs. How much space would a comperable amount of minidisks take up? And how much would that much media cost? They are cool though, and they are fairly durable. If they'd have caught on when they were first released a decade ago, they would have been nice, back then. But IMO they are a bit behind the times now.