ipod killer

[armor]

Even now, after so many years since its appearance, iPod still manages to rule the MP3 Player world and this is even more remarkable if we think about the technologies’ short life cycles.

The success of iPod does not mean that it’s perfect. Many Mp3 players are better in some aspects. A larger hard drive, a radio module, a longer-lasting battery, video capabilities, bigger displays, support for cellular telephony, more formats, all these features have been suggested for a better iPod, not to mention that there are already MP3 players superior to Apple’s player which include some of these functions, but none of them has even budged iPod’s leading position. Microsoft, Creative, Samsung and Philips researchers may invent any hardware wonder, such as the 0.5 mm hard drive able to store 5 TB or the software interface able to take voice commands, they will still fail to come up with an iPod killer.

The reason of the above statement is this: iPod’s success is due to marketing strategy and historical conjuncture. In July 2001, forced by artists and record companies, Napster closed its ports, and in December 2001, Apple launched the iPod, a device metting the requirements of millions of users that had filled their hard drives and CDs with hundreds or even thousands of MP3s downloaded off Napster. iPod benefited from that unique conjunctural moment of satisfying the users’ need to listen to their favorite music without having to buy a notebook or to take their PC with them at all times.

An attractive design, a simple interface which can be operated by anyone, efficient marketing, all these factors have turned iPod into an unstoppable money making machine.

The only ones entitled to the iPod killer tag are cell phone producers, because a device that features cell phone functions, aside from music playback functions, would draw swarms of acolytes.

Despite fierce competition, users are still buying iPods like there is no tomorrow. And not only that, but it also acts as a locomotive for the entire Apple train and for other companies specialized in iPod accessories which have become millionaires overnight. Given iPod selling well and the market increase of 75%, many programmers pay attention to develop applications or update their program to meet the demand. For example, there is a great demand for converting popular video files to iPod video. There are many converters support iPod now, such as XiliSoft iPod Video Converter, Cucusoft iPod Video Converter etc. iPod has been a success and there are many supporters or accessories around. It’s difficult to send iPod into oblivion.

[TheZodiac]

And the point would be?

[bnza8]

i'll be getting the Mircosoft Zune when that comes out. every ipod that i have owned always had problems and i have never abused it in anyway.

[armor]

Mircosoft Zune is very good. Mircosoft want to do sth now....

[armor]

it will be better that no 1 dominate the world

[D3si43va]

MP3 players are a fad...in the next coming years it will all be about convergence. who the hell wants to carry a cell phone, mp3 player, pda, camera etc.? nobody! people want convergence: they'd rather carry one thing that can do everything (even if it cant do everything as good as a standalone) instead of 2 or more devices for separate tasks. I am talking about the average consumer, not the professional photographer or road/mobile warrior who needs separate devices.

Look at cell phones these days: the nokia n91 is a perfect example of an ipod killer. a 4gb hard drive is plenty for most people, but you can always compress your music and fit more then possible. It has everything you could possibly need except for the kitchen sink: music player, cell phone, 3g, wi-fi and so much more. Even phones with expandable memory slots are good enough for most people. So, in short, mp3 players will be a thing of the past (i say in 1-2 years).

[armor]

absolutely. average consumers always want a device that can do any thing....its really convenient to carry one thing that can make a phone call, enjoy video, play games.....

[dmitri]

Many Cells have mp3 now adays, but I have yet to hear one as loud and as clear as my iPod.. Sure they have problems if you keep them long enough, they're electronic devices.. what doesn't?

And it's not like iPods are amazing musical devices.. they're snr is around 85db for the video, less for the nano.. much less than an Alpine Head unit, or good Creative Labs sound card.

If cells could boost the loudness up 20%, and get a good mp3 chip with very low noise, there could be some serious competition.

-dp

[armor]

obviously, there r many mp3 players achieve good qualities. ipod domain the market but not for tech

[laser]

ipod is great. there will be not ipod killer!!!!

[armor]

Once you are a market leader, it's difficult to be unseated in the market unless you make lots of mistakes. It comes down to top-of-mind awareness. When you think portable music, what is the first thing you think about? iPod. 90% of consumers will buy from the brand with the #1 top-of-mind awareness, and it goes down steeply from there.

Apple needs the competition in order to evolve better products, but it's not a huge threat in terms of Apple losing the top spot. It may lose a few points of market share, but it will certainly continue to lead the market no matter how much cash Microsoft throws down. Apple is simply better at marketing, better at making things cool, and those are the two things that have made the iPod a success -- two things that, I might add, Microsoft is terrible at.

[Thundercloud]

Whilst the Nokia N91 could be touted as an ipod killer, i'd say no for one main reason: It's got a hard drive.

Now no doubt there's a lot of people who have hard drive ipods, but they're specialised DAPs, and people KNOW to be careful with them. Plus they're generally larger so people find it harder to drop them.

I might be a bit clumsy, but i've dropped my phone quite a few times, and with no physical damage at all. If I had an N91 and dropped it, as I probably would, chances are i'd be up shizzle creek.

If phones want to become proper "ipod killers", a phrase which is flogged about far too much now anyway, they need to embrace flash memory, or alternatively make memory cards larger and cheaper. My current choice for my next phone is the SE w850i, and whilst that won't be primarily for music, i'll certainly have quite a few tracks on it, and it'll serve me well hopefully!

Also yeah, I expect the Zune to make very little impact at all on the market. It simply lacks the functions to actually attack the ipod at all. People used to the ipod's features and interface will simply not "downgrade" to a player with a smaller feature set in places. Especially with video, you know what some consumers can be like! Plus Microsoft can't even be bothered to make their own player, and just bought/leased a model from Toshiba! How lazy is that!?

[MikeUK]

Thundercloud don't know what you mean about video? I have an iPod video and video features are very limited. Also microsoft aren't hugely big on hardware development, like apple. The W950 has a fair amount of flash storage, 4GB. I'm not saying I think the Zune will kill the iPod, and definetly not the W950, but I think they may establish themselves on the market still.

[de_construct]

One thing that distinguishes my iPod, particularly compared to my supposed iPod-replacement Nokia N80 cellphone with a 2GB MiniSD... is the click-wheel. I can change volume, switch tracks with my iPod on my belt, under my t-shirt, no need to whip it out and navigate the awful Series60 Music app. S60 phones have only just started including dedicated side buttons for music... they grew dedicated camera shutter buttons ages ago. I do think Nokia were very slow on this one, particularly compared to SonyEricssons, which allow you to switch tracks by holding down the volume buttons. I used my technically far inferior SE S700i as an MP3 player far more than I do my Nokia N80 for this reason, I really wasted money getting the 2GB MiniSD. One other reason is that the slide is terrible, I had to get an autolock app for it, so none of the keys work in my pocket anyway. The S700i had a great flash/lock slide key which is easy to feel for in your pocket for when you want to change station/switch tracks/change the volume as well. The battery life is not the greatest either, so playing mp3s rob it of precious power. I do love the N80, for it's wifi and brilliant browser, plus it's a smartphone. I am all for convergence (the N80 pretty much does away with my Palm and digicam) but the iPod has remained. The Nano shows how wrong Palm (Lifedrive) and Nokia (N91) got it. A Nano stuck to a RAZR is pretty close though...

[laser]

zune? what the primary feather of zune? i heard about it.

[armor]

Microsoft's forthcoming Zune player is shooting to be the life of the party, allowing users to create mobile social networks and stream music to nearby friends or strangers, according to a government regulatory filing. Zune owners can act as their own DJ, sending streaming music content to up to four other devices..............

[carcomptoy]

Well it still depends if other people have Zunes...obviously it won't help when you've got all this capability, but no one to share it with since everyone else has iPods

[laser]

yeah, if ipod supply social network, it will be attractive becaz many people own ipod. wish zune has a good starting point.

[armor]

zune supposedly has 30GB and will be available for $399--the same price as the 60GB iPod.
Wireless synchronization with the PC will not be available in the upcoming launch, scheduled for November in the United States.

[marwan]

Even now, after so many years since its appearance, iPod still manages to rule the MP3 Player world and this is even more remarkable if we think about the technologies’ short life cycles.

The success of iPod does not mean that it’s perfect. Many Mp3 players are better in some aspects. A larger hard drive, a radio module, a longer-lasting battery, video capabilities, bigger displays, support for cellular telephony, more formats, all these features have been suggested for a better iPod, not to mention that there are already MP3 players superior to Apple’s player which include some of these functions, but none of them has even budged iPod’s leading position. Microsoft, Creative, Samsung and Philips researchers may invent any hardware wonder, such as the 0.5 mm hard drive able to store 5 TB or the software interface able to take voice commands, they will still fail to come up with an iPod killer.

The reason of the above statement is this: iPod’s success is due to marketing strategy and historical conjuncture. In July 2001, forced by artists and record companies, Napster closed its ports, and in December 2001, Apple launched the iPod, a device metting the requirements of millions of users that had filled their hard drives and CDs with hundreds or even thousands of MP3s downloaded off Napster. iPod benefited from that unique conjunctural moment of satisfying the users’ need to listen to their favorite music without having to buy a notebook or to take their PC with them at all times.

An attractive design, a simple interface which can be operated by anyone, efficient marketing, all these factors have turned iPod into an unstoppable money making machine.

The only ones entitled to the iPod killer tag are cell phone producers, because a device that features cell phone functions, aside from music playback functions, would draw swarms of acolytes.

Despite fierce competition, users are still buying iPods like there is no tomorrow. And not only that, but it also acts as a locomotive for the entire Apple train and for other companies specialized in iPod accessories which have become millionaires overnight. Given iPod selling well and the market increase of 75%, many programmers pay attention to develop applications or update their program to meet the demand. For example, there is a great demand for converting popular video files to iPod video. There are many converters support iPod now, such as XiliSoft iPod Video Converter, Cucusoft iPod Video Converter etc. iPod has been a success and there are many supporters or accessories around. It’s difficult to send iPod into oblivion.


your mom is an ipod killer.

[armor]

hey warman ,you are so funny.
some of my friends use ipod and enjoy it , the same to me.
we all like it and think it will have briliant future all over the world.
well, some of converter softwares are so good.
as I said above ,such as XiliSoft iPod Video Converter, Cucusoft iPod Video Converter etc.
this situation just like the co-growing of computers and microsoft .
I think I said these realization here is not bad ,right?

[Diji1]

Yawn... Apple are better, Apple are better. Despite this MS seem to be smashing them into the ground on everything else bar mp3 players. I fail to hear any audio difference between an Ipod and my MDA Pro using Core Player playing mp3,... barring storage capacity I can make my MDA Pro look and behave like an Ipod using the TS and some app I can't qjuiet recall - "Ipod for PPC" or something.

I'd be an Apple user (only for mp3 player... ie Ipod) apart from the ridiculous price point AND the added inconvenience of all the download related crud. I'm not a huge fan of the "Ipod look" - don't hate it but it doesn't grab me at all, it's functional for sure... so it's ridiculously overpriced relative to it's competition for me, just like their nice but dumbed down puters.

Nice but not at all worth paying massive markup relative to other brands with products of "equal" function. MS vs Apple ... I don't care, if Apple were priced competively for anything I'd be right there :\

[marwan]

Yawn... Apple are better, Apple are better. Despite this MS seem to be smashing them into the ground on everything else bar mp3 players. I fail to hear any audio difference between an Ipod and my MDA Pro using Core Player playing mp3,... barring storage capacity I can make my MDA Pro look and behave like an Ipod using the TS and some app I can't qjuiet recall - "Ipod for PPC" or something.

I'd be an Apple user (only for mp3 player... ie Ipod) apart from the ridiculous price point AND the added inconvenience of all the download related crud. I'm not a huge fan of the "Ipod look" - don't hate it but it doesn't grab me at all, it's functional for sure... so it's ridiculously overpriced relative to it's competition for me, just like their nice but dumbed down puters.

Nice but not at all worth paying massive markup relative to other brands with products of "equal" function. MS vs Apple ... I don't care, if Apple were priced competively for anything I'd be right there :\


then buy a zune and shut your cake hole.

[Diji1]

Wow - nice & offensive attitude.

The original thread seems rather pointless - Ipod is a good product and people vote with their feet. The average user, like anyone else who doesn't know get a medioce deal.

Power of belief - keeps millions going on pointless pursuits involving fundamantal issues. Like people who buy cars as investments and work for someone else... not enough hours in the human lifetime for that dream to eventuate. Does that stop people?

[phoney]

i just wanna say that you have a right to your opinion but i dont agree with post 23. most people in the know, that microsoft's os is not as good as apple's also microsoft does not make computers. bill gates has also said that the ipod is better if the rumours of an iphone and new touchscreen video ipod are true then most companies may as well give up. i'm just waiting for an iphone with leopard and that will make my day.

[Diji1]

...most people in the know, that microsoft's os is not as good as apple's

No worries as you say, opinions and rudeness not needed, that's the way to reply - everybody has a right to an opinion and to feel better by claiming higher intelligence to cover deficiencies of character, not my problem AFAIC or yours.

I guess that 90% of consumers and a higher percentage of business's are just stupid, they prefer a "not as good" OS... or maybe it's just the fact that it's overpriced compared to similar processing power whilst losing upgradeabilty - who knows why "people in the know" prefer OSX.. Perhaps it just the absolutely huge software catalogue that keeps Windows users happy and "people in the know" just prefer an OS with a comparably limited software. Please don't mention Photoshop as that's a non-issue these days and even when it was - one application that's so specialised, ... ? Please don't think I'm calling anyone individually stupid - I'm not.

Anyone looked at customer support & bug resolution, software development and security issues lately... no, I guess "people in the know" just prefer things their own way - no skin off my nose.

However, I would like to know who are these "people in the know" bar anybody on this thread exactly?

Feel free to hold your own opinions and disagree - I'm not going to argue with insults or flame because I disagree and add nothing else.

...rumours of an iphone and new touchscreen video ipod are true then most companies may as well give up

This is not a new innovation - products like this already exist...

I guess there's really not much point in arguing - particuarly about Ipods and competition to them in a WM forum - feel free though, it won't be me with the language issues or whatever that was. Each to their own own preferred way and I can deal with other opinions contrary to my own with some civility... that's what I thought a forum was about after all & it'd be pretty boring if everyone thought the same no?.