News

Arrival of the iPod Killer?

Tuesday, May 30th, 2006 at 3:35 PM - by

Windows Media Player 11, coupled with the new music service Urge and iRiver's new 2GB clix MP3 player, could finally make a dent in the iPod's stranglehold on digital music, according to a pair of editorials published on Tuesday. Tony Briggs, writing for the Daytona Beach News-Journal, calls Media Player 11 "a digital media Swiss Army knife, smoothly combining a raft of digital music, video and photography related functions into one elegant package."

While he acknowledges that "elegant" is "a word you rarely see associated with a Microsoft product," he believes that this one has earned it, from its impressive functionality to its automatic connection with Urge, which is a joint venture between Microsoft and MTV. However, Media Player 11 also allows access to other pre-Urge music stores.

Mike Langberg, writing for the San Jose Mercury News, echoes Mr. Briggs' comments, noting that consumers of iTunes Music Store content are locked into using those songs and videos only with an iPod, while Urge is hardware neutral. Its downloads work with any MP3 player certified through Microsoft's "PlaysForSure" program, and those players in turn work with competing online music stores from AOL, Napster, Yahoo! and Wal-Mart.

In addition, Mr. Langberg touts the merits of the iRiver clix, which sells for the same price as the 2GB iPod nano but offers a larger screen (2.2 inches versus 1.5), a built-in voice recorder, and an FM tuner.

"It's important to note that Apple did nothing underhanded in gaining its near monopoly with iTunes and the iPod," the columnist said in summary. "The company simply created a customer experience that far exceeded the competition. But Apple can't be expected to think of every bright new idea in digital music, and won't change its ways unless there's a real threat that customers will go elsewhere.

"So even the most devoted fans of iTunes and the iPod should be hoping Urge and iriver, or some other competitor, keeps Apple from insisting we all sing the same song."

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A guest said: (hide)

Tue May 30, 2006 3:44 pm

iPod 'killer'? Nah. That terms has been used so many times and not come true, that one can only laugh at it when its brought up now. You'd think iPod Observer would know better by now.

And I doubt this new configuration will put much of dent in the iPod/iTunes hegemony. Because, really, the best Microsoft and its pals can do is COPY Apple's user experience. And to really make a dent against Apple, they'd have to be BETTER than Apple, instead of a 'me too' product. So much for the latest 'iPod killer'.

Yeah, we know, we know... THIS one'll be different. Sure.

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Tiger said:

member since 17 Jun 2003 with 1018 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Tue May 30, 2006 3:52 pm

I wrote Mr. Langberg an email yesterday when his article hit pointing out all the flaws in his story. Surprisingly, he's not responded. Nor did he check his facts before writing the story.

Any music works with an iPod. I have converted WMAs on my iPod Shuffle and 20G iPod.

And songs bought from iTMS can be converted to MP3s to work with any other music program, burned to CD, or even another device. He simply failed to check any of his facts or suppositions.

One must assume he is not tech-savvy, nor has he ever played with a video iPod, because videos from any source can be converted and put onto an iPod.

As for his 'commentary'----"The company simply created a customer experience that far exceeded the competition. But Apple can't be expected to think of every bright new idea in digital music, and won't change its ways unless there's a real threat that customers will go elsewhere."

Isn't there always a threat for any customer to go elsewheres? What is he trying to imply about getting Apple to "change its ways"? Their ways have led to 40 million iPods being sold, capturing 70%+ of the market and even he admits nothing underhanded was done by Apple.

Readers should beware of taking any stock in an article like this. It casts aspersions and throws around innuendo that is marginal and unfounded.

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Bosco said:

member since 03 Jun 2002 with 1002 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Tue May 30, 2006 4:13 pm

In this election year, we all need to make sure that our elected represenatives are aware of the dramatic rise in iPod killings and that they affect all of us. Hate crimes legislation needs to be updated to cover iPod killings. This is not only an issue of fairness, diversity, and inclusion, but one of life and death in America. So far as foreign policy goes, we should not tolerate any regime that sanctions iPod killings. We need to make it clear to despots around the world that we don't care if they control oil or shipping routes or coffee or opium. If they allow iPod killings in their country, we are going to use every means at our disposal to bring about regime change. That means you Hugo Chavez, you Manny Noriega wannabe.

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Nookster said:

member since 27 Oct 2004 with 111 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Tue May 30, 2006 4:15 pm

It sounds great, but raving about online music stores completely (deliberately?) ignores these truisms;

(a) Most people don't buy online music.

(b) Most people who by an MP3 player buy an iPod.

Truism (a) renders the online distribution moot, and when/if this changes they won't be compatible with (b), so they are still moot!

It obvious that Apples grip on the whole shebang, has reached a point of maturity (in percentage if not numbers) and it isn't going to disappear in one product cycle, so to say that any non Apple media player available today can be an iPod killer is nothing more than attention farming.

For the moment (and the next few, and a few after that).

Logic: I don't buy online music, and I don't know anyone who does, but I do know a lot of people who have MP3 players.

(changed (b) for clarity. "Most people buy iPods" is obviously not true, as most people don't buy an MP3 player at all )

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A guest said: (hide)

Tue May 30, 2006 5:01 pm

I heard that the innovations behind new Windows Player were not invented by Microsoft people at all, but rather were discovered among papers collected when Bill Gates bought out the remaining estate of George Harrison...

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bryson said:

member since 05 Mar 2002 with 79 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Tue May 30, 2006 5:38 pm

Lets just say that MS chips away at Apple on music and then someday finds itself in the position Apple is in now...

... at that point how often will people wish that Apple still had control of the thing.

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A guest said: (hide)

Tue May 30, 2006 5:46 pm

bryson wrote:
Lets just say that MS chips away at Apple on music and then someday finds itself in the position Apple is in now...

... at that point how often will people wish that Apple still had control of the thing.

Doubt that'll happen. MS and its pals have been trying very hard to 'chip away' at Apple on music for several years now, with no apparent success.

Let's face it, Stevie J has learned a few lessons in dealing with MS over the years, and it shows. Bet Ballmer is throwing chairs in his office right now, just thinking about it.

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A guest said: (hide)

Tue May 30, 2006 5:48 pm

iPod Observer, a friendly piece of advice... let the 'iPod killer' cliche GO. Its dead, gone, buried, beaten into the GROUND.

A Google search for "iPod killer" in quotes brings back roughly a half million hits. Horse... deceased... beating... get it?

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A guest said: (hide)

Tue May 30, 2006 6:32 pm

Guest wrote:
And I doubt this new configuration will put much of dent in the iPod/iTunes hegemony. Because, really, the best Microsoft and its pals can do is COPY Apple's user experience. And to really make a dent against Apple, they'd have to be BETTER than Apple, instead of a 'me too' product.

Umm, you mean like MS copied the original mac experience? Looking at Apple's OS market share we can now safely conclude that:

1) Windows is way better than the mac experience OR

2) Apple must have copied Windows.

Serious:

I am extremely prejudiced against using MS DRM, but in a way I hope Apple will be forced to open up its DRM to other stores, because iTMS is not the end all of music. I am happy with my little iPod, I am thrilled with OS X and every Apple computer I owned since before the mac. But music is music, and when the moment comes I'll buy mostly online (yes, when sound quality makes buying a CD really redundant - which actually matters if you listen to things other than Britney Spears) I don't want to be reduced to one shop, even if it has a great user experience. In the words of his Jobness: "it's the music, stupid!".

I used to search wide and far for the music I liked, so I can stand a com-pli-cat-ed buying experience. What I can't stand is not being able to buy what I actually want to buy. So either iTMS becomes VAST or Stevie Wonder opens up its DRM to specialty shops (like RootsReggae, Jazz, Classical, Afro-beat, whatever takes your fancy, you know, only a couple of genres, but EVERY obscure record ever made IN that genre).

So here's to the competition. May they be almost good enough

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A guest said: (hide)

Tue May 30, 2006 7:41 pm

Locked into iTunes? No your not locked into iTunes. And I heard from another online source that Media Player 11 was buggier than heck, where's the Raid when you need it. DRM was required by the Music industry not by Apple. Apple complied so it could start the iTunes music store. Removing DRM is a dream and it won't happen because the music industry is against it. And if you use iTunes you will find that the DRM is never in your face if at all. Also if you have a large CD collection you can import those and never buy from iTunes so you will never get DRM bothering you. I hate it when these writers that claim to know things really don't ever do there homework. Also WMP is a propriatary format as well for windows only as Urge is a windows only music store. At least Apple allows both PC's and Mac's to use iTunes with the exact same interfacing software. Something Microsoft is to stupid to figure out.

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A guest said: (hide)

Tue May 30, 2006 8:47 pm

Guest wrote:
Guest wrote:
And I doubt this new configuration will put much of dent in the iPod/iTunes hegemony. Because, really, the best Microsoft and its pals can do is COPY Apple's user experience. And to really make a dent against Apple, they'd have to be BETTER than Apple, instead of a 'me too' product.

Umm, you mean like MS copied the original mac experience? Looking at Apple's OS market share we can now safely conclude that:

1) Windows is way better than the mac experience OR

2) Apple must have copied Windows.

Apples and oranges, pardon the pun.

Apple made a lot of huge mistakes back in the 'OS wars' days, such as horrendously overpricing their computers. Mistakes they're not making with the iPod. Given a situation where Apple ISN'T shooting themselves in the foot (or head), the original poster's analysis is correct... MS would have to beat Apple's user experience, or vastly undercut on price, to make significant inroads.

But kudos on your ability to pick nits, however obvious they may be.

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A guest said: (hide)

Tue May 30, 2006 11:20 pm

Does it work with a Mac? No. Next.

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A guest said: (hide)

Wed May 31, 2006 12:31 am

Last two comments in the article sum it up the best; well, only one of the last two really do. Apple became dominate because they had a good product, and we shouldn't rely on Apple to keep innovating if there is no competition. Please. M$ doesn't care about consumers only about money. I know this sounds like the same old song and dance about M$ but the truth does hurt. They are only interested in driving Google, Apple, Real networks, IBM, Yahoo under.

Well now Yahoo is their buddy against Google, but Yahoo will the the knife in the back in due time. M$ only cares about market dominance, and this is why Apple hit a home run with the iPod. Apple gave people EXACTLY what they wanted. Fair prices songs, easy way to download them, and way to take them on the road. Any DMR is bad, but we had to choke down some of that to get what we wanted. A good consumer experience. M$ is only stepping up to the plate on that because they HAVE to, to beat Apple. Why would anyone switch to MS's system when they are just going to be burned with crap later on? That is all M$ is good for.

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Tiger said:

member since 17 Jun 2003 with 1018 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Wed May 31, 2006 11:12 am

Further proof this guy is clueless and didn't do the research. Yes, this product is for the Mac. But similar PC products have been out there for a long time.

Max 0.6 is an open source application for extracting audio tracks from CDs or audio files and saving them in a variety of formats, including MP3, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, AAC, Apple Lossless, Monkey's Audio, WavPack, Speex, AIFF, and WAVE. It is integrated with FreeDB to permit automatic retrieval of CD information, can add encoded files to the iTunes library, and can use cdparanoia for error-correcting extractions. This release adds a fast, non-error correcting ripper, a new comparison ripper, WavPack support, encoder profiles with nicknames, support for non-16 bit audio and non-44.1kHz audio, an option to create an iTunes playlist for the added files, and other changes. Max is free for Mac OS X 10.4.

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A guest said: (hide)

Wed May 31, 2006 12:50 pm

If Microsloth spent as much time, effort and money on their operating system as they do on trying to catch up with Apple in the music world they might have something. With all the resouces it has it's become quite obvious that they can only do a mediocre job on one thing at a time.

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A guest said: (hide)

Wed May 31, 2006 1:14 pm

Microsoft is the new IBM (circa 1970s-80s)... huge, but masters of 'blah' products and lacking in innovation. What else is new?

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