Apple's GORGEOUS new MP3 player... (1 Viewer)

[Rob Robinson]

since it could technically be used as a componet, i figured this would be a good area to post; if not please move this thread to a better home....
http://www.apple.com/ipod/
Apple's really raised the bar as far as integration goes.
5 gigs of tunes, automatically synced with iTunes over firewire. It also doubles as a harddrive. the coolest feature IMHO is the ability to charge itself as it syncs- it draws power from the firewire bus.
Very cool indeed!
I think this is going to be THE gift to give the mac person in your life this xmas. I also think this thing will help apple move more hardware, especially if a student was on the edge between a mac or pc.

 

[Rob Robinson]

Link Removed

 

[Mike_Ped]

Apple has always made awesome products (example here!) but they're always too damned expensive!
Mike

 

[Scott Pagac]

The price is $399. I think that Apple has a nice product here, but the price (IMO) is about $100 too high, especially for this year's Chistmas buying season. However, I think the new of the "digital hub" idea of theirs can work in the long run. If they continue on will small, consumer-priced products, I can see them building their brand name to what is was once again.

 

[Scott Bourden]

Bah, in my opinion they are about a year and a half late on it. The firewire is nice, but there are no spectacular options, no conclusive tests (as of now, obviously) about real world battery life, sound quality, reliability, durbility, etc. Plus the fact they are obviously playing off the "pretty is better" attitude with the shiny silver.
Other then the firewire, it's nothing particularly impressive (moreso then other products offered), and they are touting it as a groundbreaking new product, when it isen't. And for that price, it's a bit higher then th average buyer will go after (again, in my opinion)

 

[Tim Holmes]

(First, I work for Apple, so you may take my comments as biased if you like, that doesn't, however, make them incorrect...)
In response to Scott Bourden:
FireWire is more than "nice" in this instance. It means the difference between a 5 hour download time (USB) and a 10 minute download time (FireWire) for about 1000 songs (at 160Kbps) or 5 Gigs of music. USB isn't an adequate connection for this amount of data.
As for "no conclusive battery tests"... that's true for any new device. What was stated was 10 hours of continuous music playback. Unless it was a blatant lie, then it's hard to fudge that. There's not much to make that vary. The claimed battery time for a Nomad is "more than 4 hours," while real-world use has proven it to be 3-4. Even if Apple is overstating it by double, it's still better than Nomad's, and at half the weight.
Sound quality is easy these days, durability may be an issue, but there's no reason to believe it is in this case.
While you may be right on price, that'll have to be proven in the marketplace. There are differences between this product and others even in addition to FireWire. Size is a major one: it's 5 gigs of data in 6.5 ounces in the size of a deck of cards. the closest competitors, the Archos, , is twice that weight and USB only, and the Nomad, which is 14oz and as big as a portable CD player.
Lastly, while the "pretty is better" strategy does capture some market all by itself, the real advantage Apple is bringing here is ease of use. The interface is an absolute breeze. You can try out a simulation here:
. The only thing it doesn't demonstrate (aside from the iTunes integration) is the speed which the dial allows, it's really fast...
There are other things as well... 20 minute skip protection, far more than any other product on the market (Nomad has 5 minutes). Support for MP3, MP3vbr, WAV, and AIFF (Nomad only supports MP3). It also serves as a 5Gig FireWire hard drive...
I know I'm starting to sound like an ad... my apologies... Honestly, I wasn't prepared to be as impressed with this device as I am. I've held one in my hands, and played with it. It's everything it's made out to be and more. Very nice.
Tim H
(edited for nitpicky punctuation, etc.)
[Edited last by Tim Holmes on October 23, 2001 at 08:35 PM]

 

[PS Nystrom]

Wow! Thank goodness I don't need an MP3 player or I'd be $400 more in debt. And the commercial on Apple's site is great - much better than that 'center seat' one they put out for the new iBook. To everyone that's planning on buying an iPod: You're a lucky, lucky person. Have fun,
Pieter
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BoomRoom updated Oct 15

 

[David Head]

Tim,
Do you know if there's any chance a version that will interface with a PC will be released in the future? I would assume it would only require the software and a firewire card...
David

 

[Guy Kuo]

If only it had more capacity --- I'd consider making the switch, but I'm totally hooked on having 20 gig's of space in my Archos. Hopefully, the Apple unit will also be hackable to increase its storage. The firewire would be great. USB takes a good overnight run to load my 13 gigabytes of music. (And yes, I do own the CD's. No Napster spoke here)
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Guy Kuo
Link Removed
Ovation Software, the Home of AVIA DVD

 

[Tim Holmes]

Just to clarify, I didn't work on the project, and regardless I couldn't comment on any future plans.
Apple's FAQ implies the device requires a Mac, but I would assume the device would work as a FireWire drive on PCs as I assume it's a standard FireWire device. Who knows though... you'd have to try it. And to be honest you can get a 20Gig FWire drive only a bit larger for the same price.
I would also assume (without knowledge to back it up) that for it to connect as an MP3 player, it would only take PC software. Well, that and a proper driver, a predictable FireWire interface, etc. All those things that make for PC/Mac religious wars on forums such as these.
As for higher capacities, again, I am not privy to any inside knowledge, but what would you do...

 

[GregoriusM]

On TechTV tonight they mentioned that PC software would be available around the end of the year.
... Greg
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.... "just me up on my pony on my boat".

 

[Henry Carmona]

Made for a Mac, guess they dont get a sell here.
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"Charlie don't surf."

 

[Charles Guajardo]

A friend of mine was planning a trip to Europe this summer and wanted an MP3 player to hold his entire collection of CDs (over a thousand). He bought a 20GB model, don't remember which one, and proceeded to rip his entire collection over the span of a week or so. The day of his trip, he finished and started to download his files to the MP3 over a USB connection. He got about 5 GB done before he had to catch his flight.
I'm betting he'll be buying the iPod if only for its firewire connection. The drive is easily replaceable with larger one and it also plays wav and aiff files. too cool.

 

[Tony Aguila]

For those who think that this product is overpriced, I just read that the 5 gigabyte drive in this unit is the Toshiba 1.8" MK5002MPL, which Toshiba lists at $499, and lists at $399 elsewhere. That's just for the drive!
And surely, we can expect the price to come down somewhat when retailers and etailers start carrying them.

 

[henning hoffmann]

I too think it's overpriced, no matter what the components cost.
Apple stated that they're thinking of adding Windows support, if they have enough spare time (or something like that). This implies there is no current Windows support.
So, their target market is the 7 million or so current Mac users with a Firewire port.
Take away from that 7 million all the people that aren't really interested in portable audio, which is many. Then take away all the people that already have a portable audio solution that they're unwilling to replace. Now, how many people do you have left? How many do you think will buy an iPod?
I think the target market for this device is too small for it to succeed as is.
henning

 

[Glenn]

Hi,
I think that Apple's iPod is to little to late. Apple's products have always been slightly higher priced than the competition and the iPod is no exception.
The only advantages that I initially can see is Firewire usuage and long battery life. I am comparing the iPod to a Nomad Jukebox which I own and love.
Firewire support is great but not worth the extra cash, IMO. I don't think that most people load 4 or 5 Gigs worth of music at one time. I do one or two CDs at a time via USB and while it is slower than Firewire it isn't that bad.
A 10 hour battery life would be great compared to the Jukebox's lowly 3 or so hours. Apple has been making iBooks with remarkable battery life for sometime now and it seems like they have a good handle on how to do that right.
If the iPod had Windows support and a larger hard drive, maybe 10 to 12 Gigs, then it might have a chance. Or if it was priced at $250 or less it might as well but since the Jukebox is selling for around $225 with a 6GB drive or $399 with a 20GB drive I don't see the iPod selling much. There will be some Mac users buy them but it will be a small number in a still small market for MP3 players.
Later,
Glenn

 

[Joel Mack]

I'm still dying to know what CD-ROM drive Apple is using to spin data off at >64MB per second...

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"The internet is a place where people from all over come together to
bitch about movies and share pornography."

 

[Dan Paolozza]

For the average portable-audio guy like me, I think the IPod is fantastic. Yes, $150 too much.
The keys here are price and Windows support. Apple can tout all they want the immense benefits of firewire , 5 gigs, 10 hours battery, etc; people won't be willing to shell out the extra cash for better features - and let it be said, in one package, the IPod is far superior to anything out there currently. Some other player with double-storage capacity is a moot point to a more casual consumer, given every other benefit of this player. The price isn't moot, however. Shoppers are only willing to fidget with prices between one item and another before they either write one off altogether, or just decide they can't afford to get into the device genre at the moment.
And currently, you either have to have a modern MAC, or buy a MAC to go with your new Ipod. I doubt anyone is expecting the Ipod to sell more MACs. So as another poster pointed out, the current target market is Apple users who are into portable audio or on the virge of portable audio. Pretty narrow window there. I think if Apple comes through with good PC support, it'll help a lot.
Now, if even half of Windows machines shipped with firewire ports, Apple would be sitting pretty to make a huge dent in the MP3 market. Unfortunately, PC's aren't nearly as sophisticated, and even Windows support will only help marginally.

 

[Rob Robinson]

"http://www.v-2.org/articles/suspectdevice.html"
my pal adam wrote about some usability issues with the Nomad- it's kept me form picking one up. Watching the video of the iPod interface in action- so smooth and intuitive....
I'm sure there will be be some sort of hack allowing PCs to use it- the bigger issues is why the wonderous firewire port isn't built into most pc motherboards... I just bought a new 20 gig firewire hd based on a laptop drive, and it fits in my jeans pocket- i was afraid i was gonna get laid off
Firwire is so badass. I now have 2 firewire drives- the sexy little one, and a 75 gigger fast enough for DV editing, as well as a canon DV camera.
Unfortunaetly, I would rather get an HD setop box for my soon to arrive TV, so iPod will wait for a post holiday price drop

 

[Mike Sogge]

I haven't bothered purchasing a portable MP3 player due to the fact that all the previous "Mac Compatible" ones on the market had a max of 128mb storage at one time. That is far too little for me. Sure, you can get more, but then you start purchasing additional media cards at >100 bucks a pop. Now that $$$ adds up faster than you think!
The iPod on the other hand is a product that fits my needs, even if it is more expensive than the others on the market. You also have to take the cost of all the SmartMedia cards you'd need just to equal the storage of the iPod. Having a battery life span of at least twice as long as the competition is another major plus.
So, don't put it down just because you're unconsciously jealous that it took Apple to create such a fine (Mac only at this time) product when the PC aimed companies haven't even come close.