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Music Media Businesses Handhelds Apple Hardware

Creative, Apple Battle for MP3 Player Market 529

Posted by michael from the gizmo-vs.-gizmo dept.
kurtz_tan writes "Creative Technology is spending 100 million in a marketing blitz to 'regain its rightful place in the audio industry' by trying to dominate the MP3 market which is now led by the Apple iPod (54% of the market last year for MP3 players that use hard disks). Creative is second with 16.5%. Does Creative Zen sound as cool as Apple iPod ?" And reader TheMediaWrangler writes "The Register reports that Apple will build a stockpile of flash-based iPods to be shipped as early as January or February of 2005. AppleInsider had the original scoop."
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Creative, Apple Battle for MP3 Player Market More

Creative, Apple Battle for MP3 Player Market

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  • Statistics (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Oculus Habent ( 562837 ) *
    54% of the hard drive market? The AppleInsider article states 92%. Where do these statistics come from? Useless, unverifiable... Quote a source, dammit!

  • iPods in New York City (Score:2, Interesting)

    by otisg ( 92803 )
    If you can judge by the presence of iPods in New York City (and you can't), you'd think there are no other MP3 players on the market. Everyone has an iPod here, to the point where it looks lame, too much of a fashion statement for my taste.

    • The NYC iPod game (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 18, 2004 @02:34PM (#10856535)
      Oh you can't count the iPods in NYC? I was visiting the city this summer and was standing outside the Trump building on Madison with a friend, playing what we called "the iPod game". We were trying to either spot people with white iPod headphones, or people geeky/trendy enough to know where the Apple Store was. We had no success finding the Apple Store (however did find another retailor, who was stocked out of the Mini I wanted to buy). It was none the less an amusing game to play; I'd estimate of 1000 people walking by: 25 people were stopped, 2 had iPods, 10 were out of towners, 5 were attractive, 2 of those were willing to chat it up, and 0 knew of, or where the Apple store was

    • Re:iPods in New York City (Score:5, Insightful)

      by emilymildew ( 646109 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @02:45PM (#10856706) Homepage
      Man, I hate that attitude.

      Hey, here's this neat thing but since everyone else has it, I'm not going to try it and see if it really is as neat as it seems. Because I'm different.

      It's a freaking music player. Try it, don't try it, but letting its popularity affect your decision is just stupid.
    • Maybe you don't notice other MP3 devices because the other MP3 players aren't as flashy as the iPod? For instance, my portable mp3 player is a PALM Zire. Totally inconspicuous as an MP3 player...someone might think I was doing actual work on it:P Others are built into watches, pens, or little things you can clip in your pocket...even a swiss army knife:P Also, I have used a creative HDD based MP3 player and found it quite nice. I haven't used an iPod to be able to compare but the creative unit did the

  • It's gotta be about more than cash (Score:5, Insightful)

    by HeetMyser ( 655524 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @02:29PM (#10856462)
    I've owned two iPods, and I've never taken a look at one of Creative's offerings. As has been said (probably) countless times every time an iPod story shows up here, Apple has the Holy Trinity of online music: Software (iTunes), Store (iTMS), Player (iPod). You're just not going to beat Apple until you come to the field with at least those three pieces.

    • Ephpod and Itunes? (Score:2, Informative)

      by djhertz ( 322457 )
      I personally liked Ephpod better. I just needed a simple interface, and I wasn't going to be buying any music from the Itunes store. For those of you who don't know, Ephpod [ephpod.com] is a free software package that is used to upload/organize/configure music on your ipod. Give it a shot, I really liked it.
    • What we're really dealing with here is more than one market. It doesn't make sense when they group everyone into a single "MP3 market" and claim that one company dominates it. For example, I could care less about the software and the music store. I just want a good solid player, and the ability to mount it as a removable disk. I already have the music -- all my cd's have been archived as FLACs, which I can easily convert to MP3 -- and I already have cp, rm, and ls which is all the software I want to deal wi

  • $100 Mil on Marketing? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by thegooch49 ( 674462 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @02:30PM (#10856468)
    Wow, why don't they spend $100 million on making a superior product in stead of marketing an inferior one?
    • Inferior is relative. Creative's mp3 players are good. In fact, if I had to *buy* an mp3 player, I'd probably go with Creative, rather than an iPod, simply based on cost.

      • Re:$100 Mil on Marketing? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by rsmith-mac ( 639075 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @02:53PM (#10856814)
        I think the OP was referring to Creative's other efforts in the sound market as much as they were referring to the Zen music players. Creative's legacy in the sound card market is suing Aureal under BS terms to drive them bankrupt, then selling the same sound card again and again(we're up to the 4th year that the Audigy has been their high-end card line). They even bought the assets of Aureal and Sensaura in order to keep other companies from easily coming in to the market with competitive products, which is made more difficult by the number of patents they own due to those acquisitions.

        It's not like Creative to compete based on features - they're far more interested in getting a big enough piece of the market that they can slow down progress to a point where they can maximize profits on whatever the current generation is.

        • Re:$100 Mil on Marketing? (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Jerf ( 17166 )
          we're up to the 4th year that the Audigy has been their high-end card line

          Non-pro and non-prosumer sound cards have matured for now. You hit 48KHz, 16-bit, surround sound, and you're basically done. In my experience, the other 3D stuff is more gimmick than quality. I have a Soundblaster around here somewhere but it's such a pain to deal with that I just use motherboard sound, which has also matured.

          Now, if we standardized on a new super-MIDI or something that allowed for the really sophisticated effects

        • A long history of "innovation" from Creative (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Steve525 ( 236741 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @06:07PM (#10859282)
          This is Creative's history of innovation...

          Original SB:
          Adding a gameport and DAC to the ADLIB FM synthesizer. This product was an incredible success, and got them very rich. Unfortunately they haven't done anything since besides let others innovate and then buy them out.

          First PCI soundcard with SB compatibility was made by Ensoniq. Creative bought them out to get this technology.

          First decent 3D soundcards were made by Aureal, which you already covered.

          The chip in the SBLive was developed by EMU, which Creative bought out.

          The Soundworks speakers had nothing to do with Creative until they bought them out.

          The Aureal is still basically the same technology that's in the SBLive. I guess they ran out of innovative companies to buy out.

          Unfortunately for Creative they can't exactly buy out Apple, so I'd say they're in trouble.

      • Huh? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by 2nd Post! ( 213333 )
        The iPod mini is $249, and the Micro is $249.

        You mean the Creative Touch or Zen vs the iPod?

        Inferior really is relative. The difference between the products, to me, is great enough that buying a Creative Zen Touch is like wasting $200 while buying an Apple iPod isn't.

        • Re:Huh? (Score:3, Informative)

          by the unbeliever ( 201915 )
          Creative Nomad Zen 40gb is at 269.99 on Best Buy's website currently.

          I'd be willing to deal with Creative's quirks for $30 less and twice the capacity of the cheapest ipod.
    • This reminds me of why Wal*Mart has kicked so much ass. When a company comes to them with a marketing blitz they just tell them to either lower the price or make the product better.
      • As was discussed yesterday in the Wal-Mart thread, Wal-Mart wants BOTH. They tell you it MUST cost $X and have A,B,C features or we won't buy it. And $X better be lower than any other product. Many, many companies have been tried to keep up with Wal-Marts continuing price pressure and either gone broke or moved jobs to China to keep solvent.
    • "Why don't they spend $100 million on making a superior product in stead of marketing an inferior one?"

      Are you talking about Apple or Creative? Both in my opinion are feature poor for the price.

    • I think Creative's problem and the problem of all manufacturers is going to be the click wheel. I have used a lot of MP3 players over the years dating back to the Rio 500 and I have never seen a superior user interface. As long as Apple holds the patent on the touch wheel idea I don't think they are in any danger.

      I have looked at the Zen Touch and Zen Micro [creative.com] and they might rate a distant second place but the click wheel is still by far superior. The Rio Karma [digitalnetworksna.com] is fine but not in the same class as either
    • Why would you assume that a better product will sell better than a properly marketted inferior one? Welcome!

  • iPod Killer? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 18, 2004 @02:30PM (#10856472)
    Yes, but is Creative's offering an iPod Killer?

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @02:33PM (#10856522)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Spending Millions? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by almostmanda ( 774265 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @02:33PM (#10856524)
    Instead, how about cutting the price a little more? Digital music players are a huge market, and not everyone can afford an Ipod. You don't need to market it as cool and hip, just market it as functional and not so damned expensive. I have a Zen, and it's a wonderful player, but you're not gonna win anyone over appealing to style; Apple has that covered.
    • They're selling all they can produce at current pricing. What incentive do they have to make it cheaper? There's tons of players out there that sell at a lower price, and you've bought one, probably in part for that reason. I remember going out and trying to find a Mini to buy when it first came out. I finally found one, the ONLY one in about a 30 mile radius. If inventory is that tight, they might even be able to charge MORE and see a better profit.

  • My Nomad Zen just died, I switched to iPod (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bobalu ( 1921 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @02:35PM (#10856565)
    I bought the Zen Nomad because it was certainly a lot cheaper than the comparable iPod at the time, and I liked it. Yes it was larger, but the battery was good. Now it's dead, and since I've gone iTunes I decided to switch. There's stuff I miss (like making playlists on the player itself) but I have to admit the iPod is really nice. The AAC files take about half the space as MP3s and sound better. I didn't do a scientific study but on several songs with quiet passages the MP3 version sucks compared to AAC, and the MP3 was encoded at the max bit rate.

    And it's about half the size!

    • Re:My Nomad Zen just died, I switched to iPod (Score:5, Informative)

      by outZider ( 165286 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @02:41PM (#10856647) Homepage
      When browsing through songs, click and hold the selector button for a couple of seconds, and the song will flash. This adds the song to your on-the-go playlist. Good for playlists on the fly.
    • You can make playlists on the player. It's limited but hold the center button the next time you have a song/album/artist/whatever selected. Now go to playlists. At the bottom is "On the Go". You can add more and eventually save the list.

    • Re:My Nomad Zen just died, I switched to iPod (Score:5, Interesting)

      by fupeg ( 653970 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @04:15PM (#10857915)
      the MP3 was encoded at the max bit rate.
      Gotta call bullshit on this one. There is no "maximum" bitrate. You can go as high as you want, and get it extremely close to beig lossless. A lot of people (maybe even Apple?) claim that a 128 kbps AAC file sounds "as good" as a 256 kbps MP3, but I don't know if there's any factual basis for this. And all MP3s are not created equal. Not only can using VBR make a big difference, but the encoding algorithm itself can make for noticeable differences, especially at lower bitrates. Listen to equal bitrate MP3 rips using Real player and Lame. Very big difference, in my opinion (this is totally subjective, though I would suspect there would be a way to quantify these differences since they are so significant.)

  • $100 Million? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by neoform ( 551705 ) <djneoform@gmail.com> on Thursday November 18, 2004 @02:36PM (#10856569) Homepage
    Why not spend that $100,000,000 on reducing the cost of their MP3 players and let them sell themselves?

    This is something i've always found strange.

  • Karma is a bitch (Score:5, Informative)

    by TheProteus ( 15398 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @02:36PM (#10856578) Homepage
    Hmm. I think Creative is receiving its just desserts since the release of the first Nomad Jukebox.

    They had a special team in their R&D center in Scotts Valley design that product, and then after it was done, they laid off most of the people in that project team and outsourced them to a less-experienced team in Singapore.

    Consequently, some of the team was picked up by Apple which went on to develop the second rev iPod.
    • Creative offers some of the buggiest software I have ever come across. I had a Nomad II years ago, and the software was all but unuseable. Very slow. Lots of crashes. I can't say I've had a lot of success with the software for their soundcards in recent years either, but the older stuff used to be rock solid. iTunes has always been bulletproof for me, even sharing a 12K song library on a college campus.

    • Outsourced? (Score:3, Informative)

      by henele ( 574362 )
      They had a special team in their R&D center in Scotts Valley design that product, and then after it was done, they laid off most of the people in that project team and outsourced them to a less-experienced team in Singapore.

      Considering, "The worldwide corporate headquarters is located in Singapore" (Creative's Corporate Site [creative.com]) you can't really call it outsourcing (unless they outsourced management as well).

  • Prefrences (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nordicfrost ( 118437 ) * on Thursday November 18, 2004 @02:38PM (#10856605)
    Whenever there's an iPod vs X brand player, the same arguments pop up. Well, I'm an iPod fan, trough and through. And now I understand why.

    The iPod does its few tasks with a 'very good' rating for all of them. FireWire transfer = Very good. Biggish screen, backlit but (for the most part) no colours = Very good, sound quality = Very good, battery capacity = Very good (12 h), expandability = Very good (lots of accessories, much more than the others), design = Very good, UI = Very good.

    The reason for for its success is the average 'Very Good' rating that users and critiques give it.

    What about the others? Well, usually they have one outstanding feature but that is not enough to raise the overall user experience to the iPod level.

    We geeks often put on blinders when it comes to gadgets and forget what people want. And while we may choose another product because we evaluate OGG-support to be an 'Excellent' feature, most people do not. They see like this: FireWire transfer = Very good. Small screen, backlit but (for the most part) no colours = bad, sound quality = Very good, battery capacity = Very good (12 h), expandability = bad, design = bad, UI = fair, OGG support = WTF?

    And the round goes to iPod. In my work, I have tried out a huge number of iPod 'killers', and frankly they don't reach to the knees of iPod for an average person. I saw this hot chick on the tram today, she had a 2001 Creative Nomad. It was twice or three times the size of my old portable Sony CD player. Apple chose the right direction early and are now reapling the benefits.

  • Does It Sound As Cool? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @02:38PM (#10856606)
    > Does Creative Zen sound as cool as Apple iPod ?

    Hmm. "cool"? So that's how they spell "asstastic" at Creative Labs these days!

    Let's see. The iPod wins hands-down in functionality, usability, and appearance. So who cares if the Zen sounds cooler? We're only talking about audio output devic---hmm, that didn't come out quite right.

    *backpedaling furiously* Umm, I mean, they're both solid-state, so they all sound cool! And it's winter! So gimme a nice warm set of vaccuum tubes powered by a backpack-mounted car battery or give me death, man!

  • Creative has way too many staffers (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mveloso ( 325617 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @02:39PM (#10856609)
    "Currently, Creative has 600 research and development staff working on its MP3 players, and plans to hire another 300 engineers."

    This is why the Creative products will never be as good. 600 people in R&D for their player? What are all those people doing, reading fark?

    You'd think they'd hire 5 people with imagination to replace the 450 people who aren't doing anything except meeting with each other.

  • Yea, well... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by adamh526 ( 725423 )
    Unlike the iPod, however, Creative's players can play back Windows Media Audio (WMA) files sold by many of the iTunes Music Store's competitors.

    So what? Unlike the iPod, however, Creative's players CAN'T play back AAC files sold by the most popular online music store in existence!

    Illegal, immoral, or whatever, Real was on the right track. It's like trying to break Microsoft's OS monopoly: "Yea, well our OS runs the GIMP!" Unfortunately, *most* people don't care.

  • Software (Score:5, Interesting)

    by yamla ( 136560 ) <chris@@@hypocrite...org> on Thursday November 18, 2004 @02:42PM (#10856657)
    The first hard-drive based MP3 player I bought was a Creative. The second was an Apple. Why did I switch? Simple, the software that shipped with the Creative was lousy. I ended up buying the Notmad software from an independent third party and that was much better, but I really don't feel like I should have to. My MP3 player should just appear as an external hard drive in Windows, should work as easily in Linux, and the MP3 software should be of high quality as well.

    I can't say I'm particularly impressed with iTunes, mind you, but at least an iPod appears as an external drive when I plug it in. I don't need to cart around extra software to install.

  • Creatives products are junk (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ikekrull ( 59661 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @02:43PM (#10856668) Homepage
    Apple at least realises the value of solid engineering and a good user experience.

    The iPod, while not jam-packed with features, is fast and stable.

    Creatives products (at least the older ones i have seen) are slow and buggy.

    The iPod is sleek and minimalist, Creatives products are covered with chrome trim and raised, plastic buttons with a little hole you have to push a paperclip into to reset it.

    The iPod's elegance and simplicity extends to its custom written and polished software package. Creative just bundles whatever crap it can license the cheapest.

    I gladly bought an iPod, I wouldnt touch a Creative player with a ten foot pole.

  • As a person who has owned both... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by PTBNL ( 686884 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @02:45PM (#10856700) Homepage
    ...it's really no contest. I had a Creative 20 Gb Nomad Jukebox that I bought at the end of 2002. Had it for a year, and it was...serviceable. It was bulky (I know not a problem with the Zen as much), the interface was awful, and the software was beyond horrific. I got my iPod in December 2003. It's been flawless. My biggest gripe with it is shorter battery life, but that's only because I actually use it for 8 hours a day, unlike the Nomad, which was clunky in every way it was possible to be clunky. Sure, the iPod is luxury-priced, but it's worth it to me. I suppose Creative has improved their products (likely) and software (doubtful) since I last used them, but I wouldn't go back to try.

  • The problem is that... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by iamacat ( 583406 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @02:47PM (#10856727)
    Nothing is really wrong with the iPod. It's small/light/skip-protected enough for sports, holds my whole music library and looks good. Why should I buy a "me-too" product for only at most 20% less? Some ideas for creative:

    • Music/Video player/Game player with camera, gameboy-sized screen and TV output and still feasable to fit in the pocket. Will not displace iPod, but will sure have it's own market. Pictures/video at iPod original size are IMHO useless.
    • Light, small $100 device with >1GB capacity. Have no idea if that's feasable yet.
    • A cell phone with >1GB MP3 capacity which is still not too huge/heavy. Again, don't know about technology.
    • PJMS (Pure Java music store) that runs on Win95, MacOS9 or X and Linux in addition to current Microsoft offerings. Yes, DRM would be breakable, but so is Apple's [hymn-project.org]. Music downloads are still for early adopters, so supporting non-XP users could give Creative significant traction.
    • Be Creative :-)
  • Is there truly a strong market for flash-based players? I know they're low-cost, and I know Apple would not launch a new line without strong market research, but flash is expensive per Meg... can it really be significantly cheaper than the Mini, especially with a 1GB maximum?

  • Apple still needs to watch out... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Shivetya ( 243324 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @02:56PM (#10856857) Homepage Journal
    It most likely won't be Creative, at least not this year or next, but the Koreans are coming with a slew of low priced harddrive based music players. Some of the 20gb are going to be less than $200!

    I have a 3rd gen iPod and while its nice some of the accessories are just junk or wear badly, like the apple remote control.

    People too easily dismiss the competitors to the iPod while ignoring the big picture. There isn't just one iPod killer, there are dozens. One of them may just get the idea right. Look bad to the 80s when Apple was flying high with their PC. Yet there were dozens of "others" coming along using someone elses product.

    Also, don't forget there are many people who don't like Apple either and that is something many still like to ignore.

    • Re:Apple still needs to watch out... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by DLWormwood ( 154934 ) <wormwood@meCOMMA.com minus punct> on Thursday November 18, 2004 @03:18PM (#10857150) Homepage
      Also, don't forget there are many people who don't like Apple either and that is something many still like to ignore.

      As a long time Mac user and developer, I have to agree here. It seems like for every Mac zealot, there are ten anti-Mac zealots, especially in the business world. I just wish I could understand the source of this resentment; it's not like Macs are common enough to breed contempt via familiarity that Windows suffers from... And the "boycott" that the FSF once held against Apple has all but been forgotten once Apple migrated to a BSD-variant for it's OS, so it's not some kind of grudge...

      • It's because people still associate Mac with MacOS = 9. You know, the non-multitasking OS without dynamic memory allocation which totally froze when an app crashed so you had to reboot the whole computer.. That, and that it has so few games.. But the most important reason is that their friends also hate it, but they have no idea why, only that their friends' friends also hate it. And that they are expensive compared to PCs...

        I LOVE (!!) MacOS X, but I can't stand the classic OS.. I defend OS X all the time
        • t's because people still associate Mac with MacOS = 9. You know, the non-multitasking OS without dynamic memory allocation which totally froze when an app crashed so you had to reboot the whole computer..

          This would explain disparagement, but not vitriol. I actually got into an argument with an Apple-basher at college once, and it was during the System 7/Win95 era, where you concern mattered less.

          That, and that it has so few games..

          The worst flamage is in the developer and business spheres, not the h

    • "One of them may just get the idea right. Look bad to the 80s when Apple was flying high with their PC."

      Flawed analogy, Apple didn't dominate the PC market as it does in HD-based players today. It had good marketshare, but not overwhelming.

  • I own an iPod, and I have to say that the wheel on the front is just brilliant. I have played with the Zen and it's a nice player, but that slider just isn't as good as the iPod wheel.

    The other issue I think we have is iTunes. Most other players rely on MusicMatch Jukebox or WMP to work, both of which are not as easy as iTunes is. If Creative wants a change, they don't need to make an "iPod killer", they need to make an "iTunes killer."

  • Why Flash? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by meehawl ( 73285 ) <{moc.liamg} {ta} {todhsals+maps.lwaheem}> on Thursday November 18, 2004 @03:04PM (#10856965) Homepage Journal
    You know up till quite recently Apple was all about saying over and over "Flash Sucks". Jobs made a point of dissing the Flash players during the interviews around the iPod Mini launch, even toting them on stage like trophies. And of course all the loyal Apple Maniacs went around repeating his NO FLASH mantra as if it were natural law.

    I notice recently the anti-Flash hype within Apple has settled down to imperceptible...

    The biggest argument made is that disk is cheaper for lots of storage. Well Flash is definitely not cheaper, but it does offer a different kind of convenience.

    Say Apple sold a Flash player for $100 with minimal memory bundled but with an SD/CF slot.

    Now, you can buy 1GB CF cards for arounnd $50 these days, and 1GB SD cards for around $60. And I've seen them go for $40 after rebate. Afvter rebate prices basically presage the sticker price in 4 months time...

    So if you sell $100 iPods to "kids" or people who don't want to plunk down a larger bag of cash at once, then you can lock them in by selling them an "upgrade" 1GB (or the forthcoming 2Gb cards) for around $50 every few months.

    Carrying around several SD cards is no big deal, they are tiny. You can get a caddy that holds 10Gb and is smaller than the end of your thumb.

    Organizing different artists or genres on different cards also offers an easy, physical way for people to manage their collections without resorting to extreme tagging and playlist noodling.

    One advantage of the Flash media model is also that the price of "upgrades" basically halves every 9 months or so. So if you don't want to add 5GB now, you can settle for adding only 1GB, knowing that in a year's time you could spend the same amount of money for another 2GB.

    Consider also the possible business advantages of selling these low-end cards for Apple. The selling price of the cards could be subsidized by including bundled songs for a fee - a great way for record companies to distribute new music gratis. Or snippets of songs as adverts, jungles, or ringtones. This could lower the retail price of an Apple-branded "media card" by 10-20%.

    Yes, even given the continued growth in capacity of flash media, they will never equal the price or capacity of hard disk media. However, at what point does enough space become too much? Lots of people seem to be happy with their iPod Minis, and they have a tiny capacity compared to some other options available.

    It seems like lots of people are happy with just a few GB of music "on-hand" at any time. Hell, people get by with 256MB players! When and if Flash capacities reach the 4GB mark for $50 (I give it two years tops) then wouldn't a lot of the people who currently buy iPod Minis also consider a similar, half-priced iPod Flash?

    That's a big market opportunity any way you slice it.

    Of course, to really slim down Apple will have to do something about the iconic wheel interface. It's a nice design but it does take up a lot of front space on the device and constrains the screen size. Look at the iPod Photo - it's screen is lame and tiny ans resembles the old Archos Muldimedia players from a few years ago. At that time everyone lambasted them for releasing a "multimedia" player with such ridiculously tiny screens.

    But Archos was just not thinking far ahead and went with maintaining their familiar audio jukebox interface. They learned from their mistake and upped the screen size on the newer models to take up most of the front panel.

    What is the option for Apple? If they want to keep the wheel but shrinkthe devices *and* make the screen larger then they have to either A) put the wheel on the backside of the device, trusting users to navigate by touch, or B) convert the wheel into a software-simulation using on-screen display.

    Apple has invested a lot of marketing collateral in their wheel design but it does constrain their effectiveness going forwward in a shrink of the iPod form factor for Flash sizes, especially for Asian markets where smaller is definitely much much better!
    • Hey, maybe what Apple's going to do is sell a flash player with a card slot, then sell preloaded flash cards. THAT would be a great idea for the industry. Slap in U2's new album, then slap in "1,000 metal hits," "1,000 easy listening tunes," etc.

      Just imagine the market for custom card mixes. Damn!

      That would totally change the music industry.

      I'm sure the Apple guys thought of it already. No patent for me :(

    • Why is nobody seeing the obvious here? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by alispguru ( 72689 ) <bob,bane&me,com> on Thursday November 18, 2004 @04:38PM (#10858165) Journal
      All the rumors about flash iPods have the word "cheap" in them somewhere. Now, everybody think back to the period before the iPod mini was released - remember all the rumors back then said the mini was going to be "cheap".

      What did we get? A smaller form factor, same storage as the original iPod, not "cheap" ... and Apple sold a zillion of them.

      People, Apple doesn't do cheap. The main reason Jobs dumps on flash MP3 players is they're too small - not enough room for a significant fraction of most people's music library. If there is anything to the flash iPod rumors, what do you bet it'll be a 4GB flash device, costing $250? And it'll be half the size of an iPod mini? And Apple will sell a zillion of them?

  • Citation, Please? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DLWormwood ( 154934 ) <wormwood@meCOMMA.com minus punct> on Thursday November 18, 2004 @03:08PM (#10857026) Homepage
    blitz to 'regain its rightful place in the audio industry' by trying to dominate the MP3 market

    Where did this quote come from? If it was said by somebody at Creative, that shows a remarkable sense of hubris and entitlement that is out of place in a competitive marketplace.

    Just because you were first major player in the MP3 player market doesn't mean you are entitled to stay there. Look at Apple, they were first to the mass market with a GUI-based computer, and they didn't maintain any dominance there, did they? Apple's not even your real enemy; their iTunes player supported the Rio series in the early days, and still supports many of them on the Mac platform. Apple chose the high end player space; Creative chose the low end. Apple got lucky this time around. No sense whining about it...

  • You know Creative used to have a virtual monopoly on ugly pimpified mp3 players. For years iPod fashionistas were able to hew to the purity of the white form. Endless tedious column inches were spewed in blogs and media about the flawless design purity of the iPod. They were, of course, ignoring the popularity of variously coloured covers and after-market skins for the iPod. And the iPod's slow drift into chromism...

    Then came the first rift in the iPod's White Power Ideology: the iPod Mini. Suddenly it was available in, let's face it, some pretty girly pastels and the Cult of iPod had to adapt to pay homage to this new reality.

    But now there's the U2 iPod. Black and Red. A testament to gaudy ugliness. It's like the A-Team Van was recycled with go-faster stripes. It out-blacks the iRivers and out-pimps the Creatives. Apple has definitely made a land grab for the ugly mp3 territory. Creative can no longer claim the Ugly Throne.

    Well done. I hope the iPod Flash comes in hot pink.

  • UI/marketing (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @03:31PM (#10857317) Homepage Journal
    Apple's iPod dominates the MP3 player market because Apple made a player that was easy to use. No inner gizzards, no tricky new skills. Just a sleek, simple looking device that plays music. Most people don't really even know what an "MP3" is; certainly they don't know that the iPod plays AAC. Apple remains the master of selling comfort to the mass market, which is delivered with style as a method, not compensation for some defect (except perhaps the price). Let's see an "MP3" war between Creative and Apple, and may the easiest player win.

  • Why I own an iPod (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jayloden ( 806185 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @09:56PM (#10861016)
    Ok, I used to be an Apple hater. I really didn't like the company, I didn't like the products, and I was sick and freakin tired of hearing that the iPod was the only good mp3 player in the world.

    So, when I decided I wanted a portable hard drive and music player in one, I looked at everything EXCEPT the iPod. In fact, I flat out refused to buy an iPod. I looked at the iRiver, the iAudio, and the Creative Nomad. (does every player need an "i" in front of it?). And you know what happened? I couldn't find a single player that did the following: play music, mount as a USB mass storage device, and have an interface that didnt suck. They all either had a horrifyingly proprietary setup (needs drivers just to mount it as a drive), or they had an interface that was either crappy, or just plain cheap (I'm talking to you, iRiver).

    Finally, my dad gave me an iPod for my birthday, and you know what? I couldn't find anything to whine about. It did everything I wanted it to do, and it's engineered really well, and it was smaller, to boot. It even made me have an open mind, and I've come to respect Apple products. What I'm trying to say is, yeah, the iPod isn't the only player on the market, and even I'm sick of hearing about it, but for god's sake, somebody, PLEASE, make an alternative that just plays music and acts as a hard drive. Is that too much to ask?

    -Jay

  • Not! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rspress ( 623984 ) on Saturday November 20, 2004 @04:33AM (#10873344) Homepage
    If Creative wants to get more of the market from the iPod they are going to have to do a few things, some of which they probably won't do, so the are doomed to fail from the start.

    1. Quit making cheap, crappy players. Since they don't understand what makes the iPod so popular this one is going to be a big hurdle.

    2. Better device firmware. If you have thousands of songs you need a easy way to manage and access those songs. Another big hurdle.

    3. Design. They are hit and miss here. Make it cool like a mac, don't make it like a PC.

    4. Mac Software. This one will kill them. Creative has missed so many opportunities to sell Mac product. Their outboard USB sound "cards" are a prime example. With just some simple software drivers their line of Exitgy and Audigy could have easily been Mac compatible. M-Audio is now making cash with basically the same thing. If they are not going to make Mac software then they will probably use some third party software like musicmatch for their PC jukebox software and not support the Mac at all.

    With all the money they are throwing at it they could do it right....but past experience show, they won't.

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