iDon't and ipods

Published on June 7, 2006 By cactoblasta In Personal Computing

I don't know if you've seen it, but there's an ad campaign coming out of the US based on this concept: Link

It's a good idea, but it's basically flawed. You see, I'm a bit of an ipod junkie. I think they look cool, they work well and I don't really give a shit about their price when they work so seemlessly with the iTunes store (at the moment the best music store on the Australian market).

I like the i'don't campaign. It's cheeky, it's got some cool designs, some good ideas. But in typical pretentious apple-junkie fashion I think there's nothing better than the irony of wearing conflicting messages. So I'm going to get their ape design printed on a t-shirt, because it rocks, but I'm not about to go to some dubious brand with a completely different (and hard to play on a Mac) format just because the campaign is good.

If other manufacturers really want to grab some market share, they need to get formats worked out and slap some heads in the record industry to get the music supply worked out. Because there's no way I'm switching to another brand when I'll have to burn 6 gigs of itunes protected music to cd first before I can use the new player.

Which is a shame really, because it is a good campaign, and although the advertised player looks like shit, there are some very cool looking WMA players out there. Just a shame it'd be a pain in the arse to use them.

Comments

Hippie

on Jun 10, 2006

I don't have an iPod. Don't want one. About 4 years ago I bought a RCA LYRA. 40gigs.. $159.95. It has a cassette to go into my car to play the music through my car. It plays anything I put in it, and it all sounds damn good, so $400 for an iPod. I don't think so.

Hippie

on Jun 10, 2006

I don't own an Ipod. Don't plan on buying one. About 4 or 5 years ago, I bought a RCA LYRA. 40 gigs. It has a cassette to put in my car to listen to it there. It cost $159.95 It plays anything I put in it WMA, MP3 whatever. I have around 9Gigs of music on it, and for the life of me, I can't see paying $400 for a damn iPod, and getting my music from them. Mine has shuffle. sound enhancemet, equalizer, and makes all the sound the same sound, so one is not louder than the other. iPod. No

messybuu

on Jun 11, 2006

I think it's funny how the alternative to the iPod looks like a cheap rip-off of an iPod. I don't think a company can make a decent competitor to the iPod. It's going to take a collaborative effort by many companies to create one series of MP3 players integrated well into one music service like the iPod+iTunes combination. I doubt that'll happen as each company thinks it can beat the iPod on its own.

"About 4 or 5 years ago, I bought a RCA LYRA. 40 gigs. It has a cassette to put in my car to listen to it there. It cost $159.95 It plays anything I put in it WMA, MP3 whatever."

RCA must be a stupid company. They release a 40 GB MP3 player for 160 when MP3 players are still relatively new, and what do they do? 5 years later, they release a 20 GB multimedia player for more than twice that price (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1943243,00.asp)! Sure, it can play video now, but my iPod can do so too and has a 30GB storage and cost only 300 dollars. Playing video isn't worth a slash in space and a double in price.

Adamness

on Jun 11, 2006

I think it's funny how the alternative to the iPod looks like a cheap rip-off of an iPod.

What else would they look like? All mp3 players will be a thin rectangle with a screen and some buttons. And which alternative? There are a ton of flash-based mp3 players.

The Creative Zen M and new Toshiba Gigabeat look pretty cool for hard drive-based players, and iPod competitors. Archos makes some great audio and video players. The RCA looks interesting too. I had an Archos mp3 player for a couple years, until I painted it with acrylic paint and killed it.

I happen to think the Archos Gmini400 is the one to get, since people over at gmini400.com have put a NES, original Doom, and Game Boy emulator on it, plus a bunch of other apps.

The new Gigabeat seems to be able to integrate with Windows and WMP, just as the iPod does with iTunes.

I still never understood why there is such a focus of mp3 players playing video. Who wants to watch a movie, tv show, or anything on such a tiny screen? I'd probably go blind.

cactoblasta

on Jun 11, 2006

It plays anything I put in it WMA, MP3 whatever.

So you're basically in the same situation as me but from the other direction - I can't play iTunes music on a non-iTunes player, so I'm not exactly going to go to the effort of burning to CD and then ripping back just to switch brands. Oh, and good find with your player - 40 gig was decent for a harddrive on a PC 5 years ago. You must have been lucky to get that kind of size on an MP3 player!

What else would they look like? All mp3 players will be a thin rectangle with a screen and some buttons. And which alternative? There are a ton of flash-based mp3 players.

Apart from the Zen they're all pretty ugly though - usually just cubes or rectangles. Where's the innovation? Apple's got the rectangular credit card player perfected and their white earbuds are iconic. From the package to the marketing everything is consistent and everything screams class. Other MP3 player companies are going to have to find a way to create their own unique feel if they want to claw out a niche.

Hippie

on Jun 13, 2006

Actually, I bought a Creative Zen, with video. 20gigs. I got about 10 blocks down the road thinking I'm not going to watch video's, so I turned around and bought the last RCA LYRA they had.

RCA must be a stupid company. They release a 40 GB MP3 player for 160 when MP3 players are still relatively new, and what do they do? 5 years later, they release a 20 GB multimedia player for more than twice that price.

This may be true, but it plays all my music, and I don't have to get them from Apple.

By the way, they are hooked to Bose speakers and it sounds great.

MasonM

on Jun 13, 2006

I don't own an MP3 player, just have had a need for one.

I did see something that kind of amused me in a truckstop a couple of weeks ago. It was a pair of sunglasses with an MP3 player built into the ear pieces.

cactoblasta

on Jun 13, 2006

Ah yes, the Oakleys. I was interested in getting them until I saw how distorted they looked with the earbuds and everything sticking out.

The way I see it if you're going to buy online music you should get an ipod. No other music store I've seen has the same collection. If you're just going to listen to stuff you've bought on cd or otherwise acquired you may as well get a moderately cheap mp3 player.

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