Apple to Face iPod Clone Attack 394
chr1sb writes "The Age has a commentary piece outlining how Apple's domination of the online media market is continuing to grow, but speculating that significant competition from the likes of Nokia and Motorola will rapidly relegate Apple's presence in the market to a corner, just as clone manufacturing of IBM PCs dominated the initial success of the Macintosh. From the article: 'The iPod/iTunes system will move into a niche with Macintosh computers because Steve Jobs has again stuck with closed architecture and total control. This will happen quickly because mobile phones are being turned over about every year.'."
So are iPods. (Score:5, Insightful)
Given the buying habits of people I know with the devices, so are iPods.
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Re:So are iPods. (Score:5, Insightful)
"mobile phones are going to kill off the gameboy" - it never happened.
at the end of the day people buy something for one task because it makes the interface simpler. sure my mobile can play mp3s but i'd much rather have something which is designed to play music as its sole function. just look at another example: camera phones. my phone can take pictures but the interface is clunky and the quality sucks. i dont know anyone who wouldn't prefer using a simple digital camera.
its a jack of all trades but master of none situation.
From TFA (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, and an Xbox will have to become a Playstation, lions will lay down with lambs, and Apple will be forced to give up on OSX and move to Windows.
I have a phone already. I have an iPod.
While The Age is usually a good read ... I call BS (Score:3, Insightful)
Alan Kohler's piece in The Age just seems to be an unfocused piece of non-analysis. What was the point of all this? A warning against the siren call of the little white box? A broad survey of the digital media playback marketplace?
Oh, I see ... after a paean to Apple's iPod (well, he seems like a happy customer), he goes all gloom and doom as he thinks the mobile phone operators will be chomping on the iPod for their din din. Right.
Of course that's real perspective on the way the market is going, but Kohler doesn't provide and facts, figures, reasoned arguments, etc ... And someone needs to submit this to the Apple Deathwatch folks from TFA: "It is quite a thrilling time to be alive. We will witness the creation and destruction of a market dominance in the time it used to take to work up a business plan." Sure, um, ok.
Please, lets try not to promote, sloppy, lazy journalism and opinion pieces ... Kohler's sub should have sent this story back.
Didnt Motorola and Apple work together? (Score:2, Insightful)
Correct me if I'm wrong (about my argument or the phones), but that looks more like cooperation than competition...
"Killer app" (Score:5, Insightful)
iPod connects to iTunes, which does an excellent job of managing your music.
iTunes connects to the iTunes Music Store, which is a cheap(ish) and easy way to get tracks, as well as easily manage podcasts and subscriptions - if TV shows were available in the UK, I'd be using iTunes to get them, almost definitely.
iTMS connects with pretty much ALL the major music companies, so that when you buy tracks from X, it suggests Y and Z, which you may be interested in.
The combination of all of the above leads to Apple not only having market share, but DESERVING market share - their products are good, and if anyone comes up to me wanting to get into online music, I suggest iPod everytime.
However, as others have said, Ogg Vorbis support should be in iTunes, and either converted within iTunes or playable on the iPod. I can't see it happening anytime soon though
lock in (Score:5, Insightful)
People have already bought a massive amount of music through itunes. Thus for those with an itunes locked in collection, it will need to be compatible with Apples DRM. So sony and motorola have to either partner with Apple, figure out a way to migrate Apples DRMed files to their service without an Apple partnership, or go after those individuals which have yet to purchase music through itunes, or who went with one of the competing services.
LetterRip
Re:But, But, But ... (Score:5, Insightful)
that's half the storage of my *current* iPod. and I hope they're going to have support for podcasts, photos, videos etc.... actually, forget that, what about the chance that it'll even sync with my mac in the first place, let alone not requiring me to use it's own ugly little app that messes everything about?
>One device in my pocket or two? It's a no-brainer if you ask me.
twice the battery life in my pocket or not? imo it's a bad idea to converge devices that have different usage patterns. for example phone: always on, with occasional high usage, always with me. ipod: usually off with regular high usage, usually with me but I like being able to NOT take it everywhere. also, phone battery life can be important in emergencies, ipod battery life is just entertainment. my ability to use a converged device would be restricted by needing to ensure enough battery life remaining for emergencies; my ipod can run dry if I so choose.
I'd probably get an iPhone, but not because it's a converged device, but because it'd probably be a very high quality "just works" phone with complete mac compatibility.
Re:Cry more please (Score:4, Insightful)
Er... Isn't that exactly what Jobs is saying by having private file formats and DRM?
TWW
Problem.... (Score:5, Insightful)
To truely integrate a iPod and a cellphone, it would have to be as large as my last analog only cell phone which was quite large (I lived for a while without a phone). The reason is for the battery. The biggest thing holding a converged mp3 player and cell phone back is the battery. Only fuel cell tech or an advancement in bettery technology will drive this.
Re:"Killer app" (Score:3, Insightful)
You're quite right about the iPod/iTunes integration. I used to hate iTunes and tried every solution out there for managing my iPod as effectively. I suppose I only had that viewpoint because it defaults to my docs\my music as your music folder, not defaults to "my docs\my music or select some other folder", and I couldn't figure out within ten seconds how to change it and add my library from elsewhere (well, that and it made a huge hellish mess of id3 tags once I did get stuff added, because apparently apps can't decide whether to take a logical approach first for artist\album\trackname.ext and fill in the gaps or something to that effect). Once I took a couple hours and got all of my music tagged and labelled properly within iTunes, I can't believe how long I went without it. Connect iPod, syncs, disconnects, charges while still connected. How simple and intuitive. Certainly easier than the drag-and-drop that most geeks seem to like. I too suggest the iPod, not because of it's style (I could mostly care less, it usually lives in my pocket) but because of ease-of-use. Easy to find songs in iTunes, easy though somewhat slower to find songs on the iPod. Playlists are certainly simple enough. Being the town geek, it means less support calls, which is nice.
Re:So are iPods. (Score:3, Insightful)
You also miss an obvious point: camera phones can't take pictures as well as stand alone cameras can. iPods are nothing more than digital media storage devices with an interesting interface and an earphone plug.
iPods are winning the war right now because they're a neat fad item with a decent interface and they hold a ton more data than most cell phones. But what happens when affordable flash media starts holding 10-20 gigs? Still want to bet on the iPod's supremacy when Joe Sixpack will be able to walk by a Cingular kisok and pick up a phone that has that kind of storage, no DRM lock-in, and a service plan that makes it cost about a hundred bucks?
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Why why why... (Score:5, Insightful)
It says:
"The only place you can easily buy material for your iPod, as opposed to stealing it, is the iTunes online store."
and refers to it as a "closed system".
Total nonsense. You can "easily by material for your iPod" on CD. Or, you know, from that dodgy Russian MP3 store.
But it's by no means a "closed system". I have 2,000 songs on my iPod and a total of 12 are from the iTMS.
Dear Mr. Alan Kohler (Score:4, Insightful)
When Nokia and Motorola make a phone that's as easy to use as an iPod (have you seen mobile phone menus?), is as simple as an iPod (have you seen mobile phone navigation?), is as reliable as an iPod (my brand new Sony Ericsson crashes every 3 days, my previous Nokia would crash every two weeks or so), with the battery life of an iPod (how long does your phone last while playing sounds? mine lasts about 1 and half hours max), the capacity of an iPod (this one I belive will happen sooner than the rest) and the tight integration with iTunes, which is god's gift to music store software and jukeboxes, then I'll believe an article that an Australian hack in Melbourne wrote on the day of the Melbourne Formula one.
Sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
Who needs that much space. Yeah right. I have heard that one ever since I bought a HD floppy.
There have always been devices that do it all and there have always been devices that do one thing only.
There are washing machines that can also function as a dryer. Funny thing, do you know you can still buy JUST washing machines + a seperate spin dryer + a seperate warm air dryer?
Yes thats right, spin dryers still exist despite the fact that nearly every washing machine can do it that function nowadays. Just not as well as a true purpose spin dryer.
Oh and the whole camera phone argument is faulty. NOBODY uses a camera phone as a replacement for a regular phone. The camera phone is the replacement of the throwaway/rented camera. Its function is to be always with you for those moments when you do not have a regular camera with you.
In fact that is the function of all the extra's on the mobile phone. Games? Fun for when you got your phone but not a real game system. Calendar? Usefull for when you do not got access to your real calendar. Music? Nice for when you forgot your real music player.
Offcourse some people will be happy with the limited capabilities that their phone offers them. Just as some people are happy with a 10 dollar MP3 player they got from the bargain bin.
That is not Apples market. Apples market is what used to be the Walkman->Minidisc/CD-man market. They effectivly replaced sony for portable audio.
Oh and if you think your phone MP3 players is not going to have DRM your insane.
Re:So are iPods. (Score:3, Insightful)
Nor do I. And yet, most people (apart from photography enthusiasts) just seem to use their phone instead anyway. It's more convenient. Why carry a camera around when you've got one in your phone? Take a camera if you know you'll be taking photos, sure - to a wedding or whatever. But if you've got one in your phone, suddenly you have a camera with you all the time, and you don't need to make any special effort to bring one.
Who will take the first photos and videos of the next major unexpected newsworthy event? Members of the general public, that's who - and they'll take them on their mobile phones. That's what happened with the bombings in London last July. Welcome to the future.
And there are people who use their phone to take photos who would never have considered buying a digital camera. There's a huge market of people who will refuse to buy a dedicated device just to try out a new service, but who might well use the service if it was supported by a device they're going to buy anyway.
BTW, here are some capital letters for you: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ. Sprinking them into your comments in appropriate places will make what you write easier to read. If copying and pasting is too much effort, I believe you can also generate them by holding down the "shift" key while typing a letter.
iPod to face Competion funded Media attack (Score:2, Insightful)
Should become "Apple's iPod survives sustained Clone funded Media Attack"
'nuf said.
Re:But, But, But ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, first of all the iPod market isn't about storage, the Nano (and former mini) segment wouldn't be the best selling iPod niche if it was. So the storage doesn't matter that much to the public, that's been proven.
What did we see with the iPod? That what mattered was the interface. iPods are sleek, beautiful, and dead simple to use. A cell phone is, basically, a cell phones. I has a dozen keys already just for the phone functions which need easy access. You won't get a simple mp3 player interface on a cell phone, ever. And simple interface and stunning user experience is what the iPod is based on and what made it's success! Apple wasn't the first on the mp3-player market. It's never been a leader technology-wise (low number of supported formats, low number of functions), it's rarely been the smallest available, it's probably the less open player out there. But. It's. Easy. To. Use. And it just looks great.
On top of that, cell phones are currently unable to feature near the autonomy they'd need. Add an mp3 player without changing the battery? You're looking at a 20h autonomy if you don't actually phone anyone there matey, looking forward to that? i'm not.
Re:So are iPods. (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Cell phone companies are 10 times worse than Apple or MSFT when it comes to vendor lock-in. if you buy a cingluar phone it will only play music from cingular. They are already doing such things with their vcast, and TV on the road setups.
2)Cell Phones have horrible battery life as it is. you start watching tv or listening to music during lunch you may not be able to make that important business call at 3pm.
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BS (Score:2, Insightful)
It might be true for current gadgets, but I don't see why it will be true for future gadgets. Is this just lack of fantasy on your side?
I have no problem imagining a single gadget the size of a 9 volt battery that does everything very well and then some, including serving web pages and running seti@home, all while fed by a betavoltaic batery that lasts 20 years. Actually, looking back at the last 20 years, I find this all rather plausible, and I am only annoyed by the wait.
Re:So are iPods. (Score:4, Insightful)
You mean different DRM locking, don't you? Do you think the **AA companies will allow DRM free stuff? I hope that France DOES pass their new law and many others follow suit. It would mean the end of all DRM. The companies would then learn that sales are even higher than before. Most people will pay for their things, rather than walking out the door without paying, especially if the prices are reasonable.
Re:Apple doesn't need Ogg Vorbis. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:So are iPods. (Score:2, Insightful)
If the phone people continue to make a UI and sync experience that looks and behaves like ass, then I'll still place my bet with Apple. I don't own an ipod, but I have owned many mobile phones, and I still think phone designers don't have a clue.
Re:Apple doesn't need Ogg Vorbis. (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not sure if you're being deliberately obtuse or if English is not your first language....
Anyway, a little lesson for you.
How would you define "premier"?
Words by themselves have meanings, but when you use words in sentences, they gain more meaning through context.
So, saying "The premier nerd music format" is different to saying "The premier music format."
So - what we're talking about is the music format geeks, prefer, reccommend, hack around and play with.
I think that's probably mp3 (but I'm a geek who's interested in portability), the person you replied to might consider ogg to be the premier geek format (especially if they're say, games developers and don't want to pay a license fee for in game music, or any thing else that requires a cheap, open codec). Other geeks s, (like you presumably) would consider music quality the most important factor (altough most of the lossless camp are using flac or shn as far as I can tell).
Re:Cry more please (Score:1, Insightful)
Last I checked, apple doesn't insist on fairplay being used with every song played on an ipod.
People have been throwing around... (Score:3, Insightful)
When you cram the functionality of a handful of different devices into a single form factor, you get something that does a lot of jobs poorly due to the inherent compromises that must be made. Word quickly gets out, and the product dies. The most glaring example I can think of right now is the original N-Gage.
History has shown that despite what the asshole markeeters claim as they try to cram "convergence" down our throats, people don't mind carrying multiple single-purpose devices that do their jobs very well-- especially if the alternative is a piece of shit that almost does everything they need it to do.
~Philly
camera quality, features; combine PDAs (Score:3, Insightful)
Because there are times when a mediocre quality picture with no zoom is acceptable for a few one-off pictures.
The camera phone is increasing in pixels, but still has poor quality, lots of digital enhancements rather than using quality optics, a poor interface, lack of features, lack of flash, lack of any optical zoom, red eye removal, etc.
Having a few bells and whistles is always a plus, but in the end, a phone needs to work. Combining a phone and a PDA is a great idea, as the device is always on you and there's a lot of cross (address books for example). Crossing the camera is for the occasional time when you need to grab a picture (insurance, profile picture, fully scene, etc) where you wouldn't carry a camera... but don't think for a second that you can replace a camera with a phone.
-M
iPod is safe (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft has implemented their "play anywhere" USB interface, and some car stereo makers are starting to implement it. Eventually, it will provide an alterenative to the iPod dock, but it looks to be somewhere in 2007 before it achieves any uptake.
The catch is that the "generic" MP3 player makers will be fighting each other on price, while Apple will be able to maintain much better margins on the iPod. So the iPod will eventually drop some market share, but it will remain profitable for Apple. Meanwhile, Creative and iRiver and all the others will be beating their brains out trying to undercut each other.
He who owns the interface owns the market. I didn't say it's good, it's just a fact of life.
Re:Apple doesn't need Ogg Vorbis. (Score:3, Insightful)
- Just because vorbis is a non-issue to Apple, doesn't mean it is a non-issue to me. I have no problem with the perfectly valid and obvious fact that Apple cares not about the vorbis niche market, but I get annoyed when people suggest that *I* should support Apple's position.
- Many people right now are already playing Ogg Vorbis files on Apple iPods using the Rockbox [rockbox.org] firmware. This is the real reason why Apple doesn't need Ogg Vorbis: the geeks can make iPods play vorbis files anyway, whether Apple likes it or not.
Apple deserves credit for making good hardware and parlaying it into good market share. Despite all your naysaying, iPods are going to be the most popular vorbis player in the world, thanks to their market share. That's because even the free software community pays attention to market share when deciding where to focus their coding efforts.Re:its a classic two product lockin (Score:2, Insightful)
There are these things called compact disks......
Re:Cry more please (Score:2, Insightful)
90% of what market? Music? MP3 players? DRM? Got any links to back that up?
Can't be the music market, because the last time I checked, online music accounts for roughly 6% of all music sales. So what...? I can now sue Netflix now because they control the vast majority of online movie rental.. mailing...uh video... something?
DRM? Again, Apple doesn't ship 90% of systems shipping with DRM. Windows DRM and DVD-CSS certainly exceed Apple's insignificant share of the market there...
MP3 players? Ok, you got me there. Apple sells so many iPods, part suppliers can't keep up with demand forcing smaller players to pay higher prices for what little is left. Bad Apple, bad! Stop selling things people want!
Easy to use software *IS* special! (Score:4, Insightful)
"Do people really think that apple having "easy" to use software is so special? Nothing Apple does is really all that unique, it's just a matter of quantities of production and spending the time to develop the interface right."
And that *is* unique. The UI on most cell phones suck. I don't know one software engineer with a cell phone who wouldn't pay a reasonable amount of money to get the firmware source code - even if only for the UI part of things - so that they could hack a decent UI onto the thing.
I haven't seen one cell phone with a decent UI (or I'd own the thing, no matter who I had to sign up with to get it).
-- Terry