Belkin Responds to iPod Media Reader Concerns

[MacRumors]

iPodLounge posts (http://www.ipodlounge.com/ipodnews_comments.php?id=1750_0_7_0_M) an official response from Belkin regarding concerns about the slow transfer speeds for the recently released iPod Media Reader.

In regards to your questions, Belkin does not have any plans to modify the hardware design of the Media Reader for iPod in the immediate future. The current product balances several hardware considerations, including street price, transfer speed, battery life and portability, with software considerations.

An early DPreview review (http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1023&message=6403600) of the media reader had reported 300kBps transfer speeds

[gandalf55]

wtf does that mean. slow is slow. i guess slow is okay if the images are smaller? i suppose we get our beer faster if our mugs are smaller too huh?

[idkew]

its half-assed stuff like this that will ruin a product.

people who NEED this are people who shoot lots of large photos. full speed transfers are necessary for them.

for casual people, this may be good, but a casual person prolly does not need 10-40GB of photo storage space.

i know there are alternatives to an ipod as a storage device, but there is no reason it can't go full speed.

[mvc]

Hmm, I wonder if these crappy non apple peripherals are just a stop gap.

This unwillingness to produce more sophisticated products rather than a conspicuous kludge could be an indicator that Apple might be going to enhance the iPod itself or perhaps make their own peripherals, and Belkin doesn't want to invest heavily in a short term market.

It seems odd that Apple haven't branded their own microphone at least, despite the fact that the whole concept of detachable and easily misplaced peripherals probably runs counter to their design ethos with the ipod.

Maybe the real reason there is no Apple Mic is because they are building one into the next revision.

That won't help much with the card reader, but what about a direct camera connection through the usb/firewire connector, and the software to go with it (imagecapture lite?) - that sounds more like Apple than a slab of white plastic almost a big as the iPod and ugly as my *ss!

[ITR 81]

I want something that transfer files pretty quickly and thats what I wanted from Belkin..maybe someone will make a faster one.

[SiliconAddict]

Am planning on a 1st quarter 2004 iPod purchase. I was also planning on getting this accessory simply because I'm a major shutterbug. But 300KB/S? With an average pict being about 2.5MB in size and 40 picts per card? Screw that. I'll keep my computer and my PCMCIA adabter with me. Too slow. WAY to slow. :mad:

[ITR 81]

Most compact flash cards are at 1-2GB but if it takes over hr to download to my iPod I'd rather just buy another 1GB compact flash card. I want firewire 400 or 800 transfer rates!!!

[idkew]

Originally posted by ITR 81
Most compact flash cards are at 1-2GB but if it takes over hr to download to my iPod I'd rather just buy another 1GB compact flash card. I want firewire 400 or 800 transfer rates!!!

ummm... sorry to burst your bubble, but most cf cards are prolly 32mb, maybe even 16mb.

[Le Big Mac]

Originally posted by ITR 81
Most compact flash cards are at 1-2GB but if it takes over hr to download to my iPod I'd rather just buy another 1GB compact flash card. I want firewire 400 or 800 transfer rates!!!

Yeah, but can those memory cards be read at FW speeds? Doubtful

[Superdrive]

I believe what the previous poster was sayin is that he can get CF cards that are as large as 1-2GB.

Since I am an aviaton photographer, I need speed. I was looking into upgrading my 2G iPod up to 3G so I can use such an attachment. The speed of this device, or lack thereof, does not work for the people it was intended for. People who need 10-40 GB of storage that pay $100 for a reader will not accept 300Kbps. Sorry Belkin, you are losing big sales. Hopefully Apple opens the door on 4G iPods.:)

[merge]

I just don't see the point of these anyway..
why do I need this? I can spend that money on another 256mb card..

I really doubt most ipod owners will get to the point where they burn up the 256 MB's of memory..

true it is nice for peoploe who have a 16, or 32 MB card.. but with the price of memory recently.. why not just buy a 256 MB card for the same price of this reader..

it was a dumb idea.

[CrackedButter]

Originally posted by idkew
ummm... sorry to burst your bubble, but most cf cards are prolly 32mb, maybe even 16mb.

*Looks at the 256mb cf card in his hand, looks at magazine with advert for a 512mb model*

[Lancetx]

This is obviously designed for the typical consumer that might want to dump a full 128MB card on an iPod and not for a pro with their 1GB Microdrive. If you're a "pro" just get a FW card reader and an iBook if you need to transfer a large volume of photos while out on a shoot.

Now having said that, I don't see how an expensive peripheral like this will sell too well since it isn't targeted toward professionals. Most people with their 128-256MB CF cards aren't going to want to spend $99 for something like this thing that they won't use very often at all anyway. Besides, you can get a FW card reader for much less than that.

[mmcxiiad]

so let me see if i really understand what belkin is saying:

"We made it slow becouse we wanted to conserve battery life and make it portable"

That is the biggest load that i have ever heard. In essense, becouse the transfer speed is so slow, it will take forever to copy the images to my ipod. While i am thrilled with thier efforts to conserve battery life, won't it waste more battery during the time of use to transfer my 512mb card? Here is what i think the real situation is... buy our media reader.... and while you are at it you better buy our portable battery pack becouse your media reader is going to waste all 9 hours just to copy your card.

this is either very poor planing or a huge marketing ploy

[merge]

Originally posted by Superdrive
I believe what the previous poster was sayin is that he can get CF cards that are as large as 1-2GB.

Since I am an aviaton photographer, I need speed. I was looking into upgrading my 2G iPod up to 3G so I can use such an attachment. The speed of this device, or lack thereof, does not work for the people it was intended for.

You are an aviation photographer.. and you want to use an ipod as storage?

This was not aimed at professional photographers.. it is a novelty item that people will say "oh cool" and then say "why the hell did i buy this"

you can buy a faster card reader and hook it right up to a computer for like $20.

[nycmacartist]

Some of these add ons are like putting BF Goodrich's on your new Porsche.
Apple really needs to do their own.

[poultryfarm]

Originally posted by mvc
Maybe the real reason there is no Apple Mic is because they are building one into the next revision.

bingo! my thoughts exactly

[singletrack]

Originally posted by idkew
ummm... sorry to burst your bubble, but most cf cards are prolly 32mb, maybe even 16mb.

Maybe in the camera you buy to start off with but that's not going to last you very long on today's 4 and 5+ million pixel cameras.

And Pros would really love to carry around a laptop as well as all the kit they normally carry, sure!

The photographers we used on the mountain bike mag I published would have just loved to have bike around the hills with a laptop on their back as well as the two pro slr bodies, 4 lenses, battery packs and convertors. It's only another 5lbs of expensive fragile electronics afterall.

Even I manage to get through a couple of 128MB cards in a day out on a bike ride at semi-publishable image quality on my 'dinky' olympus. Being able to download to an iPod and shoot some more would be extremely useful.

I don't see why I need a card reader at all though. Surely I should be able to just plug the iPod into the cameras USB port? Come on Apple, upgrade your software.

[nycmacartist]

"Maybe the real reason there is no Apple Mic is because they are building one into the next revision."

That's the way to go. I think Dell has that.
______________
Macosrumors is threatening to update.

[Steamboatwillie]

Originally posted by nycmacartist
Some of these add ons are like putting BF Goodrich's on your new Porsche.
Apple really needs to do their own.

From what I heard on Inside Mac Radio, Scott Shepard interviewed the lead Industrial design person from Belkin. In the interview the Belkin guy kept stressing on how closely they worked with Apples engineers on designing the iPod peripherals (Card Reader, Microphone, etc). From what he said in the interview it is unlikely Apple will be producing iPod peripherals of this sort and that Apple "needed" a third party vendor to do it. Whatever that means.

[poultryfarm]

Originally posted by merge
I just don't see the point of these anyway..
why do I need this? I can spend that money on another 256mb card..

I really doubt most ipod owners will get to the point where they burn up the 256 MB's of memory..

true it is nice for peoploe who have a 16, or 32 MB card.. but with the price of memory recently.. why not just buy a 256 MB card for the same price of this reader..

it was a dumb idea.
256mb vs 40gb ?! do the math!
sounds like storage space is not a problem for you with just 256mb, that's great. but for me (and i believe many others) it is an issue.
just because it doesn't fill any of your needs doesn't mean it's a 'dumb idea.' on the contrary i think it's a great idea, unfortunately poorly implemented.

[manu chao]

Firewire devices supposedly can talk to each other without anybody telling them exactly what to do. I wonder whether cameras with FW cannot talk directly to a firewire drive, which in the case of the iPod would not have to be bus-powered (which probably no camera can do anyway) or requiring other sorts of power supply.

There is probably no other 1.8'' external harddrive with build-in batteries, especially one that happens to also play music.

[idkew]

Originally posted by CrackedButter
*Looks at the 256mb cf card in his hand, looks at magazine with advert for a 512mb model*


and if you were to poll ever single owner of a cf card, i bet most would own the crappy 32 or 16mb card that came with their camera, mp3 player...

yes, there are a lot of people with big cars, i own two 256mb ones myself, but most people probably do not have the need for such large cards. most people also do not talk about computers online. we are a different "class" of people, and we demand more, but that doesn't mean that 32mb cards are the most frequent card made.

which brings me back to th epoint of this thread.

this will not make pros want to use thier product. maybe consumers, but why would a consume need all this space?

[CrackedButter]

It would be cheaper to carry around a portable HD with a couple of simple buttons that would detect when a media reader was attached and instantly suck them off it.

More capacity, no screen meaning more battery and even simpler to use.

Plug em' in and suck em' off!

Or just bring along a 12" PB maybe.

[sethypoo]

Hmmmmm.....maybe while the photo's are transferring, these "professional" photographers can shoot more photos!

Just an idea.....
Learn some patience, people, it's a virtue you know! :)

[LethalWolfe]

Probably not many people need 30 or 40 gigs for their pix, but the card reader + iPod is easier to carry around than a bunch of 256meg CF cards or a laptop. And a lot cheaper than 1gig+ microdrives (assuming you already have an iPod). Now if only the dang card reader was faster...

I can easily burn thru a 256meg CF card at a single event (wedding, Halloween party, etc.,) of course I am using the highest jpg setting on my Canon s50 so it takes about 130 some odd pix to fill it up.


Lethal

[Analog Kid]

Wow, these peripherals suck more everytime I hear more about them...

15min to transfer from a 256MB card, using a $100 attachment requiring 4 extra batteries? Oh my...

I like this bit: "The current product balances several hardware considerations, including street price, transfer speed, battery life and portability, with software considerations."

Hmmm... Too expensive, too slow, too many batteries and too big to fit in a pocket.

Struck a good balance, Belkin!

I got interviewed outside the Palo Alto Apple Store before the Panther launch, I can't remember what Apple media source he was from. After we went over Panther for a bit, he asked if I had an iPod (yes) and then asked if I was excited about the new voice mic (no).

He gave me this strange look like I was breaking some code not speak ill of anything iPod in public. I pointed out that he was recording me on a mini-disc recorder, so obviously it wasn't doing the trick for him either...

[rjstanford]

Originally posted by LethalWolfe
Probably not many people need 30 or 40 gigs for their pix, but the card reader + iPod is easier to carry around than a bunch of 256meg CF cardsYou're kidding, right? You can toss CF cards into a spare bag pocket. They can take much more abuse than an iPod ever could, as well, and hey, you can swap them out (full for empty) in just a couple of seconds. Also, if you're a professional, the cost for a (sizable) stack of high-cap cards is not that much these days (certainly less than film cost used to be).

A single 512mb CF card (consumer-grade ones at least) can be found for under $100 now - so for the same price as the Belkin an end user could get a hard that would hold, what, 250 highest-quality 4 megapixel images? Or jump the size or quality down a notch, and easily fit over 500 "pretty good" pics on. And really, that should hold the kind of consumer who'd be happy with the Belkin product pretty well. Especially if they've been used to the 32mb cards as suggested by idkew above.

-Richard

[LethalWolfe]

Originally posted by rjstanford
You're kidding, right? You can toss CF cards into a spare bag pocket. They can take much more abuse than an iPod ever could, as well, and hey, you can swap them out (full for empty) in just a couple of seconds. Also, if you're a professional, the cost for a (sizable) stack of high-cap cards is not that much these days (certainly less than film cost used to be).

A single 512mb CF card (consumer-grade ones at least) can be found for under $100 now - so for the same price as the Belkin an end user could get a hard that would hold, what, 250 highest-quality 4 megapixel images? Or jump the size or quality down a notch, and easily fit over 500 "pretty good" pics on. And really, that should hold the kind of consumer who'd be happy with the Belkin product pretty well. Especially if they've been used to the 32mb cards as suggested by idkew above.

-Richard

If you are on vacation, or a road trip or something and won't be near your computer for a few days, maybe a week or two, how many CF cards are you going to buy? How much will that cost? How many times will you pick up a CF card and go, "Did I use this one already?" If you already have an iPod why not get the reader? How much CF cards will $99 get you? And, maybe i'm not in the norm, but most of my friends/family that have digital cameras all bought larger memory cards for their cameras.

Is the reader a "must have" add-on? No. But it could be a pretty handy device if it wasn't so slow.


Lethal

[rjstanford]

Originally posted by LethalWolfe
If you are on vacation, or a road trip or something and won't be near your computer for a few days, maybe a week or two, how many CF cards are you going to buy?Personally, I never carry more than a couple gigs, often just one 512mb card if I don't really expect to take that many pictures. Still, I don't remember the last time when I had to go more than 24 hours without being able to dump to my laptop. Of course, not everybody's travel plans are the same.How much CF cards will $99 get you?Er, as I just said, about 512mb worth (or, to put it another way, 35 minutes of time for transfer on the Belkin during which you couldn't use your card to take any more pictures).Is the reader a "must have" add-on? No. But it could be a pretty handy device if it wasn't so slow.Right, but I was commenting on it as it is, not as it could have been. As it is, its pretty durn useless.

-Richard

[LethalWolfe]

Originally posted by rjstanford
Personally, I never carry more than a couple gigs, often just one 512mb card if I don't really expect to take that many pictures. Still, I don't remember the last time when I had to go more than 24 hours without being able to dump to my laptop. Of course, not everybody's travel plans are the same.

And not everybody has a laptop. Like I said, I think the reader would be a great device if you are on vacation or in some other situation that would keep you away from your computer for an extended period of time. Given the slow speed of the reader it wouldn't be a good device for "on the fly" storage, but it would work fine in a nightly xfer role. Carry a couple of CF cards to get you through the day the empty then onto yer iPod at night.


Er, as I just said, about 512mb worth (or, to put it another way, 35 minutes of time for transfer on the Belkin during which you couldn't use your card to take any more pictures).


It was a rhetorical question meant to point out that for $99 you could get 512 megs of space (CF card) or up to 40 gigs of space (iPod). ;)


Lethal