~Shard~ said:
And that's what it ultimately comes down to, doesn't it? I see a multitude of people on the street, in mass trnsportation, etc. all with either iPods or those cheap little $50 MP3 players that hold 128 MB (or whatever it is). I have only seen perhaps 1 iRiver in my life and not one Xclef. I'm not saying people still don't buy them, but the consumer is always right, and all you need to do is look at what the majority of comsumers out there are using, and it's the iPod - not the iRiver or Xclef - and the consumer public has the final say, don't they? It doesn't matter who has better features, who has better value, yadda yadda ad nauseum - all it comes down to at the end of the day is, what do people ultimately buy? The answer - for the vast majority - iPods.
Interesting take, but not quite seeing into the whole picture really. As was mentioned before, Apple has put in a lot of money towards advertising, more money for one of its specific products than any other. Good move on their part really. However, this does not mean that all the other players are left in the dust, or are not recognized as being worthy competitors...Matter of fact, the iPod, while still being a decent player in general, has truly lost any real standing ground so to speak when you look at it from a feature set point of view, and also from a sound quality point of view. Take these two players: The Rio Karma and the Iriver H series.
Most people wind up with iPods these days because of the fact that they're too lazy to do any research, and always have the iPod in mind because they're constantly being bombarded with iPod and iTunes adds. When the iPod first came out, it was pretty much THE Mp3 player with NO competition. Most of todays' competing Mp3 players honestly don't need to advertise their players the way Apple does the iPod, though it would help increase stock prices and sales...no doubt.
I've done my very fair share of DAP reviews and music listening with the iPod, and the Iriver which I own, and to be honest, I had very legit reasons to go with the IHP (as did MaNY people over at
Mistic River over the iPod and even the Karma, even though the latter would be my second choice BY FAR. I can list MANY reasons why...but I'll only list a few as to not seem like a troll. I do actually appreciate the iPod for what it does, and for what it was in its day. It is sexy looking...and it does have an exceptional GUI/UI (though there's still room for improvement such as looping in the menues and artist searches etc...and a more precise, less jumpy scroll wheel...it's easy to overshoot your target)
The things that Apple needs to be on the ball with if they claim they care about the MUSIC and NOT JUST the prettiness (come on guys...having a pretty player is nice, but the novilty wears thin...besides, there's another HUGE reason as to why this shouldn't matter so much to iPodders, but does, and I'll save that for last.) is:
1)Gapless playback (Iriver and Rio have acknowledged this)
2)Digital line in or outs ON the unit for use with a portable amp. (only the Iriver has them ON the unit)
3)A real EQ section...because the current one is truly terrible. (Karma has a 5 band parametric EQ which does not cause distortion at any frequency unlike the iPod's)
4) Battery life. People say that their iPods get like 8 hours...Riiiight. More like 6 IF you're lucky. Sorry, I travel a lot and don't have the opportunity to be near an outlet all the time. No go there. Karma and IHP get 16 hours with target bitrate files. I honestly get around 14 hours using nothing under 192 KBps VBR Mp3's or Q6 Ogg's.
5) Now, I know that iPod owners are always saying that the iPod offers the most 3rd party stuff, but the truth is that the IHP either already has the features ON the player which you have to pay more for in order to get, OR, the extras are also sold on the Iriver site. Cases, battery packs, (not even needed), car adapters, soon to have cradles with new series....
6) Yes, the iPod is seen as an external HD on PC's and you can use it to transfer back and forth BUT...and a big BUT...you NEED extra software in order to build a data base if you want to actually play music files which have been transferred from the PC to the iPod. That means that the target PC needs to have iTunes installed on it OR you have to carry around either iTUnes, or one of the third party programs and execute them FROM the iPod on what may not even be your PC....Not necessary with the IHP. Unfortunately the Karma offers neither said offering.....
7) The iPod is simply way more expensive from the get go, and even more expensive if you buy extras, and has less battery life ? Weird to me.
8) Oh lessie, did I forget something ? Yeah..I did...Remote control ! The iPods remote is USELESS. It was one of the things that kept me from actually buying it. I live in NYC, and I'll be damned if I'm going to hold a small and easy to drop or have stolen $500 music player in my hands if I can help it. To be honest people...if you guys had an LCD remote control, like the one the IHP has, you'd never NEED to carry the iPod in your hands ! Chances are, you don't see people carrying other DAP's aside from iPods, because other DAP users are either not as vain as your typical iPod user, or because they have remote controls clipped on to their jeans and don't want to hold their players !
I could have given a bunch of other reasons as to why the other said DAP's are a better choice, but I don't know how well received such a long list would be here. Anyway, like I've said, I've spent long periods of time with an iPod 2nd gen...and it's a fine player, I actually like the sound of it, and it's pretty for sure, and playlist support on it is nice, but other players are doing this bigger, and better now...And will continue to do so, regardless of how many shares of Apple stock seem to be selling. What amazes me though, is how people with a certain mind set fear trying new things as if they're out there to hurt them. It's all good people...do what you will. Oh, and I think that my black IHP is one sexy b***h ! Good ol' Darth.
D.D.
