Bill Gates on Microsoft's iPod Competitors

[aricher]

Bill Gates' idea of an iPod killer:

 

[ScottB]

iTunes isnt really that great, i'd be using something else if i had a better option. (waiting for songbird to be avaliable on mac!)

There is no gapless playback (dont tell me to turn crossfade to 0 because that is NOT gapless), pretty average format support (I want FLAC and ogg), the mp3 encoder is crap compared to lame, assigning multiple tags (of the same type) to a file isnt possible, and i'd never buy from iTMS because of the DRM

That's words out of my mouth, cheers.

 

[King Elessar]

Correction:

"That means we'll have to copy all that good work..."

Exactly! That's what I was gonna say...

After all these years, he still likes to "port" the Mac OS to a MS platform... now as Vista...

 

[Gohan]

There are retards who hate iTunes/iPod. I always ask them why and they just continue their rant....


/doesn't get it either

I personally use itunes but also winamp.

There are plenty of reasons to dislike it though.

It’s bloated and takes longer than it should to load.
Its memory footprint is also far larger than it should be.
The music store poping up when you click on a song is annoying.
Ripping is slower than a lot of other media players.
And finally the video support is a complete joke, very limited support and slow as s***

So no I don’t think you need to be a ‘retard’ to dislike itunes.

As for the iPod.

As ever it’s over priced.
Battery life is always poor next to the competition.
Limited format support.
FAR too easily scatched.
Piss poor video support / Playback.

 

[Timepass]

Apple is pretty unstoppable in the portable music market at this point.

Until someone comes up with:

1. A more functional, nicer looking MP3 player lineup with better functionality.
2. A better jukebox.
3. A better store.

They will fail.

I was in the Annapolis Apple Store yesterday (picking up my new iSight 😀 ), and people were just swarming the iPod counters - and remember, we got a foot of snow here yesterday. The store was packed.

Unbeliveable, really.

Well I think the store has little to do with iTunes power. It a nice bonus but a very small % of the users pick the iTunes because of the iTMS. It at most a little bonus.

But as others have pointed out iTunes is used very heavily because there is not any thing better. It file support is a good as others but there are stronger ones and have huge advatages in it. That being they can easily be upgraded to play other types by adding in codexs for videos and the same thing for music files. As for incoding music there are better programs out there that do it better and have more choices. iTunes has a very larger memory foot print compared to the others (example WMP running music, or movie using the same libary is about 15megs of ram 44megs of VM, Compared to iTunes which will sit at around 60 megs of each). Now that draw is not a huge issue on a desktop computer like mine because it has the space to burn but it is an thing to point out.
There are a lot of things that I like better about WMP and winamp but they just lack the libary set up that iTunes has and the dynimic search engine in it is where the power lies. Minus that everything else is just personal prefernce in looks I think. WMP 10 by looking at it I can easily see it becoming a very valid alternative to iTunes for windows computer. Right now iTunes is better but a question is what will WMP 11 be like. iTunes does not seem to evol and adjust as well as WMP. Now iTunes is great but there are huge weaknesses in it. If the other players get a search engine like iTunes it would really hurt since that is iTunes heavy power right now. WMP 10 right now mp3 player support is really nice and it does show a lot of potentional in it. It mostly just wait and see. WMP11 should be pretty intersting and cool and holds a lot of promise in it.

Now on the other frount (iPods and other mp3 players). The iPod player itself (just the iPod player, lets not look at software side) is relatively weak and has some major flaws. The click well is nice but really that just personal preferce compared to Zen player way of moving around, I honestly dont think one or the other is better. I like the iPods set up more but it just personal choice. The iPod file formate support is fairly weak and does not support as much as the others, other supporting both WMA and AAC among a few others but this is not a huge deal a problem that is delt software side on both sides in converting non DRM stuff). It lacks some features I would love to see added. I would love to see am FM turner added to the iPod or at least an added in that I could buy for it (if some one knows of one please tell me because I been wanting one for my g4 click wheel for a while). The folder set up and all that close enough and noughting to point anything about. Also rememeber all that is just looking at the player itself. Things I would like to see added to the iPod and I think the iPod could use, FM turner (after market or native would perfer native), more file support (But software side can handle it), the FM turner being the biggest thing I want. As for battery life i always want more. Who wouldnt.
But the iPods real power comes from tie in software side. iTune/iPod set up is great. No one else has gotten the software tie in working as well. WMP does show promise in this area in working really well. Only owning an iPod I can only have a taste of it and limite play with it but just looking at it it shows a town of promise both do auto update. Something in iTunes I would like to see is a way to choose what type of files i want on the iPod. I could want everything lossless on my computer but on the iPod I want a smaller formate. WMP will auto convert for you. iTunes will not a feature I know some people want. I would like it as well. Keep my libary untouch and uncoverted but for my iPod I want it in a differnt formate so more can fit on there.

But all being said the iPod/iTunes is how they link together so well. On their own they both have huge weakness and flaws and things that could be better. The iPods power comes form iTunes. iTunes power comes from it search engine and if it was not for that search it would be a lot weaker. If WMP can get theirs working a lot like that and impove on a few things it could really sting. WMP is getting close to the software tie in for the mp3 players out there like iTunes and that would help out the compitetion and would really be pushing harder on the iPod to add in some nice things. Right now iTunes/iPod is just better.

As for the music stores I hate all the DRM formates out there. I would like no DRM but since that is not going to happen give me one DRM standard that everyone uses. I hate to say it I would be willing to settle for WMA files to get this. I would not like it but it would finally be one standard. Personlly I think the best solution to that problem is to use neither Fairplay or WMA but a new formate. That way no one can complain about it being the market leader apple) or M$ using there power to get their formate personal formate being the standard. Instead it be another one. I can only hope.

 

[Eraserhead]

I love my nano ipod, but I am shocked to see my battery only lasting 2 hours. If it lasted longer then I would trash talk other products.
Of course I never have the volume full blast and I've only charged it 5 times. The first few times I used it the battery lasted over 4 hours.

That seems pretty low... my 5G ipod lasts much longer than that, even my 3G ipod (rated 8 hours) got up to about 6 (with EQ on and skipping some tracks)... It seems like the battery is bad 🙁 but it depends how often you change songs/playlists, if you play one playlist with EQ set up and skip the occassional track I imagine you should get about 10-11 hours, but if you don't listen to a playlist just individual songs then you will get much lower playback times (as it has to spin up the hard disk more often...)

 

[Eraserhead]

I dunno personally I find the iPod pretty good, before I got my iPod video i used an iAudio X5L.

start rant

(before , thank god reselling it for almost what i paid!!!) basically i got it because it was an "iPod killer" but basically it wasn't... for a start the battery life was hugely overated, i didn't test it but from the battery bar there was no way the thing was going to last 35 hours more like about 15 or so... the RAM in the thing was also really poor it only had enough memory for 2 songs before spinning up the hard drive so skipping tracks took ages... There were also a lot of hidden limitations to the thing... sure it had an FM radio (only picked up the BBC stations which have the strongest signals) and voice recorder (untested) but also the playlists were limited to 1000 songs (so my big smart playlists from iTunes which i exported to m3u were useless) and it had no "sound check" feature so you couldn't set it up on a stereo (otherwise the music would got from quiet one track to LOUD the next which is totally impractical when connected up to speakers. It could also do photos (without music) and video but since these couldn't be outputted to TV so i didn't really use them. Also the software was pretty unintuative especially playing songs and stuff... The sound quality was also, not better than the iPod's sure you could make it really bassy but that just destroys rock music I ended up setting the EQ like iTunes which worked so it sounded similar. I didn't have amazing headphones (I had £15 panosonics) but i dunno, as far as I can tell the only reason people say the iPod sounds bad is that when you convert .wma's to AAC's with iTunes they sound REALLY bad (so bad you can tell the difference clearly on a £300 dell laptop's speakers)

It certainly had advantages though the screen was pretty good (though not as good as a 5G iPod...), and skipping forward through a song was slightly better than the scroll wheel, and of course it didn't scratch! The other thing that was better was scrolling through songs, far better than the click wheel when you have a lot of music, with a case the scroll wheel is really slow... I think a joystick works better for this...

end rant...
Even so this "iPod killer" was worse than my old 3G iPod by a margin.

The other bonus of iPods is that unlike the competition pretty much everyone get there music onto them (even if they aren't computer experts) the day they get them, most other players seem to require much more time and effort (though everyone else has pretty much said this before...), though video as yet is another story, that's pretty hard with the iPod.

 

[Ghibli]

I've been burning a lot of my CDs onto iTunes lately, and only now noticed that the tracks are formatted into AAC instead of regular old MP3.

Just go under preferences -> advanced -> importing

and select the codec you want iTunes to use.

AAC is the default after installing I think.

 

[CompUser]

All I can imagine is an ugly gaudy little device with lots of flashing lights with a thing on the screen saying "program not responding".

 

[seenew]

"Hot new products in the next few years"??

Wasn't Longhorn/Vista/Winosx supposed to have come out a "few years" ago?

It'll be as big and ugly as the Xbox when/if it does come.. They need to stay out of the hardware business.

 

[Ghibli]

I love my nano ipod, but I am shocked to see my battery only lasting 2 hours. If it lasted longer then I would trash talk other products.
Of course I never have the volume full blast and I've only charged it 5 times. The first few times I used it the battery lasted over 4 hours.

I think the battery is faulty and needs to be replaced. It should last much more. take it to an Apple Center (or Apple store) and explain the problem. Otherwise call the Apple call center.

 

[Ghibli]

but if you don't listen to a playlist just individual songs then you will get much lower playback times (as it has to spin up the hard disk more often...)

He said iPod NANO. It doesn't have a hard drive but a flash memory. I think that at max usage it should still last at least 8 hours. 2 hour is just too bad. The battery is defective for sure.

 

[Eraserhead]

He said iPod NANO. It doesn't have a hard drive but a flash memory. I think that at max usage it should still last at least 8 hours. 2 hour is just too bad. The battery is defective for sure.

Oh yeah, my bad 🙁

 

[photomaniac]

agreed

Here is the fundamental problem. Microsoft has continually copied Apple's ideas.

If I were Microsoft, i would pay attention to developing Mac OS X applications and quit trying to copy something that is already captured the marketplace. Microsoft has NEVER made any hardware that was any good. Hence the not-so-popular XBOX. It has a LONG way to go before it catches up to the others.

Since Microsoft has YET to make an Operating System that is plagued by viruses, worms, trojan horses, if I were Microsoft, I would go into another direction.

Heck, Microsoft Office for the PC is 2003 and for the Mac is 2004. What the heck is wrong here? They are resting on their laurels and .Net didn't work, Net Meeting isn't catching on and they are just wasting the money they extract out of corporations for their Monopolistic crap.

Vista is going to be so far behind OS X, they should just start making bug free OS X applicaitions. They would be a much better company is they did. Then we call all rejoice in their failed attempt to bring out a good OS without forcing people to buy their crap.

Microsoft is going down hill fast and Bill Gates is getting VERY worried. Heck, Windows Media Center is also a joke. Just remember it didn't work when he tried to demo it at CES 2005.

Mr. Bill is a wanna-bee than can't be. Apple should come out with a promotion calling it "THE REAL THING". Coca Cola should give them the rights to use that slogan. 🙂

OUCH! The truth does hurt! The truth does hurt! (I almost shed a tear for him)

 

[50548]

You have to admit their keyboards and mice are pretty good. Actually, their natural keyboard is THE best keyboard ever made, typing-wise. It's just perfect match for one's fingers. And before Apple introduced the mighty mouse, Microsoft's was the best I could think of.

Huh? Have you ever heard of the Apple Extended Keyboard II? THE best keyboard EVER made in the history of computing?

 

[50548]

He said iPod NANO. It doesn't have a hard drive but a flash memory. I think that at max usage it should still last at least 8 hours. 2 hour is just too bad. The battery is defective for sure.

Or perhaps he just wants to buy a Creative, who knows? Even my almost 2-year old Mini lasts at least 5 hours of heavy usage...

 

[billyboy]

It seems like mobile devices with easy access to obscene amounts of digital music is the new paradigm and Apple have cornered that paradigm with the ipod. I never bought an iPod because I couldnt justify the cost and as I dont really listen to music on the move, no mp3 player is that useful to me. Interestingly my brother, who is quite a big earner, ie his time is quite "valuable" bought a cheap mp3 player over an iPod and then proceded to spend untold hours getting it to work! He clearly doesnt get the advantage of easy to use software combined with reasonalble hardware, ie he is a Windows users and never dreamt that easy to find music is the main criteria for a music player. It seems that MS and their associates are on to a hioding to nothing too because none of them have that synchronicity peculiar to Apple

Mac is easy to use if you know your way around nd I have learnt so much since using a Mac, but I am doubting the huge mantra of totally easy to use mac software. I think Apple need to work on revolutionising GUIs even more. For instance, if a number one programme like itunes is all about ease of use, why do I have to delve into prefences to select something as basic as the import format? Why cant I just see that choice appear when I hit that slick import button. (I know, Apple want me to carry on blindly importing to AAC, but you get the idea of how much better it could be)