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Have iPods Lost Their Cool?
Electronics | Mar 9, 05
When something gets too hot, it just isn't cool anymore. That truism may be illustrated by the comments of one of our very hip early twenty-something employees, who informed me the other day that he was "against all things iPod". He's looking for a new digital music player; one that can play downloads from sources other than iTunes, which iPods can't because they only play files protected by DRM schemes Apple recognizes, notably its own FairPlay. That means an iPod won't play downloads from BuyMusic or any other source using a DRM method Apple does not recognize. Formats like WMA are not compatible with iPods, either.
I suspect, however, that the issue may be more than just digital rights management, per se. Apple has always tried to associate itself with rebellion, to be the brand of the nonconformist. But how can the purchase of a product everyone else is buying be an act of separating oneself from the crowd? And when item is bought from a company that would keep you from buying your music from anyone in the world but themselves, it doesn't just make you feel bad about your decision from an economic perspective, It also places you in opposition to the right to sell art as the artist sees fit. To people who really care about music, as my afore-mentioned young colleague does, that position is just not acceptable. As David Ness points out to me, this is a far cry from the ethos of those "1984" ads for the Mac. Cupertino can't really "stick it to the man" when its trying so hard to be him.
So if not the iPod, what? I'm reliably informed that the anti-iPods of choice are the iRiver H320 and Digital Networks' Rio Karma 20GB. The iRiver H320 plays up to 600 hours of music stored on its 20GB hard drive, and, with a rechargeable battery that lasts 16 hours, you'll have plenty of time to listen to those tunes. It sports a large, vivid color display that allow you to view digital photos in JPEG or BMP format – take that, iPod Photo! The H320 also includes a built-in FM tuner and supports USB 2.0 file transfers and MP3, WMA, ASF and OGG music file formats. You can pick one up for under $280.
As its name suggests, the Rio Karma also has a 20 GB hard drive allowing playback of 660 hours of WMA or 330 hours of MP3 music. Likewise, it supports USB 2.0, and its LiIon battery will go 15 hours of playback between charges. It also supports Ogg Vorbis and FLAC, has a backlit display with visualizations and even comes with a docking station for RCA Line-out and Ethernet connectivity. It's a bit cheaper than the iRiver, going for a bit less than $200.
Either way, you get alternative geek-chic at a low price. And Apple won't be able to tell you where you can and can't get your music.
Posted by jeffrey.trester (Permalink)
Comments
I own a 60GB iPod Photo and I have several MP3's on it that AREN'T "FairPlay" encoded. As a matter of fact, the MP3 format has no DRM capabilities which is one of the reasons the the AAC version of the MP4-Audio codec was created. The truth is the iPod supports the following audio formats: AAC (16 to 320 Kbps), MP3 (32 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible, AIFF, Apple Lossless and WAV.
What you may be thinking is that NON-Apple hardware cannot play music downloaded from the iTunes music store without first burning the music to CD then re-encoding it to MP3 thus effectivly lowering your sound quality (because you are recompressing the file when you rip it back onto your computer) AND breaking the terms of the purchase license when you buy from the iTunes store.
Posted by: X.Soto at March 14, 2005 4:31 AM
X.Soto is correct - he's referring to an earlier version of the post which makes it sound like you can't play MP3s unless you ripped them with iTunes. You can, although iTunes keeps trying to convert all the MP3s on your drive to their format. But the problem is deeper than non-iPods not playing iTunes downloads, its also iPods not playing files protected by non-Apple DRM, and thus prventing an iPod user from buying music from sources other than Apple.
Posted by: jeffrey.trester at March 14, 2005 11:41 AM
"although iTunes keeps trying to convert all the MP3s on your drive to their format."
Not really. iTunes does have a feature where you can change your MP3's to AAC format, but they (usually, from my experience) end up sounding bad. If you encode directly to AAC, you're fine. If you have MP3's, you're better off leaving them as is and playing them on the iPod that way.
The software doesn't "try" to do anything to your music.
-An iPod early adopter (rev. 1)
Posted by: Anon at March 15, 2005 11:12 AM
"Go" is off-base on this one...Many people have complained to me about the difficulty of keeping the software from converting their MP3s to AAC, and the fact this the iTunes default. If, as Go says, that does indeed reduce the quality of the playback, its a problem. So with all due respect to iPod early adopters, this is one case where Apple partisanship may blind one to Apple hegemony.
Posted by: Jeffrey.Trester at March 15, 2005 12:37 PM
Are you kidding?? You're kidding, right? iPods are HOT. This sounds like an opinion from a biased (and perhaps a tad bit jealous) PC user to me...not that my opinion won't sound like a biased Mac user opinion to the PC Users reading this, but....I LOVE iPods. They are still very popular. And, as for iTunes...well, they should have named ii something like "iCrack" because it is a highly addictive resource! I mean, why would you WANT to go anywhere else to buy tunes? Don't they have almost anything you can think of? Some other music file systems require SUBSCRIPTIONS to be current to play files you download. With iTunes, you get to KEEP what you buy....FOREVER, with no added costs later!! iTunes/iPods RULE!
Posted by: Terry at March 15, 2005 1:09 PM
Actually there are a fair number of places I'd like to get music from - indie band sites, BuyMusic, Wal-Mart, etc. There's much to be said for competition, e.g. better deals and more variety, but beyond this I think a lot of people just don't like the idea of one company controlling the distribution of any form of human expression. Apple is pretty far from that; indeed, music downloads are still a small part of the market, but there is a principle here that could become precedent.
And, for the record, I’ve always liked Macs. I wrote my thesis on one, and I still admire its genuine plug and play compatibility, as well as the elegance of a mouse that needs but one button. It’s attempts at creating closed systems that bother me, and for all of Microsoft’s sins in this department (and these are legion). the reality of Redmond’s rule may not be as bad as the dreams of Cupertino.
Posted by: Jeffrey.Trester at March 18, 2005 6:11 PM
hey! you know that you can download musics from LimeWire right?... I'm deciding what to buy and I think iRivers are pretty HOT. totally, im searching right now and hope it's good...-turkey
Posted by: U Jin at March 28, 2005 12:45 PM
so you can download music free from Limewire/Kazaa/Morpheus onto an IRiver?
Posted by: Gurnampinder at November 27, 2005 6:17 PM
