iPod, RIP

One of the main selling points of the iPod for me is the ease of synchronisation with iTunes. I've got both a 20GB iPod and one of the new Shuffles. You plug them in and everything 'just works'.

Nokia (and the other S60 manufacturers) haven't exactly nailed PIM synchronisation after numerous years of trying and PC Suite is a mess. Stereo support is a good step and it would be nice it they would standardise on a memory format which supported 1GB cards at least, but they need to provide a decent frontend to their PC (or Mac) based sync program.

I abolutely agree with MkollUK PLUS, I woulld add that the iPod is not really a music player for most. It is a fashion accessory. There are several players out there that beat the iPod on size, weight, features and price and most competitors beat the iPod on sound quality. But the iPod outsells the rest of them combined by a huge margin because people want to be seen with an iPod.

Until people want to be seen carrying a Sendo X (or Sendo X 2008) then the iPod will remain king. Not because it's the best, or even because it's as good, but because people want others to see that they have an iPod.

PS Steve; Ogg? CD Quality? Please!

Bassey wrote:But the iPod outsells the rest of them combined by a huge margin because people want to be seen with an iPod.

Until people want to be seen carrying a Sendo X (or Sendo X 2008) then the iPod will remain king. Not because it's the best, or even because it's as good, but because people want others to see that they have an iPod.

PS Steve; Ogg? CD Quality? Please!

Ah well, fahion and me have always been poles apart 8-)

"CD quality" - yes, at least it seems so when out and about with ambient noise (buses, traffic, birds, wind). Same as for MP3 at 128kbps. But I agree, audiophiles will want higher bit rates for all formats if they're going to listen in a quiet room. 8-)

Steve

I have no problem with the sound quality of MP3 or Ogg. Thay are more than good enough for their use (as you say, "out and about"😉 but I have never liked the general description of any digital fomat as being CD quality. Play the two side by side and they clearly aren't.

i.e. I'm just being picky!

Best phrase is "As near to CD quality as makes no difference to my ears." For CD quality you'd need to be using FLAC or something similar.

TBH listening with the headphones and with the quality of the audio output I use 96Kbps MP3s on my 9500 as I can't hear the difference between that and the CD original. If I were to pipe it through my real stereo though the phone would be rapidly unplugged.

I think it may only be a matter of time though. The iPod won't go away, but I do think more people will start using their phone for music. At the moment it remains for the most part the preserve of very few users. To get better the ease of use definetely needs to be addressed.

There's also the point that most people aren't buying the phone with ant intention of playing music. After all smartphones are outselling music players.

I might start using my phone as my main music device once it gets those 60gb HDD (or bigger) 😉

I TOTALLY agree with the post by MkollUK. I've had a classic N-Gage for ages now (with a 1Gb card), which does have dedicated stereo MP3 playback hardware, & I STILL don't know how to put my music on the damned thing from my Apple Powerbook in such a way that the m3u playlists will work (and yes, I have asked in the forums, but no-one seems to know: help?). 😡

iSync works beautifully for PIM data, but there's no iTunes compatibility at all, & no hints given anywhere as to what the music directory structure on the phone should be to allow playlist selection. Why on earth don't they just write something like a simple Java-based iTunes plug-in for these devices - it'd be platform-agnostic, & damned useful for both Windows & Mac users - basically, just drag & drop the playlist onto an N-Gage window on the host computer, or something like that.

Given this kind of continuing problem, I expect that the next piece of personal music tech I buy will probably be an iPod, and not a smartphone. I'm just sick of all the fiddling about (& I habitually use 3 or 4 different computer operating systems regularly, so I'm not just some random Luddite either).

I just use the easy method of stick the MMC card in a reader plugged into the PC, then use good old fashioned drag and drop to put the files in there. Why make things more complicated than they need to be?