After an articled i read lately in creative magazine i found out a few facts on the i-pod and what an invancement it is, not just in creatine design but the in way we listen to and how business' market music.
It may be small but the i-pod, which is one of the "coolest" products on the market at the moment, is one of the biggest thing to happen to music. It's unbeleiveble how in ten years mp3 players were'nt getting snatched up until the i-pod came along in 2001.if you look at the stats the product went from selling 125 000 units in 2001, to 6 million by october 2004, and an incredible 10 million by january 2005. Apple must be onto, sorry Jonathan Ives (designer) must be onto something.
But wait, you would think that with people buying so many mp3 players the sales of cd's would be going down, but no. I has'nt at all. In the uk this year cd sales have hit a record high of 237 million sales in 12 months to september. Record companies have worked out they can make money from selling their music on online music stores such as apple i-tunes charging $1 per song to people who own i-pods.

Well there is a few things about it that i learned there is much more, but now i have put the seed in your head. i would like to know your comments, facts and theories you have on the topic of this creative designers/music lovers dream.

hope to hear fom you all soon. aaron


thanks creative magazine. you guys rock.

With the huge success of the iPod, there have been many so called iPod-killers - alternative digital audio players like the Creative's Zen and iRiver and Sony products. Each claims to be able to beat Apple's ipod, but so far iPod is still the clear leader. What do you think of these iPod-wanabes?

I personally think that the iPod's X factor is its design. Super cool and stylish.

I think that the iRiver is the best. However, the design of it is a little nasty (the front buttons).

And if you are looking to mod your ipod, then a guy from germany "hacked" the ipod and has managed to build several applications such as image ipod to store images (black pixel) as well. That is why, the sudden new relases of the Picture Ipod have come to light and the newest, Ipod Shuffle.

It solely depends on what you want.


--mik

Honestly, iPod's are really overrated. You guys are really getting a rip. You have to buy all your extra accessories since the original iPod you get doesnt really have that much for features. Sure the design is cool and its an Apple. Plus all the marketing strategies and such are what makes it so popular. They appeal lots to the average consumer because they are simple and rose to the 'top' really fast. Nowadays when you hear someone talking about getting an HD mp3 player then 9 out of 10 times it will be iPod.

However, i decided not to follow this flock of sheep. I did my research on the net for an HD mp3 player that would serve its purpose well. Play music/give me recording/small/fm and am radio maybe/etc.

What I found was the iAudio. And I know first thing you are gonna say is that they stole the 'i' prefix from iPod, but actually i did research on that too and the iAudio was established way before iPod was on the market. Anyways, these come from the Korean company Cowon and are really amazing players. They are cheaper than iPods, use BBE music quality (this is really extraordinary effect to boost up the quality of your music) and they have line in/voice recording, also fm/am radio. User defined intro movies. Great customer support on their website and constant firmware updates. And they come out with lots of new designs and players (flash and HD) with really cool designs themselves.

I settled for an M3L by them. 280$ US, 38 hour battery life, 20gb HD, all above specs (they have the recording and radio on all their players) and it has a remote where all the main functions can be carried out on. I prefer the use of the remote because to me taking out the player from its case or pocket is such an unefficient task. With the M3L i can change a song without even looking down, i simply clip the remote to my belt strap or pocket edge and ive gotten so used to this i dont hardly ever look down to change stuff (volume, song) unless i want to browse for somethin specific, and even that doesnt take much effort.

anyways! I recommed that you get out of this iPod flock and get your money's worth with some players that are actually GOOD.

www.iaudio.com
www.iaudiophile.net
www.jetaudio.com

Check these out! I know I might be biased towards iAudio, but I have used some of my friends iPods and compared to the iAudio they really suck and are inefficient, useability wise and feature wise.

Thats all from me for now!
Vlad

I have to say, I have an iPod and I like it. The only thing is the back panel got scratched and debuffed fairly easily, but I wasn't worried about that cause I knew it would happen eventually. I really do like mine, and the only problems I've ever had with it is it not connecting when I plug it in, and just recently the right speaker of my earbuds started intermittently not working. I've requested a repair and hopefully Apple will just send me a new pair But also, I don't know what it is about the iPod, but even though it's not the smallest one out there, it still has a mezmorizing look to it. I don't know, the designers did a hell of a nice job making it look sleek and streamlined. There are no edges ande even where the faceplate meets the back, it's seamless. Then there's the scroll whell. It's very simple and also somewhat flush or inset, right in line with rest of the iPod's sleek outter case. I think that the price is a bit high, compared to other players, but you have to think that you're getting the Apple name. That's basically it. And the only thing that I don't like is that they have that battery repair system. 1/3 of the cost of the iPod and you can get a new battery when yours loses it's charge... I don't like that. Oh well, I love mine Those iAudios looked pretty nice too however. Cheers

Here is what I want in a HD player:

Slim
Easy to use
Good battery life (18 hours ish)
useable as a HD on Mac and PC (not hard)
able to play MP3, FLAC and Ogg Vorbis (AAC would be nice as well. Flac may be interchanged for any other Lossless codec).
min of 6gb space, better 10 or more
Cheap. (<300 bucks)
excellent real sound quality. Not faked equalizer hacks, but actually good D2A conversion.


So far, nobody has done this. The ipod is pretty close. However, iAudio now seems to be getting closer to this ideal. I will watch their products carefully.

i'd like a recording option on the ipod. that really lacks.
if possible, not just a line-in, but a mic-in.

i don't know of any hdplayer that has this. most require microphones with batteries

What about the iPod mini? I guess it doesn't play Ogg. but other than that....

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