Saturday, September 02, 2006
Opinions: iPod Challengers
When I was in Taiwan last year I saw many very cool and innovative mp3 players. iRiver and Samsung both had many amazing products. Players had OLED displays, FM radio, and some even had recording features built in. The players also came in all kinds of shapes and sizes. Back then I was wondering why Apple's iPod seemed to be lagging in the 'innovation' compared to these products.And then Apple released the Nano, proving that it still had great vision on design and innovation. The Nano really was an amazing and beautiful little machine. But as the year went along more and more new devices came on the market. Here's a sampling of some very nice MP3 players:
Samsung YP-K5
iRiver S10
Arko
Signeo SN-A250
After comparing these to the new iPod announcements this week, Apple's iPod efforts suddenly doesn't seem too innovative anymore. Even the new iPod Shuffle as amazing as it is just doesn't seem too appealing when compared to the new iRiver S10. It's good that Apple has done an amazing job of creating an iPod + iTunes ecosystem, otherwise I think iPod sales would be in jeopardy.
Apple better have something insanely great up it's sleeve, because the iPod is seriously lagging in design and innovation. As great as iTunes and iPod is, there is a lot of competition in both the online download service and the portable media player market. Let's hope Apple can bring back some 'WOW' into the iPod line.
">Article Link posted by Jambo Consulting at 9:09 PM
