Was it really necessary to quote the entire article just to say that?
uhh... yes.
haha i just thought it was funny that way... but seriously i really think creative is a sleezy company. they are one of those companies that will claim a 5GB player can fit 10,000 songs (fine print: at 32 bitrate) and can go 20 hours (fine print: in ideal situations, like sleep mode) and will also insult the ipod at shows claiming the click wheel "leads you around in circles" and then turn around and copy it and try to sue apple for stealing their technology. They are scumbags.
They are on the list with Real, Gator, Mcafee etc...
to CREATIVE: youve lost the mp3 "war", go back to making sound cards and shut the hell up (btw im now boycotting their cards). Your players are heavy, expensive, akward and have crappy software, and no ones gonna buy a more expensive than the original knock-off. You cant be "creative" and "invent" (pun intended) so cut your loses and get out of the market.
It is interesting to see the Apple zealots...Apple now and forever! I was once there (I've owned a Mac since 1984), but the realities of the marketplace supersede all. People act if Jobs has never made a condescending statement about another competitor or product.
Here's my prediction: Apple will lose the vast market-share of the digital content delivery as others infiltrate and reduce the costs. Internationally, Apple is up against players who are not that interested in playing by the game rules and hence have an advantage. For some reason people think music is only made in America. There is unequivocally no question that Apple's approach to design, and product execution is among the finest in the world and hence I support them through purchasing many of their products, but there is a very small percentage of the world populace who thinks this way. Most buyers are enamored with the iPod and what it has come to mean, but its meaning can be enjoyed though other brands as well. The iPod is very popular now, but...
I tend to agree with your statement here, and someone could make a cheaper player. However I doubt it since they would have to compete in the same market place as Apple does for all the piece parts and maunufacturing.
Considering we already know that apple has tide up capacity and everyone complaining they are not getting the same deal there is no way they can compete by making a cheaper product. Apples margins on the player are already in the 20% range and to go below that means you are losing money. And base on having 70% of the market Apples buying power is so great no is able to get the same deal.
Now a company like M$ could make one sell it below cost like they do on their XBOX and make up the lose with other businesses or services. I doubt very much of creative is in this position. Plus if they do then Apple can sue them for dumping on the market since they could prove easily they are selling below costs.
The other big missing piece and why Apple is successful, They control the entire product experience. The make the hardware, they make the software, and the control the portal in which you get the content. As we all know if any of those 3 are not working well people will not buy.
Creative only controls the hardware, at any time M$ can change something that makes their product not work right. Then there is the content providers, at any time they can change thier selection of DMR and things will not work right.
Apple has alway been about the entire experience and with that they have been successful, even if their price is a bit higher then competing products. Think about it, there were MP3 players before Apple that cost less and Apple blew them out of the water.
Apple has proven people are willing to pay more for the whole experience. There is alway be someone on your door step willing to take your lunch if you let them and in this case it will take some providing all 3 in a seamless way.
At the launch of the Zen Vision:M, Hoo reportedly told the BBC he plans to "aggressively" pursue a US patent that Creative owns on a system used to navigate music on digital players.
The report follows speculation that the company would seek royalties from Apple after it said it had won a patent in the US for "the way music tracks are organized and navigated on a player through a hierarchical system using three or more screens."
I gotta ask - isn't our iPod navigation identical to "column view" on the mac finder screen? Is the only difference that it's on a music device and accesses music files?
Short of industrial espionage, I don't understand how Creative can release a knock-off of a competing product in only six weeks. It may be possible that they were trying to outdo the iPod at its own game but got beat to the market.
I hope that Creative's patent is axed, my understanding is that there is nothing legally patentable about heirarchical organization of menus in anything, portable device or not. I think the USPTO is possibly flouting US law by approving that patent, if not the letter of the law, then at least the spirit. The patent has to be a non-obvious and novel solution to a problem and without prior art, and that doesn't satisfy any of those requirements.
You'd have to go and download each episode separately or with a separated application as WMP does not do that. [/B]
Big deal, I don't think it's necessary for a single program to do everything. iTunes and iPod still need work with regard to podcasts.
I used a separate app to handle podcasts until iTunes 5. I didn't like how iTunes 4.9 enforced the boundaries, podcasts couldn't be included in smart playlists. I think the Podcasts category is kind of a pain to navigate and manage, I prefer Juice's system of showing individual recordings within a subscription rather than the triangle drop-down, which gets messy or annoying. I don't like how the iPod completely stops playing once a particular podcast is done, so the user has to fuss with the menu to find the next one. Heck, the 4G mono iPods won't always wake up properly when it has been paused in the middle of a podcast, Inside Mac Radio's Saturday shows, among other shows, consistently had this problem.
I think iPodder (now Juice) probably co-exists well with just about any music management program.
Now a company like M$ could make one sell it below cost like they do on their XBOX and make up the lose with other businesses or services. I doubt very much of creative is in this position. Plus if they do then Apple can sue them for dumping on the market since they could prove easily they are selling below costs.
The other point here with MS is that MS is going to make $ somewhere. Now with XBox it is with games/game-licensing. So losing $ on the box to get a gagillion games sold is the play.
With online music market it appears a little different. MS wants to make $ on license-fees for every MP3 player sold that uses their software. So, if they start making one and selling it at a loss, no $ made...just losing $. If they want a tithe for every song sold, the story is the same. They cannot sell below cost and make $.
Apple has triangulated this whole thing fairly well.
So what do we have?
1. Online music stores:
a. Cannot make a profit on the music (except with subscriptions, which the music companies haven't yet authorized and could shut down at any time) because of the market price Apple set ($0.99/song).
b. Music selection is basically the same as Apple's so no way to effectively differentiate offerings.
c. Always a risk that (on subscriptions) Apple could just "turn on the subscription switch" and then "game over".
d. As Apple sells more songs, their opportunity to get better pricing from the music companies increases ("volume discounts") further enabling Apple to make profit on the music sold or sell at a lower cost squeezing competitors even further.
e. Doomed.
2. Hardware vendors:
a. Because of Apple's dominant position, unable to get the best prices (or even get the supply!) on component parts...must settle for lower profit margins than Apple or higher prices...always living in fear that Apple could just lower its margins and squeeze you.
b. Doesn't work with the dominant music store/format.
c. Not providing any features that Apple, if it found they were in demand, couldn't add in a heartbeat.
Finally, Fairplay licensing...Apple hasn't played this card yet (Motorola test-case excepted)...mostly I suspect because they don't need to. But they do have it to play and I think they will eventually. But it will play out like this...as Apple begins to get pressure on per unit profit margins on their iPods, they'll watch as those margins approach what they could make on a per unit basis for Fairplay licensing to hardware vendors, and possibly slowly open the door to it. Maybe Sony first. Only 3-4 to begin. Once it begins to happen then Apple will be making $ on every digital music player sold whether they make/sell it or not.
The difference being that the iPod is an extremely good product whereas US cars were terrible and mostly still are terrible compared to Japanese and European cars. Apple isn't the US car industry.
I don't think your analogy holds water.
The absolute worst cars were made by the English. A friend of mine paid somebody to steal his English built Ford, it was that bad.
It is interesting to see the Apple zealots...Apple now and forever! I was once there (I've owned a Mac since 1984), but the realities of the marketplace supersede all. People act if Jobs has never made a condescending statement about another competitor or product.
I'm trying to think of any direct statements about a competitor actually, other than the light hearted ribbing Longhorn got a year or so ago. But that's low hanging fruit really.
He'll knock a generic category of product (eg. flash mp3 players) or mention 'the other guys' when doing a comparison between the Apple way and competitors but I can't think of any statement where he's said Microsoft sucks or Creative are nob-heads.
Certainly nothing as shameful as Real or Creative's CEO.
Quote:
Originally posted by CREB
Here's my prediction: Apple will lose the vast market-share of the digital content delivery as others infiltrate and reduce the costs. Internationally, Apple is up against players who are not that interested in playing by the game rules and hence have an advantage.
I'm not so sure. Unless something comes along to dethrone the iPod from it's 80% share then every content provider that has any sense will want to get their content available to that market.
I think Apple are only at the beginning of a strategy here. For the last few years they've been working at getting Quicktime ready for backend work. They've moved to open standards based codecs that the media industry want to use, as opposed to the computer industries Windows media dominated closed codecs. They've made inroads into the phone industry which is almost entirely h.264 based. They've been building on their media creation business.
However, at the moment, with the iPod they have mass appeal and mass manufacturing. Creative's CEO was complaining a while back that they can't compete with Apple at buying Flash RAM in bulk. Apple, because of the size of it's order, will always be able to beat others on price. Whether it chooses to, or build something of quality is up to them.
Quote:
Originally posted by CREB
For some reason people think music is only made in America.
Huh? That doesn't make sense. Do you mean 'some people', 'all people' or perhaps some or all people in America? Either way you know it's nonsense.
Quote:
Originally posted by CREB
There is unequivocally no question that Apple's approach to design, and product execution is among the finest in the world and hence I support them through purchasing many of their products, but there is a very small percentage of the world populace who thinks this way. Most buyers are enamored with the iPod and what it has come to mean, but its meaning can be enjoyed though other brands as well. The iPod is very popular now, but...
I'd say the figures so far say the opposite. Sony might get there as they seem to be advertising like hell just now but so far they seem to be doing well at shooting themselves in the foot with bad software and bad DRM. Creative? No chance. They don't have the media industry backing or the money to get it.
I gotta ask - isn't our iPod navigation identical to "column view" on the mac finder screen? Is the only difference that it's on a music device and accesses music files?
Yep. It's one of those reasons why the US Patent system is plainly stupid. There are other examples of navigating a heirarchy of folders and files that predate even column view. PCTools and XTree on the PC from about 1987 spring immediately to mind.
Short of industrial espionage, I don't understand how Creative can release a knock-off of a competing product in only six weeks. It may be possible that they were trying to outdo the iPod at its own game but got beat to the market.
There's nothing complex about either the iPod or the Zen. They both use off the shelf chips, screens and drives. All that needs doing then is the software and the packaging (ie. the casing not the box it comes in)
Apple's colour interface hasn't changed since the iPod Photo so they've had plenty of time to rip that off.
Apart from that, it seems a logical step from the old Zen to this. ie. Add Video.
I have to admit the damn thing looks pretty nice. Makes me wish the entire apple music product like came more than 2 colours.
Are they allowed however to have an interface that looks EXACTLY like the ipod's? And I don't mean menu style because Creative for some reason thinks they invented the column and the list but I mean the screen colour and the font. I'm looking at the it's photo interface on it's website and it looks exactly like an ipod. Isn't that infringing on likeness?
On a side note I'd like for an ipod to have fm radio and a built in mic for a long time, I'm not a fan of ad-on's.
Random question: I don't have a video ipo yet. Can any video file and I mean any (including the type used for bit torrented tv shows) be turned into the video format the ipod takes? Because I'd love to take Arrested Development season 3 anywhere with me until the dvd's come out.
The absolute worst cars were made by the English. A friend of mine paid somebody to steal his English built Ford, it was that bad.
And Ford are.... ;-)
Ford and GM were building sh1t cars here for quite some time too before Japanese cars got so much better. Then again, Austin Rover weren't exactly brilliant either.
I have to chuckle though when Apple get compared to BMW as a brand. Here in the UK, BMW outsells Ford in the same middle of the road sales rep mobiles. Common as muck. The Ford arguably is the better car too even though both are interminably dull. Apart from that BMW's have a reputation of being driven by inconsiderate idiots.
On a side note I'd like for an ipod to have fm radio and a built in mic for a long time, I'm not a fan of ad-on's.
Random question: I don't have a video ipo yet. Can any video file and I mean any (including the type used for bit torrented tv shows) be turned into the video format the ipod takes? Because I'd love to take Arrested Development season 3 anywhere with me until the dvd's come out.
The iPod, since about the 3rd Gen has had built in voice recording using the headphones as a Mic. In the Video Ipod, they removed the restriction limiting the recording to 8Khz or whatever it was - low anyway.
If you want decent recordings though you need an addon from Griffin or Belkin and some good mics.
There are loads of free tools to convert most video formats to ipod format. Things like ffmpex and handbrake have specific settings to output iPod compatible video. You can even rip a DVD straight to ipod format.
Most of my library is encoded in AAC, and nothing out there is cool enough to make me go to the effort of re-encoding my music (from original source - AAC to MP3 is hardly ideal)
Most of my library is encoded in AAC, and nothing out there is cool enough to make me go to the effort of re-encoding my music (from original source - AAC to MP3 is hardly ideal)
Many do, it's just creative that don't support it as far as I know. Even my Nokia and Sony Ericsson cell phone support AAC files (and play them really well). Unfortunately my Nokia phone has to be used with special Nokia earphones, which sucks as they aren't great quality.
Then again, amazon got "single click purchasing" patented. Everyone else has to confirm first (apple licensed it from amazon!). Rather obvious?
My brother works at the US Patent Office as an examiner (focusing mostly on computer hardware...specific to memory and related products). I'll ask him what he thinks of the whole thing.
Comments
Originally posted by sjk
Was it really necessary to quote the entire article just to say that?
uhh... yes.
haha i just thought it was funny that way... but seriously i really think creative is a sleezy company. they are one of those companies that will claim a 5GB player can fit 10,000 songs (fine print: at 32 bitrate) and can go 20 hours (fine print: in ideal situations, like sleep mode) and will also insult the ipod at shows claiming the click wheel "leads you around in circles" and then turn around and copy it and try to sue apple for stealing their technology. They are scumbags.
They are on the list with Real, Gator, Mcafee etc...
to CREATIVE: youve lost the mp3 "war", go back to making sound cards and shut the hell up (btw im now boycotting their cards). Your players are heavy, expensive, akward and have crappy software, and no ones gonna buy a more expensive than the original knock-off. You cant be "creative" and "invent" (pun intended) so cut your loses and get out of the market.
Originally posted by CREB
It is interesting to see the Apple zealots...Apple now and forever! I was once there (I've owned a Mac since 1984), but the realities of the marketplace supersede all. People act if Jobs has never made a condescending statement about another competitor or product.
Here's my prediction: Apple will lose the vast market-share of the digital content delivery as others infiltrate and reduce the costs. Internationally, Apple is up against players who are not that interested in playing by the game rules and hence have an advantage. For some reason people think music is only made in America. There is unequivocally no question that Apple's approach to design, and product execution is among the finest in the world and hence I support them through purchasing many of their products, but there is a very small percentage of the world populace who thinks this way. Most buyers are enamored with the iPod and what it has come to mean, but its meaning can be enjoyed though other brands as well. The iPod is very popular now, but...
I tend to agree with your statement here, and someone could make a cheaper player. However I doubt it since they would have to compete in the same market place as Apple does for all the piece parts and maunufacturing.
Considering we already know that apple has tide up capacity and everyone complaining they are not getting the same deal there is no way they can compete by making a cheaper product. Apples margins on the player are already in the 20% range and to go below that means you are losing money. And base on having 70% of the market Apples buying power is so great no is able to get the same deal.
Now a company like M$ could make one sell it below cost like they do on their XBOX and make up the lose with other businesses or services. I doubt very much of creative is in this position. Plus if they do then Apple can sue them for dumping on the market since they could prove easily they are selling below costs.
The other big missing piece and why Apple is successful, They control the entire product experience. The make the hardware, they make the software, and the control the portal in which you get the content. As we all know if any of those 3 are not working well people will not buy.
Creative only controls the hardware, at any time M$ can change something that makes their product not work right. Then there is the content providers, at any time they can change thier selection of DMR and things will not work right.
Apple has alway been about the entire experience and with that they have been successful, even if their price is a bit higher then competing products. Think about it, there were MP3 players before Apple that cost less and Apple blew them out of the water.
Apple has proven people are willing to pay more for the whole experience. There is alway be someone on your door step willing to take your lunch if you let them and in this case it will take some providing all 3 in a seamless way.
Originally posted by AppleInsider
At the launch of the Zen Vision:M, Hoo reportedly told the BBC he plans to "aggressively" pursue a US patent that Creative owns on a system used to navigate music on digital players.
The report follows speculation that the company would seek royalties from Apple after it said it had won a patent in the US for "the way music tracks are organized and navigated on a player through a hierarchical system using three or more screens."
I gotta ask - isn't our iPod navigation identical to "column view" on the mac finder screen? Is the only difference that it's on a music device and accesses music files?
I hope that Creative's patent is axed, my understanding is that there is nothing legally patentable about heirarchical organization of menus in anything, portable device or not. I think the USPTO is possibly flouting US law by approving that patent, if not the letter of the law, then at least the spirit. The patent has to be a non-obvious and novel solution to a problem and without prior art, and that doesn't satisfy any of those requirements.
Originally posted by JeffDM
The patent has to be a non-obvious and novel solution to a problem and without prior art, and that doesn't satisfy any of those requirements.
Then again, amazon got "single click purchasing" patented. Everyone else has to confirm first (apple licensed it from amazon!). Rather obvious?
Originally posted by WhiteRabbit
You'd have to go and download each episode separately or with a separated application as WMP does not do that. [/B]
Big deal, I don't think it's necessary for a single program to do everything. iTunes and iPod still need work with regard to podcasts.
I used a separate app to handle podcasts until iTunes 5. I didn't like how iTunes 4.9 enforced the boundaries, podcasts couldn't be included in smart playlists. I think the Podcasts category is kind of a pain to navigate and manage, I prefer Juice's system of showing individual recordings within a subscription rather than the triangle drop-down, which gets messy or annoying. I don't like how the iPod completely stops playing once a particular podcast is done, so the user has to fuss with the menu to find the next one. Heck, the 4G mono iPods won't always wake up properly when it has been paused in the middle of a podcast, Inside Mac Radio's Saturday shows, among other shows, consistently had this problem.
I think iPodder (now Juice) probably co-exists well with just about any music management program.
Originally posted by Maestro64
Now a company like M$ could make one sell it below cost like they do on their XBOX and make up the lose with other businesses or services. I doubt very much of creative is in this position. Plus if they do then Apple can sue them for dumping on the market since they could prove easily they are selling below costs.
The other point here with MS is that MS is going to make $ somewhere. Now with XBox it is with games/game-licensing. So losing $ on the box to get a gagillion games sold is the play.
With online music market it appears a little different. MS wants to make $ on license-fees for every MP3 player sold that uses their software. So, if they start making one and selling it at a loss, no $ made...just losing $. If they want a tithe for every song sold, the story is the same. They cannot sell below cost and make $.
Apple has triangulated this whole thing fairly well.
So what do we have?
1. Online music stores:
a. Cannot make a profit on the music (except with subscriptions, which the music companies haven't yet authorized and could shut down at any time) because of the market price Apple set ($0.99/song).
b. Music selection is basically the same as Apple's so no way to effectively differentiate offerings.
c. Always a risk that (on subscriptions) Apple could just "turn on the subscription switch" and then "game over".
d. As Apple sells more songs, their opportunity to get better pricing from the music companies increases ("volume discounts") further enabling Apple to make profit on the music sold or sell at a lower cost squeezing competitors even further.
e. Doomed.
2. Hardware vendors:
a. Because of Apple's dominant position, unable to get the best prices (or even get the supply!) on component parts...must settle for lower profit margins than Apple or higher prices...always living in fear that Apple could just lower its margins and squeeze you.
b. Doesn't work with the dominant music store/format.
c. Not providing any features that Apple, if it found they were in demand, couldn't add in a heartbeat.
d. Doomed but perhaps less so than #1.
Finally, Fairplay licensing...Apple hasn't played this card yet (Motorola test-case excepted)...mostly I suspect because they don't need to. But they do have it to play and I think they will eventually. But it will play out like this...as Apple begins to get pressure on per unit profit margins on their iPods, they'll watch as those margins approach what they could make on a per unit basis for Fairplay licensing to hardware vendors, and possibly slowly open the door to it. Maybe Sony first. Only 3-4 to begin. Once it begins to happen then Apple will be making $ on every digital music player sold whether they make/sell it or not.
Originally posted by aegisdesign
The difference being that the iPod is an extremely good product whereas US cars were terrible and mostly still are terrible compared to Japanese and European cars. Apple isn't the US car industry.
I don't think your analogy holds water.
The absolute worst cars were made by the English. A friend of mine paid somebody to steal his English built Ford, it was that bad.
Originally posted by CREB
It is interesting to see the Apple zealots...Apple now and forever! I was once there (I've owned a Mac since 1984), but the realities of the marketplace supersede all. People act if Jobs has never made a condescending statement about another competitor or product.
I'm trying to think of any direct statements about a competitor actually, other than the light hearted ribbing Longhorn got a year or so ago. But that's low hanging fruit really.
He'll knock a generic category of product (eg. flash mp3 players) or mention 'the other guys' when doing a comparison between the Apple way and competitors but I can't think of any statement where he's said Microsoft sucks or Creative are nob-heads.
Certainly nothing as shameful as Real or Creative's CEO.
Originally posted by CREB
Here's my prediction: Apple will lose the vast market-share of the digital content delivery as others infiltrate and reduce the costs. Internationally, Apple is up against players who are not that interested in playing by the game rules and hence have an advantage.
I'm not so sure. Unless something comes along to dethrone the iPod from it's 80% share then every content provider that has any sense will want to get their content available to that market.
I think Apple are only at the beginning of a strategy here. For the last few years they've been working at getting Quicktime ready for backend work. They've moved to open standards based codecs that the media industry want to use, as opposed to the computer industries Windows media dominated closed codecs. They've made inroads into the phone industry which is almost entirely h.264 based. They've been building on their media creation business.
However, at the moment, with the iPod they have mass appeal and mass manufacturing. Creative's CEO was complaining a while back that they can't compete with Apple at buying Flash RAM in bulk. Apple, because of the size of it's order, will always be able to beat others on price. Whether it chooses to, or build something of quality is up to them.
Originally posted by CREB
For some reason people think music is only made in America.
Huh? That doesn't make sense. Do you mean 'some people', 'all people' or perhaps some or all people in America? Either way you know it's nonsense.
Originally posted by CREB
There is unequivocally no question that Apple's approach to design, and product execution is among the finest in the world and hence I support them through purchasing many of their products, but there is a very small percentage of the world populace who thinks this way. Most buyers are enamored with the iPod and what it has come to mean, but its meaning can be enjoyed though other brands as well. The iPod is very popular now, but...
I'd say the figures so far say the opposite. Sony might get there as they seem to be advertising like hell just now but so far they seem to be doing well at shooting themselves in the foot with bad software and bad DRM. Creative? No chance. They don't have the media industry backing or the money to get it.
Originally posted by GregAlexander
I gotta ask - isn't our iPod navigation identical to "column view" on the mac finder screen? Is the only difference that it's on a music device and accesses music files?
Yep. It's one of those reasons why the US Patent system is plainly stupid. There are other examples of navigating a heirarchy of folders and files that predate even column view. PCTools and XTree on the PC from about 1987 spring immediately to mind.
Originally posted by JeffDM
Short of industrial espionage, I don't understand how Creative can release a knock-off of a competing product in only six weeks. It may be possible that they were trying to outdo the iPod at its own game but got beat to the market.
There's nothing complex about either the iPod or the Zen. They both use off the shelf chips, screens and drives. All that needs doing then is the software and the packaging (ie. the casing not the box it comes in)
Apple's colour interface hasn't changed since the iPod Photo so they've had plenty of time to rip that off.
Apart from that, it seems a logical step from the old Zen to this. ie. Add Video.
Are they allowed however to have an interface that looks EXACTLY like the ipod's? And I don't mean menu style because Creative for some reason thinks they invented the column and the list but I mean the screen colour and the font. I'm looking at the it's photo interface on it's website and it looks exactly like an ipod. Isn't that infringing on likeness?
On a side note I'd like for an ipod to have fm radio and a built in mic for a long time, I'm not a fan of ad-on's.
Random question: I don't have a video ipo yet. Can any video file and I mean any (including the type used for bit torrented tv shows) be turned into the video format the ipod takes? Because I'd love to take Arrested Development season 3 anywhere with me until the dvd's come out.
Originally posted by Psychic Shopper
The absolute worst cars were made by the English. A friend of mine paid somebody to steal his English built Ford, it was that bad.
And Ford are.... ;-)
Ford and GM were building sh1t cars here for quite some time too before Japanese cars got so much better. Then again, Austin Rover weren't exactly brilliant either.
I have to chuckle though when Apple get compared to BMW as a brand. Here in the UK, BMW outsells Ford in the same middle of the road sales rep mobiles. Common as muck. The Ford arguably is the better car too even though both are interminably dull. Apart from that BMW's have a reputation of being driven by inconsiderate idiots.
Originally posted by ecking
On a side note I'd like for an ipod to have fm radio and a built in mic for a long time, I'm not a fan of ad-on's.
Random question: I don't have a video ipo yet. Can any video file and I mean any (including the type used for bit torrented tv shows) be turned into the video format the ipod takes? Because I'd love to take Arrested Development season 3 anywhere with me until the dvd's come out.
The iPod, since about the 3rd Gen has had built in voice recording using the headphones as a Mic. In the Video Ipod, they removed the restriction limiting the recording to 8Khz or whatever it was - low anyway.
If you want decent recordings though you need an addon from Griffin or Belkin and some good mics.
There are loads of free tools to convert most video formats to ipod format. Things like ffmpex and handbrake have specific settings to output iPod compatible video. You can even rip a DVD straight to ipod format.
Originally posted by ecking
How do I use that voice recording feature?
It's not for the faint of heart...
http://ipodlinux.org/
Most of my library is encoded in AAC, and nothing out there is cool enough to make me go to the effort of re-encoding my music (from original source - AAC to MP3 is hardly ideal)
Originally posted by starwxrwx
Why do no other players support AAC?
Most of my library is encoded in AAC, and nothing out there is cool enough to make me go to the effort of re-encoding my music (from original source - AAC to MP3 is hardly ideal)
Many do, it's just creative that don't support it as far as I know. Even my Nokia and Sony Ericsson cell phone support AAC files (and play them really well). Unfortunately my Nokia phone has to be used with special Nokia earphones, which sucks as they aren't great quality.
Originally posted by GregAlexander
Then again, amazon got "single click purchasing" patented. Everyone else has to confirm first (apple licensed it from amazon!). Rather obvious?
My brother works at the US Patent Office as an examiner (focusing mostly on computer hardware...specific to memory and related products). I'll ask him what he thinks of the whole thing.