iPod shuffle snaps up 58% of the US market for flash-based MP3 players
posted May 4th 2005 7:19PM
A report by market research firm NPD concludes that Apple's iPod shuffle has gobbled up a full 58.2% of the US market for flash-based MP3 players in March, up from 43% in February (the bulk of Apple's sales were for the 512MB version of the shuffle). Whether Apple tapped into what has turned out to be a vastly underestimated demand for flash-based players, or simply employed their massive marketing muscle to get consumers lusting after a product that four months ago they didn't know they wanted is (it's probably a little bit of both), but what isn't up for debate is that Creative, iRiver, Sony, Rio, et al. seriously have their work cut out for them. At this point overtaking Apple isn't simply going to be a matter of adding extra features or pricing their players more competitively. You don't walk into an existing market and grab nearly 60% in two or three month (at least not usually), and a big part of how this happened is that Apple's self-contained system (i.e. iTunes and the iTunes Music Store) which "encourages" users to stay within it (you can bet that a lot of iPod shuffle buyers already owned a regular iPod or iPod mini), combined with an incredibly uncommon amount of cultural cachet that is impossible to buy.
[Via TUAW]
Yo Tito, C-Net rate the sound quality of the Muvo N200 as "Very Good", they in fact give it an editors choice.
Creative flash players are not "crappy"
I'd say it sounds like your jealous
P.S. Say hello to Jermain, Marlon and Michael for me
Am I the only person who thinks that iTunes for Windows sucks? Apart from the weird interface (by MS Win standards), the almost MS-like need to take control of what I want to do, the pushing of AAC instead of MP3, the lack of an interface to LAME, the thing that killed it for me and meant it was removed after a day of playing was that it couldn't play 192kb VBR MP3s without locking up and/or dropping out. It's inability to actually keep running seemed to be almost as bad as RealPlayer. Now I've no doubt that it works fine on a Mac but under WinXP it was a disaster.
This is all a bit strange. At least some of that 60% of the flash market and nn% of the HD market must be associated with Windows machines. So iTunes on Win must work a bit.
So is it just me?
Business Anyone :
My dad was a business man and taught me a very simple principle. If you can make a profit out of something .. make it !
Kudos for Apple to recognise that ! I guess the reason that they did not put a screen on it is
a) because people really dont need it !
b) you can make extra money by not putting something that people do not need anyway.
It also reminds me of an interesting story ... I saw this lecture by the founder of palm and how it managed to *create* the pda market. He said that in his survey he found out that the only thing people would require a pds for is an address book/filofax replacement. That is why h made the palm as simple as possible. His product suceeded after counteless others had failed, including Apples own and feature laden Newton (agreed the newton had other shortcomings). Dumbing down is not that bad, if you know how to do it the right way !
Apple realised why people were not buying mp3 players and created the ipod. Apple also has realised why people dont buy flash players and created the shuffle. For that reason alsone they should be worshipped !
And am I the only one who is noticing the fact that the shuffle dissers out there do not seem to have ever used it ???
>>>>>People are only buying them for the "Ipod" brand. If apple didnt have the "recognition" it has now due to the original Ipod line, people wouldnt give a rats ass about their shuffle players.<<<<<
I completely understand where you're coming from, but I think for a lot of us, this just isn't true. I DO NOT like Apple. I think their stuff is overpriced, and It's way to "fasionable" for me. I like black. I like utility. I don't need my computer to be trendy and hip.
I have a Shuffle, and I like it. It's a "throw and go" player for me. I just throw it in my pocket, and put my headphones in, and that's it. No thinking about anything. I know that every song on it is something I like, and that's it.
I agree that the Shuffle wouldn't have a 58% market share if it wasn't an "iPod", but for some of us, it really is great to have a cheap barebones player that is extremely tiny.
It's not a bad player, it's just different. But, it's definitely not worth all the hype it gets.
No one with a huffle is going to be able to persuade me they're not a moron. The day it has a screen and you can autofill it from your ipod without needing a computer, it'll be worth doing. Until then for christ sakes get any other player that is MSC and has a bloody screen so you can see what song is playing. I said before, the only reason Apple started with such a low tech model without a screen is money, not style. That way, when they release one with a screen, the first lot of morons who have already parted with their cash will think "Wow man, a screen, now I'll actually be able to choose the song I want, this is revolutionary" and go and give apple another $100. The lower you start, the more upgrades you can do to make newer products, the more money you'll make. Plain and simple, except there are a lot of morons out there that don't get this!
I just got my 1 GB shuffle and I am having trouble filling it up with songs. If I am travelling any distance, I take my car with any one of my 700 CDs. I just want something for when I walk to the corner store and back, half hour to hour. I don't want my entire music collection on it. I don't need to see the song title, because I only load music I want to listen to on it. I don't get how this makes me a moron?
I use a used Viewsonic V35 PDA with a 512MB sd card. With prices falling I could probobly rack it up to 1-2 GB easily. My cost on both items are less than the shuffle, and 2,000% more features.
I really, really really love Pocket Informant. It's the best PPC scheduler out there. Check it out.
Oh I got my stuff on eBay. Go look. But if I were looking now, I'd get an HP 4700 ipaq.
My 2c.
iPods and Apple are like Marmite - you either love it or you hate it.
My personal reason for buying a shuffle is easy. I've been a mac user since the age of 5 when my father brought one home running OS7, I will nearly always choose an apple product over anything else simply because it is what I am used to. As a university student I couldn't afford an iPod or a mini but the shuffle fitted neatly in to my budget. I fail to see how spending less money on a device that suits me makes me a moron.
Far be it from me to bash another product, bu to me this seems ridiculous.
My MuVo TX FM uses true drag and drop mass storage, truly the easiest interface there is. I can snag music files from anyone, anywhere and move them back and forth between computers. The MuVo lasts 20 hours + on a cheap-o AAA battery, has a screen, has a radio (despite what Mac fanboys say, this is useful), came with an armband for free (not a ridiculous $30 option), has an EQ, has a built-in USB plug and cost exactly the same as the shuffle. Despite what some people here seem to believe, it's also friggen easy to use, a five-year-old could figure it out. You can set up proper playlists by simply creating folders, there are four buttons on the whole thing. It also has great sound quality and plays nice and loud. Lastly, it doesn't look like a pregnancy test. C'mon, I can't be the only one that thinks the Shuffle looks a little, well, feminine?
Why would anyone buy a shuffle? As far as I can tell, it's either:
1. People who alreay have another Ipod and use iTunes.
2. People who are new to the DAP market and buy based on the Apple brand.
spyvie, the cnet reviews are useful, but not all that great when it comes the their assesment of sound quality. but as long as you went there, lets see what they have to say:
ipod shuffle- "sound quality is quite good"
N200 - "sounded good in our tests"
here is a quote for this thread:
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.
Albert Einstein
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I have a 30GB 3G iPOD, a Rio Forge 256MB with a 1GB SD card in it, and a 1GB iPOD shuffle, so I have some credibility on the subject. I regularly use all three of these players for different purposes, and they all have their pluses and minuses, as many have already pointed out. I'm not sure that any one of these players would satisfy all my needs. I'll just highlight a few things that may not be obvious.
1. I like the FM radio on the Rio for listening to the TV sound on the monitors at the gym. I like fact that it came with an arm band and clip. The Apple store wants $15 for a friggin' plastic clip for the shuffle. The shuffle should come with a clip of some sort.
2. The Rio will drain the internal AAA battery even if the unit is turned off. I've taken to removing the battery between workout sessions. This is somewhat of a pain.
3. I use the Shuffle for a form of Podcasting. I download talk radio MP3s and tape audio streams, drop them on the Shuffle. For this, the Shuffle is awesome. The main gripe I have is having to use ITunes to load it.
4. You CAN actually use the Shuffle's buttons through a pants or shirt pocket. I'm not sure Apple even realized this when they designed it, but it's pretty cool.
5. The Shuffle draws nil current when paused. That's a side benefit of not having a display and backlighting to time out. You can pause it overnight if you want with no impact on battery life.
6. Lithium Ion batteries are my profession, so I have some credibility on this subject as well. The lifetime can vary significantly depending on how the battery is treated. The WORST thing for lithium ion batteries is heat. If you leave the Shuffle in a hot car in Phoenix in the summer, you've probably taken a year of life off the battery in a day. Keep your batteries cool, and you can probably get 3 or 4 years out of them.
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I, last week, thought of the ipod shuffle as a waste of money. I now have rethought this, and think that it is not so bad of a product. How much is a good flash drive now? $50-65 Yea, not so bad. The ipod shuffle- $100. Why is it worth the difference? I personally see it as a flash player, that can also play mp3s. not an mp3 player.
I currently have a 64mb phillips wearable digital camera. On those days that I either forget my ipod, or the battery dies, I like being able to put in my drive an listen to some music off of that. It also takes pictures, but at 64mb, it is getting outdated. I was thinking of upgrading to a new flash drive, so why not get one that you can listen to music directly off of?
Things ALWAYS in my pockets: phone, wallet, keys, chapstick and my camera. Its nice to have a camera, but I would rather have the extra storage (i have been battling with low memory for months now- nothing left to delete)
So why should I not get the shuffle when considering new flash drives?? I do not plan on using it every day, as I do currently have an ipod.
I think that the ipod shuffle is a good product, nothing to break off, no having to worry about a screen getting scratched, small enough to always have with you, and it is a flash drive. It is just an everyday product (flash drive) that has those extra features when you need them (music).
(this is all assuming you can use it as a flash drive)
It's funny that people think others actually care about their personal experiences with these things. What's good for you isn't always good for someone else. Some people see no use for the shuffle, others think it's great. I think the best way to rate a product like this is how many people it is actually useful to. Unfortunately, we don't know these numbers because sales numbers are so out of whack due to apple fanaticism, the success of the iPod and therefore iTunes, and "fashion conscious" people.
My mom got an iRiver for christmas to listen to on the treadmill. I filled it for her on Christmas, and again last weekend, as there really is no way she'd figure it out herself. I couldn't believe how much more difficult it was (maybe I was doing something wrong) I had to use Windows Media Player to rip the songs to her computer, and then the iRiver software to get them to the player. The iRiver software doesn't recognize the names I gave the songs in WMP, so i had to go back and forth to match file names to songs. Plus I had to rename some of the the songs cuz WMP just keeps naming the sme things over and ove (track 1, track 2, etc.)
Compare this to the ipod shuffle/iTunes experience, and I can see why they are so popular. I got a shuffle after the belt clip for my 3G ipod broke, and i realized lighter would be much better. Now I can fill and charge my 512 once a week or less and listen at the gym without needing a battery a charge or repeating a tune.
I don't care it doesn't have a screen AT ALL, and it's size and sound are amazing. I don't consider myself a moron or a trend follower at all, i like that it just works, and works well.
Just because people use a different product than you, why do you think they are blindly following some marketing hype and not evaluating a product differently than you? Many of you Shuffle haters seem to assume Shuffle buyers are dumb. Maybe they just use different criteria than you. (i.e., maybe they don't think a screen is important.)
I think it's funny some of you seem so concerned about someone else's money.
Its not about being concerned about how other people spend their money-its just that the money goes to Apple, who then get inspired to create more amazing products like the Shuffle iCrap....
And people who fund them are the people who buy an Apple product without a screen, even though much BETTER products are available for the same price, from other companies
>>>And people who fund them are the people who buy an
>>>Apple product without a screen, even though much
>>>BETTER products are available for the same price, from
>>>other companies
...again, you're assuming it's a terrible product because you're only evaluating it according to your own criteria...
BATTERY LIFE: most people don't need 20+ hours of play... yeah, it's nice to be able to leave something unplugged for a while and come back and it's still got enough juice to get you through the day... but, for the majority of ipod users (which, in turn, is the majority of mp3 player users), it's not that big a deal to plug in a machine when you get home... you likely do it before going to bed... same time you plug in your cellphone...
FM RADIO: okay, can we get this through our heads: AN FM TUNER IS NOT THE BE ALL AND END ALL OF AN MP3 PLAYER... the only ~real~ usage is that you can listen to the tv's in the gym... and maybe npr... and you're really not missing out ~that~ much, so long as your music collection is on point anyway... why would you want to listen to commercial radio (read: computer generated clearchannel crap playlists) when you've got a couple hundred songs of your own choosing just chilling?
SCREEN: again... YOU picked all the songs on there? don't you have some idea of what's on your computer?
DRAG AND DROP: okay, truthfully, this is only a complain for the geek circle... like, yeah, it would be nice if this were supported on the shuffle, but it's not a dealbreaker... you only care about it because you're deliberately being a geek... as evidenced by the sales, MOST people don't even care about it...
ugh, Okay people who exercise use the ipod shuffle, I get it, good for running... Blah Blah Blah.
Look I had an iriver mp3-cdplayer, To date this has been the best portable music device I've ever owned. EVER, it turned me into and iriver fanboy admitedly, but with good reason. besides the fact that it came with it's own recharable batteries, external battery back in-line remote and carry pack- the best feature was hands down the user interface. Okay I'm a geek so I never had a problem with the learning curve, but I gave it to my friend(when I was given an ipod as a gift), who is as technically able as your average grandma with alzhiemers, learned how to navigate it in five minutes.
So what pray tell was so fabulous about the interface,
1) the screen scrolled(something only the Ipod photo does WTF?) to tell you what song or album you were looking at.
2) While listening to one song I could enqueue the next song I wanted to hear (believe me this is the best feature in the world on my computer I can only use media players that support this feature)
The only feature I didn't use was the radio(corporate radio blows), oh yeah and the lyrics option(but that was kinda something they did because they could)
As for the other companies I have this to say
creative -crappy buggy product I've avoided them after soundblast 16bit
Sony -(really do I have to say it slaves to the proprietary gods) if they can find a way to inflate the price they will(memory sticks blow)
rio - first on the scene dinosaurs with inovation.
I just really hope iriver doesn't fold because of the ipod and all it's derivatives. iriver consistently comes out with inovative gadgets I want to own.
I have to agree with #52, itunes on windows really sucks. I'll use foobar, ephpod, the winamp ipod plugin, almost anything before I use that thing. heaven forbid my computer crashes with itunes open and my ipod attached, which has happened more times than it should.
u paid money for a shuffle = you're a moron.
'nuff said.
# 68:
Ive owned a slimx for some time now ... and i have some gripes ...
1) the external battery thing is so uncool and really really sucks !
2) Skip protection could do with a bit of work
3) the interface is good for a cd player but really cannot be compared to the ipod ... I mean switching to fm mode and changing the eq setting is so messed up !
4) not the most robust device in the world as i found out !
What I love : The sound !
I think reviewers love irivers coz it works when they review it. But i dont think i river cd players are that amazing !
To all of you people who call shuffle users morons - You are most likely fat bastards! I have a 20GB iPod that I love to death, but when the shuffle came out I immediately bought a 512MB one. Why? For the gym, you fatties! I'm not gonna lug areound a HDD based player throughout the gym and I don't need an lcd screen to see what's playing while I'm busy exercising. This thing sits on a lanyard and doesn't get in the way while I exercise.
I also use it 90% of the time to listen to ripped talk radio shows (no -I don't need an fm tuner because I would spend half the time listening to commercials instead of being able to fast forward through them) & podcasts, so I'm constantly updating it. Plugging it in to a usb port and quickly updating it is a lot easier than connecting the cord to the usb/firewire port and then to the iPod. I can also use it as a USB memory stick and throw files I may need on it. The thing is a lot more useful than it seems and I use it far more than my 20GB iPod.
Impossible to buy? Do you think the iPod is where it is because apple forgot to buy huge ad space and pay zillions of dollars for guys like bono to sing their latest hit on their commercial?