Playaway's simple audiobook player not so simple after all

We weren't really digging the whole "buy a new audio player for each audiobook" concept for the Playaway in the first place, but now that they're about to land in stores we're hearing that they're having trouble making it easy to use anyways; kind of defeating the idea of marketing these to people who lack the ability to even load up an iPod. The biggie is that the battery is very hard to access, and with an estimated 12 hours of life off of the included triple-A battery, grandpa is going to need to get in there sooner or later. The article details the rush, and many false starts, involved in getting these out the doors, so no telling if they got the bugs out in time. They sure won't have us for beta testers!

[Thanks, Raghu]

[snac @ Dec 19th 2005 2:31AM]

Jeez,
You're better off giving Gran an iPod shuffle with a USB wall charger (and a few Audiobooks).

[Bible and Apologetics Teacher @ Dec 19th 2005 2:31AM]

I've spent a lot of time looking for MP3 players that are convenient for listening to audiobooks. The hardest feature for me to find was the ability to bookmark a single track at multiple places within the track. The Rio players are the only ones I know of that do this and a couple of other things that audiobook listeners need. Maybe this new player will be a good alternative.

[adm @ Dec 19th 2005 2:31AM]

These things are out in stores now. I saw them in Palm store at Newark Airport on Saturday, and was wondering if you could flash the memory. They are really small.

[Derek Lomas @ Dec 19th 2005 2:31AM]

I worked for the company that makes the Playaway this past summer--I was one of 8 employees. It's actually located in my hometown of Chagrin Falls, Ohio, the same town where 'Calvin and Hobbes' cartoonist Bill Waterson lives. (I almost didn't leave, I was having a ball, but I had a scholarship to go work under Natalie Jeremijenko http://entity.eng.yale.edu/nat/ )

It was IDEO that did the industrial design of the Playaway, and I think they did a great job overall. I can totally understand Chis Seper's gripes about the battery door--but seriously, just compare the 12 hours of audio per battery against the 3-4 hours per charge with my second generation iPod. Every new product has a couple issues, and honestly, this battery door issue is barely even a part of the customer experience. The batteries even come packaged inside the Player, so for most titles you don't even have to open up the door during your first listen. It comes with headphones too, so you can start listening to the book immediately. Honestly, they did a great job making it really easy to use.

But I always thought that the goofiest (and best) thing about the Playaway is how it was designed to seem more like a book and less like a gadget. It's literally a 'Talking Book'--just plug your headphones into the side of the book and press play. Bookmarking is really easy and straightforward-- plus you can speed up the narration (which is akin to 'skimming' sections of a book).

The flash memory on these things will last for 50 years, and so Playaways can sit on a bookshelf indefinitely, like a book. In that way, they don't become obsolete like tapes, CDs, or digital audio formats. They are credit card sized, but they have that nice weighty feel to them. You really sense the psychological value of having some PHYSICAL token associated with a book, instead of the whole thing being just a file on your iPod. That is definitely something we lose when all of our media is digital.

But people feel differently about this: I definitely value this 'tangible media' while others really prefer everything to be downloads.. Some people will probably be downloading 'e-books' onto an 'e-book reader' too, someday. But a lot of people like giving books as gifts, and giving a 'digital download' as a gift doesn't seem to have the same emotional value to a lot of people. Most people do like to give something physical..

Also, because the Playaways are physical and self-contained like hard-cover books, they become perfect for real-world sharing. In fact, the company's marketing is in large part based upon people *sharing* Playaways. Sorry, that's SO cool to see an appreciation of sharing in a media company. I used to work for Universal Music, and I can't imagine them EVER embracing sharing as a good thing. In fact, at Findaway, we were SO close to including a stamped envelope in each package so that people could ship these around to friends/family. You can still mail these Playaways around in a regular envelope if you just put on 3 stamps.

Anyhow, I'm listening to the new David Sedaris book on Playaway right now, and I promised I'd send it on to Mark Hurst of GoodExperience.com when I was done. But if you email me at DerekLomas (-at-) gmail then I can share Al Franken's AWESOME new book ('The Truth, with Jokes'), very well read by the author. Because *sharing is caring* (esp. when exposing the ridiculousness of Carl Rove's administration). haha, I digress

later,

Derek

PS. blah blah blah, just so you know I am NOT being paid by this company, nor do I hold any stock. I just sincerely think that they are good, honest people who thought of a really good idea and had the work-ethic to make it a real product in less than a year. I'm clearly hoping they do well, because they are my friends, and the product is really unique. And they are from Chagrin Falls, woo woo!!

[chuck utzman @ Dec 29th 2005 4:04PM]

can someone please tell me how to change the #@$%^ batteries?