The wifi iTunes is useless for me. For one, I loathe iTunes as a player and will not install it on my computer. It's a bloated piece of trash with, at the very least, a necessarily massive visual footprint. Ug. For another, I can't see myself buying mp3s from Apple. Most of what I listen to is non-RIAA protected artists. I buy most of it on vinyl, and often CD, for less than iTunes would charge me. I'll rip my own, thank you.
The tiny flash drive, although necessary, defeats the purpose of video to me (and correct me if I'm wrong, but videos purchased from iTunes run about 750MB per hour, meaning the 8 gig can hold about 10 hours of video, or less than half a season of Heroes.) For the price, for the purpose, I'd never buy it with these capacities.
I think the product is ahead of its time, but in a negative way. I know people will jump for it and love to show it off. I know it is beautiful. But it offers absolutely nothing for me other than looks. For mp3/video playback there are dozens of other options with more battery life and much higher capacity.
And, for wifi internet browsing, which I am eager for, there are those UMPCs. Which are currently far, far too expensive, but will ultimately be products I really want.
I realise that engadget is primarily a site about gadgets, but coming across this a few days ago but not being able to try it out for myself I'd like to ask what people think of this:- (particularly if you feel you are a developer and could help out)
**For anyone with an iphone or who may gave early access to one of the new ipods how viable an alternative to itunes is this for use with your ipod?**(may require 3rd party plugin on site)
- it may not be compatible right off the bat but has add-on support which is one of the things that really makes winamp great (I believe some of the creators of winamp built it).
from my understanding of Songbird, its seems like it has the potential to be to itunes what firefox is to IE.
what does anyone else think....?
[apologies for going marginally off topic but I thought that this could be something that could interest a lot of people]
I'm curious, what exactly is considered "bloatware" these days? Is it a program with a ton of features and an attractive appearance? Is it a program that has a large file size, or memory useage despite the near Terabyte of storage and several gigs of RAM a modern computer has?
My home computers have no problem whatsoever running iTunes/Windows Media 11 and a ton of other apps at the same time. Chug free. Bloatware is a phrase that should have died with Windows 3.11
If you don't like todays software, just fire up that trusty DOS/Unix box of yours and have a blast! I'll stick with my Vista/OS X machines and continue to enjoy what they offer.
Jon, why waste space and time using iTunes taking up half my damn screen with its wonderful showcase 'features' when I can use Winamp 5, sync my music to my Zen/Ipod/what have you, have the player itself occupy less space than the title bar of a window, and play with plugins pretty much every single music and video file invented ever (including ROM dumps, tracker files, etc. - music doesn't stop with the iTunes store)? THAT'S the kind of feature I'm looking for, not the ability to look at my cover art like a flipbook. Let alone the various other options that load quickly, are much more customizable, and don't try to take over your PC ...
Just because an interface is glitzy and pretty and colorful doesn't mean it's good for everyone. You may be enamored by it. Fine. That doesn't give you the right to go LOL OSX LOOKS U R OLD NOOB! I'll take a minimalistic player/skin any day of the week, and I do. From minimalistic Winamp/Foobar/etc. with the text-based media library to the utility of VLC Video Player and Media Player Classic, I prefer my programs to work and work efficiently, especially in the computing world of today where it is so easy for a developer to get away with not doing so. Why waste processing power and time needlessly? I'd rather save the cycles for games, my CAD software, or letting my CPU drop into a lower power mode.
HP has had plenty of time to fine-tune its finger-friendly TouchSmart software, and now, its newest model, the TouchSmart 610, ushers in a fresh design, highlighted by a hinge that allows the display to slide down and lie nearly flat.
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The double click sounds brilliant.
The wifi iTunes is useless for me. For one, I loathe iTunes as a player and will not install it on my computer. It's a bloated piece of trash with, at the very least, a necessarily massive visual footprint. Ug.
For another, I can't see myself buying mp3s from Apple. Most of what I listen to is non-RIAA protected artists. I buy most of it on vinyl, and often CD, for less than iTunes would charge me. I'll rip my own, thank you.
The tiny flash drive, although necessary, defeats the purpose of video to me (and correct me if I'm wrong, but videos purchased from iTunes run about 750MB per hour, meaning the 8 gig can hold about 10 hours of video, or less than half a season of Heroes.) For the price, for the purpose, I'd never buy it with these capacities.
I think the product is ahead of its time, but in a negative way. I know people will jump for it and love to show it off. I know it is beautiful. But it offers absolutely nothing for me other than looks. For mp3/video playback there are dozens of other options with more battery life and much higher capacity.
And, for wifi internet browsing, which I am eager for, there are those UMPCs. Which are currently far, far too expensive, but will ultimately be products I really want.
cheer up emo kid!
(haha...or, at least take the stick out...)
I realise that engadget is primarily a site about gadgets, but coming across this a few days ago but not being able to try it out for myself I'd like to ask what people think of this:- (particularly if you feel you are a developer and could help out)
[http://www.songbirdnest.com/]
[http://www.songbirdnest.com/features]
[http://www.songbirdnest.com/screencast]
**For anyone with an iphone or who may gave early access to one of the new ipods
how viable an alternative to itunes is this for use with your ipod?**(may require 3rd party plugin on site)
- it may not be compatible right off the bat but has add-on support which is one of the things that really makes winamp great (I believe some of the creators of winamp built it).
from my understanding of Songbird, its seems like it has the potential to be to itunes what firefox is to IE.
what does anyone else think....?
[apologies for going marginally off topic but I thought that this could be something that could interest a lot of people]
I'm curious, what exactly is considered "bloatware" these days? Is it a program with a ton of features and an attractive appearance? Is it a program that has a large file size, or memory useage despite the near Terabyte of storage and several gigs of RAM a modern computer has?
My home computers have no problem whatsoever running iTunes/Windows Media 11 and a ton of other apps at the same time. Chug free. Bloatware is a phrase that should have died with Windows 3.11
If you don't like todays software, just fire up that trusty DOS/Unix box of yours and have a blast! I'll stick with my Vista/OS X machines and continue to enjoy what they offer.
Jon, why waste space and time using iTunes taking up half my damn screen with its wonderful showcase 'features' when I can use Winamp 5, sync my music to my Zen/Ipod/what have you, have the player itself occupy less space than the title bar of a window, and play with plugins pretty much every single music and video file invented ever (including ROM dumps, tracker files, etc. - music doesn't stop with the iTunes store)? THAT'S the kind of feature I'm looking for, not the ability to look at my cover art like a flipbook. Let alone the various other options that load quickly, are much more customizable, and don't try to take over your PC ...
Just because an interface is glitzy and pretty and colorful doesn't mean it's good for everyone. You may be enamored by it. Fine. That doesn't give you the right to go LOL OSX LOOKS U R OLD NOOB! I'll take a minimalistic player/skin any day of the week, and I do. From minimalistic Winamp/Foobar/etc. with the text-based media library to the utility of VLC Video Player and Media Player Classic, I prefer my programs to work and work efficiently, especially in the computing world of today where it is so easy for a developer to get away with not doing so. Why waste processing power and time needlessly? I'd rather save the cycles for games, my CAD software, or letting my CPU drop into a lower power mode.