5 ms·

His footnote is interesting: "Although there’s still no decent Android-based equivalent to the iPod Touch." He's right. Based on price, there is no equivalent.

by symesc 16y ago

His footnote is interesting: "Although there’s still no decent Android-based equivalent to the iPod Touch." He's right. Based on price, there is no equivalent. On features, the equivalent is a Google Nexus One without a SIM card. Trouble is, that's about to not be available from Google directly. I'm wondering whether we'll be able to buy an N1 without a contract ever again. Disclosure: I bought an N1 directly from Google and loved the experience of not having to talk to a carrier or any staff member at a generic retail outlet.

jackowayed 16y ago
But the N1 isn't even a very good substitute. Although people who buy iTouches love all the apps and the ability to browse the web whenever they have WiFi, in the end, they're buying an mp3 player. They're buying it so that they can listen to music. Not only is the N1 much more expensive, but it also has a much worse music-playing interface. Until someone fixes the Android music player or writes their own (luckily, an app can have all the privileges that the core apps have, so anyone could just write the Awesome Music Player app and put it in the market), the demand for a good Android iTouch competitor won't be there. But I do think that getting an iTouch-like Android device out there is important. There are only so many people who are willing to pay $30/month for Internet on their phone, but pretty much everyone is willing to pay $200-$300 for a nice mp3 player with no recurring cost. And it's important to get as many Android devices out there as possible so that consumers believe that it's a good option (in many people's minds, popular == good) and app developers see more incentive to write good apps.
- watmough 16y ago
  You wrote: Although people who buy iTouches love all the apps and the ability to browse the web whenever they have WiFi, in the end, they're buying an mp3 player. They're buying it so that they can listen to music. I'm not sure you're correct. I have a simless old iPhone, equivalent to an iPod Touch, and it runs apps exclusively. It has barely been used for playing music. In fact, the beauty of apps means the hardwares purpose is completely malleable. In my case, it is primarily a mini-Bloomberg reader and alarm clock.
  - catch23 16y ago
    You and others on HN are probably not the target for the iPod Touch. Just spend some time with my sister and her friends and you'll quickly see that a bunch of them have iPod Touches and most of them are just used for playing music (with a few games here and there) My sister also has an iPhone, but she's not really tech savvy enough to download apps and actually use them. She's downloaded a few apps, but most of the time she just uses her iPhone as .... a phone.
- CrazedGeek 16y ago
  Might I ask why you think the Android Music app is bad? From what I can tell, it's nearly identical to the iPod app on iP* (it's more awkward getting back to your library from the Now Playing screen, but that's all).
  - jackowayed 16y ago
    The interface just isn't as nice overall. It gets the job done, but it's not as intuitive or pretty as the iPhone's player. Also, the vast majority of people have their music in iTunes. The fact that they can't just plug in the device and tell iTunes to sync might be a turnoff
    - eavc 16y ago
      The vast majority?
      - jackowayed 16y ago
        Seems like it. I'd guess that it's ~90% of mp3 player customers in the US, but maybe I see a biased sample.
      - cakesy 16y ago
        I would say yes, the vast majority. Of legal music buyers anyway. Apple is has been the biggest music seller in the US for the last 2 years, it is now bigger than the next 2, Walmart and best Buy. It has over 27% of the market. Amazon is at something like 7% for digital+cds.
      - earl 16y ago
        anecdote: friends and family have spent at least 20 thousand dollars on music in itunes. The people who even know alternatives exist are only tech people and they don't spend much money on music.
- billjings 16y ago
  I know of a fair number of people buying iTouches for their kids exclusively to play games - to keep them off their iPhones, basically.
- armandososa 16y ago
  Although people who buy iTouches love all the apps and the ability to browse the web whenever they have WiFi, in the end, they're buying an mp3 player. They're buying it so that they can listen to music. I don't think you are right. The touch music player interface is good, but not as good as my old 40GB iPod Video. Man, it has been almost two years now and I still miss the clickwheel. I got my iPod touch because of the large screen, the wi-fi and the apps. I don't even hear as much music as I've used to because I really hate unblocking the screen to skip songs and change volume. Clickwheel, I miss you.
  - ZitchDog 16y ago
    The headphones on my iPod touch give me the ability to skip forward/backward and change volume.
  - nathanieljones 16y ago
    Double-tab the home button to bring up music controls without unlocking your touch.
- barrkel 16y ago
  My iPod touch is most often used as a remote control for media player classic on my PC. I still use my nano for music though. Click wheel is much more usable and device is much smaller and lighter.
- portman 16y ago
  >> Although people who buy iTouches love all the apps and the ability to browse the web whenever they have WiFi, in the end, they're buying an mp3 player. They're buying it so that they can listen to music. Our family has three iPod touches with no music on ANY of them. If you speak to families with young children, you'll find there are millions of iPod Touches out there being used as game/app/video platforms.
- buro9 16y ago
  > Not only is the N1 much more expensive, but it also has a much worse music-playing interface. Until someone fixes the Android music player or writes their own (luckily, an app can have all the privileges that the core apps have, so anyone could just write the Awesome Music Player app and put it in the market) I really want someone to fix this. Android needs a WinAmp type thing to play and catalogue any music. The built-in player I've abandoned as it doesn't support FLAC. I'm using andless ( http://code.google.com/p/andless/ http://code.google.com/p/andless/ ) which supports FLAC and is probably the cleanest interface. But it lacks a bit of polish (smooth transitions between screens, a tactile feel). It also lacks album artwork read from meta-data and stuff like that. And it stutters occasionally on playback. I really don't know about music file formats but just because I want a decent music player once I have some time I'm going to see if I can find any open source libraries elsewhere that I can plug in to see whether I can figure out how to fill these shortcomings. Justin Frankel if you're reading this... we all know you could do this in a week or two and improve our lives in the same way WinAmp originally transformed the music experience on Windows. [edit]OK, So I just realised I should do something about this, so I've just asked JF if he'd consider it: http://www.askjf.com/index.php?q=662s http://www.askjf.com/index.php?q=662s and I'm going to grab the Android SDK and work out just how inept I am at this. I guess the andless code is a good place to start.[/edit]
Tichy 16y ago
How long will people keep on buying MP3 players? Eventually, phones will be good enough to replace them 100% Also, will iPhone OS 4 be available for iPod Touch? I rather doubt it?
- wendroid 16y ago
  My Sony Walkman gets 35 hours continuous mp3 playback.
- Maktab 16y ago
  Apple have already stated that iPhone OS 4 will be available for the iPod touch, though only the third-generation touch will get multitasking. I'm not sure why you would have doubted it. How would it have made sense for Apple to exclude it from the new software release?
  - Tichy 16y ago
    I have heard that they exclude the oldest iPhone from OS 4, and I thought iPod Touch would be on the same technical level as the oldest iPhones. Why does Apple exclude the old iPhones?
    - ugh 16y ago
      The current iPod touch is on the same level as the 3GS, maybe even a bit faster. It has the same amount of RAM and the CPU might be a bit better. iPods are released yearly so there is no reason why they shouldn’t be just as fast and have just as much RAM as iPhones. It’s right, though, that the oldest iPod touch (from 2007) won’t get the update. 2nd and 3rd generation iPod touches will but 2nd generation iPod touches won’t get multitasking (just like their brother, the 2nd generation iPhone aka iPhone 3G).
    - fh 16y ago
      AFAIK it's a combination of the hardware not being good enough, and Apple not really trying to optimize for those devices (they'd be happy if you bought a new one). The iPod Touch went through several iterations, just like the iPhone; the latest iPod Touch is actually a bit higher specced than the latest iPhone.

by symesc 16y ago

jackowayed 16y ago

But the N1 isn't even a very good substitute. Although people who buy iTouches love all the apps and the ability to browse the web whenever they have WiFi, in the end, they're buying an mp3 player. They're buying it so that they can listen to music. Not only is the N1 much more expensive, but it also has a much worse music-playing interface. Until someone fixes the Android music player or writes their own (luckily, an app can have all the privileges that the core apps have, so anyone could just write the Awesome Music Player app and put it in the market), the demand for a good Android iTouch competitor won't be there. But I do think that getting an iTouch-like Android device out there is important. There are only so many people who are willing to pay $30/month for Internet on their phone, but pretty much everyone is willing to pay $200-$300 for a nice mp3 player with no recurring cost. And it's important to get as many Android devices out there as possible so that consumers believe that it's a good option (in many people's minds, popular == good) and app developers see more incentive to write good apps.

watmough 16y ago
You wrote: Although people who buy iTouches love all the apps and the ability to browse the web whenever they have WiFi, in the end, they're buying an mp3 player. They're buying it so that they can listen to music. I'm not sure you're correct. I have a simless old iPhone, equivalent to an iPod Touch, and it runs apps exclusively. It has barely been used for playing music. In fact, the beauty of apps means the hardwares purpose is completely malleable. In my case, it is primarily a mini-Bloomberg reader and alarm clock.
- catch23 16y ago
  You and others on HN are probably not the target for the iPod Touch. Just spend some time with my sister and her friends and you'll quickly see that a bunch of them have iPod Touches and most of them are just used for playing music (with a few games here and there) My sister also has an iPhone, but she's not really tech savvy enough to download apps and actually use them. She's downloaded a few apps, but most of the time she just uses her iPhone as .... a phone.
CrazedGeek 16y ago
Might I ask why you think the Android Music app is bad? From what I can tell, it's nearly identical to the iPod app on iP* (it's more awkward getting back to your library from the Now Playing screen, but that's all).
- jackowayed 16y ago
  The interface just isn't as nice overall. It gets the job done, but it's not as intuitive or pretty as the iPhone's player. Also, the vast majority of people have their music in iTunes. The fact that they can't just plug in the device and tell iTunes to sync might be a turnoff
  - eavc 16y ago
    The vast majority?
    - jackowayed 16y ago
      Seems like it. I'd guess that it's ~90% of mp3 player customers in the US, but maybe I see a biased sample.
    - cakesy 16y ago
      I would say yes, the vast majority. Of legal music buyers anyway. Apple is has been the biggest music seller in the US for the last 2 years, it is now bigger than the next 2, Walmart and best Buy. It has over 27% of the market. Amazon is at something like 7% for digital+cds.
    - earl 16y ago
      anecdote: friends and family have spent at least 20 thousand dollars on music in itunes. The people who even know alternatives exist are only tech people and they don't spend much money on music.
billjings 16y ago
I know of a fair number of people buying iTouches for their kids exclusively to play games - to keep them off their iPhones, basically.
armandososa 16y ago
Although people who buy iTouches love all the apps and the ability to browse the web whenever they have WiFi, in the end, they're buying an mp3 player. They're buying it so that they can listen to music. I don't think you are right. The touch music player interface is good, but not as good as my old 40GB iPod Video. Man, it has been almost two years now and I still miss the clickwheel. I got my iPod touch because of the large screen, the wi-fi and the apps. I don't even hear as much music as I've used to because I really hate unblocking the screen to skip songs and change volume. Clickwheel, I miss you.
- ZitchDog 16y ago
  The headphones on my iPod touch give me the ability to skip forward/backward and change volume.
- nathanieljones 16y ago
  Double-tab the home button to bring up music controls without unlocking your touch.
barrkel 16y ago
My iPod touch is most often used as a remote control for media player classic on my PC. I still use my nano for music though. Click wheel is much more usable and device is much smaller and lighter.
portman 16y ago
>> Although people who buy iTouches love all the apps and the ability to browse the web whenever they have WiFi, in the end, they're buying an mp3 player. They're buying it so that they can listen to music. Our family has three iPod touches with no music on ANY of them. If you speak to families with young children, you'll find there are millions of iPod Touches out there being used as game/app/video platforms.
buro9 16y ago
> Not only is the N1 much more expensive, but it also has a much worse music-playing interface. Until someone fixes the Android music player or writes their own (luckily, an app can have all the privileges that the core apps have, so anyone could just write the Awesome Music Player app and put it in the market) I really want someone to fix this. Android needs a WinAmp type thing to play and catalogue any music. The built-in player I've abandoned as it doesn't support FLAC. I'm using andless ( http://code.google.com/p/andless/ http://code.google.com/p/andless/ ) which supports FLAC and is probably the cleanest interface. But it lacks a bit of polish (smooth transitions between screens, a tactile feel). It also lacks album artwork read from meta-data and stuff like that. And it stutters occasionally on playback. I really don't know about music file formats but just because I want a decent music player once I have some time I'm going to see if I can find any open source libraries elsewhere that I can plug in to see whether I can figure out how to fill these shortcomings. Justin Frankel if you're reading this... we all know you could do this in a week or two and improve our lives in the same way WinAmp originally transformed the music experience on Windows. [edit]OK, So I just realised I should do something about this, so I've just asked JF if he'd consider it: http://www.askjf.com/index.php?q=662s http://www.askjf.com/index.php?q=662s and I'm going to grab the Android SDK and work out just how inept I am at this. I guess the andless code is a good place to start.[/edit]

Tichy 16y ago

How long will people keep on buying MP3 players? Eventually, phones will be good enough to replace them 100% Also, will iPhone OS 4 be available for iPod Touch? I rather doubt it?

wendroid 16y ago
My Sony Walkman gets 35 hours continuous mp3 playback.
Maktab 16y ago
Apple have already stated that iPhone OS 4 will be available for the iPod touch, though only the third-generation touch will get multitasking. I'm not sure why you would have doubted it. How would it have made sense for Apple to exclude it from the new software release?
- Tichy 16y ago
  I have heard that they exclude the oldest iPhone from OS 4, and I thought iPod Touch would be on the same technical level as the oldest iPhones. Why does Apple exclude the old iPhones?
  - ugh 16y ago
    The current iPod touch is on the same level as the 3GS, maybe even a bit faster. It has the same amount of RAM and the CPU might be a bit better. iPods are released yearly so there is no reason why they shouldn’t be just as fast and have just as much RAM as iPhones. It’s right, though, that the oldest iPod touch (from 2007) won’t get the update. 2nd and 3rd generation iPod touches will but 2nd generation iPod touches won’t get multitasking (just like their brother, the 2nd generation iPhone aka iPhone 3G).
  - fh 16y ago
    AFAIK it's a combination of the hardware not being good enough, and Apple not really trying to optimize for those devices (they'd be happy if you bought a new one). The iPod Touch went through several iterations, just like the iPhone; the latest iPod Touch is actually a bit higher specced than the latest iPhone.