5 ms·

> Every attempted "competitor" I've seen that stands against the iPod Touch either costs more than the touch or is reviewed as unusable garbage. Maybe this spe

by mason55 13y ago

> Every attempted "competitor" I've seen that stands against the iPod Touch either costs more than the touch or is reviewed as unusable garbage. Maybe this speaks to Tim Cook's operations wizardry? If no one can get components at the same quality or price as Apple then they're stuck either selling a crappier device for the same price or a good device at a higher price. If you can't beat Apple in hardware price or hardware quality then you'd have to win on software cost or software quality - sounds like a perfect place for Android. It's likely that the companies with the resources to do this have decided that the market is too small or they don't want to cannibalize their phone sales. Otherwise you'd think HTC or Samsung would be releasing Android-based media players.

patmcc 13y ago
>>they're stuck either selling a crappier device for the same price or a good device at a higher price. Or they just need to accept a lower gross margin than the ~50% Apple gets.
Pxtl 13y ago
Samsung made a line called Galaxy Player. The cheapest one was $150 and sported a 3.6in 480x340 pixel screen, at a time when you could get an iPod Touch for $200. There expensive one, the Galaxy Player 5, cost more than Apple's offering. And they all ran Android 2.3 Similarly, there was Archos. They made a whole family of Android player devices at the 2.3 era, and where infamously buggy. Sony made the Walkman Z as a phoneless counterpart to the Xperia Z. It was $250. Supposedly a fantastic device, but that's not really undercutting Apple very well when Apple was selling iPod 4 devices for less. I mean, Black Friday doorcrashers this year were iPod 4 at $130. I can't think of any android counterpart I'd want at that price. Maybe Motorola can figure out a phoneless Moto G with the right nudge from Google. A big problem is also marketing - these companies are only now figuring out how to market their handheld devices in the carrier-controlled countries since up until then they just handed the devices off to carriers and maybe put up a few ads. Meanwhile, Apples had their own stores. Samsung could stop shoving money into ads and could start putting together coherent store-displays of their non-carrier product line. Sony should revive their store-brand too - they were Apple back when Apple made beige boxes. Sony could be Apple again - they've stopped the race to the bottom and seem to be investing in quality. I'd love to see Sony put together a coherent adversary for Apple using the Android/Win8 ecosystems. They even have the kind of market breadth and to put together a counter to the iTunes/App Store with their gaming and media holdings.
- pdenya 13y ago
  I used to think well of Sony but my PS3 has lowered my opinion of them as much as the issues with Sony laptops that family members own. I'd love to see them invest in quality and turn things around but I don't expect them to. It's like they've lost the ability to think through the whole experience so even their nice products have extreme low points.
  - Pxtl 13y ago
    Sony hit a quality nadir 5ish years ago, from what I've heard they've decided recently they can't compete with Samsung and LG at making cheap crap with good components and they're trying to be a quality company again. The Xperia Z hawt secks for example. I haven't touched a PS4 yet or a VitaStation, so I can't speak to their other flagship products. I'd love to see Sony take on Apple in making quality well-designed equipment and metal laptops. Even if Sony is just as bad as (if not worse than) Apple on IP law.
  - TillE 13y ago
    They still make the best reasonably-priced studio headphones in the business, the MDR-7506. It's a fairly old design at this point, though.
- mason55 13y ago
  So do you think they're not trying? Or it's just really difficult because of Apple's operations efficiencies? It seems like they could make up for Apple's hardware lead (cornered market on flash, vertical integration) by starting with Android and winning on software development time but maybe iOS is mature enough now that the cost to continue building it out is the same as the cost to repackage Android.

by mason55 13y ago

patmcc 13y ago

>>they're stuck either selling a crappier device for the same price or a good device at a higher price. Or they just need to accept a lower gross margin than the ~50% Apple gets.

Pxtl 13y ago

Samsung made a line called Galaxy Player. The cheapest one was $150 and sported a 3.6in 480x340 pixel screen, at a time when you could get an iPod Touch for $200. There expensive one, the Galaxy Player 5, cost more than Apple's offering. And they all ran Android 2.3 Similarly, there was Archos. They made a whole family of Android player devices at the 2.3 era, and where infamously buggy. Sony made the Walkman Z as a phoneless counterpart to the Xperia Z. It was $250. Supposedly a fantastic device, but that's not really undercutting Apple very well when Apple was selling iPod 4 devices for less. I mean, Black Friday doorcrashers this year were iPod 4 at $130. I can't think of any android counterpart I'd want at that price. Maybe Motorola can figure out a phoneless Moto G with the right nudge from Google. A big problem is also marketing - these companies are only now figuring out how to market their handheld devices in the carrier-controlled countries since up until then they just handed the devices off to carriers and maybe put up a few ads. Meanwhile, Apples had their own stores. Samsung could stop shoving money into ads and could start putting together coherent store-displays of their non-carrier product line. Sony should revive their store-brand too - they were Apple back when Apple made beige boxes. Sony could be Apple again - they've stopped the race to the bottom and seem to be investing in quality. I'd love to see Sony put together a coherent adversary for Apple using the Android/Win8 ecosystems. They even have the kind of market breadth and to put together a counter to the iTunes/App Store with their gaming and media holdings.

pdenya 13y ago
I used to think well of Sony but my PS3 has lowered my opinion of them as much as the issues with Sony laptops that family members own. I'd love to see them invest in quality and turn things around but I don't expect them to. It's like they've lost the ability to think through the whole experience so even their nice products have extreme low points.
- Pxtl 13y ago
  Sony hit a quality nadir 5ish years ago, from what I've heard they've decided recently they can't compete with Samsung and LG at making cheap crap with good components and they're trying to be a quality company again. The Xperia Z hawt secks for example. I haven't touched a PS4 yet or a VitaStation, so I can't speak to their other flagship products. I'd love to see Sony take on Apple in making quality well-designed equipment and metal laptops. Even if Sony is just as bad as (if not worse than) Apple on IP law.
- TillE 13y ago
  They still make the best reasonably-priced studio headphones in the business, the MDR-7506. It's a fairly old design at this point, though.
mason55 13y ago
So do you think they're not trying? Or it's just really difficult because of Apple's operations efficiencies? It seems like they could make up for Apple's hardware lead (cornered market on flash, vertical integration) by starting with Android and winning on software development time but maybe iOS is mature enough now that the cost to continue building it out is the same as the cost to repackage Android.