Sony are the idiots who shot themselves in the foot by forcing ATRAC on people and refusing for a long time to enable MP3 playback.

Sony f**ked up when created Mini-Disc.

Sony' s best performing audio players were the original Sony Walkmans that used tapes. I have NO faith in Sony whatsoever as far as the portable music business is concerned.

Their Walkman Cd-players were quite successful.
The mini-disc was bad timing. Didn' t they see mp3 was coming?
Don' t let the past get to you. The Walkman phones are doing great and Sony hasn' t done anything bad with them yet. Besides, SonyEricsson is its own company so they make their own decisions even though 50% of the stocks and parts are Sony' s.
And if SonyEricsson doesn' t succeed then some other phone company will.

Any they will never have a storage advantage over dedicated portable media players. There are 60GB+ MP3 players out there already, i don' t expect phones to get that kind of storage space for quite some time and when they do, dedicated portable media players will have jumped ahead again.

Maybe, but then we' ll never need 60 GB storage anyway. Cell phones can use a " new" type of format for audio playback instead of mp3. I don' t remember the name but I' m sure you do. It uses half the size but gives the same quality as mp3. In the future we' ll see more techniques of reducing the file size for both audio and video.
As cell phones haven' t focused on harddrives earlier it is of no surprise that the cell phones haven' t caught up yet. However, they are focusing on it now and if the phone companies are smart they' ll keep doing that. I don' t expect phones to get the same storage as dedicated players but they will definately have enough to compete with them. But it wouldn' t surprice me if phones actually got harddrives the same size as dedicated players as it' s only a matter of what the manufacturers wants to focus on. And since cell phones does so many things I don' t see any reason why iPods and other dedicated mp3 players should exist.

That would require Apple to make as many mistakes as Sony have been doing.

That can happen. Just as Nintendo made some mistakes. Sony aren' t the only fools in the world. Besides, the electronic industry is tough. No one can predict what there will be a demand for in the future.
The iPod will face tough competition as cell phones get more associated with portable music. That' s a fact.
The facts I' ve provided also show that there' s a big risk the cell phones will be more popular than the iPod.
The iPod is " what' s hot" right now. But people nowadays aren' t as loyal to companies as they were before, especially not young people. I' m surprised to see that you believe the iPod to be unbeatable.

Ok and all that' s valid, but we return to the beginning, if rqeuired Apple will simply enter the phone market too, perhaps just simply partnering with an already established company to offer a similar kind of phone to Sony' s Walkman phones.

That' s very possible.
I think Nokia should partner with them since they are the main competitors of SonyEricsson.
But right now the SonyEricsson phones are my favourites and they mostly get top reviews in tech magazines.

Buddy, i think you may have convinced me.

**Runs off to look at cool SonyEricsson phones**

Apple fanboyism right there.

No, that' s a fact - they are Gods of Marketing and Design - ask anyone from MS , Sony or whatever, they won' t deny it(take a close look at X360 for instance).It' s not like a compliment these days - it' s a fact.

...i don' t think apple ever originally intended the ipod to compete directly with walkman... ...ipod was a surprise hit... ...apple had no idea that it would snowball into what it is today...

Yeah and since Walkman pretty much died after that ,there' s no way it could' ve been connected to iPod.At the same time Apple never wanted to make iPod such a hit , they wanted to sell 5 units tops...they must be so disappointed right now
[/sarcasm]

If they are marketing gods then why aren' t Mac' s crushing PC' s?

Their marketing is mostly focused on iPod right now - but at the same time their computer market share increased lately and is getting bigger.If you don' t play PC games , then Mac' s crush PC' s - Mac is like a console experience in your web browsing and other computer activities - " it just works" and that says it all.

Because of software compatability. Shit, if everything that worked with Windows worked with iMacs, then i' d rather go with Apple as they' re far more reliable and efficient.

I agree if you' re PC gamer , but if you' re talking about editors and other software you clearly don' t know what you' re talking about - most creative work in any industry is done on Mac' s these days (even games for Xbox and Xbox360) , stuff like : TV commercials,music videos,graphics in magazines,soundtracks and so on.

Apple is just as strong in software as it is in hardware.People who buy Mac computers , buy them for their OS and software (cause they can get higher Specs PC for that price only not as elegant ,quiet or optimised)

And MP3 phones have been available for quite some time now, yet none of them stopped iPod' sales from growing so fast ...why? iTunes itself is unbeatable

You probably don' t realise that iTunes is responsible for 85% of purchased music in the US - that means that 15% goes to CD' s and other services.

At the same time , a long time ago there was a phone with good audio capabilities - motorola developed with apple to be compatible with iTunes and it was quite some time ago.

...i don' t think apple ever originally intended the ipod to compete directly with walkman... ...ipod was a surprise hit... ...apple had no idea that it would snowball into what it is today...

Yeah and since Walkman pretty much died after that ,there' s no way it could' ve been connected to iPod.At the same time Apple never wanted to make iPod such a hit , they wanted to sell 5 units tops...they must be so disappointed right now
[/sarcasm]

...glad to see that i' m not the only one partial to mistaken exaggeration..... ...but then bias does cloud the judgement easily......



.... majik & gin, i think you two should quit squabbling, and wrap your 3cm reading glasses ' round this....


...' ilife' - is that how you dweebs dance when listening to your ipods?...

I liked that!

I agree if you' re PC gamer , but if you' re talking about editors and other software you clearly don' t know what you' re talking about

Oh sh*t, sorry dude, i forgot i was posting on CGTalk rather than a gaming website...

Yeah because if anyone knows anything about gaming its Apple. If Apple fucking buys Nintendo I' ll kill myself on the same day.

I' m an Athiest and to be honest there isn' t much I believe in, infact I' m just a few steps from being a full blown nihilist. I do however have one simple belief that helps me sleep at night. Which is as follows: there are certain things that are so evil so utterly vile and unthinkably bad that if ever any of these things would happen the Universe itself would be so pissed off it would basically say fuck this, and collapse itself to start over! One such example of such a horrible suck, would be if Apple fucking buys Nintendo. Hence the reason I would kill myself if/when Apple makes such announcement. I don' t want to be around for the end of the world. I' ve seen a lot of shitty situations but nothing compared to that.

I would love a mobile phone that can play mp3s (though admittedly i won' t use it that often) and do pretty much everything. However there is one thing to consider - battery life. Playing mp3s for long periods of time will drain your mobiles batteries like a bitch! especially if is from mini HDD that need to spin. They could use larger batteries but that adds more unnecessary cost, size and weight to the phone. Imagine using your phone as a mp3 player and when you need to make a call your batteries are out of juice! Not cool!

I always see mp3 phones as a novelty feature more then anything else. Convenient? hell yeah, but practical? Until battery life & storage improve by leaps and bounds mp3 phones will not seriously affect ipod (or dedicated mp3 players) IMHO.

My one year old phone can play music for at least 5 hours non-stop and still be used for phone calls after that. That' s pretty good for me.
Newer phones has even longer battery life. Battery life is by the way one of the things that cell phone manufacturers have started focusing more on lately so I think well see great battery life in a not to distant future.
Storage have improved greatly just recently and with the phone manufacturer' s focus on music you can expect file storage to be competitive with dedicated mp3 players.

And MP3 phones have been available for quite some time now, yet none of them stopped iPod' sales from growing so fast ...why? iTunes itself is unbeatable

True but it' s only lately that the cell phone manufacturers have started making marketing campains with focus on music and the prices now are much better. Playback has also been pretty lame but with the Walkman series playing music on your cell phone is like playing music on a mp3 player.

You probably don' t realise that iTunes is responsible for 85% of purchased music in the US - that means that 15% goes to CD' s and other services.

Since lots of people have iPods it is of no surprice. However, phone operators have begun selling music via their services and in the future that might threaten Apple' s dominance.

At the same time , a long time ago there was a phone with good audio capabilities - motorola developed with apple to be compatible with iTunes and it was quite some time ago.

You' re saying " quite some time ago" .
I' m talking about the future.
Right now cell phones are starting to get the same features and services as Apple is providing and that' s why I think that the iPod might get some serious competition. IN THE FUTURE. Not to distant future though.

At first I was very sceptical about cell phones being used as digital cameras or mp3 players and such too, as I thought that they couldn' t do the stuff as good as dedicated devices. And I didn' t see the reason why you' d like everything in a single product.
But now that I' ve actually tried it out I' m very satisfied and can no longer see any need for mp3 players. Amateur photographers don' t need digital cameras either as cell phones now has great cameras. My camera is only 2 megapixel but the pictures, as well as videos, are great.
I suggest you try out a cell phone packed with features and great audio playback. Preferably a SonyEricsson. I think you' ll be very satisfied if you just give it a chance.
You' ll save a conciderable amount of money on it too.

Itunes unbeatable? Not even close. As said, yes 85% of purchased music. Puchased is the key word. Right now I-tunes is having their ass handed to them Peer 2 Peer

And do you really need 60+ gigs of space. I can still keep all my mp3s on about 2 cds.

As far as a Nintendo Apple deal, all i can say is it would be interesting. The future is always unpredictable.

And do you really need 60+ gigs of space. I can still keep all my mp3s on about 2 cds.

Yeah you do!

If you had read what i said properly you would have noted i was talking about multi-media and not only music. If more space wasn' t required then why would companies keep increasing it?!

Sure you probably would never need 60GB for music, but that' s not exactly the point is it!

iTunes unbeatable? Not even close. As said, yes 85% of purchased music. Puchased is the key word. Right now I-tunes is having their ass handed to them Peer 2 Peer

Really? Thare are stats for this or even articles you could point me towards?

Yes P2P has an effect on iTunes, that' s a given, but every day torrent sites have legal action taken against them and every week one is shut down (not an actual statistic).

Piracy will never stop, but you' ll still need something to play your music on and iPod is in a class of it' s own.

I agree that 5 hours is more then enough for me when it comes to listening to music. Honestly i usually listen to the radio as i drive to work and don' t listen to my music collection (because i get sick of listening to my favourites over and over - thats how to ruin a good song). My phone is over 2 years old and has rudimentary mp3 features, plus a crappy camera. Though it has these features i rarely use my phone for those purposes. I am waiting for a PDA phone that takes normal SD cards (Not micro SD so i can get cheap 4gig SD cards so i can use with my digital camera aswell) that is reasonably pocket size and has decent battery life. Then i can truly be happy at having a mp3 phone (& PDA more importantly).

BTW Nokia has come out with a new line of snazzy mp3 phones that look quite stylish & (IMHO) better then sonyericssons walkman phones.

As for cameras on phones i' ll stick to dedicated cameras myself. Though i' m sure there are good quality phones in cameras today they pale in comparison to current digital cameras (for obvious reasons). I' ll use the cameras on phones for emergency purposes (like taking pictures of UFOs etc when i haven' t got my digital camera handy :) but not as my primary means for taking photos.

Apple Nintendo? Hmm thats an interesting proposition - highly unlikely. However if the merger meant that Nintendo made Wii HD now(ie use Apple for cash reserve, use high end components, sell console at a loss like sony & microsoft) then that would make Wii HD unstoppable!! Sign me up!! (i know its a pipe dream and way to late to actually happen - sigh!@)

Well I got a new Sony Ericson mobile and it looks prety good. Although I was perfectly content with the last one, I switched my contract and I' m not going to pass up a freebie!

I might add that they' re no way it' ll replace my 30GB MP3 player, as I have over 600 CD' s that I' m ripping my way through on to it, and I just listen to that on shuffle all the time. I love it!!!

I ahve 20+ GB worth of music on my PC, a 4GB iPod Nano, a 60GB iPod Video, 5 2GB SD-Cards for my PSP' s and i still don' t have enough space for everything i want to carry about.

Most of the 60GB on my iPod Video is used for erm, ...video and i never keep music on my PSP' s because the sound quality is terrible.

My 4GB Nano and maybe 5GB on the Video just isn' t enough for all my music. I need more space!

Theres always that 4GB Nokia N91 that they' re selling... if you' re interested that
is... It' s a phone with 4GB of data... You should add it to your collection Majik..

My brother has the N91. It' s great. The audio playback is handled separately from the rest of the phone. Very nice looking phone too.
Here' s more about Nokia' s Nseries:
http://www.nokia.com/nseries/

My brother has the N91. It' s great. The audio playback is handled separately from the rest of the phone.

Oh, it' s always " my brother has this, my brother has that..." Where' s the link to
prove this? lol..

Just joking, the Nseries are pretty big, which is the only downside, also the N91
should be 3G compatible aswell... Or is it? 0_o

Older phones doesn' t have separate audio playback buttons so I just wanted to mention that they do now.
The N91 is a 3G phone but it lacks a front camera as most 3G phones have. Probably because Nokia doesn' t have any faith in video conversations.
Here' s a nice looking SonyEricsson W850i:
http://www.sonyericsson.com/spg.jsp?cc=gb&lc=en&ver=4000&template=pp1_loader&php=php1_10447&zone=pp&lm=pp1&pid=10447

Here' s a big list of SonyEricsson phones:
http://www.sonyericsson.com/spg.jsp?cc=gb&lc=en&ver=4000&template=pp1&zone=pp&lm=pp

The W900i looks kind of iPod-ish.
http://www.sonyericsson.com/spg.jsp?cc=gb&lc=en&ver=4000&template=pp1_loader&php=php1_10333&zone=pp&lm=pp1&pid=10333

ORIGINAL: Majikdra6on

I ahve 20+ GB worth of music on my PC,

Of course you' ve paid for all of that Majik - or are they " backups?" .

I don' t have a PC and bought my MP3 player thinking I could move the albums I' ve ripped to the 360' s HD on to my MP3 player.

WRONG!!!!

Now I need to carry CD' s back to my parent' s house and use their PC to rip my collection. A total pain in the arse. Anyone know of update plans to get this sorted or are MS avoiding this issue (which i suspect they will, seeing as they seem to be the new Protectors of Propriety!)