The MP3 Player Blog

Important Apple Updates:

Deal has some ABC affiliates feeling uneasy
USATODAY.com - Less than two weeks after replacing Michael Eisner as Disney’s CEO, Bob Iger began to put his stamp on the company Wednesday with a potentially precedent-setting deal. Iger sent several signals by agreeing to sell current episodes of some of his company’s biggest TV hits on Apple’s iTunes.

Apple’s big gains not big enough
SiliconValley.com - Apple Computer on Tuesday reported that profit in the latest quarter quadrupled, buoyed by strong sales of Macintosh computers and “staggering'’ demand for its newest iPod — but that wasn’t good enough for Wall Street.

Look for this trend to become even more common across other carriers:

Sprint to sell song downloads at $2.49 a pop (USATODAY.com)
USATODAY.com - Sprint Nextel introduced a music store for cellphones Monday, the first to offer direct-to-phone wireless downloads. Sprint’s store offers music downloads for $2.49 each, compared with 99 cents a song at Apple’s iTunes Music Store or RealNetworks’ Rhapsody.

Today’s current MP3 updates:
Wireless iPod Music Sharing
Logitech has introduced the Wireless Music System for iPod, which lets users wirelessly connect their iPod or MP3 player to a stereo or speaker system, share their digital music and control the music using their player as a remote control.

Apple Intros iPod Nano
Apple has introduced the iPod nano, a full-featured iPod that holds 1,000 songs, yet is thinner than a standard #2 pencil and less than half the size of competitive players.

Sprint launches streaming music service for phones
Sprint launches streaming music service for phones Detroit News - the popularity of Apple Computer Inc. s iPod and other MP3 players, have raced each other to add music content to their Philips Announces GoGear MP3 Players ABCNEWS.com - Philips Announces GoGear MP3 Players Two new hard drive-based MP3 players sport cool looks and good feature sets. … Cambridge SoundWorks PlayDock MP3 ABCNEWS.com - Cambridge SoundWorks PlayDock MP3 This portable speaker system provides good sound for its size and its Cambridge SoundWorks PlayDock MP3 …

curriculum vitae » blog archive » creative muvo vs. magic star mp3 player
… I recently bought myself a new MP3 player, a Creative MuVo TX with 512MB of storage. … My previous player, a Magic Star MP3 Player, had quite a few nuisances which were the main reason behind my recent purchase. … The Magic Star had only one control: a wheel you can push down or move left and right. … This is pretty common so I won t hold it against the Magic Star. … I d guess it would be fair to say that the MuVo kicks the Magic Star s ass. … MuVo features a backlit display showing the current track with info read from the …

Complaints Pile Up Over Nano’s Display (Ziff Davis)
Ziff Davis - Owners of Apple’s new iPod Nano device say the display can be scratched far too easily.

Cingular to launch music download service in 2006 (Reuters)
Reuters - Cingular Wireless, the No. 1 U.S. wireless carrier, plans this year to sell a “walkie-talkie” style phone and launch a service next year that will let users download music on their mobile phone, a senior executive said on Thursday.

Or so they think…

While the article does make some good points about hardcore MP3 users not foregoing extra features that phones would leave out, over time there will be more consolidation of the two.

After all, everyone said the camera phone wouldn’t catch on either!

But regardless, those who want a quality camera or MP3 player will never find those in a phone.

The Motorola ROKR E1 Apple iTunes phone was finally released.

Of course it’s space for only 100 songs is a bummer, it still is a start for those wanting to take their iTunes songs on only one device.

Personally, I’d just go for an iPod nano or Shuffle.

A device Sirius is to debut allows subscribers of their satellite radio to record satellite radio music and store their own MP3s.

Certainly these emerging trends weren’t expected, although they may be happening sooner than expected.

The device, dubbed the S50, is a little pricey at $360.

Who would rather carry around one device to use as a phone and MP3 player, as opposed to two devices?

The answer is obvious and Virgin believes that they have the first solution.

Their phone with a built in MP3 player has only 32mb of space though, roughly 30 mintues of listening. Then again other phones have similiar features, but they’ve never sold them as phone/MP3 player hybrids.

This will certainly be a future trend that current MP3 player manufacturers will need to keep an eye on.