Digital music player maker Creative has pledged to spend $100m to out-market Apple in a bid to take the market away from the iPod. And not just Apple. Speaking in Singapore this week, Creative CEO Sim Wong Hoo bullishly pronounced: "I'm planning to spend some serious money - I intend to out-market everyone." "The MP3 war has started and I am the one who has declared war," he thundered.
The company's goals are undoubtedly ambitious. Sim said Creative is looking to take 40 per cent of the worldwide digital music player market in 2005. During the Q3, it managed a mere ten per cent. Apple stood at 17 per cent. Those figures show there's plenty to play for, and indeed, Creative is on track to sell over 3m devices this quarter, Sim said. That, he believes, will push it ahead of Apple. "It's our target to beat iPod in this quarter," he said. But a number of analysts have already forecast sales of over 4m units during Q4.
News source: The Register
The company's goals are undoubtedly ambitious. Sim said Creative is looking to take 40 per cent of the worldwide digital music player market in 2005. During the Q3, it managed a mere ten per cent. Apple stood at 17 per cent. Those figures show there's plenty to play for, and indeed, Creative is on track to sell over 3m devices this quarter, Sim said. That, he believes, will push it ahead of Apple. "It's our target to beat iPod in this quarter," he said. But a number of analysts have already forecast sales of over 4m units during Q4.
News source: The Register
Thanks to Hadiz from the forums for the heads up on this article
As long as they don't bundle horrible software it has potential... Apple had an awful record for PC software (think Quicktime) until iTunes came along, which helped the iPod no end.
I don't see how you could say this. They both play uncompressed audio formats and compressed ones in various bit rates. The audio quality is dependant on the bit rate and codec.
What are you talking about?
The SNR of Creative's players are around 96dB, whereas Apple's are undisclosed but are meant to be around 85dB. You can hear the difference, and that isn't due to different EQ's or encoding.
While a lot of people won't notice that difference, particularly if they are walking or there is background noise, if you listen in a quiet environment then there difference is quite clear. That's not to say that Apple's players are bad - I just found that they didn't have very good sound quality; the Zen had far better sound quality (shame it was a flamin' brick - I could never own one of those, let alone use it [that excludes the Zen Touch, which is ok]).
I'm not sure if it's that low, but it's not good.
Anyways, I'm just gonna stick with my Creative Nomad Jukebox 3 until something worth the price comes out. This baby still holds the title for highest SnR
What kind of headphones did you use to test the audio players?
Post the file that gives horrible distortion. I just did an informal test of my laptop's sound output jack vs. my iPod's and they sounded exactly the same. Volume was close to 3/4 on the iPod, song was The Gathering - On Most Surfaces (Intuit) off the album Superheat. It was an MP3 file ripped with an average bitrate of 228kbps (VBR file) and encoded with LAME 3.90.3. Headphones were crappy Sony behind-the-ear ones that have no bass (they're $20 or so).
There's some good info. Seems like a dead heat if you sum up all the reviews though.
But still, my ipod's always on 80 - 90% volume and i get no noticable distortion.
Infact I don't notice distortion at 100% on most songs either.
Actually there is considerable doubt.
They could be much higher, too. You cant use it as a fact if you dont know it to be one.
I used very decent outer-ear headphones, which I also use for mixing in Cubase/Sonar, so the quality of the headphones it definitely not an issue.
The iPod is great for a lot of things - style, menus, quickly accessing songs, ease of transfer, size, practicallity... sound is definitely not one of its strong points. Even on simple pop songs like Avril Lavigne it would distort the bass frequencies (not that you should ever listen to that music anyway
I am a musician and audiophile, so music quality means a lot to me - most people won't even notice the quality difference, but I certainly do.
Instead of talk, competitors need to step up and come out with something better.
Ease of use, integration with software (as well as other applications by third parties), added software features, a large market of peripherals and connectivity to other devices, the standardized dock interface allowing for more feature-rich and numerous devices, commitment by Apple to the marketplace rather than rebranding crap 3rd part Asian devices, etc...
Sales are not a feature; however, it is clear that the iPod is blowing away everything else in terms of sales, suggesting that more people prefer the iPod to what YOU think is better.
Anyway, dude, we agree. I just wanted to make it clear that imtoomuch was being rather subjective and narrow-minded and simply illogical in referring to large sales as a feature.
Where do you detect any offense taken?
Actually, he said he hates people who think the iPod is better than everything else in absolutely every feature category. Sounds pretty reasonable to me.
Anyway, Ipod is the best thing on the market. It's the only device that allows you to multiple things such as store and play music, store pictures, infact you can store anything. It works just like an external hard drive. I'm sure you all know this, but I'll restate it for those who think the players sound quality depends on the type of player.
I doubt Creative will design something better, but we will see. Either way it will bring some competition and hopefully Apple will defend themselves by making the Ipod even better, which I must say will be hard to do because it is already so great.
Either way, this will be interesting to see how it all plays out.
Also, to the person who said you hate people that think Ipod is the best out there....well, Ipod IS the best out there. Honestly, what is better?
Last edited by 81645 on 18 Nov 2004 - 19:49
1: the Decoder is the first part that decides the quality of the sound outpu(after the bitrate, but that's irrelevenat here anyway), then there's the quality of the actual sound output hardware. on both these pretty much everyone beats iPod
2: most players today can be used for storage of files and images and whatnot, and iPod was NOT first to do this.
3: Design is subjective, and I absolutely hate the iPod design, iRiver has far better designs, and I prefer Creative much above iPod as well, even the new Touch version wich I don't like that much.
So to sum up
Ipod is not the best out there, sound quality is NOT only dependant on bitrate and Ipod is FAR from the only one letting you do mulitple things, it wasn't even the first.
any other non facts you're going to sprout ?
I wasn't talking about bitrate. The components used by Creative are higher quality - it's a bit like saying all TV's are the same, it's only the channel that makes a difference. If you use better components properly you will get a better result. Plus there are all the problems with iPod's and static, but that is another issue.
Ohhhh.. puke. Status symbol shmatus symbol. It's people like you that think stuff like this that gives us poorer quality and higher prices. Like, I'm working in public with my old Palm IIIC. Guy comes up to me and says, cool, hey look I've got the very latest Palm blabity blah with GPS, satelite tracking, xm radio and wi-fi (this is ficticious, bear with me). I give him a blank stare. He was obviously looking for something more. I say, soooo.. does that mean you wanna beam me your card or what? Really. I am so unimpressed with gee-whiz "status symbol" stuff. Just give me something solid to get my work done with.
"Status symbol"... I'm glad you guys are so easily impressed
the technology has been beaten already, but not the reputation.
Personally, I'd be happy that they're striving to make better players. But hey, your funeral.
Besides, I was referring to the original comment. An attitude like "nothing can beat the iPod" just shows that you're a social whore who doesn't care about which player is actually better. Sure, nothing's at the iPod's level for most people yet, but it doesn't hurt to try.
No, I'm responding to your statement. You claimed they are striving to make better players. I said they are throwing away 50% of their revenue, REVENUE, when they hardly make profits, which will actually impair R&D.
"An attitude like "nothing can beat the iPod" just shows that you're a social whore who doesn't care about which player is actually better. Sure, nothing's at the iPod's level for most people yet, but it doesn't hurt to try."
It's called cheerleading. It's called a prediction based on anecdotal evidence and past history. Nobody said: everyone should stop trying. No one said Apple shouldn't improve. Nobody said the market in general shouldn't improve.
In fact, we all know how you feel Jagged and know your panties get in a bunch over Apple's success. So... shouldn't you question your own desire to have Apple taken down a notch? After all, all Gowcra said was "nothing can be it"... you yourself said nothing does beat it (now). Yet you claim he's a "social whore"? Predicting his funeral? Whatever...
Last edited by 9953 on 19 Nov 2004 - 01:41
Who's "they"?! I didn't even mention Creative. You did, on your little quest to quash all things non-Apple. My statement was GENERAL.
That is exactly what "iPods will always be the best" implies. They will always be the best, so why bother?
Um, right. I OWN an iPod, you dumbass.
Last edited by 820 on 19 Nov 2004 - 14:42
Duh.
No, it doesn't.
That doesn't keep you from being pissed off by Apple's success.
Not really.
Yes, it does. It might not if you consider that you're an idiot who can't even quote the right person, though. My apologies.
Yeah. I would like to see another company compete against the iPod so that we have better MP3 players, so I must be pissed off by Apple's success.
That must be it.
Competition = good
Hooray
(expect tonnes of price dropping and better product quality)
Given that, i suppose I'll always be an iPod owner.
All in all, I think I picked the right choice for me. I like how people start bashing Creative since they are not Apple without trying out their new products. I am sure that if I got an iPod Mini I would be happy with it also. I ordered it off Amazon Monday afternoon and it arrived 10AM on Wednesday. This was with the free ground shipping, so I was very pleasantly surprised.
Apple and analysts are anticipating 4 million iPod sales this quarter. That's 1,000,000 a month. That's 33,333 a day.
If Creative can't sell that many in the first day of availability (while giving away batteries), there is no way they can take marketshare away from Apple.
If that promo doesn't end in less than a day, they've already lost.
Apple and analysts are anticipating 4 million iPod sales this quarter. That's 1,333,333 a month. That's 44,444 a day.
If Creative can't sell that many in the first day of availability (while giving away batteries), there is no way they can take marketshare away from Apple.
I don't know, but dp123's sure doing a bang-up job of it.
How does that matter? I'm taking an average number for either company. Creative hopes to improve sales by giving a promo to 35,000 buyeers. They are hoping to sell a million a month. Apple is selling over a million a month. iPod sales keep increasing... from around 2 million 2 quarters ago, to 2.7 million this quarter, to 4 next quarter.
Exactly. They've probably had their best day of sales already. (Product launches easily compare with holdiay sales.)
When did I say competition wasn't good? I've jsut said they need to do more than marketing, more than waste half a quarters revenue, and sell more than Apple to take away marketshare.
I did not say anything about them giving up and folding. Just that they are losing and that, in all likelihood, will continue to do so. Comprende?