Droid lacks Apple's secret weapon: iTunes
Apple outstripped Wall Street's expectations for the quarter ended September 30, and while the blowout quarter was mostly thanks to higher-than-expected Mac sales, the company also sold a record 7.4 million iPhones. But a lot of commentators think that the iPhone is finally going to meet its match with Droid.
You don't need an instruction manual to figure out how to get music onto your iPhone.
Announced this weekend by Verizon in a cheeky TV commercial, the Droid is a Motorola phone running Google's Android 2.0 operating system. The advertisement notes that the Droid will do things that the iPhone won't, like take pictures in the dark and run simultaneous apps (apparently playing music in the background, as the iPhone can do, doesn't count), and touts its open development process (a head-scratcher for non-techies, but it could mean more apps than the iPhone, someday). The first preview I've seen, from Boy Genius Report, was also positive. People are excited, and for good reason--competition drives innovation, which is good for consumers.
But here's the thing: one reason for the runaway success of the iPhone--and one of the reasons why Apple still continues to sell more than 10 million iPods per quarter--is iTunes. Not so much the store, although that's an important component, but the software. Of course there are plenty of other applications out there that help you rip CDs and organize your digital music collection. And there are plenty of other sources for online music. But the real strength of iTunes is in the sync process--you plug your iPhone in, iTunes opens up automatically and recognizes it. Hit the large "Sync" button and it automatically loads your music (and video, and apps, and anything else you choose) onto it. (With some devices, depending on your settings, you don't even need to hit "Sync.") That's the simple, consumer-friendly, end-to-end experience that Apple figured out first.
Contrast that with the multi-step process required to transfer music from a Windows PC to the first Android phone that was available in the U.S., last year's G1. Amazon provided over-the-air MP3 downloads for that phone, giving it a rough equivalent to the over-the-air version of the iTunes store, but let's face it: most digital music is not purchased, but is ripped from a CD or comes from some other source (legal or not).
Verizon, Motorola, and Google haven't said much about music for the Droid. Maybe they still have a musical trick or two up their collective sleeves. But without some sort of equivalent to the iTunes desktop application, the Droid may be a great phone, but it won't be a great music phone.
Matt Rosoff is an analyst with Directions on Microsoft, where he covers Microsoft's consumer products and corporate news. He's written about the technology industry since 1995, and reviewed the first Rio MP3 player for CNET.com in 1998. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mattrosoff. 
A good music, photo, contacts and media management software is essential I think. As well as being able to back up and restore the phone easily.
Having been on Macs for years and not being supported by syncing software by the likes of Nokia then I know the pain of having to manage my phone via the OS or unsupported 3rd party apps.
My thoughts are that Google will do an iTunes thing at some point, if they are serious about doing ChromeOS then it will need a media manger. An extension to the Chrome browser could be quite a good idea, it would give easy web-phone integration i.e. Save to disk and/or save to phone for all downloaded content.
After a month of iComa problems even after the Apple 'fix' I'm seriously looking for a new phone and being able to roll back my phone OS after an update along with a good phone/media manager/backup/sync software that work on a Mac (and Lunix in the future) is what I'm after. I think it may be a long wait though...
Heh, sorry... I have the Hero. I'll pass on the iTunes. I'd say I'm educated enough to buy over 3G or Wifi over AmazonMP3 (built in) or just sync all of the music I already bought in MP3 or CD format TO my Hero (android based) phone.
Otherwise, wouldn't doubt theres some sort of app for that.
Anything that appears in Windows as a "removable disk" as shown in the "multi-step" drag n drop tutorial can sync with pretty much any media player that can transfer to portable devices.
The Droid may be an outstanding phone, but if it is not easy to use it will not succeed in the consumer market. Superior technology rarely wins out. It has to be combined with a no brainer user interface.
The real question in my mind is why anyone would want a phone, or any product for that matter, that is so heavily controlled by a company with such huge control issues as Apple is.
The problem of syncing music with a device is trivial as long as it is just a technological problem. And it is just a technological problem as long as the files in question are just MP3 files in a directory.
Well done gentlemen, well done.
Google is certainly big enough to go iTunes one better. But sync.. it's easy. At the worst, you need to write a driver for you device to plug into Windows Media Player or Songbird, and it works just as well as iTunes, for music. Palm's foolishness shows, in that their iTunes hack doesn't handle DRMed content (older music, almost all videos) and of course, no apps, either. The big win of iTunes isn't simply sync, but fully integrated sync.
I have a G1 and I can auto-sync with Windows Media Player (yes, a Microsoft product!), and Windows Media Player makes it pretty easy to rip and manage...
So my G1 seems to be a perfectly fine music player (except for the ExtUsb converter I need for my 3.5mm headphones... and if Droid does that Moto is stupid).
And I'm not being biased just because I work at Google, i think my points are valid.
Don't think that's what the commercial was trying to point out...
Please don't try and pretend iphone users haven't been complaining about background apps.
Here is the scenario... I don't want to have to "check facebook" or twitter or anything else to see my friends updates. I just want my phone to automatically tell me when updates have happened. I don't want/need "an app for that". I just want it to work. My friends shouldn't have to send IMs to everyone when they want to meet up for lunch. Just post a twitter update and done. Instant gratification.
Or how about sports apps? My android apps will tell me when the games has started (for multiple sports and teams), when anyone scores, or even when a hit happens within moments.
Or how about maps and locations? My locale app automatically knows when I show up at work or home and it changes my desktop and phone settings automatically. Here is something to blow your mind... the moment I walk into our conference room, the Locale app in my Android sets it to vibrate only without me having to think about it.
I'm also running Hero so when someone adds photos to their flickr or facebook, the photos are immediately shown under their contacts profile. No syncing, no running an app, it just works.
Tell me that isn't what people want with "background apps".
[CNET editor's note: Offensive language deleted.]
come on... look at the trends, look at what the users want... look where technology is going... the future of digital content will inevitably be unlimited streaming of movies, music, and tv... rhapsody and hulu are 2 services to keep an eye on in the next year or so... with upcoming 4g and flash coming to mobile (except for the iphone), hulu will get a jump on usage... increased usage will promote more readily available content..
Apple's iTunes is a double-edged sword.. it gives them great profits, but they rely on iTunes for profits, always circling back to controlling what the users buy... users dont want to pay $1 per song, $3 for a tv show episode, or $15 for a movie.. people want everything and pay nothing for it, noting the rise in acceptance, popularity, and laissez faire attitude towards piracy.. the winning strategy is to give away unlimited media streaming through subscription based (rhapsody) or ad based (hulu), and the business that will take the cake will be the one that delivers to its customers most effectively... seeing as Google's revenue comes from ads, wouldnt it make sense for the droid to unveil its own solution centered on ads to support streaming content...
... winamp... it really sucks the llama's ass....
come on... look at the trends, look at what the users want... look where technology is going... the future of digital content will inevitably be unlimited streaming of movies, music, and tv... rhapsody and hulu are 2 services to keep an eye on in the next year or so... with upcoming 4g and flash coming to mobile (except for the iphone), hulu will get a jump on usage... increased usage will promote more readily available content..
Apple's iTunes is a double-edged sword.. it gives them great profits, but they rely on iTunes for profits, always circling back to controlling what the users buy... users dont want to pay $1 per song, $3 for a tv show episode, or $15 for a movie.. people want everything and pay nothing for it, noting the rise in acceptance, popularity, and laissez faire attitude towards piracy.. the winning strategy is to give away unlimited media streaming through subscription based (rhapsody) or ad based (hulu), and the business that will take the cake will be the one that delivers to its customers most effectively... seeing as Google's revenue comes from ads, wouldnt it make sense for the droid to unveil its own solution centered on ads to support streaming content...
... winamp... it really sucks the llama's ass....
Kidding aside, all of the contenders can 1 - use Rhapsody, 2 - Roll their own store, or 3 as many have mentioned, box in DoubleTwist.
No it isn't
If you have any complaining to do, maybe you should put your focus on the movie studios that are forcing the DRM issue just like the the previous misguided attempt the music labels made. That's where you want to put your efforts - it's time to get the DRM off of video files as well. Apple is the best industry advocate the consumer has right now - maybe you should think about that and be glad they're kicking some butt and taking names.
If you absolutely can't right click and do copy and paste, Windows 7 has a "sync" feature built-in for any device, any removable drive etc. Right click on a folder and say you want to sync it and every time you plug in the device it will sync immediately.
And I don't care if you android people call me a sissy!
Might even buy a Mac too! Win7 is just rehashed Vista for $$$
Don't get me wrong, though, it says a lot that so many other devices have tried to beat the iPhone and lost miserably. The iPhone's a great piece of technology, and I am glad that other devices are finally starting to catch up.
And I'm quite fine without having syncing on my G1, really. My music library alone is over 80 GB, so it would be pointless to sync that up with my 8GB microSDHC card.
If anything, I'd rather Moto place 16GB of internal storage, so that I could buy a 16GB microSDHC card and essentially have 32GB of storage for a lot less than a 32GB iPhone.
Also you can't claim that Apple figured out the sync program before anyone else. Palm had a similar sync feature on its devices that predate iTunes and the first generation iPod by nearly 5 years. It was insanely simple just press the button on the cable and all of your files that were set to sync synced, you didn't even need to open a program pressing the button opened the program and started the process.
The only reason for the success of the iPhone is a very effective marketing campaign and system of socialization that made people believe that the only way others would like and respect them was if they bought an iPhone. It is the reason that the Mac guy in the commercials looks like a cool unemployed hipster and PC is played a John Hodgman an actual geek. who dresses the part of a middle level manager no body (despite having far more geek cred then the actor playing the Mac). Of course everyone (statistical average of 85%) wants to believe that they are hip so of course they want what the hip guy has. Humans have a deep seated need to feel liked and respected by their peers as noted by Maslow and Adler, so people will buy products that purport to have the intended social function of making them appear popular. In the case of this exposition Apple products. This is obviously an effective marketing campaign since 5th graders have been convinced that there is no way that they will fit in at school unless they get the latest and greatest iPod or if their parents are really cool an iPhone of their very own.
Or are you just one of those pseudo-intellectuals who thinks he has it all figured out: you're the smart one and all the rest of us are just sheep who buy what the TV tells us to. Riiiight. *********.
But I only started this reply to ask a question about the Apple ads. I don't try to keep track but I wasn't aware than any of the Hodgman ads were about the iPhone. I thought they were always about Macs as an alternative to the PC. The only iPhone ads I recall are about all the potentially useful apps which is the 800 lbs gorilla in the room. The iPhone is not a phone, it is a location aware, highly personalized, very portable networked app platform.
I have dealt with a lot of people like you throughout my 40 years in computers and almost 50 years in electronics. You seem to think that everyone just has to have every arcane feature in the world built into every device they own. Well guess what, most people have already voted and the verdict is that easy to use trumps super sophisticated.
And yes, I own an iPhone and I do not regret getting it. It, along with my 6 year old PowerMac are virtually trouble free and are valuable tools for me. The computer sits in here with my IBM PC running UNIX/Linux.
These existed before iPhones... so who's the first then?
http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_9500-678.php,
http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_9210i_communicator-319.php
http://www.gsmarena.com/sony_ericsson_p910-846.php
http://www.gsmarena.com/sony_ericsson_p900-544.php
http://www.gsmarena.com/sharp_903-1241.php
Now these ARe kickass
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http://www.gsmarena.com/sony_ericsson_satio_(idou)-2683.php
http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_x6-2922.php
especially this: http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_w880_amoled_12m-2948.php
Go figure..
Well, i agree with you about APPLE being the US carrier assertion but i disagree with the rest of the way.
I had (before my iphone 2g-3g and 3gs [which are all better than what im about to mention]) sonyericsson w850i,p990,p1000 and the nokia n90. Needless to say they all did a great job as (phones) sonyericssons where good with music (were and still are though low sounding with headphones [currently have the xperia x1 which i dont use]) and all of them SUCKED as internet, or utility devices (meaning helpful apps for my use). When i first got an iphone i felt as if i carried my computer with me but with some new tweaks. It now fit in my pocket, had wiereless internet everywhere, took pictures, looked sexy, made it easy for me to be entertained (music,photos,videos.web,etc) and it also happened to make phone calls!!!!!!, yes, and 3 generations later, its the one phone that does that better than anything else. I will go as far as to say that apple, with the iphone, apple created the first true netbook. I now have an iphone 3gs with 32gbs and the xperia x1 (which i needed for business since now i got all my exchange done in my iphone). The xperia i think is sexier than my iphone as im growing ever tired of the apple minimalist design especially with the phone (i still love my macbook pro) and the addition of the keyboard would make it my favorite phone if it wasnt for osx in the iphone and windows mobile. osx on iphone breeze and joy, windows mobile ??????? not even going to mention it as my comment will surely get banned from this post. Having said that i dont think there is an "illusion" with apple's suggesting that their product just work, i think they do and i think they deserve the credit for changing the trend in phones from razors and candybar keyboards to sexy reliable, touch screens.
Assuming you live in the US, of course. Not everyone does.
When I got my Ipod classic a couple of years ago, I found the synching process to be absolutely wonderful compared to any other player was had over the years (I and my kids had several other brands of MP3 players, and none of them had the polish of the synch). Now I subscribe to several podcasts. I plug the Ipod into USB once a week and it charges itself and synchs.
Since I'm still locked into Verizon, Im interested in looking at this phone, But if the synch process isn't close to as polished as iTunes, I'll switch to AT&T when my contract is up. I think Google is capable of pulling it off if they put their minds to it.
Howgh.
Here's a hint: People who don't use I-Pods don't use I-Tunes. I suspect the majority of them use Windows Media Player. Having used both I-Pods and non-I-Pods, I cant tell you that WMP provides about as seamless an integration with generic MP3 players, as well as any removable storage, that I-Tunes provides with I-Pods. It just does. I sync my music collection with a Creative MP3 player, my Touch Pro, and various SD cards. WMP treats each as a unique device; it even recognizes the memory card as the same device, whether I plug it into a card reader or it's in my Touch Pro.
I-Tunes lock in does serve as a barrier to switching to a non-Apple device. But that is not the point you make in this article or similar ones about the Palm Pre. You genuinely seem to not know how the other 30% live.
Rob
- by tektaktyks October 19, 2009 5:36 PM PDT
- yea like taliban's secret weapon the U>S> is missing is camels...lol
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