Digital Jukebox

Is the mobile phone the new iPod?

And on the day that Apple’s iTunes music download service launches in the UK comes news from Japan which could spell the beginning of the end for the iPod.

If, like us, you are fed up of lumbering round with a pocket full of gadgets, be cheered. For you’ll soon be able to jettison your PDA and your iPod and just take your mobile phone with you.

For the word on the streets of Tokyo is that mini hard disk drives less than one inch in size with storage capacities of as much as 20Gigabytes will soon be incorporated into mobile phones.

According to JP Morgan’s Japanese analyst Kazuyo Katsuma a phone capable of storing thousands of music track and images could be hitting the Tokyo market as early as spring 2005.

The hard disk devices will also store video footage as many new Japanese phones now incorporate TV tuners.

The arrival of a hard disk in a phone is what we European gadget freaks have been waiting for. Over the next few years we will have TV tuners, video recorders and three mega pixel cameras in phones. All the phones needed was a decent amount of storage and that’s where Tosh, Seagate and Hitach, who will all have sub one inch hard disks available by the end of the year, step in.

Having effectively killed off the PDA is the smartphone now going to capture the personal music market? Well, in the US they might have a slightly different take, but in Europe it seems like a dead cert.

iTunes launches in UK

You've bought the player, now download the tracks without having to use an American address and credit card! In a visit to London Apple boss Steve Jobs announced the long-awaited launch of iTunes for the UK, France and Germany. Previously the service was only available in the US.

Prices are 79p (0.99 Euros) per track or £7.99 per album (though chart CDs on www.cdwow.com will only cost you a £1 more - and that's with all the casing and artwork). Apple claims there will be over 700,000 songs from all five music companies plus dozens of independents - though we understand many of them have still yet to sign up.

“The number one online music store in the world has finally come to the UK, France and Germany,” said Jobs at the London press conference. “With a huge catalogue of over 700,000 songs, breakthrough prices of just €0.99 and £0.79 per song and seamless integration with Apple’s wildly popular iPod, we think this is the digital music store that Europe has been waiting for.”

Around 500,000 tracks have been downloaded legally in the UK so far this year - a tiny proportion of the US market where millions are downloaded every year. Napster launched a rival service a fortnight ago and OD2 - Europe's biggest online music distiributor - has just launched Sonic Selector with Microsoft. Sony is also expected to grab a slice of the action with its Connect service due later this month.

Artists who have signed up for iTunes include: Anastasia, Ash, The Beastie Boys, Beginner, Black Eyed Peas, The Corrs, Jamie Cullum, The Cure, The Darkness, Arielle Dombasle, Bebel Gilberto, Herbert Groenemeyer, PJ Harvey, The Hives, Indochine, Norah Jones, Keane, Bob Marley, George Michael, Eddy Mitchell, Moby, Pascal Obispo, The Pixies, Rosenstolz, Seeed, Snow Patrol and Mano Solo.

Here are a list of iTunes features

* “iMix,” a way for users to publish playlists of their favourite songs on the iTunes Music Store for other users to preview, rate and purchase. iMix creates a virtual iTunes community, enabling users to discover new music recommended by fellow music fans and rate the iMixes published by other iTunes users

* Party Shuffle,” a playlist that automatically chooses songs from a user’s music library, displays just-played and upcoming songs, and allows users to add, delete and rearrange upcoming songs on the fly. Party Shuffle is, claims Apple, the ultimate DJ at any gathering and a great way for users to get reacquainted with their personal music library

* More than 5,000 audiobooks which can be purchased with one click and listened to on any Mac or Windows computer as well as on iPods. iTunes is the only digital music jukebox that allows users to purchase audiobooks in the same easy way that they purchase music

* Instant registration on the iTunes Music Store for AOL Europe customers using their existing screen names and passwords with direct links to buy songs from the iTunes Music Store in the UK, France and Germany. Exclusive recordings from Sessions@AOL and AOL’s Broadband Rocks will be available on the iTunes Music Store in the UK, France and Germany later this month

* The ability to create and print CD jewel case inserts for albums or compilation discs, combining album art and track lists using professionally designed templates. For compilation CDs, iTunes will automatically generate a mosaic of album covers based on the chosen songs

* Automatic WMA to AAC conversion, enabling Windows users to automatically create iTunes versions of their songs encoded in unprotected WMA.

For more information go to Apple iTunes website.

Music downloads: the heat is on

Just a few hours until the official launch of Apple iTunes in the UK and already the cracks may be starting to show. Microsoft and OD2 - the biggest distributor of online music in Europe - have just announced an online music download partnership while rumour has it that music from indie labels won't be available via Apple's iTunes service at launch.

Announced a day before the iTunes UK launch, Sonic Selector is OD2's attempt to keep in touch with the US big boys, namely Apple and Napster, by forming an alliance with the biggest boy of them all, Microsoft. An upgrade to Windows Media Player, it will be via the web sites of OD2 retailers including MSN, Tiscali, MTV and Packard Bell. Tracks will cost 75p or 0.99 Euros.

Meanwhile the word on the street is that Apple has failed to sign deals with major independents for UK music distribution. This is a major blow as the indies account for 25 of music retail sales in the UK with their music targeted at the very people who are likely to download tracks to their MP3 players!

The list of successful independent artists includes Basement Jaxx, Franz Ferdinand, Dizzee Rascal, So Solid Crew, The White Stripes, The Strokes, Royksopp, The Pixies, Lemon Jelly and Coldcut.

We will have full information on the Apple iTunes launch later today.

More storage from your iPod

If we were betting men we’d wager plenty of money on the next generation iPod sporting a huge 60 Gigabyte hard disk. We are confident we’d be backing a winner thanks to the news that Apple’s main hard disk provider, Toshiba, is to deliver a 60 Gigabyte hard disk very shortly.

At the announcement of its new 1.8inch 60 Gigabyte hard drive for personal audio players at the Computex 2004 exhibition in Taipei, Cindy Lee, deputy manager of Toshiba Digital Media Network Taiwan Corp, also acknowledged that one of the first customers was Apple.

The drives, which enter mass production in July/August, could well feature on a new Apple player later in the year. Apple’s largest capacity iPod is currently its £398.99 40 Gigabyte model. Rivals Creative offers a 60 Gigabyte model (Nomad Jukebox Zen) while Iclef recently unveiled a player with 80 Gigabytes of storage.

Apple names iTunes day

It is not something that we can fully confirm but we are pretty certain that June 15th will be the day that Apple finally announces the launch of its iTunes music download service for Europe/UK.

The company has called a music-based press conference on that day where it will probably also confirm definite shipping dates for the Apple iPod mini music player.

Apple’s big rival in the music download stakes, Napster launched in the UK a couple of weeks back, while Sony promises that its Connect service will also go live during June.

World's 2nd smallest MP3 player comes to UK

Samsung is to bring the world’s smallest MP3 player (well it was until the arrival of the BenQ Joybee 102) to the UK in August. Slightly larger than an AA battery, the YP-T5, which is 5.4cm tall and weighs just 24 grams, will be available in two versions; with 128MB (£100) or 256MB (£150) of storage.

The YP-T5 features Windows Media Audio (WMA) playback and can record from external sources, like a CDs player or hi-fi system, directly encoding them as MP3s on the player. It can also moonlight as a voice recorder. In spite of its size the YP-T5 sports a small LED screen that offers information such as track ID and file navigation.

Napster UK gets thumbs up

The first few reviews of Napster's new music download are starting to arrive, and surprise, surprise, they have on the whole been rather positive.

The Guardian's Neil McIntosh in particular reckons 'If you have a PC and broadband, this could be a very good pick indeed.'

Click here or simply read on for Neil's review

Napster unveiled its new service for the UK last week - and it is likely to tempt a few music fans to give digital music a go. While the old Napster helped kick-start net music piracy back in 1999, the new version is legal, offering more than 500,000 tracks for live streaming or download.

Unlike rival services, the new Napster doesn't just sell you tracks for a one-off price. It also offers a subscription option; for £9.95 a month you can get unlimited streams, or "tethered downloads", of the service's catalogue, which means if you stop your subscription, the tracks stop playing.

To burn tracks to CD, or transfer to portable music devices, you have to pay extra. Despite that, Online's first go with the new service suggests it is the new front-runner in music services - and even the expected arrival of the iTunes Music Store later this year will struggle to shake that.

The killer feature is that subscription encourages you to browse around the more esoteric corners of the catalogue - just as the old Napster did. If you have a PC and broadband, this could be a very good pick indeed.
www.napster.co.uk

Sony's iPod review

So is Sony’s new Vaio Pocket Series VGF-AP1 hard disk music player going to prove too hot for the iPod? According to The Guardian, probably not.

In a preview of the player the reviewer praises Sony for delivering a colour LCD screen (surely a dead cert for the next gen of iPods) and offering battery life of 20 hours (much better than the Apple product’s eight) but says that the player is too bulky and the interface not quite as elegant.

Read on for the full review

Sony turns up the heat on Apple's iPod

Sony's new music player is impressive - but is it good enough to trump the iconic Apple iPod? Ashley Norris finds out

Saturday May 15, 2004

One day, when historians pen the history of Sony, they'll highlight May 2004 as a key month in the company's life.
Over in the US the company unveiled Connect, its music download service, and took the wraps off its portable gaming device, the PSP. Here in Europe it has been parading its flagship ultra light notebook computer, the Vaio X505.

In spite of all this innovation, at its press conference this week in Brussels the gathered journalists were only really only interested in one product - Sony's answer to the iPod, the Vaio Pocket Series VGF-AP1.

After several years of taking a head-in-the-sand approach to the hard disk personal audio market, almost certainly the result of pressure from the company's music label, Sony is now set to launch a product that could be the first to chip away at the iconic Apple player's huge market share.

While other companies, notably Philips and Samsung, have only tinkered with the hard disk player format by offering virtual facsimilies of the iPod, Sony has thrown out the rulebook and come up with a genuinely innovative device.

So: is it likely to break the Apple monopoly when it debuts in the UK in the autumn?

Design

The most striking thing about the VGF-AP1 is its form factor. It is larger and heavier (200g) than the slimline iPod and sports an ergonomic shape, in that the right hand end of the player is designed to be gripped by fingers and a thumb.

Most of that extra bulk is to accommodate a 2.2inch TFT LCD screen. The screen - a real innovation in personal audio - not only displays the player's operational interface, but can also show the cover art of the album that is being listened to. In another neat touch owners can transfer images to the VGF-AP1, either from their PC (via a USB 2.0 connection) or direct from a digital camera. These images can then be stored and viewed on the device.

The other notable design innovation, or quirk depending on your point of view, is a 25 button pad that controls the main interface. The jury is out on how effective it is. Personally, I prefer the more elegant wheel of the iPod.

Features

Sony hasn't yet decided which accessories will accompany the player, but did confirm it will come with a neat remote control complete with screen and a pair of quality earphones.

Unlike the iPod, which is available with three different storage sizes, the VGF-AP1 will only go on sale with a 20Gb hard disk.

In terms of features, the player is slightly under specified, with no niceities like an FM tuner, integrated Wi-Fi or direct encoding from CD players. The player is also only compatible with a limited number of audio formats.

Naturally it works best with Sony's Atrac 3 format. Music in this format can be downloaded via Sony's Connect download site (which launches in the UK in June) or via its SonicStage 2 software, which accompanies the player that turns CD tracks into Atrac 3 files. Unlike the original SonicStage the new version converts MP3 files into Atrac 3 on the fly as users transfer the tracks to the player. This is a huge leap on from having to convert huge numbers of MP3s to Atrac 3 before porting them to the device.

Sony claims that transferring MP3s to Atrac 3 doesn't impact on the sound quality of the files. But, seeing as the compressed MP3 files have to be decompressed and then compressed again it would, however, be surprising if some fidelity wasn't lost along the way.

The SonicStage software can also convert Windows Media Audio files to Atrac 3, but, in bad news for iTunes fans, it isn't compatible with AAC.

Another intriguing feature is the VGF-AP1's intelligent playlist facility. The player apparently logs each time a track is chosen, and according to Sony, can remember tracks that a user has played at a certain time of day.

So, you can get soothing songs for the evening, or brisk ones for exercising, for example. Alternatively it can recall which tracks the user played regularly over a period of time, so it can offer up songs that regularly cropped up on playlists months before.

Performance

Given Sony's audio heritage it would be a major surprise if the VGF-AP1 didn't deliver a quality performance. In a very brief audition the VGF-AP1 sounded excellent. I would say that it delivers a great deal more from the lower frequencies than its competitors, though it is hard to say if overall its performance is superior to the iPod.

The VGF-AP1 has one other major trump card. While the iPod delivers around eight hours before its rechargeable battery gives up the ghost, the VGF-AP1 apparently plays for at least twenty hours. Off the record, the company is claiming that it is actually a great deal more than this.

Verdict

Overall the VGF-AP1 is an impressive debut in the hard disk audio market. The colour screen is a genuine innovation, the battery life is excellent and the sound performance spot on. So will I be swapping it for my iPod come the autumn? I'm afraid not.

The iPod's weaknesses, notably its battery life and lack of Windows Audio compatibility, are well documented, and if these are major concerns for a buyer the Sony VGF-AP1 is clearly a better bet than the iPod.

With pocket space at a premium however, the bulk and size of the VGF-AP1 really works against it. And while the colour screen is undeniably cute, it is something I am happy to live without. Besides, it will be amazing if the next gen iPod doesn't also feature one.

Still the VGF-AP1 certainly fires a warning shot across Apple's bows. Over to you Mr Jobs.

-- Sony's VGF-AP1 will reach the UK in the autumn. The company hasn't given any indications of pricing yet.

Alternatives to the iPod mini

Got yourself an iPod mini yet? Chances are probably not, unless of course you live in the USA and were quick off the mark when they went on sale in late Feb.

The rest of us are waiting for the worldwide launch which is pencilled in for July. There are however some folk who want a music player to take on their hols and can’t wait until then.

So for them The Guardian has a round up of the best of the rest of MP3 players you can actually buy now. They include direct rivals like the 1.5Gig Philips HDD060 and 4Gig Creative MuVo2 as well as recently launched devices like the Cowon iAudio M3.

iPod car

smart is claiming to be the first car manufacturer to offer an integrated iPod playback and charging station in a car.

Those who fancy buying a motor to match their music player can check out the limited edition smart fortwo i-move that comes with a 20-gig iPod as standard as well as the mount for connecting the player up.

You’ll have to move fast if you want one though for only seventy models have been made and they go on sale in May priced at around £12,500.

A similar kit for smart's roadster and fortwo models will go on sale later this year.

Can’t imagine that smart will be the last manufacturer to offer iPod charging/storage in a UK car. It is not such an issue for Americans as they can use FM transmitters made by companies like Belkin to send signals from their player wirelessly to the car stereo’s radio. These are illegal in the UK and most of Europe.

Incidentally the smart fortwo I-move features 16inch alloy wheel, heated leather seats, and an upgraded sound system.

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