All the URL links in the article point to an older article in the SF Gate from where Sony first introduced their new Walkman, there's no links to anything newer in the Journal or the Gate about the current war of words.

Apple, RDF, masters of hype, and on occasion, fraud! This actually is a great story, and funny too!

Apple, you should be able to take some of your own medicene! In the meantime start selling more Macs. 1.0% does not look good on SJobs resume'.........

Apple accuses Sony of rigging the test unfairly making the Walkman look like the highest cap player in the world.

was about to mention the same thing

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Guest wrote:
All the URL links in the article point to an older article in the SF Gate from where Sony first introduced their new Walkman, there's no links to anything newer in the Journal or the Gate about the current war of words.

Who let all the moron trolls in today?

Just wait till SJobs puts Saddam Hussein on the Apple BOD. Saddam will kick sand in their faces, clogging their Walkmans with sand also! Saddam may be a jerk, but by golly don't even mess with his iPod. Ever since he was lured out of his hiding place with an iPod Saddam and his iPod have been inseparable. He even said you can take my country, but don’t take my iPod!!

Actually, according to Sony, music encoded in 48kbps ATRAC+ sounds as good or a little better than 128kbps MP3. I can't find the link to the Sony-sponsored study which shows this.

Apple may well be playing on the public's ignorance of such things ("Hey, 128 is a bigger number than 48, so it must be better"). From the company that introduced us all to the "megahertz myth", it's kind of sad. Sony has the numbers--potentially dubious as they may be--to back up their claims.

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Guest wrote:
Actually, according to Sony, music encoded in 48kbps ATRAC+ sounds as good or a little better than 128kbps MP3. I can't find the link to the Sony-sponsored study which shows this.

Apple may well be playing on the public's ignorance of such things ("Hey, 128 is a bigger number than 48, so it must be better"). From the company that introduced us all to the "megahertz myth", it's kind of sad. Sony has the numbers--potentially dubious as they may be--to back up their claims.

Recent independent sampling shows ATRAC is nothing near ACC quality, in fact dead last behind a bunch of other codecs.

The original iPod instruction manual said "the rechargeable battery is not replaceable and is designed to last for the life of the product". Talk about outright lying to consumers.

Once the iPod batteries started dying, bad internet publicity and lawsuits forced Apple to create a grossly overpriced $99 iPod battery replacement program. Apple knows once they have a victim they can always squeeze out a few more dollars.

Recent test:
http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/5257.cfm

Complete results:
http://www.rjamorim.com/test/multiformat128/results.html

Also:
http://www.soundexpert.info/

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RealityCheck wrote:
The original iPod instruction manual said "the rechargeable battery is not replaceable and is designed to last for the life of the product". Talk about outright lying to consumers.

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Apple is renowned for its Reality Distortion Field, like world's fastest PC, world's first 64 bit computer, 3GHz in a year, OS X will speed up your Mac.

For standard usage the Sony player does hold more songs, this is not fudging. Compared to Apple, Sony's claims look like a brilliant ray of truth.

At least Apples' claim is based on the bitrate of the songs in their music store. So they can justifiably claim 5000. Sony Connects service will sell 132bit ATRAC3 tracks (considered inferior to 128 bit AAC), and so unlikely to hold 5000 let alone their claimed 13000 tracks.

If Apple wished they could easily measure their capacity in terms of 48 bit tracks as well.

It's getting boring having Thurrott and Enderle posting under the pseudonym of Reality Check - surely they have Windows updates to run? And all this alluding to people being up Steve Jobs' arse - Reality Check it's a wonder you see the sun at all ... How are Bill's haemorrhoids today?

Re: RealityCheck "like world's fastest PC, world's first 64 bit computer, 3GHz in a year, OS X will speed up your Mac."

"World's Fastest PC" - well that's always going to be debatable advertising speak - try to understand that people say stuff to sell things ... perhaps it is, perhaps it isn't ... Anyone who buys a PC because it is the "World's Fastest" needs to take a good long look at themselves ... the fact that it affected you so badly, I don't know - try therapy ...

Your memory appears to be rather selective ... Apple claimed the first 64 bit personal computer which the G5 was - ie. it's not a workstation, but a computer designed for personal use ...

re. 3GHz in a year, I don't see that being a load of RDF FUD, but rather an optimistic projection based on the information available at the time - saying "3GHz in a year and your Mac will make you coffee and do your washing" would perhaps be stretching it ...

I don't know about your computing experience with OSX, but I've found each successive iteration of this operating system to be significantly faster on my G4.

It appears with the adoption of terms like RDF, you have bought into the myth of mindless drones being told what to do by a charismatic figure that they believe unswervingly ... I don't know about you, but I bought my computer to do a task and it does. Most people do the same thing ... Everyone has freedom of choice to choose what suits them best - it's a good thing.

Perhaps you should look at the zealot in yourself a little more closely.

And I feel sorry for Sony, because when it come to slinging Fud Apple will always be king. SJobs is going to RDF Sony with a ring a pure bologna!

Run! Run! Oh mighty Sony!

Steve is a comin, and that man, as we know, is just full of bologna!

Sony, ya ain’t got nothing to retaliate with!

Cause Steve he gonna RDF' ya with a GigaByte Myth.

Steve trounces Sony and proudly proclaims;

I am the High Priest of Apple, and the Prince of Pixar,

I am the King of FUD, and RDF is my Elixir.

o world's fastest PC --> Clearly established in the bias-free zone of supercomputer performance with Virginia Tech's X.

o world's first 64 bit computer-->Apple said the G5 was the world's first 64-bit desktop computer; that was correct

o 3GHz in a year-->A lie? Perhaps, but more likely an optimistic prediction.

o OS X will speed up your Mac--> That is absolutely true especially considering Mac OS X's multi-tasking capabilities. It is also true that each iteration of OS X has been faster than the last.

Actually, there's something which Sony calls ATRACplus, to further muddy the waters, which is supposed to sound better than MP3 & WMA. I found the link--hooray for Safari's history!

Here it is:
http://www.sony.net/Products/ATRAC3/tech/lab/index.html

I'm not enough of a statistician to know how they fudged the results, perhaps someone can look at it and spot the smoking gun.

By the way, though, I'd point out your links to an "independent" test was done by an open-source advocate so I could argue that it isn't surprising that Ogg won many of the tests. Also, he doesn't mention what decoder he used, which can make a big difference. I would assume Sony has a better decoder than he does.

I'm not saying that there may not be some shenanigans going on with Sony. But I do dislike the knee-jerk reaction that there's absolutely no way that a 48Kbps ATRAC (plus?) encoded file could sound as good as a 128Kbps AAC file. Sony's been doing digital audio for quite some time and it's certainly possible that they have some sort of patented breakthrough encoding.

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Anonymous wrote:
All the URL links in the article point to an older article in the SF Gate from where Sony first introduced their new Walkman, there's no links to anything newer in the Journal or the Gate about the current war of words.

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Guest wrote:
I do dislike the knee-jerk reaction that there's absolutely no way that a 48Kbps ATRAC (plus?) encoded file could sound as good as a 128Kbps AAC file. Sony's been doing digital audio for quite some time and it's certainly possible that they have some sort of patented breakthrough encoding.

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Guest wrote:
Actually, according to Sony, music encoded in 48kbps ATRAC+ sounds as good or a little better than 128kbps MP3. I can't find the link to the Sony-sponsored study which shows this.

Apple may well be playing on the public's ignorance of such things ("Hey, 128 is a bigger number than 48, so it must be better"). From the company that introduced us all to the "megahertz myth", it's kind of sad. Sony has the numbers--potentially dubious as they may be--to back up their claims.