Yeah, but the few Apple has are the ones that matter......

I wonder if Sony are becoming less worried about their CD business because they've realized it's now a legacy business (a la VHS sales)? Why not more as quickly as possible to a format that does promise DRM?

I saw this piece tonight. Here’s the transcript: Sir Howard Stringer: Sony's Savior? It was really very interesting.

The comment about Sony having a thousand products, and Apple only having a few, was not said disparagingly.

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Rainy Day wrote:
I saw this piece tonight. Here’s the transcript: Sir Howard Stringer: Sony's Savior? It was really very interesting.

The comment about Sony having a thousand products, and Apple only having a few, was not said disparagingly.

I haven't see the CBS piece, but I'd tend to agree... Sony's CEO was merely pointing out a fact: It's a lot easier to pivot and change direction when you only offer three main products (and color and capacity variations) than it is if your firm offers dozens if not hundreds of competing products.

Were iPod's/MP3 players a "mature" product, like TV's or VHS/VCR's no one would likely notice Apple's advances much. But MP3 players, like the Walkman 25 years ago, have proven to be the next _big_ thing and the iPod is/has been the best of breed. Sony has stumbled badly (as has the rest of the indusrty) ever since the iPod has gathered itself together and started to move like a juggernaut.

Apple's moves have been interesting too... Apple was very late to the MP3 market. For a long time there were few MP3 options for Mac's (I know, I was looking in vain early on). Early (2001) iPods required Firewire (which current Mac's had, but even the 1999 Lombard's still had SCSI ports), up through the 2nd Generation (2002) iPods they still lacked USB conectivity, and dockability (keeping with the standard FW port on the top of the iPod), and there was no iTunes for PC. Apple had to use MusicMatch software for PC versions of the 2nd Generation iPod.

Every subsequent generation of iPod has attempted to address some (perceived/actual) shortcomming of the existing iPod's product and add's further refinements. Save for the omittion of FireWire connectivity on the current iPod line up, Apple hasn't backsteped with the capabilites of it's product (well I suppose the 3rd Gen's button scheme could be argued), nor persisted with some proprietary/provincial software that the consumer has largely rejected (ATRAC, etc.).

Apple has serve, and the advantage that the only company that doesn't have to revamp/react to new iPod's appearing on the market is Apple.

I don't envy Sony. It's hard to change direction with so many paddles in the water.

-- C

Well said, guest.

I saw the show yesterday evening, and at first I thought Sir Stringer's comment was another one of those unsuccessful attempts at trying to use words to make his company sound better than Apple (a tactic frequently used in the past by certain other organizations that compete with Apple).

But as the show went on, I really think this guy gets it, and yes, it's much harder to turn around the behemoth that Sony has become. He's got a tough road to hoe.

The pivotal point that really showed me that Sony was not "getting it" anymore was when they came out with one of their earlier "iPod killers" with the catchy name of something like NW-HD1. Now that's a name that you'll remember!

it's no secret that sony does make exceptional products-- they were, after all, the ones who created the granddaddy of the ipod, the walkman, later followed by the cd walkman. their recent portable digital music products have been severely lacking, but that's no reason to throw the company out as a whole. i keep a pee-cee around for compatibility, and as far as pee-cees go, their vaio line has been top-notch. other products like their displays and their gaming consoles have been great.

it would be naive to say that the company sucks as a whole, even though the ipod kicks their competing players' asses' all over the floor.

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burrito wrote:
it's no secret that sony does make exceptional products

They seem to have lost their edge

I have a Sony radio alarm clock. It has a lot of nice features, but setting it up and things like changing from standard to daylight savings time are not intuitive.

My sister gave me a set of Sony earbuds for Christmas. It comes with a short cord and an extension cord. I can wear the iPod on a belt and use the short cord, but if I move my head more than a little bit, ear buds pull out. If I use the extension cord then I have a long bight of cable hanging down to my knees and weight of it tends to pull the ear buds out. The short cable is a good idea, but needs to be 6-8 inches longer. It comes with a carrying case, but it doesn't snap shut very well, the cable tends to pop it open, I use an empty Altoids tin to carry the ear buds. On the plus side, they do have a nice sound

The devil is in the details

Maybe Sony can change? Here' someone who has admitted the problem, and has the power to do something about it. I hope Apple sees this for the sea change in one of it's competitors that it is. A focused Sony could actually do something in the market. For the past few years they've done everything they cold to shoot themselves in the foot. Maybe that will change.

Guest worte: "Apple was very late to the MP3 market."

How could the product that transformed the market be considered late? If a company introduced a new MP3 player now, it could be considered late. Kind of like Sony...

Sony has long had a reputation for high quality, and I've purchased many of their products over the years. But user interface has always been their weak point, and Apple's strongest suit. This showdown was inevitable, and Apple's coming out on top was predictable when all the factors were weighed. Sony has a long climb to catch up. I actually hope they come back to compete with Apple in this space, and cooperate as well. It would make both companies stronger. In fact, Sony is the one company I would licence OS X to if I were Apple's CEO. But considering Steve Jobs's history, I doubt that will ever happen.

I agree with Al Swearengen about the Sony earbuds. I have the same ones and the "short" cord can certainly use another few inches. That aside, their refurbishing process is horrendous. I've been spoiled by the quality of Apple's refurbished products. Most of the time they look brand new out of the box. I ordered a pair of these Sony earbuds that were refurbished by Sony. They came in a "Refurbished by Sony" box, looking very official and impressive. The good part ends there. The packing inside rivals the worst of eBay sellers. The earbud and the silicon earplugs have -- get this -- dried up earwax on them. It's as if someone had used these for months then just dropped them into this box and call it a day. Shameful quality control on Sony's part, since they're the ones who "refurbished" this item, not the vendor.

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Guest wrote:
Guest worte: "Apple was very late to the MP3 market."

How could the product that transformed the market be considered late? If a company introduced a new MP3 player now, it could be considered late. Kind of like Sony...

Apple introduced the first iPod on October 23, 2001.

By contrast, the first mp3 players were on the market in 1998, if not earlier (The Rio 300 was introduced in September 1998), the first Mac compatable players that I was aware of was available in fall of 1999 (a Rio 500 if memory serves me), the first Hard Drive based MP3 players (Ñ—Creative Lab's Nomad?) date from late 1999 or early 2000... Nearly 2 years before the iPod was first introduced.

The iPod was introduced to critical yawns by the technorati pundits back in 2001, saying things like "Nothing new here", "Apple's player nice, but late to the game", "How will Apple prevail in an already crowded mp3 player market", etc...

The Model T transformed the fledgling Automobile industry... But it didn't do so (even in it's early 1908 incarnations) until techniques of mass production were brought to bear. Even when first introduced the Model T was not, by far, the first to the market, not the first cheap car, etc. In fact the current Ford Motor Company is the THIRD company founded by Henry Ford to build cars... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_ford#Detroit_Automobile_Company) ...

Thus this is not the first time this has happened...

Then there is the Xerox Alto... One of the first GUI's, VisiOn was a GUI that would run on Windows, Mac OS (then called simply Macintosh, or Finder 1.0) wasn't the first GUI available to the general public (in a less than $6,500 Lisa) either... Visi On was available for the IBM PC in December 1983, a month before the Mac was introduced...

Nor the second...

It's not a given that the first product to the market prevails or is the product that changes the landscape. Often, it's the firm that sits back, watches what the others does, analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of the products on the market, and then develops a better product that is a better solution. Even when Apple came to market, the iPod had it's limitations and weaknesses. Apple worked hard to eliminate or minimize them with every new generation of iPod. It's simply done a better job at it than anyone else and in doing so has created a huge accessory/support industry that is a daunting prospect for any competitor to try to surmount.

-- C

To shorten the Guest above's post to a soundbite, "the pioneers get the arrows." What Apple did with music players (albeit with much more class) is what Microsoft has done over & over in the software industry: wait for something to catch on, then introduce a product to dominate that niche.

Of course, Apple not being Microsoft, they had to introduce a clearly superior product to capture the market though.

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Al Swearengen wrote:
The short cable is a good idea, but needs to be 6-8 inches longer.

You're probably more than 6-8 taller than the average Japanese Sony consumer.

Sonic stage (aka sonicstage) is the most vile thing ever to have been dredged through the bowels of Sony and churned out to infect innocent owners of Sony's otherwise wonderful MP3 players (e.g., NW-E407). Thank god now there is a drag-and-drop alternative but this is one of the biggest "ooops" I've ever seen from a large company. Not only is it horrible, it uses propritary formats, and has no ability to buy music.

I find it ironic that Sony got into the content business because they wanted better footing for launching products like the Beta VCR. Then when they got to the point where they became a large media player, it bit them in the ass because they crippled their products to protect their content.

Sonic Stage encodes your entire music collection with Sony's DRM non-sense whether you tell it to or not. There have been reports of users who installed Sonic Stage on their PC's only to have their entire music collection BORKED and rendered completely useless. Hey Sony, didn't you learn your lesson when you got your ass sued for that Trojan horse virus/rootkit fiasco you tried to pull on all your customers?!?!? Now you want them to install Sonic Stage and have your entire music collection effectively "owned" by Sony and rendered completely useless except for playing on a Sony MP3 player?

Unbelievable. It's no wonder Apple is handing you your ass!!!

I will never, and have not, buy anything apple or mac they suck ass.

he was the president of CBS NEWS also

Their main problem is that they don't get it. They don't need to "streamline" anything. Just make a friggin decent mp3 player that doesn't have any retarded DRM restrictions. That's all it would take. Why do these people keep banging their heads against the wall wondering "why don't people buy our player". HELLO, SONY!! Stop screwing around with the content we pay good money for.

Idiots!

its time to play a little game of catch up, but the ipod is not really the best player out, they have not released the specs and sound frequency's and such, not to mention the software is gay, i dont like the way the itunes reorganizes the music in to many different sub-folders, but anywho the comment about mac is quiet old, i heard it before.

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Guest wrote:

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Al Swearengen wrote:
The short cable is a good idea, but needs to be 6-8 inches longer.

You're probably more than 6-8 taller than the average Japanese Sony consumer.

...and never the twain shall meet until the ear buds rest on God's judgment seat.

You may have something there. I am 5' 8.5 which may be a few inches taller than the average Japanese person. Did the designers engineer the cord for the Japanese market.

There is another little quirk. With most ear bud sets, the cable split to the left and right buds are of equal length. However, on this model, the left ear is shorter than the right. You insert the left bud and the cable for the right loops under your chin. Now even though I am left handed I have learned to live, for the most part, in the north paw world so I like to wear my iPod case on my right side. This makes the cable too short to reach my left ear so I wear them reversed. I could wear the iPod on my left side, but then I would look like a gadgetslinger with carrying cases port and starboard (cell phone). Maybe tomorrow Apple will announce a cell phone enabled iPod and I can get away with one carrying case.

I keep thinking of Sony needing to learn a thing or two from Apple's past mistakes. Sony tries very hard to push their proprietary media. Sure, then they can sell a few more memory sticks, but that keeps some people away. I'd rather buy a superior product that embraces std media.

I pretty much washed my hands of Sony when they tried to fight the mp3 format. I don't want to put all my music etc in a proprietary format, and I certainly don't want my hardware controlling how I move my music around.

The longer cord on the right side is made because the right earbud is meant to go behind the neck, not hang underneath the chin like most American headphones. I noticed this several days after purchasing my own set of sony headphones and reading the manual to find why they would do this.

not much to do with the main topic. but the reason why the cords are different lengths is they are desiged to go around the back of your neck.

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Guest wrote:
not much to do with the main topic. but the reason why the cords are different lengths is they are desiged to go around the back of your neck.

Yes we are getting off topic, but I will try the behind the neck route.

Thanks heaps

The more you grab, the less you squeeze...

So it's fabulous, right?

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Guest wrote:
So it's fabulous, right?

Absolutely (pun intended). If you are talking about the behind the neck routing of the cable. It works much better and it helps take weight off of the cable. You definitely need the extension if wearing the iPod on the belt, it would be just right for a bicep mount.

Now before someone mentions it. I would have read the instructions, but I destroyed them (printed on the inside of the packaging) trying to open the package. Don't get me started on blister packaging, that stuff can be downright dangerous to open.

Unfortunately Sony didn't actually create the walkman - it had existed for years and they bought it from the inventor himself. They had the vision to buy and market it, yes, but it's not the creative genius they claimed for years whilst covering up that purchase.

5 8.5 isn't overly tall in Japan, it isn't overly tall anywhere. And more importantly, you didn't actually buy the headphones in Japan did you?

I agree with you that it's a design flaw, and not so much with the reply that "them japanese is tiny, a-hyuck!".

Ok, it boils down to this. SHUT THE "F" UP EVERY ONE OF YOU "BEHEMOTH" COMPANIES WHO THINK YOU'RE SMARTER, HARDER, TOUGHER, SLICKER, <fill in the blank> THAN APPLE.

JUST SHUT THE "F" UP, AND SHOW US YOUR BETTER PRODUCT. OK? WHAT? NO BETTER PRODUCT? THEN BLAME YOURSELF, AND ONLY YOURSELF.

APPLE CAN DO SOMETHING BETTER THAN ANY OTHER COMPANY: EXECUTE.

EXECUTE, EXECUTE, EXECUTE. JUST SHUT THE "F" UP AND.....<fill in the blank>.

SONY=LOSERS. STRINGER HAS NO SHOT AT TWISTING THE MORONS AROUND.

WHAT IS UP WITH THAT HORRIBLE PSP POINTING DEVICE? THEY MUST HAVE SOURCED IT IN A CRACKERJACK BOX.

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Guest wrote:
Unfortunately Sony didn't actually create the walkman - it had existed for years and they bought it from the inventor himself. They had the vision to buy and market it, yes, but it's not the creative genius they claimed for years whilst covering up that purchase.

Yes, I remember something about him finally winning a lawsuit.

Guest Said: <em>Unfortunately Sony didn't actually create the walkman - it had existed for years and they bought it from the inventor himself. They had the vision to buy and market it, yes, but it's not the creative genius they claimed for years whilst covering up that purchase.</em>

They had the vision to also try and screw the creator and patent owner (Andreas Pavel) out of revenues for almost 25 years.

Yeah I agree w/ burito that some of its products are different but slightly over price! I bought a UX50 once b4 its release Sony shamelessly promoted on 1 computer mag that their Clie can last about 14hrs! I was hyped up plus the fact the design was sweeet, 1st to make a clam shell like handheld w/ video/still cam & had a small qwerty keyboard! What they didn't tell to public is that the Clie had the worst battery life lasting about 1-3hrs of battery life!
The following yr after purchasing it Clie productions & tech support immediately stopped! I still buy Sony PS2 bcoz I know they are pressured to give the best out of it! But I have learn to giv due diligence especially w/ Sony!!!

They "stole" it. Although they might really have invented it independently, a Brazilian had already patented it. It took him years to get Sony to acknowledge that and pay up. Pretty rich from a company that bleats on about copyright so much.

as in corn...

I guess most of you were commenting on Sony's " aspirations" to return to lead the pack of innovators in the tech market (and sale/earning leader position as well).
The main issue I would raise to achieve those goals have been touched upon by several of you the dismal development of several product lines.
Through the years I have acquired several Sony top of the line products from the first 3 megapixel camera with compact form factor (P1!) to the fanciest of the compact Camcorder (IP5) to several Clie' etc..
My experience has repeatidly come across some major issues with hardware (those for the camera keep failing and result no charged even when fully so thanks to the quirks of the infolithium technology).
I could go on and on on how many things went wrong but in essence my experience with Sony's products has left me with the following negative impressions:
1) Sony's huge number of products must be due to the fact that at Sony they do not R&D like other companies, they sell us half baked products that have life cycles of less than an year or so, receive substantially no support or development after the market responds to them and, to boot, almost never offer support any support for other OS other than Windows
2) as mentioned their battery/infolithium systems sucks to say the least
3) thay have been very cocky and snug about their brand recognition and for what often ends up being mediocre products they demand premium prices

I should have listen to some of my japanese friends when they laughed over our conversing about electronics when they suggested that for them the word/brand sony translated in "Soon to be repaired".
Well after venting a bit over my frustration toward Sony I guess I should conclude on summarizing why Sony will not catch up with Apple (unless fundamental changes take place)
It Is essentially what we have seen happen with Apple and the iPod that has to happen with Sony. a product needs to be created, nurtured through advancing and polishing hardware as well software interfaces and the customer base needs to have access to excellent support.
Sony has partially done some of due diligence in given lines of products such as their partly successful digital cameras (and good intentions were may be in hte Clie' line of products) but not enough to return to be head of class anytime soon in most of hte areas in which it competes for market share.