... not an intentional hatchet job but just poor research.

She quotes an analyst who credits the iPod industrial design (cool) but ignores its seamless sync and user interface (and she doesn't add it in).

She uses old info - 125 million vs. 150 million (Oct 17), although maybe she just submitted it Oct 16 and there was a publishing delay. Couldn't be earlier than Oct 16 since she has the 2 million iPods info.

She implies the Apple's iPod is Mac only - only the HP iPod is PC-friendly.

She highlights the Zen Micro (pre-order only) but ignores the available and category-dominating iPod mini (only 20 and 40 GB iPods)

The iPod has also been available at "retail outlets" like Target for a long time, and now at Costco - I guess she thinks these are Apple "authorized resellers" but retail outlets for everyone else.

I guess anyone can be a tech journalist these days ...

OH WOW

the idiocy continues

i am afraid to see what the comments about the other players are

TRO

but just maybe i will give this a read later

"As always, Apple products are only available through Apple stores, authorized resellers or online"

So totally false. You need no authoriztion at all to sell iPods.

I sent a letter to the editor:

"Regarding the article, 'Fruits of the MP3 Market'

"That's got to be one of the sloppiest pieces of reporting I've seen in some time. Did the author actually get paid for such poorly researched work, or was this a high school writing project of some kind?"
--------

I'm sorry, but I'm just losing respect for journalists in general (no offense, Brian). Looking on the bright side, at least the field of journalism keeps them from getting into something more critical, like heart surgery or something.

Since when is Brian a journalist. Don't lump him in with that lot

Good point, mahuti. I am definitely not a journalist, and consider myself an analyst doing an editor's job.

I dont mean to nitpick I dont. I agree with everything you said but look at this

"but just a _pad_ piece of journalism."

and then

"We don't what the heck that means."

Should that be "we dont KNOW what the heck that means"

I got that far and stopped reading iam not a spelling/grammer
nazi at all but I was just to hurt by the irony. Just a FYI

"Products out now that support the MP3 player format top out at $399 and also cover Sony's ATRAC3 format."

And what does that mean? ATRAC3 is proprietary and unplayable on anything but Sony's players. Man, this article is terrible.

Thanks for the clarification of some of those points. When reading their article yesterday I did wonder about the Napster comment. Nice to see your response. I've updated my initial post on the article to include a link to yours. Cheers.

This reporter and her editor must have been trained at the Associated Press. Facts what facts?

Here's what I informed them of...

Just in case you haven't been getting enough email about the "Fruits of the MP3 Market " article:

"In mid-October, Creative announced its Zen Micro, a 5GByte MP3 player that is 6mm smaller than the iPod and leans toward the PDA spectrum with a built-in address book, calendar and to-do list."
---The iPod also has built in address book, calendar and to-do lists, since September of 2002.
--- This seems to be using the iPod mini as a comparison yet it's price and specs are never given.

" -- one that saw more than 2 million shipments last quarter, a 500 percent year-over-year gain, versus a 6 percent gain for the Macintosh computer maker's Q3 CPU shipments --"
---an unfair comparison, a brand new market vs. a 20+ year mature market.

a quote within the story (still the writers responsibility to check) "[The mp3 market] is going really, really well," O'Donovan said, attributing the market's success to the iPod. "I put the success of iPod really more down to its industrial design. It's really a cool looking product. The great thing about iPod is it had the ability to download music from various sources and that was a differentiator from the jukeboxes that came before it. It also used a different sized drive, which enabled it to be small and neat looking."
---MP3 market? MP3 player market, maybe? Digital Music Player market best.
---comparing the iPod to "jukeboxes that came before it" - I've never heard a Digital Music Player referred to as a jukebox before, the software yes, the player no.

"other MP3 makers" "MP3 market" it's everywhere.
--same as above, MP3/Digital Music PLAYER makers

"He noted that when the iPod first hit shelves, they could only run with a Mac and Apple's iTunes, a big discriminating factor against it in the PC-populated marketplace." coupled with "That may be why HP decided to partner with Apple on PC-friendly iPods."
--- This makes it sound like the HP iPod is the first PC compatible iPod, when in fact the Apple iPod was PC compatible in July of 2002 and iTunes for Windows in October of 2003.

I have left out many of the others that I have seen pointed out already on sites such as MacObserver and MacNN (Naptster being up and running when iPod was introduced, iPods not available at retail outlets other than the HP version, non up to date song sales count, 150 million now). If I was being paid for this I would go ahead and check the other information I don't know off the top of my head for you, such as the chip industry information, for now I'll just not trust it.

Quote

Guest wrote:
Should that be "we dont KNOW what the heck that means"

No, that should be "we DON'T know what the heck that means."

If Apple Legal were smart, they would issue a letter to Ms. Deffree of Electronic News, demanding a correction.


-hh

Quote

If Apple Legal were smart, they would issue a letter to Ms. Deffree of Electronic News, demanding a correction.

True.. but Apple probably has far more important things to worry about than some reporter who appears to have no clue about the subject.