“Sure, sure, you’re hopelessly, helplessly in love with your iPod. That doesn’t mean your precious doesn’t have pimples. What about iPod’s notorious lack of endurance between recharges, the sealed case that means you may have to scrap the thing if the internal battery dies, and the proprietary digital-music format that joins you at the hip to Apple’s iTunes online store? Apple may hold more than 60% of the market for hard drive–based digital-music players, but even iPod devotees may have wandering eyes–and competitors are crying ‘Pick me!’ by delivering fetching new digital-music players that adopt some of the benchmark’s strengths while offering more flexibility and features,” Time Magazine’s latest issue reads.

The Time article then lists a group of competing players from Sony, iRiver, Creative, Toshiba that the magazine terms “iPod Killers” and describers their features compared to Apple’s iPod.

Full article here.

MacDailyNews Take:
Notorious lack of endurance?
• Apple’s iPod shuffle battery life between recharges is rated at up to 12 hours, the iPod mini at up to 18 hours, the iPod at up to 12 hours, and the iPod photo at up to 15 hours of music playback and up to 5 hours of slideshows with music.
Have to scrap iPod if the internal battery dies?
• Your one year warranty includes replacement coverage for a defective battery. You can extend your warranty to two years with AppleCare. During the second year, Apple will replace the battery if it drops below 50% of its original capacity. If it is out of warranty, Apple offers a battery replacement for $99. In addition, third parties such as our sponsor OWC offer user-replaceable iPod batteries starting at $US25.99 that offer up to 70% more capacity than original iPod batteries: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ipod/batteryreplacement/
Proprietary digital-music format that joins you at the hip to Apple’s iTunes online store?
• iTunes Music Store dominates the market with over 70% market share and over 300 million tracks sold to date. Most other online music stores use Microsoft’s WMA proprietary digital-music format. Is it any less “proprietary” because it’s from Microsoft? In addition, iPod shuffle supports MP3 (8 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, AAC (8 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Music Store, M4A, M4B, M4P), Audible (formats 2, 3, and 4) and WAV. All other iPod models support AC (16 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Music Store), MP3 (16 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 2, 3, and 4), Apple Lossless, WAV, AIFF.

Related MacDailyNews articles:
The de facto standard for legal digital online music files: Apple’s protected MPEG-4 Audio (.m4p) – December 15, 2004