hahhahaha.

LOL. Excellent, loved it!!

I’ve live in Sydney, Australia but have been studying Spanish for 18 months, from an Argentinian expatriate from Buenos Aires, which of course is on the Rio de Plata (River of Silver), and I really appreciated that one…

Sorry…do continue…

While we can sit and argue over the audio quality all day long, we all know that for the average consumer, audio is, for the most part, just audio. As long as you can’t tell that it is a lower bit-rate, who cares? I would have a hard time distinguishing 128 AAC than a regular CD. Why? I don’t know, and I don’t care. But it doesn’t bother me, and I assume it doesn’t bother most people because iPods fly off the shelf, regardless of the supposedly inferior quality. Why do most musicians own iPods? Why doesn’t Trent Reznor own a Rio or iRiver?

Apple exists to target a general audience of people who aren’t anal about audio quality, which I fortunately find myself a part of. I think these days a lot of people place more importance on the quality of the stereo equipment, rather than the quality of the music itself. I’m sure you can find evidence of this on every street in America with music blaring out of $1000 speakers being played by someone who couldn’t tell you the first thing about the science behind music, much less carry a tune.

Next year, when you all jump up and down because your Apple DAPs now have crossfade and other new features, remember: that’s Rio code.

The Karma is better in audio components and firmware design, plays Ogg and FLAC, has Crossfade and on-the-fly playlists, much better battery life… The competing iPod, at the time, didn’t even have a 5-band EQ. Still doesn’t, in fact. But, it has games. Woo Hoo! That’s showing the audiophiles!

The Carbon was also clearly better than the iPod mini.

This story is about deep pockets and successful marketing. It’s about people who are more interested in buying devices for conspicuous consumption, rather than buying a high-quality audio device.

Now that Rio is gone, iPod still isn’t the best high-end DAP on the market. It’s an iRiver product.

R.

Reminds me of the Apple III. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_III

I wish it was Creative.

http://features.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/09/1813228

PS: I hope this wasn’t the company that declared war on the iPod because if it was then I feel not an ounce of surrow for them.

Agreed. Now if some competition would just arise, Apple would be forced to innovate at an even greater rate. Rio was no more Apple’s competition than is Creative. These folks market cheap, inferior knock-offs… tossed-together circuits desperately and belatedly grasping for the scraps of a market that Apple created and currently owns.

Just a guess, but if competition does someday arise, it will likely come from Sony…

Eat it, you slimy bastids.

Too late. They already have products on the market.

http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/home/denon-smart-life-ipodlovin-home-cinema-system-118119.php

http://www.t3.co.uk/news/entertainment/home_cinema_system/denons_made_for_ipod_home_cinema_system

Now they can build ipod interoperability into their Denon receivers and partner with Apple instead of competing. That’ll probably make them more money in the long run than selling the rios ever did (shouldn’t be hard since they had to have LOST quite a bit on them).

I also agree with the others that gloating is inappropriate (but only if overdone). Without the dark sea of bad to mediocre portable players out their, the iPod would have nothing to shine against. When iPod is the only player around, we will all go deaf from the sounds of complaints about it.

Seeing as how they’re generally priced at or below their competition on a per GB basis, I truly fail to understand what in the hell you’re talking about…

OK. Now turn the iPod back on. Keep on rocking.

Still, an Apple monopoly is infinitely better than a Microsoft monopoly.

With this in mind, it is a shame that Rio was the company to go. Rio released the second MP3 player on the market – ever – and their products didn’t look like iPod wannabe clones. Not to mention the fact that they didn’t badmouth Apple every chance they got or do stupid things like launch ‘wars’.

http://www.iriver.com/html/index.asp

That said, I understand why some of these products will disappear: poor user interface, lackluster integration with software (particularly for the techo-phobic and techno-ignorant), and an overall poor consumer experience. Yes, it will happen that some will go away, but let’s hope that it’s not at the price of total iPod domination. We should WANT Apple to have some healthy competition. We’ll all benefit from that (unless we’re stockholders, I suppose…).

With any luck, Microsoft will be the next to go.

I can just see it…all those bozo Windows apologists writing about iPod killers will soon be writing Killer iPod strikes the Dull DJ.

D&M Holdings is getting out while the gettin’s good. See ya.