"Two and a half years after Apple launched its iPod and began to steal thunder from Sony, which had ruled the portable music market since the Walkman appeared in the 1980s, the company unveiled the first hard-disk drive based music player to bear its name on Monday," Martyn Williams reports for Digit Magazine. "The Vaio Pocket VGF-AP1 has a 20GB hard disk drive and a 2.2-inch colour LCD screen with 320-x-256 pixel resolution. In addition to acting as the main user interface, the screen displays track information when songs are being played and displays, if available, album art." 
"On the right-hand side of the display is a touch-sensitive panel dubbed ‘G-sense’ that is used to control the player. Users can navigate a series of on-screen menus by running their fingers over the panel in the appropriate direction," Williams reports. "The player is compatible with Sony’s ATRAC3 and ATRAC3 plus digital music formats, both of which include digital rights management (DRM)."
Williams reports, "By using Sony’s Sonic Stage or Music Move software, both of which are bundled with the player, tracks in MP3, Windows Media Audio or WAV audio file formats can be converted into ATRAC and uploaded to the player. The software is compatible with Windows 98SE, 2000, ME, XP Home and XP Professional operating systems."
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The “G-Sense” is obvously a response to the fact that Apple is pursuing a patent on the iPod scroll-wheel. Sony can’t use the best solution, the scroll wheel, so this is what they’ve decided to try. Apple decision to patent the iPod scroll wheel is playing out in their favor. In the end, Apple could end up with a patent that would be nearly as significant as holding a patent for the computer mouse as input device. The Sony player goes on sale in Japan on June 5th and will retail for 53,000 yen (US$479). Too much for too little.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Apple iTunes Music Store vs. Sony Connect is no contest, Apple wins with ease – May 09, 2004
NY Times pans Sony Connect debut: ‘maybe they ought to call it Sony Disconnect’ – May 05, 2004
Doesn’t look like anything I would want to jog with, let alone just put in my pocket…
– Touch pad interface.
– Select song from list, my history list, or thumb nail view album cover arts.
– 2.2in color LCD, that can display album cover art, if available.
– Li-ion battery, that can play back for about 20 hours.
– PC interface, USB2.0
– Digital camera interface, USB. Download photos from digital camera, manage photographs, and display them on screen with photo viewer.
– Sonic stage software will convert WMA to ATRAC3 during transfer (not sure if it can transfer protected WMA)
– slightly larger and heavier than ipod
ipod: 4.1 x 2.4 x 0.62, 5.6oz (20GB)
sony: 4.5 x 2.5 x 0.67, 6.8oz
Considering iTMS is not available in Japan, I think Sony has a chance of dominating Japanese market. With touch pad inteface, they can come up with different user interface, or may be even allow downloadable GUI to customize the UI. Their photograph viewer capability probably will get some people to choose Sony over iPod. The thumb nail album cover to select songs won’t win me over, but may be some people will see differently. May be Apple should look at Sony’s player and borrow some of their ideas.
MacMinute’s version of this story sez that Sony has no plans to bring this to the US market at this time. Yeah, right. No “announced” plans yet…
Apple cannot patent the “scroll wheel”. Hell, Sony has had one for years. What Apple can patent is the specific design they have developed for the iPod mini scroll wheel. A touch sensitive wheel with mechanical points along the perimeter, hidden by the non-moving wheel itself.
This is flattering for Apple, if all these new devices sport the label “iPod killer”. It just defines the iPod as the item to beat on the market.
Being born in the 50s, this reminds me of the beetle killers that Detroit churned out in the late 60s to take on the then dominant VW beetle in the small car segment. Turned out, you can’t kill the beetle. Same story here, I hope.
hey s.. you know that thing is expensive and the user interface is GAY.. i saw the little sony flash demo…
you have to press like 3 buttons just to change the volume..
colour screen is pretty lame on a portable device.. obviously watching movies on a portable device is not something normal people want to do… so LOOKING at an album cover is not a big deal.. esp. considering you’re paying for that colour screen..
pkradd.. HUH? scroll wheel not patentable?!
ok this is big news considering so many device makers so blatantly AVOIDING the brilliant scroll wheel interface like the plague
Oh my God! They killed iPod!
Not. Granted, I think the iPod has some room for improvement in terms of being able to natively accept flash media from cameras, etc. and set up a file system for those documents on the fly with user input. But a tiny-ass color screen isn’t going to make a huge difference. And it can ONLY play ATRAC3??? Yeah, that’s going to be a real hit.
scopi,
Can you use George Cloony with one hand?
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Another Brick. What a waste of development $ and time. Why cant they just produce some good headphones to complement the iPod? Id buy those, I love my MDRs even though they are usually too big for everyday use.
Strike Two!
Man what have the guys at Sony been smoking lately? First that lame music store tied to Mini-disc!! (mini-disc-wtf?), now this thing. Crap!
I was really hoping they’d give the Apple guys a run for their money, and we’d get even better, cooler (less expensive??) stuff. Come on Sony get off the hooch man! This really blows.
if it was 60GB it might be worth buying.
<<<tracks in MP3, Windows Media Audio or WAV audio file formats can be converted into ATRAC and uploaded to the player.>>>
You have to convert your music files before you can play them?!?!?!
It doesn’t even TRY to read unprotected AAC files. (an open format)
Can you say ATRAC/Beta?
mike,
I was just translating the specs in Sony’s web site. I do agree thumb nail list is a dumb idea. However, there may be people who would disagree.
As for the volume control, may be you should read the caption… It does not take three buttons to change the volume. What looks like an array of buttons is not buttons. It is a touch pad. Again read the description. Don’t make thing up from what you see.
I agree with you about color screen, but some people may think having photo album on iPod is a good feature. How many people you know carry small photos in his/her wallet. Now they can carry hundreds of photos, instead of few. With 20GB of disk space, I can load my entire digital photo library in iPhoto.
Every features can be described in positive or negative manner. Always describing the competitor’s features in negative manner does not help Apple.
If I am in the market for a MP3 player, I will choose iPod/mini or iPod, because it has the features I want, except for one, a password database like Password Wallet (waiting for an iPod with finger print or voice identification to access the password database). And it looks nice. Again this is my personal taste. May be Wintel users may have different opinion.
Nowhere in the linked article did I find the phrase “iPod killer.” So who exactly is claiming that this is an “iPod killer?”
Actually, after having looked at the Sony Japan web site on this machine, I will say this. What will cripple this thing is Sonic Stage and Sony’s insistence on ATRAC3. Sonic Stage is horrible software. Limiting it to ATRAC3 is going to cripple the unit for most people.
However, as a piece of hardware engineering, it actually looks promising. 20 hours of battery life. Ability to upload photos without any additional software. As for G-sense, I would have to see how it works in real life, but the principles behind it are actually kind of exciting. A scroll wheel can only move in forwards or backwards. It’s one-dimensional. A touchpad like G-sense should be able to move in two dimensions. So in theory, it might be an advantage.
PS. You people really need to stop rooting for Apple every time. Microsoft, Apple, Sony, all these companies are only companies. You make it sound like it’s a religion, or professional team sports, or something…
wow a picture is worth a thousand words
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i’m still wet for the ipod even after i’ve had one for weeks. i dried RIGHT up looking at that thing from sony.
and its almost $500 bucks!
_
Am I the only person who does NOT want a color screen on my music player??
Doesn’t anyone realize anymore how TERRIBLE color screens have been in sunlight?
For a color screen to be useful, it HAS to be backlit. Great, even more junk to drag down battery life.
Get real.. I’m completely satisfied with black & white text. Easy to see in all light conditions, not visually busy, and an efficient use of power. We don’t need to add stuff just because the technology exists.
This steady introduction of iPod-like products does show the danger Apple runs of not somehow partnering with other companies. For example, Apple could release the specs for the iPod interface and license them to other companies (to makers of cell phones for example). What they would make would not be as cool as an iPod but it would keep them from making a competing product. Somehow Apple needs to bring some partners on board and not face the whole world on its own.
Yes, it has a colour sreen, and gets 20 hours battery life. It’s probably backlit too.
I’ve seen black and white screens that would make anyone go blind, and I’ve seen bright, easy-to-read colour screens. You can’t generalize.
Don’t get me wrong, I think this Sony will flop, BIG TIME. But it does have some interesting technologies.
Oh my God! They killed iPod! You bastards!!!
I think someone should start an iPod Killer Announcement counter like the Apple Death Knell Counter at The Mac Observer. What number is this? 4?
“George Clooney,” I agree. Sigh… (wagging my head). This sucks.
A mediocre “me too” device (and a craptastic online music store) from what used to be one of the leading innovators of the electronics industry.
Oh well.
p s no i cant use george clooney with one hand.
but he can use me with one hand any day
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