“The chief executive of one of the world’s leading manufacturers of digital music players says he is surprised at several of the features of Apple Computer’s iPod Shuffle player, which was introduced by Apple earlier this week at MacWorld San Francisco. ‘Two things surprised me,’ said Yang Duk-Jun, CEO of ReignCom, in a telephone interview Thursday. ReignCom produces portable music players under the iRiver brand name,” Martyn Williams reports for IDG News Service.
“‘The first is that iPod (Shuffle) is targeting the low-end area,’ he said. The low price is no surprise, as Chinese products are already available at that price: the surprise is that Apple is producing a low-end product, he said. ‘The second is that they introduced the 1GB player that can contain about 200 songs. It will be very difficult for users to look for and find their favorite songs,’ he added… ‘Maybe there is a certain group of users who don’t care about searching (for songs) and displays. Apple may replace the products low-end users are using but for (listeners who are) a little bit serious, this group won’t like this type of product,'” Williams reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Yes, Apple’s iPod shuffle will replace products low-end users are using and Apple also happens to own the rest of the market with their mid-range and high-end iPod models. What’s surprising about that? The iPod shuffle is meant to be filled entirely with “favorite” songs and used to play them while running, exercising, etc. Hence, there will be no problem finding “favorite” songs on the iPod shuffle. If you want to do more, Apple offers the iPod mini, the iPod, and the iPod photo.
By the way, Apple’s iPod shuffle 1GB player can contain about 240 songs, not the 200 Yang low-balls in his statement and sells for US$149 compared to iRiver’s iFP-599T 1 GB Flash Music Player which is currently listed for US$389 on Amazon.com and doesn’t directly play songs purchased from the market-dominating iTunes Music Store, either.
Find out more about Apple’s iPod shuffle and the other iPod models here.
