Strategy Analytics, the global research and consulting company, today released its latest mobile application benchmark report, “Apple iPod Blows Away Mobile Music Challengers.” Strategy Analytics’ advanced wireless buyer panel benchmark evaluation concluded that first generation mobile music devices receive a failing grade on both sound quality and feature usability.
In this analysis, the Strategy Analytics advanced buyer panel performed head to head benchmarks of the iPod against 4 leading mobile music enabled devices: Samsung E720, O2 XM, SEMC V800 and the SPV500.
“The 02 XM leads for music feature usability, while the Samsung E720 was rated best overall among a relatively weak set of music phone contenders,” noted David Kerr, Vice President of the Global Wireless Practice at Strategy Analytics in the release.
Chris Ambrosio, Vice President of device research, added, “With a 20-plus point performance gap in perceived music quality, handset vendors and operators must do better to realize their visions of mobile music revenues and share support. The next wave of devices from Sony Ericsson (Walkman W600) and Motorola, among others, will have to cross the quality chasm, and provide dedicated music hardware to overcome the weaknesses of these first generation products.”
The full report can be accessed by subscribers to Strategy Analytics Advanced Wireless Laboratory service here.
For larger view of the chart, “Mobile Music Device Evaluation,” see: http://www.strategyanalytics.com/press/PR00200.htm
Mobile music iPod killers. Laughable.
Careful…
Apple and Motorola are getting into that market as well.
Mobile music is coming…and these devices are on the right track…but being an iPod killer means unlocking the usability combination.
This report made no mention of how music gets on the device, music capacities, and compatible formats.
The PDA/phone merge makes sense (use contact list to dial phone, etc) it makes sense to take along your music with you. I do not subscribe that I need a camera phone, but music + PDA/phone _does_ “rock” – pardon the pun.
When a PDA/phone adds music in a way that allows for large colletions to be easily copied to it, managed from desktop software, and integrated into a music store software platform, they will have an iPod killer.
Thing is, it will be Apple who does this and ‘kills’ the current iPod line with this next generation.
MDN word is “rather”
And when they do get in that market, they won’t be iPod killers but promoters!
I certainly hope the new phones find their way onto Sprint networks.
But, again, I’m really hoping for a new Newton!!
Why can’t a phone just be a phone anymore? And a music player a music player?
Has anyone ever thought…shoving every function you can imagine into a smaller and smaller sized device…only makes that device less friendly and intuitive to use?
I mean, my current cell phone, takes pictures, videos, text messages, emails, plays games, holds music I think?, custom ring tones, etc…and really all I want it to do…is be a phone. Not to mention doing any of the other stuff is clumbsy and generally frustrating.
Sure, someday years from now, technology will advance to the point where miniturizing everything and loading it with functions will actually work…but today it just doesn’t. Cell phones suffer feature bloat as do iPod competing devices.
There’s a simplicity to using an iPod and that’s what all these others guys keep missing and what this report reiterates.
Sure my iPod can hold photos, and cotacts, and do other stuff…but I bought it because it plays music and that’s what I wanted to do.
Apple personifies KISS (Keep it simple stupid) – and that’s why everything they do is easy to use – and that’s why the iPod is the market leader.
Sometimes having a cell phone be only a cell phone, and having an MP3 player be only that…well it just works.
Ranting completed…thanks for listening.
But Apple is not designing tyhe phone, just making iTunes available.
I wonder what cell phone Jon Ives uses?
I love to use my iPod while flying. What do people do with music on their phones? Not listen to them on flights or ignore the warning to turn off all cell phones?
I think one thing that the mobile+MP3 player market is trying to vouch for, is that people do not want to carry around a rucksack full of rechargers with them when they travel around.
TBH, that’s not going to be a huge market, but to me, it feels like some smart genius in a company thought this up, and decided this is the new model: target the business commuters who have to carry a dedicated PDA, decidated ipod, dedicated mobile, as well as any other electronic devices. I cant remember the website i read where a guy had to fight with other conference attendees to get the power socket, and bring a 4-way power splitter to cahrge up all his devices.
For some people, this will work, and will be like a blessing for them. For most people however, going seperate ways will be the only way forward to guarantee satisfaction.
NDS MW: Approach. Other companies will need a new approach to build the elusive “iPod killer”
And this doesn’t even take into account iTunes and ITMS. No discussion of an MP3 player should be made without taking into account the computer software that you will use to fill it with music and the online download solution for obtaining music.
Jack, They don’t want a computer interface to download the music, the phone companies and the carriers want you to use your cell minutes, thats where they make the money.
What will be another determining factor is battery life. If you’re using your mobile phone for talking and playing music in between calls, your battery will get sucked dry very quickly.
Mr. Bill,
I agree 100% I want a phone that just makes phone calls – I never use any of the other crap they cram on the phone.
Michael Cheung,
And in response to “is that people do not want to carry around a rucksack full of rechargers with them when they travel around” this is why the iPod can charge via USB or Firewire. Just bring your laptop and you can charge – no adapter needed for the iPod.
I too listen on the airplane… It would be stupid to have my music on my Cell Phone.. I guess nobody thought of this yet..
LOL
Actually they have. That’s why a lot of phones on the market have an airplane mode so that you can still use all the other features (like address book, contacts, memos, games, music, etc) on the phone while in flight.
Convergence blows.. member how many times Thurrott screamed ‘NASCENT MARKET!! I LOVE THE WORD NASCENT!!!’ because the phones were going to kill the ipod?
*raises glass
here’s to your, you fucking shill
Convergence blows.
I have one of phones in that report (the Sony Ericsson V800), and it’s fabulous, probably the smartest proprietary-OS phone out there right now… but it’s no replacement for my iPod. That said, it’s not a horrible music device, either.
The sound quality is good, I can set up playlists and folders, and it’s completely tolerable to use. Is it as good as a Pod? Of course not, but that’s not news at all. On the other hand, it’s always with me, and even still I sometimes forget my iPod or its battery runs down. What’s killing these things right now is that flash memory is still relatively expensive for what you get, when compared to small hard drives. My V800 has a 256 MB Memory Stick Pro Duo in it, and since all my music is ripped at a very high bit rate, that’s basically only enough for one album. Sure, I could get more memory, but it gets ridiculously priced much above 512 MB… for now, anyway.
Convergence does NOT blow completely, and here’s why. It is true that a jack of all trades might be a master of none, but the V800 (and other high line phones of its ilk) do a LOT of things very decently. Just like I might not always have my iPod, I also don’t have my best digital camera, video camera, fast cable modem connection, Pocket PC, or even a flashlight. But the V800 can fulfill EVERY ONE of those basic functions, even if it doesn’t do ANY of them completely as well as the dedicated devices. It was never meant to replace them, it was meant to fill their roles when they aren’t around, built for a time when it’s assumed most people would sooner leave their wallet behind than their phone. Say what you will about convergence, the V800/Z800 is A LOT of technology in a package slightly thicker than an iPod mini.
I just wish people who didn’t understand this would stop comparing Apples (sorry pun not completly intended!) to phones.
Cheers,
adam
… and please forgive my blatant misspelling of “completely.” Safari would have caught that, but I happened to have Firefox open. Oops. : )
the only converged product that would make sense to me is a microwave oven with a television built into the door. An internet fridge dosn’t make sense to me. But a microwave with the TV/computer as the front kinda works for me.
As for the topic of the day; Get an iPod and a Phone and glue them together at the back. It’s a converged product made up of two dedicated devices.
I totally agree with Mr Bill’s post.
Less is more!
All these companies are so blinded – lets add everything we can think of to a mobile phone and people will love it!.
NOT!
It is proven by research that most people want a mobile phone to do a few thing properly and not 100 things crappily.
Believe it or not the mobile phone will never replace laptops, or portable video editors or any other device that requires a useable size screen.
It may be the portable device for handheld convergence – but ONLY for communication!
What these phone companies should be doing is making it the best communication device possible and not fart ass around turning it into a muisc player, video and game machine or anything else!
Why not put something useful on a mobile (there’s a new idea!) – how about a dedicated mapping app – you type in the postcode or where you are and type in a postcode of your goining to and it shows u a route to get there, by bus, train, car or walking!
What Apple needs to do is develop amobile phone that is like the ipod: simple to use and upgradable – meaning; when you buy the phone it comes with a few essential apps like address book, calendar etc. Then if you want other apps on your phone you connect to the Apple website and download other apps from their website (like the dashboard widgets web page). You could just select the ‘app’ connect your mobile via blurtoooth to the mac and download it onto the phone.
Just some ideas…
Another thing…
If Apple integrated .mac into a mobile I would buy one immediately!