“When Samsung, the consumer electronics giant, decided to mount a serious challenge to Apple Computer’s iPod music player early last year, it turned to a little-known Silicon Valley software start-up with a cluttered one-room office tucked away here in a building above a mortgage title company,” John Markoff reports for The New York Times. “The result of that partnership is Samsung’s newest Z5 portable MP3 player, which will appear on store shelves March 5. The software inside the player was forged at Iventor Inc. by a small team of programmers led by Paul Mercer, 38, a veteran Apple Macintosh software designer.”
“Samsung’s decision to hire Mr. Mercer is significant because Apple, in designing the original iPod four years ago, turned to Pixo Inc., the company Mr. Mercer founded after he left Apple in 1994 to create software for hand-held devices,” Markoff reports. “Apple used Pixo software to create the music player’s simple interface, and Pixo’s name appeared in the credits of the original iPod MP3 player.”
“Samsung is betting that it can win a share of the music market dominated by Apple by using new software that mimics what is found in powerful PC’s,” Markoff reports. “The Z5, shaped like a stick of gum, has a 1.8-inch color screen and a 35-hour battery life, and is priced at $199 to $249 to compete with the iPod Nano, which costs $149 to $249. Early reviews have been positive, and Samsung is hoping that the Z5 will work smoothly with the range of subscription music services that support the Microsoft PlaysForSure digital music standard.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Hoping? Sheesh. The definition of the word “failure” in the digital media player market: “Hoping that [insert name of digital player] will work smoothly with the range of subscription music services that support the Microsoft PlaysForSure digital music standard.” Samsung’s not going after Apple; at best they’re going after SanDisk.
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When will these companies learn? As soon as the iPod is mentioned as being a market they’re looking to take a slice of they’re doomed. They should dominate what’s left of the market and build from there. No one is gonna complain if there are two viable portable music solutions available. Of course however good their machines are they’re still let down by the rest of the package – the MS software for “buying” music.
Good lord that player is ugly!
“Fails For Sure”
It’s boring, grey… fugly.
it’s interesting to see samsung trying to compete with the ipod, especially since they sell apple so much flash memory.
but i suppose they are in a win-win situation.
even if samsung does manage to top the ipod, which it could only do in korea, it’s not like samsung loses money by not selling apple the flash memory, it’s in their devices and they’re probably making a better margin.
At least in terms of business, they seem to be in a win-win.
the design looks ok from the outside. i like the brushed metal look, but the ipod scroll wheel is unbeatable. my nano is cooler. i like the white better anyway.
and why do they rave about the transparency in the software? do i really need those cool effects to listen to music? doesn’t make any difference to me.
Is it still legal to use the word “fugly” in a sentence?
Shame, Samsung usually make better than average looking products.
Anyone else notice the player screen’s background id EXACTLY like the Wynton Marsallis iPod advert?
new day. same shit.
I see they re-invented the click wheel. To avoid Apple’s patents, they made it square.
A square wheel. This iPod killer should be rolling big time, real soon.
NOT!
“The Z5, shaped like a stick of gum…”
What kind of gum are they chewing?!? Look more like on of Samsung’s older cell phones, which was in a word…fugly.
Fugly, $50 more expensive and doesn’t work with iTunes Music Store. Good luck to them.
I think the only way anyone has a hope of mounting a serious challenge to iPod/iTunes/iTMS would be to do the following:
• Build a decent player on par with the iPod line
• Open an online music store that sells DRM-free mp3s or DRM’d mp3s using the mp3 DRM standard (has to be MS WMA free)
• write good software that integrates the online store and media player device with iTunes so people can use iTunes to manage their music, but a small helper app would allow you to sync your music onto your media player device. That same helper app would automatically move any music purchased from the online store to iTunes and allow iTunes to play the DRM’d mp3 files (if DRM is a necessary evil).
• market the hell out of it, and sell up the fact that the online store is using the industry standard mp3 format instead of ‘closed’ proprietary formats.
• make sure it’s Mac, Windows and Linux compatible.
• allow 3rd party media playing devices to link up with your helper app.
I’d rather see that scenario beat Apple than Microsoft manage to take over yet another market, but the way Apple is going, I don’t think we have to worry about that.
The player is nice, but PlayForSure is just bullshit…
Who are they trying to snare with this glorified cell phone? They’ll have a hard time against the much better designed SanDisk player, so let us not get carried away in calling this … thing an iPod competitor.
Considering its DNA, the device software may be cool, but the design?
Did Samsung outsource the devvice design too? It appears to have been developed by the Dell DJ Ditty design team…. ouch!
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Still relies on “Plays for S…” so it’s a loser by definition…
YUK!
No wonder Apple got rid of the guy – that thing sucks!
That click box thingy looks terrible. Left and right appear to skip forward and backward (nice and logical) but down appears to have 3 functions, power/play/pause and who knows what up does (refresh?). The iPod is great because it has Apple’s trademark intuitiveness integrated into the hardware and software. Also, I am under the impression that all that Paul Mercer did was port iTunes to the iPod, and didn’t really affect the design of the software itself. I think Samsung’s working with him is a sign of desperation, hoping to capture Apple’s magic by hiring their former employees.
Wow, that thing is fugly.
Petey…the ex-Apple guy only did the software. What’s on that screen looks pretty good. It’s what surrounds it that makes me laugh.
35 hour battery life? Whats with the disparity, I doubt seriously that it lasts that long but if so Apple needs to use those batteries. Oh yea and the Z is fugly.
Let’s see. It costs the same or more as an iPod Nano, but it’s a thousand times fuglier and isn’t compatible with the iTunes Music Store? Ummm…yeah…I’ll be standing in line for one of these things. Or not. Way to leverage your margin advantage on flash memory in your product pricing, Samsung.
It looks like pieces have fallen off of it
If the user experience/interface is slick and friendly it could have traction. Since this guy wrote the original iPod software who knows – it might not suck.
The real question is at the PC end – how good will the downloading/buying /managing music experience be?
sharp and readable!
Not.
ewwwwww!
butt fugly.
Could they have made it any more ugly?
http://getkickedoffaplanewearingthis.blogspot.com/
the operative word here is “former”
as we can all see there is a reason for “former”
or do you really need to ask or be asked?
MDN: asked
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