“Creative today unveiled the Zii Egg. The device is in its stock form a competitor to the iPod touch with a 3.5-inch 480×320 multi-touch display that supports music, photo and video playback as well as web browsing,” Electronista reports.
“Creative however sees the device as a development platform. The built-in Plaszma operating system is Linux-based and therefore open-source, letting companies or end users add software, change features or even replace the OS; the device is ready to use Google’s Android almost out of the box,” Electronista reports.
“It also promises certain technical edges over the iPod through a graphics processor that can not only render 42 million pixels per second but output video at 720p or 1080p through HDMI,” Electronista reports. “The general-purpose design gives it not only Bluetooth and Wi-Fi but both an HD-capable outward camera for taking photos and a front VGA camera for self-portraits or video conferencing. A GPS receiver is built-in for location-based apps even when the Zii Egg is beyond Wi-Fi, and Creative’s X-Fi audio processing is standard.”
“Creative hasn’t specified plans to ship the Zii Egg as its own, pre-packaged device. [Rather, they are] is inviting other firms to treat it as a blank slate,” Electronista reports.
Direct link via YouTube here.
Full article here.
View the press release here.
A 32GB Zii Eg along with the Zii Plaszma Starter Kit (SDK) can be had for US$399. More info here.
MacDailyNews Take: We don’t know — can’t quite place it — but, for some reason, that Zii EGG looks very familiar.
I seem to recognize the form factor from somwhere. Can’t quite place it…
Cool..i likes
So why hasn’t Apple included two cameras as these people have? I like the video conferencing they have going on.
MDN word = reason
I’d like one.
The new touch priced at current $229 will most likely have video. This thing is just a touch with a different OS. Um I don’t get it. How does that movie get on the device? No iTunes. Huh?
Copying the iphone without having a definitive OS or Apps, puts developers back to square one. Why not develop for the iphone and make money? Do the added features seriously drain the battery? What if you spend your life developing, and it never takes off? Competition is good, but this isn’t competition, because it’s not a fully developed system yet, it’s a blank slate like they say, and a winning formula’s in the 10th percentile.
I seriously think this is actually something Apple should fear.
Exactly what I would want: Blue Tooth, Wi-Fi, GPS, HD video, web cam. All it needs is a geocaching app and a decent interface to the desktop (ala Flip Video) and I’d easily consider it over the iPod touch. Battery life? Plastic screen? Those seem a little iffy at this point, but it’s the first real competition that I’ve seen. Now, about that name…
Holy POOP!
Do these people have NO SHAME! At least they used to “try” and not make exact copies…
Wow. Ripping off several other companies (Apple; Nintendo, Zii = Wii; and M$, Z = zune) at once. Bravo, Creative.
Move on folks — nothing to see here!
This should (I hope) become very popular with Linux enthusiasts, with unknown effects from other compact Linux OS competition.
Enough said.
Geektoy™
I want to see my mother trade in her iPod touch for this and then install some OS on it.
The thought is hilarious.
For Apple this is … this is … this is .. an Egg bath.
Bwahahahahahahahaha.
I thought Creative died a long time ago…
I’m having deja vu. Or is that deja zune??
(snore)
This is just HARDWARE! Any jackoff company can cobble together a bunch of acronyms! The magic is in the Software!
BTW isn’t “MultiTouch” a trademarked and patented term?
I have been avoiding anything from Creative ever since their frivolous law suit against Apple making off with $100M. Just a personal stance against this Singapore based greedy and shameless company.
At least they came up with an original idea…. err
Come develop for this new knockoff device or for an installed base of 40+ million and counting? mmm decisions, decisions!
What the hell is a “beeta”?
It’d be pretty interesting if there were a way to install the ipod touch os onto it, sort of like a Hackintosh.
I like the camera set.
“I seriously think this is actually something Apple should fear.”
———————
That was a joke, right?
@Original Shiva,
The reason you seek is actually quite simple. The network infrastructure simply is not in place yet. At present, even on a wired internet connection, video conferencing can be hit and miss in quality (unless all participants are on dedicated T1’s or similar).
Try to translate that down to the connection speeds of handhelds which even over Wi-Fi are slower than their computer counterparts, and you are going to get a less than acceptable experience. If you then attempt to take it a step further and try to V/C over a cellular network… the results would be completely unusable.
Steve Job’s brilliance comes in part from his desire to not include a feature that could only be – at best – implemented in a half-assed way just to be able to say ‘Yeah, we have that’. When processor speeds, battery life, RAM capacities, and network accessibility speeds are up to snuff, we will have these features in the iHandheld lines. Not before.
Looks interesting.
I’m not going to pretend I hate it. It looks freakin’ cool.
Que Apple Legal department….
Wow, blantant rip off. I really though Creative had died but I guess they’re still around, or at least for a while longer until Apple gets finished suing them to their death.
This is it! The real iPod touch killer!
Only $399 for the hardware and the SDK!
All you need to do is roll your own OS and Apps.
No problem! Snap!
Or you could buy a real iPod touch and download all the taylor made Apps you want for a few bucks extra.
Choices are good.
If Jesus thinks it looks interesting who am I to argue?
HD Vid?
That is interesting. But my family is 4 3GS’s and one iPod Touch in already. I think we’re set thanks.
It’s amazing apple is still alive at all considering how many killers have been stalking it… Remeber the headlines for Zune?
@Willie G
T1 is 1.544 megabits/sec. WiFi 802.11G is 54 megabits/sec. 802.11N, which Apple supports with AirPort Extreme, is in the range of 100 megabits/sec.
So by today’s standards, a T1 is slow. There are other factors affecting speed on all of these, but T1 doesn’t mean what you think it does.
Actually its a good idea. Rather than having companies investing their own money creating the next “iPod Killer” that completely tanks they instead buy the completed “iPod Killer”, put their brand, etc on it and then sell it to underwhelming success, scap it, and go on to other markets. Meanwhile Creative will sell it to the next company whose CEO figures they need to go after the iPod market. Think of how much money Microsoft could save by buying this, making a brown version of it and sapping a Zune Touch logo on it.
I just walked by “Monkey” Ballmers office and almost got hit by a flying chair. I should’ve known, moments before I heard some nasty words about Creative and their new Egg.
I see a lot of what I expect from the faithful here, including MDN. The big criticism of this is that it looks like a touch.
However, it’s PACKED with features the iPhone/iPod touch haven’t brought (yet, anyway) — features the potential and real user bases have been hoping for. Front-facing camera for (even limited) video conferencing, bluetooth, HD video out, etc.
For those mumbling about “bring your own OS”, you *can* do that, but it runs Linux. Build your own GUI if you want, but the galaxy of apps will run just fine, thankyouverymuch.
Unless there are serious hardware problems, this is a device to watch.
Is today April Fools Day in July?
@ Original Shiva: “So why hasn’t Apple included two cameras as these people have? I like the video conferencing they have going on.”
If you have to ask such a question, you know nothing about Apple and their feature release process. Apple could in fact put every feature known to man into their devices, but what’s the point? Having a feature for the sake of being able to say you have it can make for a very disappointing experience.
Bolting features onto these devices is not very hard to do; being happy with the end result can be very dissatisfying, especially if the all the pieces required to make the experience are not up a practical usable level; hardware, software, network, video standards.
I’m guessing Apple would only add video conferencing to the iPhone when it is up to par with iChat on the Mac. I’ve also noticed that video conferencing, while a great “show-off” feature, doesn’t get used much after the novelty wears off. There may also be compatibility issues with video streaming formats, possible carrier network restrictions, etc.
Furthermore, third parties are free to build their own cameras that can hook in to the Dock connector and write video conferencing software to use it.
These are probably all factors in Apple’s decision not to include it in current hardware.
Google is the new-Microsoft that Apple WANT to have around. Who else used to trail Apple at the low-end without innovation? Hmmm…
Apple at the top, Google at the bottom (no space left in the middle), both creating software/hardware for the next generation of needs while MS can’t even get the already-outdated WinCE 6.5 out the door.
It’s is not a killer of anything but maybe the Zune HD Vaporware Killer. It’s just Creative’s Vaporware Product. No Apps, no traction, no retail position, They are looking for OEM sales to software companies that want to risk marketing a look-a-like Product. Creative is done with competing with Apple directly. So, they are hoping Joe Software guy looking for a way to get into the handheld market will see it and jump on the chance to build some software and a UI then discover that they are competing with Apple’s iPod touch and iPhone and they would have been better off just building a killer APP and selling it in Apple iTunes App Store.
Does anyone seriously ever expect to see any of these on the street?
Is changing the “W” from Wii to whatever you like this year’s version of putting “i” in front of your product’s name?
Creative isn’t!
That’s right. Keep adding more competitors into the mix. The more the merrier.
With all these manufacturers throwing platforms into the market Apple’s cohesive platform (with all their models sharing the same features & screen size) and 50 million unit lead looks like the only way to go for developers.
“Creative hasn’t specified plans to ship the Zii Egg as its own, pre-packaged device. [Rather, they are] is inviting other firms to treat it as a blank slate,”
Aside from the slate being photocopied‚ I’d say it’s a good strategy. Oh‚ and this is another way of saying: “we know this is a derivative device that will probably bankrupt us; please‚ third parties‚ bring it to market for us.”
Good luck with that.
@PC Apologist: “For those mumbling about “bring your own OS”, you *can* do that, but it runs Linux. Build your own GUI if you want, but the galaxy of apps will run just fine, thankyouverymuch.”
While that’s great and all, a lot of people seem to forget the iPhone SDK allows for 3rd parties to develop USB and Bluetooth peripherals for the iPhone… and the software to use those devices. Someone could build a camera that connects to the Dock connector and then write an API that other developers could use to write software to use that camera, enabling video conferencing.
Being able to add hardware features in the after market makes the iPhone platform much more versatile than anything else on the market today or in the near future.
Yeah, Apple should fear it since it’s a product they’ve already brought to market. Jeepers, are there no scruples left at all?!
Still, Apple needs good solid head-to-head competition, but I think Zii has got some hefty startup challenges, namely the iPhone/Touch has got a monumental head start on available applications, and number two, well, I’ve already said it, its a carbon copy of Apple’s product… (Somebody please give me a big break.) Not only has it already been done, its already out there, and its being done better, better supported, better branded, better developed for, and its a whole generation and a half behind coming out of the starting gate.
I don’t know, from time to time Creative comes up with an original idea that’s cool, but even when they do they are just clueless on what to do with it, and the Zii wreaks of this problem right off the bat.
But good luck, as I say, Apple needs some good competition – Which in part means, design, develop, and bring to market a —- key work word here – [NEW] competing product.
I love you all. Keep up the good work.
@Original Shiva
Apple not to long ago filed a patent that described a camera setup behind the screen. So no need for two cameras, once it has been implemented.
Wow… that’s, um, creative. Or not.
Do “truth in advertising” laws apply to company names? Just curious.
MW: same
Hey, Linux people need a pod they can play with as well.
Good for them.
Doesn’t have a change!
Sorry…..chance
Quoting Mr. Peabody –
“I don’t know, from time to time Creative comes up with an original idea that’s cool, but even when they do they are just clueless on what to do with it,”
Put whatever OS you want on it?
Treat it as a blank slate?
Hasn’t specified plans to ship the Zii Egg as its own, pre-packaged device?
Sounds like “Mr. Peabody” hit the nail on the head!!!
Ahem. Excuse me. HD on the 3GS:
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/news/comments/iphone-3g-s-teardown-suggests-720p-video-capabilities/
Convincing accent. I think I might buy OxyClean from him.
Wow, that is amazingly lame. This is like the Pre all over again: a cheap copy with nothing innovative or different, and only some gimmicky hardware features that make it sound better than a touch.
Like the HD out: who would use that? HD is useless on the device itself (small screen), so I would load SD video on it. Then the HD out is useless. If I load HD video on it, I’m wasting gigabytes of space for nothing! Lame.
And I love that Creative doesn’t even believe in this enough to sell it themselves: they’re just going to license it to others. Yeah, it’ll appeal to a few geeks out there, and maybe a handful of companies will produce vertical market versions for their own needs, but this will never catch on globally. And it’s twice as expensive as a touch! Ouch.
Enjoy the dumb name while you can; it’ll be forgotten in six months.
Maybe it’s because I just woke up, but this looks kinda phony, don’tcha think?
The Zii Egg (who names these things?) sounds nice in theory. It may even be nice in practice. But I am willing to be that the most recent iPod touch will more than match it whenever the Zii actually becomes available.
Many of us anticipate that the next generation iPod touch will include GPS, a camera, and the faster processor used in the iPhone 3GS.
We desire longer battery life, even if that would add a couple of mm to its thickness. We have also repeated discussed in this forum the desire for HD video out capability (DVI/HDMI). This would enable the iPod touch to plug into modern LCD projectors and HDTVs.
Apple already has the necessary distribution and software infrastructure in place (iTunes, iTunes Store, iMovie, iPhoto, etc.). But the same factors (DRM, royalty approach, etc.) that are hobbling the development of AppleTV will likely dog the concept of iPod video out.
Palm has the OS and the touch patents but shitty hardware.
Creative has the hardware, lots of Apple Dollars™ but no touch patents or OS.
I hear wedding bells already.
What the fuck is a “zii”? And what’s with the “egg” part?
It’s not even remotely egg shaped.
Wait a minute. I get it. Egg. An egg is similar to a pod. Zii. An embellishment on the letter z, a letter they pulled at random from the alphabet as a simulacrum for the “i” in iPod.
It’s Creative’s sort of funny, almost clever pun/ripoff on the name iPod. They probably wanted to name it zEgg, but then they realized people would just pronounce it Zeg. So they called it Zii Egg to force everybody to pronounce it right, but now that makes the whole pun really obtuse.
And see, that’s why uncreative people should never ever try to be creative. It just ends up being uncormfortable for everybody.
*Zii Egg*.
Good lord.
So what is the point of outputing to HDMI to HD tv, when the device does nto have the storage capacity to store even one HD movie in full HD res??
Doesn’t Apple have patents on all that stuff? Will they enforce them? Are they enforcable in the orient? What a world.
Gosh it’s ugly.
That’s the case from the supposed iPhone 3GS “Next Gen iPhone Case Revealed” articles a few months back…
I like that it has some “wow features” that missing from iTouch/iPhone.
Competition is good for everyone, and perhaps this will put a spur in Apple’s side to add more features as well.
wow, really living up to the company name there.
“Or you could buy a real iPod touch and download all the taylor made Apps you want for a few bucks extra”
Taylor-Made?
Hahaha
Garbage in, garbage out. They can build in 1080p recording capability, but a device this small can’t capture video worth viewing at such a large size.
I just love how these morons-with-a-grudge praise unreleased products to high heaven in their zeal to put down Apple products. iPod touch killer? Let’s see what it’s got!
Please don’t call it a “killer”. Who knows, it may have peaceful intentions….
Did someone just lay an Egg?
well shoot, Creative is trying to go against the iPod Touch and the Zune HD. tough luck with that.
Hardware specs are impressive and dual camera WITH SD card. Apple beware, this is what we want!
hmmmm, hd camera + video conference cam, massive storage, open gl, 1080p output, wifi, gps, and runs android, which means I dont have to worry about craptunes or paying for media. And when consumer version comes out its $199. While you guys are stoked on taking crappy pictures on your crappytouch’s, Ill be on skype and taking and watching videos in hd.
This is the beginning of the end for Apple. This will be such a superior product when it finally comes out. I can’t wait to ditch my iPod Touche for this nice thing. It has everything I wanted that is missing in the iPods. Bye Apple.
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Clone Wars
I am really surprised that some of you really think that may be competition for Apple. This is just a concept. As someone already said anyone can put together such a piece of hardware. I’ll bet Apple has prototypes already that beat the cr*p out of this thing.
How much time do you think it will take to develop an OS with a good UI? Well, you may say they will just rip it off of Palm. How much time it will take to develop a store or negotiate partnership. Than we need several Apps in the store to sweeten the deal etc.
Once we have that we need to sell a lot of this thing to make up for development costs, production, marketing, sales, commisions etc. Apple thanks to large volume has economies of scale and well established partnerships plus iTunes that took some time to develop and tens of thousands of apps.
Creative just needed some media attention, but with this thing they may get not the sort of attention they are looking for.
In other news, Apple said that they are fearful of Creative’s announcement of Zii and they are also pissed that could not come up with a shape better than what Zii had come up with… Zii just has the best production here.
Zii is by far a better product and I think every person in any age range will have to have at least 5 of them.
There is also rumor that Zii is also anti-cancer, anti-flu, anti-virus…etc.
The only thing that Zii is not is Anti-Dumb!
Hahahah.
You can tell Creative is scared shitless of Apple steamrolling the Zii Egg by the way they’re already sending out astroturfers like sc to run damage control and create phony hype.
I always find it funny how unlike other companies such as Palm, Creative, Microsoft etc., Apple doesn’t hire astroturfers and paid flaks. It’s almost like they have confidence in their products so they don’t need to inundate the media with viral marketing. Damn, imagine that!
And the products that fail horribly – Zune, Pre, and shortly the Zii Egg – are the ones backed by epic viral marketing campaigns because even the companies that make them realize they’re turkeys that can’t sell on merit.
sorry but I dig this. Android aint no joke.
Zii, egg, Plaszma, stem cell – stupid names much? The use of the phrase ‘stem cell’ is not only idiotic, it has negative connotations. Lemme guess, no marketing team over there. I can see the reviews not: “The Zii has laid an egg.”
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But it’s competition for Apple. I like the features the iPod Touch doesn’t have. Its always nice to give Apple a kick once in a while.
However, the video has noticeable stuttering. It has version 1.0 syndrome of course, then add the fact that its beta. I know Android has some security problems. We’ll see how that goes. Certainly the roll out is nothing like Apple’s class act. But it’s still viable competition. Kewlness. Just dump the dumdum names please. We’ve had our fill of hardware failures starting with ‘Z’.
Wow, what a cool product from a Singaporean company.
I can’t wait to load all my App Store apps onto it.
Oh, wait, that won’t work right?
Well, at least it will sync with my iTunes library.
No?
Sheesh. Well, what about acting as a remote control for my Macintosh.
Not that either?!
Dang. Might as well get a Zune then!
“As well as this stylish and attractive form factor..”
Translates as – IPHONE COPY.
‘Creative’ by name – not creative by nature.
You just know that any company with the word ‘creative’ in it is infact the total opposite – NOT very ‘creative’.
(See video in article for proof)
If anyone saw the ‘Zii’ ina store the 1st thing they will say is that it “looks like an iphone copy”.
I am constantly amazed how little innovation is out there from companies that compete with Apple.
The product is called the Zii Egg, and yet they dont experiment with round type form factors they just blatantly copy an iphone.
Duh – Eggs are a roundish shape… where’s the relevance to black and square in the word ‘egg’?
If my company was to design a mobile device called the Zii Egg we would have exploited the round form factor to create something that looks totally different and new and not an iphone clone (version 100+).
Only when companies realise this will they ever be able to compete.
But you cant teach an old company how to suck eggs – XD
@sc
“hmmmm, hd camera + video conference cam, massive storage, open gl, 1080p output, wifi, gps, and runs android, which means I dont have to worry about craptunes or paying for media. And when consumer version comes out its $199. While you guys are stoked on taking crappy pictures on your crappytouch’s, Ill be on skype and taking and watching videos in hd.”
—-
Errr… yes…..
And how will you do all this when the device will have a battery life of 30 minutes because of the drain on the processor?…
I can see their strapline on their ads now…
‘The Zii Egg – not compatible with iTunes’.
ROFL
“Copying the iphone without having a definitive OS or Apps, puts developers back to square one. Why not develop for the iphone and make money? Do the added features seriously drain the battery? What if you spend your life developing, and it never takes off? “
Ummm…. you should follow some of gruber’s links the last few days at daringfireball.com.
Personally my issue is this: “What if you spend your life developing and Apple rejects you?” You are obviously not an iphone developer and have no idea what it is like to deal with Apple when you are one.
I looked at this obvious knockoff and I’m already in love. Why, because my beautiful labor of love (and sweat and cash) could get written for that and actually not get killed by Apple.
For consumers the issue has always been… you can’t just be as good as the ipod, you have to compellingly better. As a developer Apple has turned it upside down… you can be almost as good as an ipod touch and just not be developer hostile.
These things are platforms now… not ipods. They will live and die by the QUALITY of their apps. I think you’re going to be surprised by how much innovation happens outside of the hostile treatment of the apple app reviewer.
I haven’t given up on the iphone yet. But this was a ray of hope. Creative can manufacture things and sell them cheap and I just decided to learn a lot more about android.
You people who benefit from all those apps have no idea how poorly apple is treating its developers–and how impossible it is as a business. If Creative gets 10% of the market… 10% of a huge number is a lot more than the zero you get when Apple blocks you.
Oh, and how’s that Google Voice working out for you?
Go Creative.
And I’m an apple fanboy!!!