Accelerating 3G: Converged Music Players -- iPod Killers or Not?
This is a rewrite of a post I just made on TMF. It was prompted by a post from a Bay area law school student named Ollie that started out ...
I walk through the streets of San Francisco every day to get to law school. ... ipods are ubiquitous around here and this raises some interesting points. ...
boards.fool.com
As I had noted on that TMF thread, Ollie's well composed April 26th post was very timely -- at least for me.
I had just read the BusinessWeek international cover story, "iPod Killers?" that I posted here prior to this one, and I was awaiting Nokia's multimedia launch scheduled for the following day and wondering if the rumored iPod alternative would be announced at that event, and if so whether it would have a hard drive and be a 3G device. As it turns out the Nokia N91 was launched in conjunction with two other Nseries products and it many respects it exceeded my expectations and those of most others who were wondering if Nokia had any 'Zing' left.
I am somewhat handicapped, because I've never done hands on with an iPod despite having a very large music and video collection much of which now resides on hard disk(s) as well as its original media. Neither of my daughters or their husbands have an iPod, although all 4 of them are audiophiles, have camera enabled mobile phones, high megapixel digital cameras, and 35mm SLR AF film cameras with lots of interchangeable expensive glass.
Because of my iPod unfamiliarity I spent about an hour last evening on the Apple iPod web site getting better acquainted with the product range, their features and functions, and specs including size and weight, after I'd absorbed the comparative specs of the Nokia N91 which is just one of many potential 'iPod Killers' that will be coming on stream from the likes of Motorola (allied with Apple), Samsung (HD unit already out), LG, and Sony Ericsson.
Rather obviously, and as Ollie noted people are buying iPods big-time (5+ million last quarter) because "they do the job the user wants really well. They're extremely functional."
ON TMF several of us discussed the trade-offs converged devices of the mobile phone variety typically exhibit, although much of our discussion focused on digital cameras v. the camera phone, rather than iPod alternatives and Ollie also stated what a lot of us have wondered:
Could a cellphone do the same basic job of playing mp3s? Yes. Some already do. But they can't store 10 gigs of songs. And they're fiddly when being employed as mp3 players. And it's a pain to upload songs. And you forget to take your earplugs wherever you take your cellphone. ... convergence of portable technologies isn't a given.
At this juncture it is difficult to compare the classic iPod (and its other Apple iPod derivatives) to the newly announced Nokia N91 multimedia device, although we all know that Steve Jobs and company got it right with the iconic iPod in form, in function, and in price point(s).
We won't really know how the N91 stacks up as a music player until the device is in production and we see some comprehensive reviews rather than previews, and we see how Nokia's claims for battery life, (12.5 hours of music), ease of use, capacity, synchronization, sources for and availability of recorded material, ease of download, and other functionality stack up.
My initial reaction, however. is that Nokia may have gotten a lot of things right on the 1st go round, and this music player may not have the many comparative deficiencies we've seen in most mobile phones with embedded cameras compared to their digital camera counterparts. They have certainly set a benchmark for other handset manufacturers that will be bringing potential 'iPod Killers' to market.
The Nokia N91 as a Music Device
nokia.com
The appearance of the N91 device is really not bad at all. The case is stainless steel for rigidity which might be a fingerprint trap but provides a touch of class. With the slide closed and the phone keyboard covered it looks like a music device with a large color display, but does not imitate the iPod even though its has the basic dedicated music keys clustered on a pad on its face and a side volume key.
The iPod has a 2-inch (diagonal) grayscale LCD with LED backlight while the N91 has a large 262k color TFT, 176x208 resolution display. Big advantage to the N91 which with its Symbian based high-level real-time OS can host a variety of music oriented 3rd party music and video related (and other) applications as well as those supplied by Nokia.
At 160 grams (5.7 ounces) the N91 is slightly hefty for a phone but actually weighs about the same as the iPods 158 grams and while the N91 is 4.5" x 2.2" x .87" the iPod is 4.1" x 2.4" x 0.57" -- not much trade-off in either of those respects despite the N91s additional functionality although the N91 is slightly thicker and might stretch a shirt pocket.
The iPod has a 20 GB Hard Drive while the N91's drive is only 4 GB but the N91 can store between 1500 and 3000 songs depending on format. That's a pretty sizeable music collection and enough to satisfy the majority of potential users. Like the iPod the N91 supports a wide range of digital music formats including MP3, M4A,, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, and WMA. The N91 contains an FM Stereo tuner, allows recording in stereo from the radio or line in, and features what Nokia calls "Visual Radio," while the iPod has no FM.
PC connectivity for the N91 like the iPod is USB 2.0 although the iPod offers FireWire 400, but the N91 offers both Bluetooth and WiFi 802.11 (b/g) connectivity which is a major advantage over the iPod. Users will be able share playlists with friends and share music, video and other files through Bluetooth.
The big advantage of the N91 is OTA download via EDGE or WCDMA while the user is on the go. The iPod requires tethered PC connectivity for input. It's the iPod that is compromised, not the N91 in this regard. For those that ask "Why 3G" this is why.
The N91 has an industry standard 3.5mm stereo headset and audio in/out jack and while a 3.5mm Stereo headset with remote control is supplied, and stereo Bluetooth headphones like the new compact stainless steel Nokia HS-12W can be used:
nokia.com
In addition Nokia has already tested compatible audiophile headphone's and speakers from several well-recognized names in Stereo including:
* Harman Kardon Soundsticks II® speaker system
* JBL Duet, OnTour, Creature II, and Encounter speaker systems
* Bose Triport and Quietcomfort 2 Acoustic Noise Canceling headphones
* Sennheiser PX 100, 200, PMX 40, and PMX 60 mini headphones, PXC 150, 250, and 300 NoiseGard active noise-cancelling mini headphones and the HD465, 485, 515, 555, 595 audiophile headphones.
At first glance Nokia doesn't seem to have made many compromises in their initial music player offering, and it's difficult to say whether this is a music-centric smartphone, or a voice and data-centric music player.
The real key -- from a 3G perspective -- will be the availability of OTA downloadable tunes and their price. In the US what Cingular does, if anything, will be interesting. First user of the Nokia-Loudeye platform overseas will be O2 in Germany but there are hints Vodafone may also use that platform.
The Nokia N91: Beyond Music
The N91 smartphone cum music player cum camera, is going to be a pricey device, and Nokia didn't scrimp on the camera and optics which it shares with the N70 although it is not quite in a class with the new Nokia N90 which features Carl Zeiss optics with glass lens. The camera is 2MP with 1600 x 1200 (default), or 640 x 480 image resolution for print-quality photos and it allows for video capture/playback at 176 x 144, 128 x 96 and video streaming in H.263, 3GTP, and Real V 8 formats.
The N91 has POP/IMAP/SMTP email support, a full web browser and video sharing. The OS is Symbian v. 8.1a and it is supported by Nokia's Symbian Series 60 2nd Edition, Feature Pack 3 Development Platform and Nokias large Nokia Forum development community.
The Samsung SGH-i300 'Music Phone'
Samsung was the 1st handset manufacturer to introduce a mobile handset with a gigabyte HDD (1.5GB HDD). In March, Samsung announced its new SGH-i300 'Music Phone' at CEBIT in Germany. It features a 3GB HDD and it i300 runs on the Windows Mobile OS. The SGH-i300 transmits and downloads files from and to computers through "Plug & Play" USB 2.0 & Bluetooth connectivity and features "easy-to-use scroll wheel navigation." It is however a GSM/GPRS handset with no EDGE/WCDMA/WLAN radio. It is slightly smaller than the N91, and has a higher resolution QVGA display and it has a 1.3 megapixel digital camera. Telecoms Korea has side by side photos and a table comparing features with the N91 here:
tinyurl.com
More photos here:
engadget.com
Apple & Motorola
We shall have to wait and see how the converged package performs but on the surface it looks like the N91 which Jørgen Sundgot of InfoSync World called "Steve Jobs' wet dream" could be a winner, but I'm sure Steve has something up his sleeve, with Motorola, or in addition to Motorola and it should be noted that Motorola CEO, Edward Zander said during a conference call last week that it's still "on track" to unveil a cell phone capable of playing songs downloaded from Apple's iTunes Music Store, saying only that people will be able to "see it very shortly." As this article reports:
Last month, Motorola was set to show off its music-downloading cellphone at a trade show, but canceled at the last minute. The speculation among analysts was that wireless carriers were upset about a Motorola-Apple partnership that would leave phone companies out of the loop financially. Phil Leigh, president of the Tampa, Fla.-based Inside Digital Media research firm, said the popularity of downloadable musical ringtones has created a thirst for full-fledged music downloads, a technology that wireless carriers are trying to make happen.
tinyurl.com
The following article from AppleInsider discusses a recent meeting with UBS Investment Research and much of it deals with Apple's challenge from the converged devices and its Motorola relationship.
appleinsider.com
Converged Devices and 3G
Music downloads over wireless spectrum will chew up a lot of that spectrum -- potentially enough so that 2.5G technologies like GPRS/EDGE and CDMA2000 1xRTT will, of necessity, need to give way to 3G, and as an investor in QCOM, TXN, ARMHY, NOK, et al, I'm all for that.
If anyone more familiar with iPods than I am would like to give their view on the potential for converged wireless music players and the potential for them to accelerate 3G mobile wireless adoption I'd like to hear that view.
- Eric - |
