Apple ousted by Sony in Japan
p2pnet.net News:- Apple’s Shuffle has been ousted as the top-selling music player in its category in Japan, says a report.
“According to market research company BCN, Sony’s share of the Japanese market for flash memory players went from just 4 percent in March to 16 percent in April and shot up to 27 percent in May and June,” says TechTree.
“Apple’s share has fallen to under 20 percent.”
Most new models have flash memory chips and hard disk drives able to hold thousands of songs and, “Sony’s gains in the Japanese market have come primarily from flash memory players with a long-lasting battery, which can play up to 50 hours on one charge as well as a stylish design,” says the story.
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See:-
TechTree – Sony Dethrones Apple, July 15, 2005
July 16th, 2005 at 9:08 am
While I’m no fan of Sony, I have to say this is good news. Sony was once a innovative company that focused on giving the best technology to the consumers. But, some time not too long ago, they started to purchase a lot of American studio companies. While this is good from a earnings perspective, their actions in North America started taking a hollywood approach (read RIAA / MPAA). They’ve even hired an American to be the CEO, a big step considering he can’t speak Japanese, and has no understanding (i.e. “artsie fartsie grad”) of technology.
So what we are seeing now, is a company that says it wants to “empower” the people with technology, but at the same time their electronic devices are crippled.
So now we get to Apple. There are many Mac fans, but most of they are NOT techno savvy — who bought an Ipod because it was the “cool” fad thing to do. Apple is a company that has taken so much from the Free Software world, but has given back so little in return. Their products are extremely proprietary, DRM, and non-intuitive (one button mouse? WTF!!).
July 16th, 2005 at 9:14 am
Apple tries so hard to LOCK the user into their “format” and “files” so that you can interchange music files with ease (even experienced GNU/Linux users have to jump through hurdles).
Compare that to my SAMSUNG YP-T7, 500 MB (Too bad I bought the 500 MB, when the 1 GB came out a few days later, oh well) — it plays natively MP3, OGG, JPEG (it has a 1.2 X 1.2 inch VIVID color screen — weighs a few grams, half the size of Apples Mini, and the Li-Polymer battery lasts 10 hours on 2 hrs of charge time, which I’ve used intensely without battery problems experienced in Apple. It has USB 2.0, SUPER fast file transfer, it acts as a hard drive transfering 500 MB in slightly over a minute (WOW!!!!).
Lastly, It’s STANDARD COMPLIANT, surround sound, Audio recorder (AT HIGH FI), FM radio (can record as well), BUILT-IN MP3 encoder so you don’t need a computer. In short, IT’s AWESOME!!!!
July 16th, 2005 at 11:28 pm
Cool!