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There has been a lot of raving of the iRiver Clix of late. That’s nice, that after a few yeas an OEM was finally able to create a device that didn’t suck in some big way. However, I don’t think the world is better. Why? Cause I don’t trust any of them to continue on this path and no one will notice anyway.

Sean Alexander has a series of posts where he writes about his involvement with the Clix.

One of the first of these projects has just launched. The "iriver clix" - a new portable media player from iRiver.  Designed to work great with Windows Media Player 11 and the new Urge music service launching today from MTV, the clix may look similar to the award-winning iRiver U10, but it's so much more.  Our team worked closely with iRiver, providing feedback, usability resources, and assistance on interaction design starting with a complete "teardown" of the existing iRiver U10 product.

and then some comments based on a Seattle Times Review.

I also want to call out the amazing work done by the iRiver America team.  The packaging is largely to their credit- we provided critical feedback and encouraged a new, more refined design based on existing packaging in Korea.  The iRiver team did all the heavy lifting and it shows.

At the end of the day, my job was two-fold: As UX (User Experience) PM, to play the part of the consumer end to end- to apply what I've learned working in this space for 7+ years and document our recommendations.  From there, we (the v-team as we called ourselves) agreed on relative priorities w/ iRiver up-front.  We acknowledged where we disagreed without ego or hubris, and worked together on a solution in the interest of the customer.  We were invited to provide input in every meeting on the UX, system flow and regular milestones on naming, branding, messaging, out of box experience and more.  

And then some comments on a big party Microsoft and iRiver had together.

In the end, it was a great party and a good time had by all end-capping over six months of hard work. Ironically, this is the same day that PC World named the Clix one of their Top 100 Products of the Year (Why in June?  Their year is a 12 month span; they used to announce these awards at PC Expo which no longer exists).  The criteria is highly subjective but hey, it ranked #90, with the Xbox 360 being #89 - not bad company.  Reportedly sales of the Clix have been brisk - a best-seller on their site at www.iriveramerica.com  and at least one online retailer sold out of their initial allotment very quickly.  All good to hear.  At least two more major retailers are in the process of receiving inventory so that you'll be able to go out and try one in person soon. ;)

Here are my thoughts. This doesn’t Scale. Microsoft doesn’t have any army of folks who can spend 6 months teaching every possible device maker how to create a device that comes close to matching the customer experience, out of box experience and device UX of an iPod. I’ve used iRiver products in the past, and was not happy at all with my experiences with the product or with the company.

So what next? We already have spent a few man years working on a great user experience… in the form of the Portable Media Center. But the adoption of that OS has been sad. v2, which is far superior to v1 has even fewer folks signed up to make devices than v1! And Toshiba, the single flagship partner to announce support for the PMC in the form of the Toshiba Gigabeat S took many months to get their product out there, way to long and way to late in my opinion.

Furthermore there are still problems with the device ecosystem that Michael Gartenberg is always good to point out.

So overall, how does WMP 11/URGE combo stack up against the iPod/iTunes? Well, if you're looking at it from the music store perspective, it's hard to see how this combination bests Apple in any way. While Microsoft talks about the value of the platform, most consumers are too busy listening to their iPods to listen to the message. In terms of a music subscription services, URGE shines. The onboard catalog of music, combined with great editorial content and new innovations like music feeds make this service really stand out from the pack. Add in a good portable device and you start to see how the market can potentially shift over time to a new model. Right now, a lot will come down to marketing. Microsoft still lacks a spokesperson who can deliver the message across and while URGE and WMP 11 are tightly integrated, there's still not a great story being told about device integration and branding. It may not be enough to remove Apple from king of the digital music world but it very well has the chance to expose the market to the benefits of subscription services and that in and of itself is a pretty big thing.

At the end of the day, I now have a ton of iPod accessories and a Car Integration kit that is simply unavailable for any other device. I can use my built in Steering Wheel and Radio controls in my Audi to control my iPod. Furthermore, my iPod comes on when I turn on the radio and turns off when the radio is shut off or the engine turned off. Now that’s a very subtle but very important feature to me and you can’t get that on any other device. The iPod dock connector is critical to the iPod, and until there is a big enough player on the PC with something like the dock connector, you’ll never have this with anything else.

In the end, I don’t think iRiver, Creative, Philips, Toshiba, Samsung or anyone else can create a lifestyle platform, complete with sneakers, than anyone else. I don’t think spending months of resources on feedback and design help is going to make any difference cause people are to busy listening to their 50 million iPods to notice that anything has changed.

I do think if there is any chance at all of competing with Apple’s Lifestyle platform it’s this. Michael is probably alluding to his top secret briefing about this.

A long time ago, I started a quest to find a portable music player that matched the iPod in every way. This is now my 4th device in that journey.

That quest is now complete, thanks to the Philips GoGear HDD1630 6GB (also in 30GB).

I can’t begin to explain how impressed I am that a device is finally available that offers:

• Good Sync experience (does not come with any proprietary crappy software, relies on Windows Media Player, and does not push some other agenda on you)
• Good design
• Good out of box experience
• Nice Color screen
• Photo support

The device has the best PlaysForSure support of any non Portable Media Center device. A bunch of devices that claim PlaysForSure can have other hidden surprises like USB 1.1 support (not 2.0), buggy sync experience, no support for subscription audio etc. A good clue if your device really supports Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) or is a mass storage device is if it has subscription audio support. You can still get PlaysForSure support by having a mass storage device since that will technically sync with WMP (like my Samsung YP -F1Z) but you will be dissapointed as I was to find that the experience is buggy at best. So, when buying PlaysForSure make sure it has both regular audio and subscription audio.

MTP support is what allows this device to finally sync such things as:

• Album Art
• Ratings
• Play Count
• Playlists

I’ll post a review in the next few days. This device really shatters the devices that Creative and iRiver make (which is great cause I never had very high hopes for those guys). Creative seems like a hopeless cause to me.

So if you are looking to buy some one a holiday gift and were thinking of an iPod cause it was the only game in town, take a look at the GoGear device. They are just as sleek, sexy, well designed and usable as an iPod (well the Video definitely raises the bar again).

For the past few months I used the Rio Carbon. While it fared well, there were a couple of things I didn't like about the device. There was no hardware hold button, and the audio menu was not sticky and always dropped you back to the audio list, rather than your last selection. So, I decided to give the Creative Zen Micro a shot. I happen to love the device, and in many ways I find it's feature set to be better than the iPod. The build quality and fit and finish aren't as good as the iPod, but this device comes closer to anything else I've tried. I suspect that it will be a matter of months, or a year before Creative and iRiver have matched Apple in every way while providing some features the iPod still doesn't have.

It's funny. It's been a few months since I wrote about the iRiver H320. If you all recall, I've been reviewing devices as I buy them and seeing how they stack up against the iPod. I reviewed the H320, the Rio Carbon, and this week will publish a review of the Creative Zen Micro (sorry it's taking me so long, but it takes me forever to get to these things).

Anyway, I couple of blogs have recently picked up on the review (Michael Gartenberg, Digital Media Thoughts). For the past few months I've been getting a steady stream of traffic from the MysticRiver forums. I had to shut down comments on the post because I was getting some really nasty comments from folks who really hate the iPod and thought that I was just out to slander the H320. Now I developed some tough skin from working Macworld shows over 5 years where you are facing quite a sensitive and critical group of mostly avid Mac users, but some of the feedback I just don't understand. A lot of the folks in that forum are hard core iPod haters. What is there to hate? It's a great device and it works. I had to delete a bunch of rather tasteless ones as well as shut off comments for that post. The only post I have ever done that for. I even got a rather long but pleasant multi page email from an H320 fan that extolled the virtues of the H320.

Michael sums it up nicely in his post:

"It's amazing that vendors STILL don't realize why the iPod is a success and how to compete against it. Even with a compelling feature set like support for the Janus DRM, if you screw up the basics, there's no way that users will ever even see the advanced stuff."

And that is the crux of it. I DON'T CARE if you device has a million buttons, can be hacked with some non supported firmware so I can plug my digital camera into it, or that it supports photos and video. If the thing can't play music better than an iPod, if it cannot build a catalog of music based on artist/genre/album, if the ONLY user interface to browse the collection of music is a freaking File Browser, then NO SOUP FOR YOU! Back to the store you go. Better luck next time.

Now I hear that the iRiver H10 (Walt Mossberg gave it a great review) is a far better product, has a decent user interface etc. However, I'm staying away from the iRiver products for a while. I think their current customer base is way too far on the techy side, and I'm not sure they "get it" when it comes to building the basics. Meanwhile I think Creative Gets it and love my Zen Micro.

I just received my Creative Zen Micro. I am preparing to put together a Zen Micro vs iPod review as I have done for the Rio Carbon and the iRiver H320. For those of you that don't know, I have been evaluating various devices in the pursuit to find something as good as or better than my iPod. I outline this quest in my post on iPod Replacement Criteria. For the past few months I have been fairly happy with my Rio Carbon, however I found the Zen to be appealing because it has an FM Radio and a better User Interface, as well as a removable battery. Recently Creative released MTP firmware, which gives it PlaysForSure audio support. They are currently working on firmware that will give it Subscription support for NapsterToGo and have a beta firmware release.

So far my Out of Box experience was phenomenal when compared to the Rio Carbon. Furthermore, I found that it was almost as good as the iPod. Creative is really paying attention as the Zen Micro comes with a white usb cable, a white charger, a sleeve, white headphones and a stand that doubles as a belt clip. Very slick packaging and it made me very happy when opening my new toy. You can see some of the Out of Box pictures below (more pics).

I find it creepy that it's a million times easier to write managed code against iTunes than Windows Media Player. That just seems wrong. A few weeks ago when I was playing with the iRiver H320 I wanted to sync meta data from WMP to the iRiver so that I could browse by artist and album. Well the problem is that there are all these scary interfaces (like IWMHeaderInfo, IWMHeaderInfo2 and IWMHeaderInfo3)  and to figure out how to extract meta data for DRM'ed files took me a few hours (just to find the right interface). Then it felt like screen scraping to actually get the tags (Artist, Album etc) from the files themselves.

It's great that Apple is exposing a decent COM Interop library from iTunes that in turn exposes a nice managed interface in .NET, but geez... I should not have to wait for Longhorn to do the same thing on my PC.

BTW - if you have an iRiver H320 and want to get the meta data from WMP, the version of TDT that I built can be found here.

The Rio Carbon was a device I didn't want to like. My main reason for not considering it was that it's only 5GB and I was looking for an iPod replacement. However, as I've used this device it's really grown on me. I was able to transcoded all my WMA lossless audio down to 11 GB so I can get almost half my audio on this device. Not bad.

Make sure you read my post iPod Replacement Criteria before reading this review. Remember, I have only one goal, to review this compared to an iPod. I don't care about anything the device offers that does not meet my core criteria.

Lets see how it stacks up.

Other Reviews:

• C|Net
• Greg Hughes

Size: The size is much smaller than the iPod and even comparable to the mini

	Rio Carbon	iPod Mini	iPod 3G
Height	3.3 inches	3.6 inches	4.1 inches
Width	2.5 inches	2.0 inches	2.4 inches
Depth	0.6 inches	0.5 inches	0.57 inches
Weight	3.2 ounces	3.6 ounces	5.6 ounces

 

So, as you can see it stacks up very nicely.

User Interface: The device has a very usable user interface. After a sync is complete, the device builds a catalog of music (it only does this when content has changed on the device, so power on does not go through this process, much smarter than the iRiver folks). The device allows you to browse using all the usual suspects, artist, genre, album, album year (cool), new music, spoken word etc. One minor annoyance is that you cannot get back to the selection you were in after playing a song, the device always throws you back in "Play Music".

Beyond that you can control the settings on the device, and a variety of other functions like lock, etc. The keys are easy to use and the screen is very readable. Overall, Rio did an excellent job for an OEM designed user interface.

Connectivity:  The Rio Carbon was designed properly from a Connectivity standpoint. It has a single USB 2.0 port that supports charging and synching. When you plug the device into Windows it detects it as a removable drive allowing Windows Media Player 10 to AutoSync with it. Beautiful. My sync experience was nothing short of perfect.

Charging: The Rio folks get bonus points for shipping a Wall Mount to USB charging device. This essentially means that you take the supplied USB cable, plug the computer end of it into the wall outlet plug, and plug the mini connection into the Carbon. Not all OEMs are this smart, and they end up shipping an additional brick to charge the device. The beauty of this method is you only need a single cable for the device, and if you have multiple devices that charge over USB (like I do) then you can just use a single wall mounted plug when traveling (or use your laptop) to charge the device.

Additionally, it's great that the device charges during sync (unlike the iRiver H320).

Sync: This device only supports sync with Windows Media Player 10 via USB 2.0. The device does not support PlaysForSure (MTP) yet, but it can support sync with Windows Media Player 10 since it supports sync with any removable media mass storage device. As such, I was able to mount the device, launch WMP10 and select sync "All Music". A few minutes later it was done.

Accessories: The device comes with the following accessories:

• Charger (AC to USB wall mount)
• USB cable
• Carrying Case

Unfortunately, the device does not support a remote control...

Battery Life: Rio claims the device gets 20 HOURS!!! of battery life. I probably average half of that, but 10 hours kicks ass.

Software: The device comes with a CD that I didn't even need to use. Sweet.

Price: I purchased the device for $218 which is great.

Storage: 5 GB

PlaysForSure: The device supports the following PlaysForSure logos.

• Basic PlaysForSure support (AutoSync)

Rio has announced that they will support:

• Support for Audio Download
• Support for Audio Subscription

By the end of the year. Sweet.

Support: Rio seems to do a good job supporting this device. As soon as I received it, I downloaded and installed a firmware update that installed flawlessly w/o any proprietary software or connection required to update. This firmware also fixed a number of issues which is encouraging.

There is an annoying problem where if you use headphones that have a metal base around the connector, you will hear pops and clicks due to some kind of short circut. This doesn't happen with the included headphones (which are crap of course), but does happen with my Bose Noise Cancelling headphones. The “fix“ is to apply some scotch tape around the headphone jack. hmm.

Web Site: The Rio Carbon web site is pretty usable and doesn't promise features that the device can't deliver.

Optional Features:

• Device supports Audio Recording

I wish the device had an FM radio (so I can listen to NPR in the morning) like the Creative Zen Micro but I've started using Audible which can deliver NPR morning edition (not in time for my 7:11 am commute) for the afternoon commute home.

Final Rating (see my post on my review criteria to understand what this means).

Good - pretty good in most areas, but missing some critical requirements. Feel free to spend money.

I almost gave this device a Kick Ass rating, but since the definition of that is better than the iPod, I would have to modify it to say "better than the iPod mini". If you are looking to buy a mini, stop and don't hand your money to Apple but get the Carbon. If you are looking for a device to replace your iPod or looking for a new device I would highly recommend this device.

Not only is this device a reasonably priced high quality music player, but it's also a very inexpensive way to get a 5GB compact flash card for your digital camera .

 I was really excited to see a device like the iRiver H320. However, upon opening the device the experience turned out to be an extreme disappointment. I believe that iRiver built the Kitchen sink here. This device tries to be too many things to too many people. A hard disk, a USB Host device (International only), an MTP sync device (US only), Photo Viewer etc.

Make sure you read my post iPod Replacement Criteria before reading this review. Remember, I have only one goal, to review this compared to an iPod. I don't care about anything the device offers that does not meet my core criteria.

Lets see how it stacks up.

Other Reviews:

• C|Net

Size: The size is very comparable to the 3G iPod.

	iRiver H320	iPod 3G
Height	4.1 inches	4.1 inches
Width	2.4 inches	2.4 inches
Depth	0.9 inches	0.57 inches
Weight	6.6 ounces	5.6 ounces

So, as you can see it stacks up very nicely.

User Interface: The device has a very readable color screen. However, the interface for browsing files is just a file explorer. What you may ask? That's right, there is no way for the device to build a database of audio allowing you to browse by Artist, Genre, Album etc. It makes you wonder what the point of meta data is if the device makes no use of it.

iRiver does ship an application that you can install in Windows that can manually scan the audio on the device and build the data base file, but it only supports MP3 files. Ridiculous if you ask me.

The good news is that there is an open source .NET application that will do this job as well as many others (like sync audio on your hard drive) called Tag Database Tool (TDT). TDT works very well except for the fact that it barfs on files that are DRM protected (purchased and subscription audio. I made some changes to the application to use newer Windows Media APIs that allow it to do this. If there is enough interested I'll post my changes somewhere so folks can download them.

(Warning) After cataloging the 2,000 or so songs on the device, I found that the database increased the device boot time to over a minute. Unbelievable if you ask me. Since the device "shuts off" when it's not in use, that means that if you want to turn it on and use it you are subjected to a greater than one minute penalty.

However, I still find it inexcusable that iRiver ship a device that only has a file explorer interface. In addition the device User Interface is confusing with many of the buttons overloaded for different tasks. For example, to switch to FM radio you must hold down the Record button. I could not figure this out myself and actually had to resort to reading the manual. I never had to read my iPod manual to figure out how to use it.

Connectivity:  The device has two USB ports. Now why would a device need two USB ports? Well when iRiver created this device they had two goals in mind. 1) A Music Jukebox, 2) A USB On The Go. USB On The Go allows a device to act as a host device for something like a digital camera or card reader allowing you to offload photos from a camera without a computer.

Now, before you get all excited lets look at how this was implemented. On the International version of the device you get one USB port that is USB 2.0 for connecting to a PC and one that is USB 1.1 for connecting to a camera. The USB 2.0 port can act as a charging port if you are not "connected" but the device is powered down. On the US version of the device you get a USB 2.0 port for connecting to a PC similar to the international device and a USB 1.1 port that supports MTP for synchronizing to Windows Media Player. You are limited to USB 1.1 and this port will not charge the device. I suspect that iRiver made this decision because it was the only way to get PlaysForSure support and they figured that most of these music stores are US only so they essentially took a device that had one set of features and repurposed it for the US market. I think it would have been better for them to forgo PlaysForSure support till they could get it right in the product design.

	International	US
"Data" port	USB 2.0 (charging)	USB 2.0 (charging)
"Media" port	USB 1.1 for USB On The Go	USB 1.1 for MTP

Now, the USB 2.0 port only connects the device as a fixed mountable drive. This essentially means that it is mounted to your PC as a non-removable hard drive. This distinction is important because it PREVENTS Windows Media Player from Synchronization with the device as it's not removable. So, if you purchased this device to be a hard drive you're in luck! If you purchased it as a music player you are stuck with an expensive hard drive.

I emailed iRiver about this limitation and here is what they said:

We have tens of thousands of users who are very happy to manage their music collections independently of an application and prefer to drag and drop files to their player.  We completely understand that your needs and desires may not match theirs.  If syncing your collection via USB 2 is an important feature for you, then I may suggest that this player is not suited for your needs.  We will have a product available later this year will allow for faster transfers through Windows Media Player:

http://www.iriveramerica.com/products/pmc120.aspx

Apparently their user base like to "drag and drop files to their player". Great, I'm not one of them.

Charging: The iRiver comes with a separate DC adapter charger with a proprietary plug for the device. Since you can't really charge the device over USB even though the device supports it (can't charge during sync), you really do need this charger. So, it's another thing to drag around when you are traveling. No thanks.

Sync: This device only supports sync with Windows Media Player 10 using the USB 1.1 port which does not support charging. Syncing 20 GB of audio while transcoding was one of the most pitiful experiences I've had on my PC. I started on Saturday morning and the device finished on Monday evening. Now normally transcoding will take a while as the PC much convert each song from WMA lossless to WMA 128. However, once I reached about 1000 songs, the device would essentially hang or timeout. This required me to unplug the device, plug it back in, and continue synching. I had to do this every 10-20 songs after I got to 1,000. I reported this to iRiver as well and got this response:

Thank for the report. I will pass this to them for further research.

Maybe transfer 1-5 files in the meantime?

Um, yeah. The fact that this device only supports USB 1.1 for MTP sync made this super painful.

Accessories: The device comes with the following accessories:

• Charger
• USB cable
• Line Out cable
• Carrying Case

Battery Life: iRiver claims 12 hours. I got about 8 hours.

Software: The device comes with a CD that contains a Mass Storage driver if you are an unfortunate soul still running Windows 98 as well as some software I didn't bother installing for creating the device music database. The device also comes with Windows Media Player which is great, but since you can't realistically sync with that software I'm not sure why they include it.

Price: I purchased the device for $320 which is reasonable.

Storage: 20 GB

PlaysForSure: The device supports the following PlaysForSure logos.

• Basic PlaysForSure support
• Support for Audio Download
• Support for Audio Subscription

Kudos to iRiver for supporting Audio Subscription. This makes it one of the few devices that can play subscription audio content (Janus) from music stores such as Napster. This was my favorite feature of the device. Unfortunately since the device isn't SyncsForSure compliant, it's all very useless.

Support: Unfortunately iRiver doesn't have a proven track record for fixing any problems in firmware updates. If you have a few hours to spare (which I did as I tried to make the sync work) you can read all sorts of stuff on the MisticRiver forums.

Web Site: The Website for the iRiver H320 doesn't tell you that the device will only sync with Windows Media Player 10 using USB 1.1 and that the device will not charge via this mechanism. IMHO it's making false claims (or lack of claims about the real capabilities of the device).

Optional Features:

• Device appears as a hard drive in Windows.
• Device supports FM Tuning.
• Device has a color screen.
• Device supports FM Recording
• Device supports Audio Recording

Final Rating (see my post on my review criteria to understand what this means).

Lame- fails in some areas. Do not hand over your money for this device.

Seriously, I did not enjoy debugging and trying to fit this device into my lifestyle. I figure the 2 or so hours I spent hacking TDT to support WMA DRM'ed files was well worth it as I learned something new, but if you are looking for a device to replace your iPod or you are on the market for a new device I would wait till iRiver works out the issues above (or some one else ships a comparable device).

In my quest to find a suitable replacement for my iPod I plan on reviewing any device I purchase till I find a device that meets my needs 100%. My needs are defined below, but basically map to what I get today with my iPod plus some things I think I deserve.

In order to help you keep informed of my quest, I've created a category feed you can use (Technology | Digital Audio). For the meantime this category will be focused 100% of iPod replacements and related technology. I will try not to rehash existing reviews out there if I think they accurately reflect my opinions. In those cases I will point to the review and cover some of my thoughts.

As a primer, you may want to read my post about PlaysForSure to get some background.

Criteria

I have the following criteria in getting any new device. I will rate the device using a simple system.

• Kick Ass - better than iPod
• Good - pretty good in most areas, but missing some critical requirements. Feel free to spend money.
• Lame - fails in some areas. Do not hand over your money for this device.

Size: No more than 15% bigger/heavier than the 3G 20 GB iPod. Smaller & lighter is better.

User Interface: It does not suck/was not designed by monkeys. Provides the following (in addition to basic features like play, pause, ffwd, rewind etc):

• Browse/Play by Songs
• Browse/Play by Artist
• Browse/Play by Album
• Browse/Play by Genre
• Shuffle mode
• Now Playing mode that displays current track information
• Device can be Locked

Connectivity: Must support USB 2.0 for synchronization.

Charging: Must support charging via USB AND charging during Sync. Extra bonus points if the device has no other way to charge (no DC plug with a proprietary adapter). This is important for those of us that travel with Digital Cameras, Phones, an all sorts of other nonsense. The more devices that can just use a USB Type B to USB Type A plug have a special place in my heart.

Sync: Supports AutoSync with Windows Media Player 10 either via MTP or Mass Storage Device

Accessories:

• Remote
• USB cable
• AC->USB Type A adapter for charging via supplied USB cable.

Battery Life: Must be better than the iPod, but this is easy to beat since my 3G iPod battery sometimes lasts as long as 6 hours.

Software: No installation required with Windows XP SP2 + Windows Media Player 10. If you require me to install software to meet any of the requirements you fail.

Price: Less than $400

Storage: At least 5GB for the mini form factor and 20 GB for the iPod form factor.

PlaysForSure:

• Basic PlaysForSure support
• Support for Audio Download
• Support for Audio Subscription

Support: Manufacturer has a proven track record for supporting this device by shipping firmware updates that fix bugs.

Web Site: Manufacturer does not make false claims about the device's capabilities, or omit critical detail.

Optional Features:

• Device appears as a hard drive in Windows.
• Device supports FM Tuning.
   

Next up will be my review of the iRiver H320 and the Rio Carbon.

I want to talk a bit about PlaysForSure which is a new logo program for portable media players that Microsoft announced a few days ago.

First some background. I have owned every generation of the iPod. I am currently the owner of two 3G iPods. I have also been beta testing the Creative Portable Media Center devices since the early alpha builds. I have also been using Windows Media Center since the first version and have about 200 GB of music that is ripped as WMA lossless as well as a subscription to Napster 2.0 So I am writing from the perspective of a die hard iPod user who desperately wants to switch to using a solution that syncs with Windows Media Player 10 and allows me to stop using iTunes which is a horrible piece of windows software.

iPod

So, here is the landscape today. I have an iPod, it's beautiful, small, light and has a great out of box experience. I plug it into a Mac or a PC with iTunes installed and the rest is mostly magic. iTunes can automatically communicate with the iPod, sync all my music over firewire and charge the device at the same time. However, my iPod seems to think that after hours and hours of charging the battery is half full. As you use it though the battery meter increases before it decreases. If I leave the iPod sitting for a few days, via osmosis or some process, the battery drains. So most of the time when I want to use it, I can't cause it's dead. It also won't even last for a complete transatlantic flight.

iTunes looks pretty, but its' a crappy windows application (I'd argue that it's not really a windows application, but a window that contains a Mac application). For one thing I don't need 2-3 stinking windows process running all the time. I don't want QuickTime to install it's crap all over my machine and hijack my helper applications, install shortcuts in my quick launch bar or desktop.

Now having said all this there are a few critical things about this whole experience:

1. It just works. I mean my Mom can use the dammed thing (yes she purchased and used an iPod all by her self.) Did I mention my Mom could use it? well my sister can too as I bought her an iPod Mini for her b-day.
2. The device has a single plug. That plug connects via USB and FireWire and takes care of sync'ing and charging. That is something that not all PC makers get (I will get to this later).
3. The charger is just a AC <-> firewire interface. Genius, no need to have another useless cable and dc plug somewhere on the device.
4. The device can automatically sync with iTunes with little to no intervention. I just plug it in and it works!
5. No drivers.
6. Software that wasn't designed by monkeys. Even though I hate iTunes on the PC, it's a usable Music Library that doesn't have some weak ass skin that is unreadable that has obtuse and unusable controls. This one is important. I am still simply amazed at the horrible media library software that ships with devices.

PC

Lets look at the PC world. I buy a device, it comes with some lame drivers, some horrible syncing software, may or may not support purchased WMA music, most definitely does not connect to iTunes or play AAC, does play MP3 of course, may or may not connect to Windows Media Player, may or may not charge via USB 2.0 (may or may not support USB 1.0).

PlaysForSure Technology

Media Transport Protocol (MTP) is a new protocol that devices can implement that allows Windows Media Player 10 to automatically sync media content such as music, video, pictures and potentially DRM'ed purchased and DRM'ed subscription Music and Video. By implementing this protocol, device makers can ensure a very good out of box experience for end users who connect their devices to their PCs. This is amazing cause before this device makers spend countless hours writing horrible drivers and sync software because the value add in getting sync working with WMP wasn't as good as syncing with their proprietary software where they controlled the interface. Some devices went to far as to just expose their device as a Mass Storage Device and allow users to drag and drop audio (yeah, like my Mom can do this). This functionality is nice, *if* you can do the sync thing well. Not relying on drivers is great as it prevents any unnecessary software installation, and unnecessary (and potentially bugg) software on the PC.

So, since the dawn of these wannabe iPod devices a lot has happened. There are at least half a dozen stores selling DRM'ed music, and well, I think everyone realized that syncing a proprietary DRM'ed format and dealing with managing licenses, and syncing that stuff was probably not something they wanted eating into their margins. So, here we are, with a good player, a platform feature for supporting DRM'ed content from End to End (encoding, protecting, selling, managing licenses, and supporting a protocol for syncing this all). Now before you get all excited and point out that Apple is doing this... you are right, they are. But it's THEIR music store, and THEIR device and THEIR software. Today I can buy a song from Wal-Mart and sync to a compatible PlaysForSure device and the only thing that Microsoft provides is the infrastructure (SDKs, Software, Services). The media jukebox (WMP in my case, but just as easily MusicMatch) is just using Platform SDK's to manage the Audio, including the DRM rights.

So starting now, you can buy a device that supports MTP and get AutoSync (like iTunes + iPod) with Windows Media Player 10 and no drivers. If the device manufacturer was smart, they also support device charging while the device is connected, and support USB 2.0 for fast transfers. As an added bonus, since I rip all my audio as WMA Lossless, I have no desire to actually transfer the lossless music to my portable device as only a small fraction of it would fit. WMP10 can automatically transcode (convert) the lossless audio to a smaller version (I use WMA 128K) with some small loss in audio quality. This is a super cool feature because I don't have to maintain multiple copies of my music as I have to today with my iPod. This also ensures that any device I get can have higher and better transcoded software as the codecs improve and as device storage increases without having to ever RIP audio again.

PlaysForSure Logo Program

I spoke a lot about the technology (cause that is the interesting part), but PlaysForSure has an even more critical aspect, and that is Logo Program. This ensures that any device that has a PlaysForSure logo will ensure a basic level of support for:

• Driverless connectivity
• AutoSync with WMP10
• DRM'ed Purchased Audio
• DRM'ed Subscription Audio
• DRM'ed Purchased Video
• DRM'ed Subscription Video

Before you get all excited, PlaysForSure does not guarantee a few things that I recently discovered (and will blog about later).

1. That the device connects via USB 2.0
2. That the device charges via USB
3. That the device has a catalog or meta data about the audio on the device (this may not make sense, but basically a manufacturer could just have a very basic File Browser interface for playing audio, rather than an interface that allows you to navigate via Artist, Album, Genre)
4. That the device will manage and synchronize Ratings and Playcount.

Portable Devices

I highlight these four issues above as important because I don't believe that you will get an iPod like experience with a portable device that has the PlaysForSure logo unless they support USB 2.0 for MTP, charging via USB only, as well as have a good navigation UI that allows you to select audio based on meta data as well as select shuffle mode etc. Other features that an audio device could provide for differentiation are:

• Color screen
• Support for Photos
• Support for Videos
• Various levels of DRM support
• FM Radio
• Form factor
• Drive size

Now with devices like Portable Media center you are getting a lot of the optional features above because we are essentially doing all the work to support MTP as well as creating the user experience and support for music, photos, video, tv and all the flavors of DRM'ed content. However, the form factor of the devices is far different from an iPod so while you get the best of everything you do so at the cost of size and weight. However I believe that over time, device manufacturers will create many different kinds of form factors to address all sorts of user need (as OEMs have done with Media Center).

Final Thoughts

I firmly believe that Microsoft is doing a great job creating technology and an eco system for companies to flourish. By focusing on ensuring the plumbing is consistently offered to all device manufacturers and music/video providers, the end user will benefit the most by having the largest amount of selection, choice and a decent user experience. Is it better than the experience you get with iTunes and the iPod? Probably not today (with some devices very close), but over time, manufacturers will learn to create devices that match or exceed the iPod's experience. Additionally, the music stores already have more compelling features than Apple does with iTunes. For example, I pay Napster $14 a month and can download most of the audio in their collection, and now with PlaysForSure supported devices, I can sync this subscription content. I can also play all this content with the Media Center interface to Napster, and load all the music on my office computer. Napster also provides streaming radio of the same downloadable content so I don't have to bother selecting songs to play, and hear new things I may want to download to my portable device. Apple simply can't touch this.

So you decide... I think PlaysForSure, while not a solution to the entire problem, is an excellent step forward in ensuring that it's realistically possible for a device maker to make a compelling device that I would have confidence my family could easily use in favor of their iPods. It takes a problem that device makers were NOT good at solving (drivers, sync, connectivity), and makes it a non-issue so long as they implement MTP and get logo certification. It allows them to place their resources in designing hardware that is smaller, cheaper and better.

In the next few days I will write about my experience with two devices that are listed on the PlaysForSure website: The iRiver H320 and the Rio Carbon. I purchased both these devices in the past few days and will be returning one of them on Saturday. The other one is a keeper .