Tim Anderson's ITWriting

January 19, 2005

iPod rivals need standards

Reviewing the iPod photo has highlighted for me some of the reasons why rivals are finding it difficult to compete effectively. The iPod is far from perfect, but it is highly usable and commands strong third-party support. It's quite possible that some other vendor will create an equally compelling device, but Apple will be hard to shift if the iPod is only thing that fits in the dock in your car or whatever.

The solution is standards. When Microsoft specified the Pocket PC, it did not simply supply an operating system to its hardware partners. It also made certain hardware features mandatory, such as the infra-red port, certain essential buttons, touch sensitive screen and so on. This made the platform reasonably consistent despite the presence of multiple vendors.

Something like this needs to happen in the portable music player industry. A standard device size; a standard expansion and controller port; a standard user-replaceable rechargeable battery. I also think the likes of Creative should concentrate on working well with Windows Media Player, instead of trying to do its own thing with its MediaSource software.

In addition, some silly things need to be fixed. Like the fact that Windows Media Player for the Mac has outdated DRM and won't play most protected WMA files. That doesn't sound like "Plays for sure" to me.