Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Mental
I've resisted the urge to post about this blog's longest running joke Sim Wong Hoo many times over the last couple of months. I was sort of hoping that people in the world would forget about who (Hoo?) Creative even is/was - and then the world could continue on quietly without them. No big deal.
But the friggin' sod keeps coming back with more and more crappier crap, and I just have to publicly flog him for it.
Go check out the newest thing from Creative: the Zen Vision:M (with video)
Great name eh?
Anyways. If this thing isn't a flagrant ripoff of the iPod's now famous interface, I don't think there could possibly be one. They DID use a slightly different font, though maybe Morgan can tell us if it's in the same 'family' as the Myriad fonts used in the newest iPods.
And their player DOES have more features (FM radio, built-in microphone).
Oh, and they DID use a different radius on their corners.
WTF do the two bottom symbols mean? (I think that's my first public 1337!)
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You say that Mr. Hoo's media player is 'crap', yet you fail to give any examples of its 'crapiness'. Perpahs its status as a 'flagrant ripoff' of i-pod speaks to the lack of creativity at creative but hardly speaks to the quality of the product. Besides it is difficult to glean exatly how it is a ripoff. The I-pod's interface is a circle with a button in the middle of it. This seems to be somewhat different with buttons outside of the 'touch' area.
One gets the feeling that you are incensts at the 'sheer' audacity of creative to enter the market and release a similar product to the i-pod. Why would this be such a problem? Ultimatly are these other prodcuts 'crap' because they are not made by apple?
One gets the feeling that you are incensts at the 'sheer' audacity of creative to enter the market and release a similar product to the i-pod. Why would this be such a problem? Ultimatly are these other prodcuts 'crap' because they are not made by apple?
# posted by 
: 3:25 p.m.
: 3:25 p.m.
I wanted to post something in response to the post by Annonymous.
Quote:"You say that Mr Hoo's media player is crap..." etc.
I vote for a change in the name of the player! Zen? Dumb name. I say the new name should be:
"Mr Hoo's Media Player" !!!!
And Joel, I am not sure about fonts, my "I-Pod" doesn't have a screen and therefore no words.
AND, in response to your question about the buttons at the bottom. Probably the bottom left one is "back" but WTF is the arrow pointing to a dot? "lead the way"? "follow the dot"? And I'm pretty sure the bottom right arrow means "cooler media players on the next shelf" ;o)
Personally, after listening to you talk about this player, I was more annoyed about copying. Now that I've seen it...it's just kind of ugly in comparison. The screen seems different (spacing is poor in my opinion) and don't even get me started on the track pad with buttons thing. It's just not as pretty.
So I know I'm writing a lot of nonsense here but if I had to choose between 2 qualities - good design OR fm radio - I would choose....well, not fm radio.
Quote:"You say that Mr Hoo's media player is crap..." etc.
I vote for a change in the name of the player! Zen? Dumb name. I say the new name should be:
"Mr Hoo's Media Player" !!!!
And Joel, I am not sure about fonts, my "I-Pod" doesn't have a screen and therefore no words.
AND, in response to your question about the buttons at the bottom. Probably the bottom left one is "back" but WTF is the arrow pointing to a dot? "lead the way"? "follow the dot"? And I'm pretty sure the bottom right arrow means "cooler media players on the next shelf" ;o)
Personally, after listening to you talk about this player, I was more annoyed about copying. Now that I've seen it...it's just kind of ugly in comparison. The screen seems different (spacing is poor in my opinion) and don't even get me started on the track pad with buttons thing. It's just not as pretty.
So I know I'm writing a lot of nonsense here but if I had to choose between 2 qualities - good design OR fm radio - I would choose....well, not fm radio.
Exactly, Morgan! Who the fuck wants FM radio? You can listen to the radio anywhere...isn't the idea of getting an MP3 player about having your own music with you where ever you go?
..."lack of creativity at Creative"?? That's awesome.
..."lack of creativity at Creative"?? That's awesome.
# posted by : 10:59 p.m.
: 10:59 p.m.
I think it depends on how you look at it, anonymous.
The 'flagrant ripoff'edness I see in this product is more in its presentation interface (what's on the screen) than the interactive interface (the buttons). I think that if you were to look at a picture of the two screens side by side you'd see what I mean(have a look here. Although, now that you mention it, there are some real similarities between the iPod interface and the Vision's: they both use a track-pad type thing for scrolling, and a single button around the 'touch' part that sort of 'rocks' to allow the four parts to be pressed....
Now, I suppose I should be careful when complaining about 'copying' in this area, as it seems that Creative holds intellectual property on it's JukeBox interface from a few years ago, and it looks like Creative and Apple will be going to court over it. Nevertheless, I think that copying colorschemes and icon shape/design and the way they are combined is indeed 'flagrant' and it will be interesting who comes out on top legally. It might not make any difference. Regardless of how the laws are interpreted, I think it looks like copying.
And I think it would be a little ridiculous to be upset with Creative simply for entering into the 'personal media player' market - in fact Creative was selling JukeBoxes before the iPod had even been introduced, so Apple would be the one stepping on toes in this situation. Apple entered into the market with a product similar to the Creative Jukebox.
Copying like this has been an issue for Apple for a LONG time, and it does beat the drums for the 'Mac faithful' such as myself. But anyone who thinks they know anything about the iPod should be able to conceed that competition in the space is good, as it will drive better, cheaper products into our hands (so say the doctrines of captialism - which incidentally I'm not so fond of....) and I think so far that's been happening. The 5th-gen 'video' iPod we have right now is by leaps and bounds a better product than the original 5 GB model we started with so many years ago. (I wish I could find a good link on iPod chronology)
One thing that makes this item 'crappy' for me is that it can't play tunes I obtained from the iTMS. That won't be a problem for many people. Along the same lines but in its favour, it knows how to play more video formats than the iPod does.
Another 'crappy' thing for me is that it's bigger and heavier but has similar storage and battery life, and price.
Also, I personally really LIKE the iPod - the whole experience of it. iTunes, the music store, the simple hardware, the simple software, and of course, the faith I have in it's quality and the support I will receive because it's made by Apple.
In part, Creative's products ARE (to me) 'crap' because they're not made by Apple. That's not to say Creative isn't a great company that does other great things. I've personally never owned a single product by them, though I'm sure I've used a computer that had a soundcard they made, at some point.
Despite not having held one myself I have read (though I conveniently can't find anything now...) that says that the feeling of having an iPod in your hand is incomparable with any other personal media player out there. The stainless steel makes you feel like it's built well, the white (and now black) plastics are hard and tough and look very clean, the buttons actually feel like buttons (rather than how buttons on toys feel, like most of Sony's recent stuff, which I can attest to personally). Most would say that if I feel like the Zen Vision:M (with Video) is crappy, I'm personally entitled to that opinion, whatever the reason - though I think my own reasoning stands up to the standards I need it to.
In the end I feel that saying something is bad because it's not made by Apple is equally as bad as saying something's great simply because it's made by Apple.
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The 'flagrant ripoff'edness I see in this product is more in its presentation interface (what's on the screen) than the interactive interface (the buttons). I think that if you were to look at a picture of the two screens side by side you'd see what I mean(have a look here. Although, now that you mention it, there are some real similarities between the iPod interface and the Vision's: they both use a track-pad type thing for scrolling, and a single button around the 'touch' part that sort of 'rocks' to allow the four parts to be pressed....
Now, I suppose I should be careful when complaining about 'copying' in this area, as it seems that Creative holds intellectual property on it's JukeBox interface from a few years ago, and it looks like Creative and Apple will be going to court over it. Nevertheless, I think that copying colorschemes and icon shape/design and the way they are combined is indeed 'flagrant' and it will be interesting who comes out on top legally. It might not make any difference. Regardless of how the laws are interpreted, I think it looks like copying.
And I think it would be a little ridiculous to be upset with Creative simply for entering into the 'personal media player' market - in fact Creative was selling JukeBoxes before the iPod had even been introduced, so Apple would be the one stepping on toes in this situation. Apple entered into the market with a product similar to the Creative Jukebox.
Copying like this has been an issue for Apple for a LONG time, and it does beat the drums for the 'Mac faithful' such as myself. But anyone who thinks they know anything about the iPod should be able to conceed that competition in the space is good, as it will drive better, cheaper products into our hands (so say the doctrines of captialism - which incidentally I'm not so fond of....) and I think so far that's been happening. The 5th-gen 'video' iPod we have right now is by leaps and bounds a better product than the original 5 GB model we started with so many years ago. (I wish I could find a good link on iPod chronology)
One thing that makes this item 'crappy' for me is that it can't play tunes I obtained from the iTMS. That won't be a problem for many people. Along the same lines but in its favour, it knows how to play more video formats than the iPod does.
Another 'crappy' thing for me is that it's bigger and heavier but has similar storage and battery life, and price.
Also, I personally really LIKE the iPod - the whole experience of it. iTunes, the music store, the simple hardware, the simple software, and of course, the faith I have in it's quality and the support I will receive because it's made by Apple.
In part, Creative's products ARE (to me) 'crap' because they're not made by Apple. That's not to say Creative isn't a great company that does other great things. I've personally never owned a single product by them, though I'm sure I've used a computer that had a soundcard they made, at some point.
Despite not having held one myself I have read (though I conveniently can't find anything now...) that says that the feeling of having an iPod in your hand is incomparable with any other personal media player out there. The stainless steel makes you feel like it's built well, the white (and now black) plastics are hard and tough and look very clean, the buttons actually feel like buttons (rather than how buttons on toys feel, like most of Sony's recent stuff, which I can attest to personally). Most would say that if I feel like the Zen Vision:M (with Video) is crappy, I'm personally entitled to that opinion, whatever the reason - though I think my own reasoning stands up to the standards I need it to.
In the end I feel that saying something is bad because it's not made by Apple is equally as bad as saying something's great simply because it's made by Apple.
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