{"id":88,"date":"2006-12-29T12:01:15","date_gmt":"2006-12-29T11:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/?p=88"},"modified":"2006-12-29T12:01:15","modified_gmt":"2006-12-29T11:01:15","slug":"the-backward-march-of-ipodmp3-devices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/88-the-backward-march-of-ipodmp3-devices.html","title":{"rendered":"The backward march of iPod\/MP3 devices"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I was astonished to read of how the <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.engadget.com\/~r\/weblogsinc\/engadget\/~3\/67569026\/\" target=\"_blank\">iLink dock brings digital output to iPod<\/a>&nbsp;&#8211; at a price of $2000 or so. Nearly three years ago I purchased an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/iriverihp140.php\" target=\"_blank\">iRiver H140<\/a> for around the same cost as an iPod, but with additional features including built-in digital i\/o,&nbsp;mic input with adjustable gain, and direct recording to either MP3 or lossless WAV. I still use the device today &#8211; it&#8217;s ideal for recording interviews as well as portable music &#8211; but when it wears out&nbsp;it may not be easy to replace.&nbsp;Even today, most devices lack these audiophile features or provide them only through expensive and inconvenient add-ons. Lossless recording and digital i\/o are hard to find anywhere. Even iRiver&#8217;s own range has gone backwards, with nothing comparable currently available.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not sure of all reasons for this, but a big factor is Apple. The dominant iPod may be great&nbsp;on usability and small size, but rich features don&#8217;t fit with Apple&#8217;s minimalist philosophy. You might think that would give an opportunity to other vendors, but in many cases they seem content to follow rather than innovate.<\/p>\n<p><div class=\"wlWriterSmartContent\" id=\"0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:61f5bd14-a50d-4ecc-8c52-fe2fd1738220\" contenteditable=\"false\" style=\"padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-top: 0px\">Technorati tags: <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tags\/iriver\" rel=\"tag\">iriver<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tags\/apple\" rel=\"tag\">apple<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tags\/ilink\" rel=\"tag\">ilink<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tags\/ipod\" rel=\"tag\">ipod<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tags\/mp3\" rel=\"tag\">mp3<\/a><\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was astonished to read of how the iLink dock brings digital output to iPod&nbsp;&#8211; at a price of $2000 or so. Nearly three years ago I purchased an iRiver H140 for around the same cost as an iPod, but with additional features including built-in digital i\/o,&nbsp;mic input with adjustable gain, and direct recording to &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/88-the-backward-march-of-ipodmp3-devices.html\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The backward march of iPod\/MP3 devices<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apple","category-multimedia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}