And my location field in my profile says “QLD, Australia”, incidentally. 
Yup, I noticed. I just decided to let that pass without comment, since I wasn’t sure **when **you’d added the info. 
Get a Blackberry, and throw a 8 or 16GB micro SD card in. You can drag and drop music onto the card via USB, and even sync with Windows Media Player playlists using Blackberry software (also a couple 3rd party tools for syncing Blackberries).
I’ve got a Pearl for personal use, and a Curve 8900 for work, and both have quite good media players for phones. The only catch is that the phone takes a few minutes to index new music.
Although Apple’s range of portable players is the dominant one you still see Sansa, Sony and other brand MP3 players all over the shops here. I, for one, will be sticking with the sub-$50 shut the kids up models from now on. I just end up breaking my MP3 player eventually so I might as well not invest too much money in one.
As was mentioned in the other iPod thread, I use an iPod without that horrible abomination known as iTunes. It’s a WinAmp plug-in known as ml-iPod.
Enjoy!
When I joined up in 2006.
A lot of these great players people are recommending just. aren’t. available in the shops here. That’s the entire point of my OP. I know these players exist, yet you can’t walk into a major retailer here and buy one. Because they’re only selling iPods.
Sounds to me like you should be pitting Australia for having such a shitty merch selection.
Ah, but it’s only shitty because Apple are monopolising the market. Even 12 months ago there were several different MP3 players of the type I was after available on the market here- now it’s all iPod. Because that’s what the market who are interested in funky colours and having the same stuff as their friends want.
Cool! That was me! I’m glad it worked out for you. In the meantime, my Clip died and I upgraded to the Sansa View. Got it refurbed from NewEgg for dirt cheap. I’m even happier with it. The View has a microSD slot to extend it’s onboard 8GB memory. Huge screen, but battery life is a bit less though. Still as easy as the Clip to load the music: drag and drop of course, or I can sync it up using my music software.
But then:
Your displeasure shouldn’t be aimed at Apple and they aren’t monopolizing the market. As you seem to understand in the last quote, it’s Apple responding to what people want. It’s supply and demand, not a monopoly or anything that Apple should be blamed for.
I’m even happier with it now, since my weekend drive.
It works just fine with the USB port in my car, and I can control it with the car stereo controls just fine.
There’s supply and demand and there’s Not Having A Choice.
Seriously, I’ve explained this at least three times in this thread already. People want iPods because that’s all that is really available on the market here in Australia. And whilst that’s not a Monopoly, it’s pretty damn close. If you want an 8gb MP3 player your options are iPod or Sony, pretty much, and if you want a 30Gb or larger MP3 player the only ones I’ve seen in stores are iPods.
Yes but if Apple is delivering what they want (funky colors and apple panache) and the other mp3 players aren’t, Apple’s just … giving the products people want. I mean, it is a bit of an uphill battle now for Sansa, Creative et al, but nothing is preventing them from making funky colored, awesome designed mp3 players that appeal to the apple fans.
Plus, being in the US, I can’t speak for Australia, but I never even see non-apple mp3 players being advertised. iPod commercials, posters, magazine ads, etc are all over the place, though. Maybe if other companies advertised and pimped out their products more, they’d have more of a chance of getting better marketshare.
Which is the fault of all the companies which are choosing to not even attempt to find even a niche position in the market. They got beaten to the punch by Apple, so they laid down and accepted defeat. That’s not Apple’s fault.
You just directly contradicted yourself. A year ago, per you, there were other choices besides iPods. People didn’t buy them for reasons such as features, design, cachet, etc.–**not **because there weren’t alternatives available (since according to you, there were). So, since no one bought them, retailers stopped carrying them.
Pit people whose different tastes mean that they prefer iPods, leading retailers to not carry whatever other brand you like, but Apple has nothing to do with that.
Sansa does make units in colors. Personally, I like the sleekness of the all-black models. But the real reason I am not interested in iPods are 1) the are way overpriced compared to the Sansa models and b) my impression is that you have to deal with iTunes and the media is proprietary and digitally protected. I could be wrong, but I haven’t seen anything that relieves me of that impression.
Dealing with iTunes: Your involvement with iTunes could be as little as using it to drag and drop files into your iPod. (Plug in the iPod, which launches iTunes → go to the section for the iPod → drag and drop files onto this section just as you would into a folder.) You’d need to use iTunes if you want to do any kind of automatic synching, but presumably the same would be true of whatever software comes with any other MP3 player.
Digital protection: This applies only to files purchased through the iTunes store (and I think Apple might have even gotten rid of it). There is no obligation to purchase music from the iTunes store; conversely, many users of the iTunes store don’t have iPods. Personally, all of my music comes from CDs I rip myself or other MP3 sources.
I’m just happy people seem to have done away with the whole “iPods can only play music purchased from the iTunes Music Store so I’d have re-buy EVERYTHING I’VE EVER OWNED!” I thought that one was never gonna die, despite how obviously moronic it was.
See, that’s the thing. I don’t need software for my Sansa and it doesn’t come with any PC software. I can sync using whatever software I like. I’ve used Media Jukebox, Windows Media, and eMusic software to sync with my Sansa View. All work just fine.
Good to know. What are some alternatives to iTunes for downloading music at reasonable prices and having good selections? Any good subscription services?
Amazon’s store is very nice. You can download mp3s without helper software at all. If you use their helper software, it carefully puts all your songs in with the rest of your itunes library.
Variable pricing, good selection, and I used to be able to get free songs with pepsi points.