Chicago Tribune Binary Beat column

Jan 16, 2005 (Chicago Tribune - Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News via COMTEX)

-- Gateway`s MP3 player lacks iPod`s fame, little else Just about everybody

involved with reporting about the computer industry thinks it`s great news that

Apple Computer Inc.`s latest quarterly earnings quadrupled because of the

public`s rush to buy iPods.

Not Apple`s superb G5 tower computers, mind you, but iPods. Not Apple`s

certifiably beautiful new flat-panel iMacs, but iPods. Not those

student`s-dream-come-true iBook laptops or PowerBooks bursting with displays in

millions of colors, but iPods.

Not since a company named Wham-O introduced the Hula Hoop has a brand name so

quickly became part of the English language as iPod.

So today`s sermonette must point out that the Apple-resurrecting iPod wasn`t, by

far, the first digital music player to mate with a computer, and it`s not even

the unquestionably best digital music player on the market today. A plethora of

players with great features abound from blue-chip outfits like Sony, Dell,

Samsung, Rio, Creative, Archos, Phillips, RCA, et al.

So submitted for your consideration today is a single MP3 competitor, the unsung

and woefully undersold music player with the homely name of Gateway MP3 Photo

Jukebox. It costs $249, the same as the already-fabled iPod Mini. But Gateway`s

$249 product has a color TFT (thin film transistor) screen, while the $249 iPod

Mini uses a gray-tone back-lighted LCD (liquid crystal display) screen to

display the names of songs.

Both have 4 gigabyte hard drives capable of storing roughly 1,000 songs. The

iPod Mini comes in a palette of case colors that really are eye candy. I, too,

love them. The Gateway product comes in a single color very much like Apple`s

muted silver models.

But come on, my fellow campers, would you rather have the color on the case or

in the display screen, where you can use it to show off all those digital photos

on your computer and cell phone?

To get a color screen photo-ready iPod you`ve got to move up to the $499 iPod

Photo.

Then there`s the battery question. The iPods come with a built-in rechargeable

batteries that cannot be replaced by the customer. Web message boards are filled

with complaints about the batteries wearing out in iPods under use for some

time, and to its credit, Apple came up with a solid replacement plan.

But the Gateway MP3 Photo Jukebox comes with a $29 removable and replaceable

lithium-ion battery like those on mobile phones.

That brings us to the slick touch-sensitive click wheel that runs iPods. Instead

of pressing any buttons, you just tap the appropriate part of the surface.

Gateway offers a more traditional and inferior (in my estimation) arrangement of

a center button with a scroll control in the center and other commands in

buttons on the four corners. While the iPod`s novel scheme is a cakewalk once

you have it explained, anybody who picks up a Gateway will know what to do

without a manual.

There are things that the iPod can`t handle, such as plugging the connector cord

from a digital camera directly into it and storing pictures on the hard drive.

This means that photo hobbyists can use the Gateway MP3 Photo Jukebox as a 4 gb

picture storage vault about the size and thickness of a deck of cards.

Of course there are things that iPods have that Gateway lacks. Most notably, you

can connect an included AV-out cable to a big-screen TV and play slide shows

with musical accompaniment with the iPod Photo.

And, unlike with the hot iPod U2, Gateway buyers don`t get the autographs of

four aging rock stars from Steve Jobs` generation on the case.

Just comparing the specifications of two types of hardware designs doesn`t

address the overriding issue when shopping for a portable digital music player.

You know? Mac or PC, as always.

Apple sells iPod music in a proprietary format tightly controlled by the

companion iTunes Music Store, which has become the world`s most successful

online seller of recorded music and words.

This means that users of the Gateway or any other competing device cannot play

music purchased from Apple`s music store. The iPod, by contrast, can play the

MP3 format that is used by the large number of competing Internet music stores

matching Apple`s inventory of hundreds of thousands of tunes.

Users of Windows computers have no trouble whatsoever in using Apple`s music

store, but they must first download Apple`s own proprietary iTunes software and

then play their downloads on iPods.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is out to eat Apple`s lunch again by pushing its own music

store and proprietary format called WMA. These fancy file types are needed, say

industry leaders, to prevent piracy run amok as we saw during the Napster

outbreak of the late 1990s--our introduction to the wonders of digital music

files.

Apple`s software, called iTunes, is built in to the operating systems of all

Macintosh computers just like Microsoft`s competing Media Player is built into

Windows. Both are superb.

That really leaves folks shopping for a digital music player with a simple

choice. Do you want to be iPod hip or MP3 happy?

Binary beat readers can participate in the column at chicagotribune.com/askjim,

or e-mail jcoates1@aol.com. Snail-mail him in Room 400, 435 N. Michigan Ave.,

Chicago, IL 60611.

By James Coates

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