Sony Gets Stupider

Posted May 10th 2004 3:35PM by Brad Hill

sony vaio pocket Unbelievably, Sony seems to be getting more clueless as time passes. Clueless about digital music. Clueless about consumer experience. Clueless about values. A week after launching the horrible Connect music service which seeks to turn the musty MiniDisc into the next iPod, Sony has released its first branded music portable, the Vaio Pocket VGF-AP1. 20 gigs, a nice screen which can display album art, and a touch-sensitive panel. All well and good. Except… this private-format little devil plays *only* ATRAC3 files— that's Sony's proprietary music-file format. You heard me. It doesn't play MP3s. Using bundled software, you can convert MP3 to ATRAC3 for playback in the Vaio Pocket.

Please understand my vitriol toward Sony, and why I think the company's music products are worthy of boycott. If it were a simple matter of Sony being clueless, we could merely laugh at it. The infuriating part is that Sony believes the consumer is clueless. Sony believes that we should forsake the de facto standard of music files (MP3), with its gargantuan installed footprint, in order to bless our lives with Sony's format and Sony's hardware. The arrogance is breathtaking and insulting. Even Apple, second-place winner of the Arrogance Prize, allows plain MP3s into the iPod.

Sony's pathetic Connect service will be crushed by consumer indifference. The Vaio Pocket will be granulated by the erosive power of a smart marketplace. And, if there be a technology god, Sony will sink into the dinosauric quicksand, never to torment us with its foolishness again.

Reader Comments

(Page 1)

1. A week ago I completely panned Sony's atrocious Connect service. Read all about it :D

Posted at 5:58AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Adam

2. but as sony also is a recording industry giant, they have an interest in keep music files from going the way of mp3's

Posted at 5:58AM on Dec 19th 2005 by cucka

3. Yeah dude I'm going to buy a CD Player that plays mp3 and ATRAC3 + A3plus for around $60. This player isn't bad, but you're right it should include MP3, but geez dude that was a terrible summary and way off base. It is a smart compression technology and I want to use to clean up 10Gigs of MP3s from my HD to CDs that will play in the multiple format portable player. One thing I think we both agree on is that all these memory stick players and others are a waste of time and money when you can get compatible disk players and have a HUGE library on limited media at low cost.

Posted at 5:58AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Raenydyne

4. HI, I NEED SOME SOFTWARE TO CONVERT MP3 TO ATRAC3

Posted at 5:58AM on Dec 19th 2005 by octavio morales

5. Vaio Pocket does play MP3 natively after firmwareupgrade, sound quality, build quality and batterylife are much better than Ipod's (Yes I own an Ipod) AFter getting used to Sinic stage works fine, it even has a decent backup facility which I dearly missed on Itunes. Ituses is more intuitive though. COmparing PM3 on Ipod and Vaio is a big plus for sony, you hear things never heard before on my Ipod, like voices on the background, instruments at the background.

JS

Posted at 5:58AM on Dec 19th 2005 by JS

6. Sony suck, really suck. The uncompatibility of just about everything they make is unreal, I've been messing on with there ATRAC3 format, found using real player is the best option, gets rid of that mad check in/out process and also lets you use nearly any format to transfer to your sony device.

Posted at 5:58AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Dave Andrews

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