Sony mylo, part deux
A couple of the devices that I carry with me everyday have all the features of the Sony mylo 2.0, and then some. Yet, I am still quite intrigued by this device. I can’t help it; it’s a shiny new gadget. 🙂
I doubt that many people bought the first mylo. It was a cool device, and I was quite excited to see one in person, but I think at the time of its announcement and release, there were other devices, including Sony’s own PSP, that had similar features plus more functionality, for less money. I had been hoping that perhaps the first mylo would’ve taken the same great media playback features and the wireless connectivity of the PSP and repackaged it into more of a communication device than a gaming device. I had also hoped that some of the technology in the mylo would have been ported back into the PSP — well, mainly the slide-out keyboard and the dedicated media playback controls. Entering text on the PSP is a pain.
However when I finally got my hands on the mylo, I was disappointed that it didn’t even support all of the audio and video codecs that the PSP did. At the time I had been pleasantly surprised that the latest firmware update for the PSP (3.x, IIRC) allowed it to support most audio and video podcast material formatted for the iPod without any transcoding. That, combined with the RSS support that allowed the user to download podcasts directly to the PSP, made the PSP a really nice media playback device for me. The PSP also had an okay browser that was marred by low memory errors and the lack of a decent text input method. The mylo seemed to improve on the PSP in that arena, slightly, but not enough to make it a great browsing device. These were my impressions from playing with a mylo at the Sony Style store for a while. I didn’t actually own a mylo, or get an eval unit, so it could be that later on Sony released some firmware updates to address some of these issues. Or perhaps some enterprising developers took on hacking the mylo as some had taken to hacking the PSP. I didn’t follow its development closely after the mylo’s release, since I had been rather disappointed with it when I saw it at the store myself.
All that being said, I think the updates that Sony made for the second-gen mylo really go far in addressing some of the issues I (and probably others) had with the original — updates to the browser to support more Flash content (still Flash lite, not full, desktop-machine-level Flash), more audio and video codec support (upon first glance it seems to at least be on par with the PSP’s codec support now), a backlit keyboard, and some refreshed hardware design in general. It’s interesting that it has a touchscreen now. This might make mobile browsing a nicer experience, instead of having to depend solely on a d-pad or joystick to move the cursor around the page. It’s also nice that it has a camera, though I wish it had higher resolution than 1.3 megapixels.
On the software side, the mylo is a lot more like the iPod touch than the N810. It’s more closed down, with a simplified interface that probably isn’t very tweakable. And it probably won’t ever have any full-fledged apps that can be installed, however it is interesting to note that in the features list on Sony Style, there is an item called “mylo Widgets”. Under that bullet point, it is clearly stated that, “…for the first time, users will be allowed to register as a developer in order to gain access to the technical resources they will need to build their own widgets.” For a consumer-level device that’s more on par with an iPod, this is sort of a unique feature. It’s not in Sony’s nature to allow a device to be open like this, even though widgets are pretty low on the totem pole compared to full apps. I know that the iPhone’s/iPod touch’s SDK is getting released in February, but the way the text reads from Sony Style, it seems more like any average user can register to create his/her own widgets, whereas the iPhone/iPod touch SDK seems more for established developers. I would be keen to see if any mylo widgets make their way over to the PSP platform.
Lastly, I like how Sony has taken the idea of free WiFi hotspot access that they first tried out with PSP users and carried it over to the mylo. I don’t know if Sony eventually did the same thing for mylo users before, but I did notice it this time around. The number of hotspots is limited, and I don’t know if there’s a time limit overall. IIRC, PSP users could have free WiFi hotspot access via T-Mobile for 6 months or a year. Either way, this helps take the sting out of not being able to be connected all the time via a GPRS/EDGE/3G connection.
These updated features make the mylo 2.0 a very nice addition to the internet tablet device space. Right now there aren’t many devices in that area, but the mylo’s competition is stiff, with the Nokia tablets and the iPod touch (and maybe a few others I can’t remember at the moment). While I’m not sure that the mylo will reach huge sales numbers, I’m still glad that Sony is releasing devices like this. It could be that somewhere down the line, mylo features will get ported into a new version of the PSP. Even if they don’t do something like that, I like that Sony is still taking a chance in niche markets and putting out products other than the PlayStation, TVs, and other mainstream, “sure bet” items. I’ve always been a fan of Sony’s imaginative devices and hardware designs, even though I don’t like some of the decisions they’ve made with their consumer electronics. The recent mylo and the Rolly mp3 bot products remind me of the old Sony I knew and loved during simpler times. 🙂
Podcasts and the Nokia 770 and Nokia N95
Some of you may know that my current phone is a Nokia N95, and that I recently bought a Nokia 770 on Woot!. I reached out to the Twitter/Jaikuverse to see if there was a podcatcher app for the 770, since there are some podcast sites that the 770’s browser doesn’t render properly, making it impossible to download directly from them. 😛 Luckily I got a link to GPodder from my Twitter/Jaiku friend, Atmasphere. My reply of gratitude for the link turned into a mini blog post about why I’m trying to listen to podcasts on the 770, so I thought I’d post it here instead, to save verbiage on Jaiku, even though they don’t limit comment lengths. 🙂
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Thanks! I’ll have to try it out. I thought I’d try to offload some WiFi usage from my N95 and try using the 770 as my podcast listening device at work, but so far downloading directly to the device hasn’t been the easiest thing. The built-in RSS reader is useless, and a lot of podcast sites have all of this fancy-schmancy stuff that the 770 browser can’t render properly. 😛
I tried putting feeds into Canola, and was listening to the latest TWiT. It sounded great, and it was fine, until something killed the stream and my only choice was to start over. 😛 Couldn’t forward to the place I stopped listening, because it’s streaming. This is why I am not a fan of streaming audio solutions. Works fine until you have a broken connection, which disrupts the listening experience, and ruins it for me. Also, Canola had problems resolving some feeds and bringing up episodes. Feh. The UI is very nice, but so far it hasn’t been as useful as I’d like.
So far, the N95 is the closest to my ideal podcast listening device — direct downloads, decent built-in media player with on-the-go playlist creation, okay hardware controls. No bookmarking yet, but I’m looking forward to the rumored update to the music player to add that functionality. That will be very welcome!
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I hate Rhapsody
Late last night I posted the following to Twitter and Jaiku after an hour or two of wrestling with Rhapsody to try to get subscription tracks to work on my N95 after I read that the N95 supports Rhapsody:
“Oh for crying out loud, I HATE Rhapsody. I’ll be canceling it ASAP. (I’m a poet and didn’t know it)”
Today one of my Jaiku friends asked me why I hate Rhapsody since he loves it. Below is my response that I started typing as a reply in Jaiku, but realized it was rather lengthy, and decided to blog it instead. *smirk*
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Well, back when I bought my iRiver Clix 2, I signed up for Rhapsody To Go so I could try out subscription music on the device. I bought the Clix 2 2 or 3 months ago, and up until now, I have not yet been able to actually play subscription music on any portable device except for my computer. And the software is so bloaty and crashed so many times when I tried connecting my Clix 2 that for a long time I just left it alone and never tried much to figure out what was going on. I had thought I had a workaround by downloading the tracks on Rhapsody’s client and then transferring them over using MediaMonkey (another music management app that supports PlaysForSure devices) or even using Windows Media Player itself, but that didn’t work. When I tried to play the subscription tracks on the Clix 2, they wouldn’t play because of licensing issues, even though transferring the tracks over with WMP is something that other people have vouched for. At least when I tried out the Sandisk Sansa Connect, I was able to listen to Yahoo Music Unlimited subscription tracks both from transferring them to the device from my PC, and from downloading them directly to the Connect over its WiFi connection.
I’d read that the Clix 2, while compatible with PlaysForSure, had some issues with Rhapsody, so I forgave that, even though some people have gotten it to work on their Clix 2s through various methods (that didn’t work for me). But when I tried to put subscription tracks on my Toshiba Gigabeat S, that failed. And I excused that because I tried it at work a while back, and I thought that perhaps something in our firewall was blocking the licensing info or something, even though I’ve been able to play subscription tracks on my laptop just fine from work. I hadn’t bothered to follow up on this at home until last night.
I read that the N95 could play Rhapsody tracks, so I thought I’d try it. Everytime I tried transferring files over, I got “insufficient rights” problems. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the software, deauthorizing and reauthorizing both my laptop and the N95 multiple times, I deleted the Rhapsody directory in the Application Data folder, as one of their troubleshooting tips suggested, and tried various other things. I have not once been able to get the subscription tracks onto a portable music device even though I’m paying extra to do so. I shouldn’t have to work so hard to get this stuff working in the first place. Obviously the DRM is a problem, and until they make it absolutely transparent to the user, if they’re going to insist on using this crap anyway, I’m not going to be paying for it.
It’s a shame because I really liked the subscription model, being able to pull up music that I hear about, or remember, or whatever, and usually being able to listen to tracks fully (not a 30-second sample, though I guess now that I think about it, some songs on Rhapsody are limited to 30-sec samples…) right away. I guess I have been thoroughly annoyed at certain albums being “purchase only” and having some albums not even fully available for subscription usage (only a selection of tracks available, often not the popular singles from the album, of course), so that’s another fault I see with subscription models in general. Feh. I have wasted a lot of time trying to make Rhapsody work, a lot more than I think it deserves. It works great if I just listen to it on my little laptop, or even logging on to Rhapsody.com on my iMac and streaming music through the web interface, which I did for a while. But I mainly listen to audio on my portable devices, so seamless listening on my laptop or online doesn’t help me a lot. Plus, I’m paying for the privilege of transferring those tracks over to my portables (up to 3, they claim), and Rhapsody has not delivered. So I’m dumping them very soon.
P.S. Rhapsody doesn’t even provide a way for canceling your subscription online; I checked. I may have been really annoyed with Yahoo Music Unlimited because of their annoying, bloaty software, but they at least had an option for me to cancel my trial subscription directly online, no hassle.
I feel that neophilia coming to get me again…
(picture from JKOntheRun)
A while ago, when I was testing out the Sansa Connect and realized it wasn’t for me, I thought about the Nokia N800 as a pricey, yet more feature-rich alternative. Yes, it’s not really fair to directly compare the N800 to the Sansa Connect, because the Connect is just an mp3 player, while the N800 is mobile Net access device and media player. However, I quickly talked myself out of this idea, mainly because I have a T-Mobile MDA, which could basically perform the same functionality as the N800 for me (and I even used it as my main podcast player for a while). But all of this talk about the N800 and how people are really loving its functionality is really getting my gadget lust going again. And I played with an N800 last weekend at a Nokia store in Woodfield Mall last weekend for a precious few minutes…big mistake. Now I’ve got N800 on the brain! *sigh*
The biggest draw for me would be a more functional mobile browser. I am quite sick of browsing sites on my MDA and finding that the page won’t load properly, or that some key functionality on the page (like drop-down menus, or the search form) won’t work because Pocket IE can’t handle it. Opera Mini is a nice alternative browser that I use, but even it gets bamboozled by some sites sometimes. I’ve heard time and time again that the N800’s browser is about as close as you can get to a desktop browser experience on a mobile device. Granted, the N800 is bigger than my phone, and I can’t even use it as a phone, so I’d have to carry it along with my MDA. But hey, that’s what purses or other bags are for. 🙂 I could get the N800 and buy a smaller phone as an option (an expensive option, but an option, nonetheless), if I don’t like the extra bulk of both devices together.
The fact that the N800 has cool bonuses like built-in RSS support and good media playback capabilities is icing on the cake. I have still been searching for my perfect mobile RSS/web device, and it seems like the N800 is a good candidate. It runs some version of Linux, which means that its functionality can be extended with 3rd-party apps. And now Kevin has mentioned some podcatcher apps for the N800 (none of which seem like the perfect app to me, but some seem promising), which has piqued my curiosity more. Despite having the potential to download podcasts directly to the device, I know that for me, it will not beat a dedicated device like an iPod or the Clix 2. Dedicated hardware playback buttons are a must, and it has to be easy to control in the car, which I’ve heard is not the case for the N800. But I am mainly interested in the N800’s web functionality more, anyway.
Hmmmm. I would really love to pick up the N800 straightaway, but with all of the other gear I’ve spent on lately (not just gadgets, but camera gear and film, too!), I must reign myself in for now. But if anyone’s got a spare N800 they could lend me for a couple weeks or so, I’d love to do a review. 🙂
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iRiver Clix 2 – Unboxing Gallery
Hey, Kids!
I got my iRiver Clix 2 in the mail today and took a bunch of unboxing pics for you. Check them out at Flickr. Here’s a preview:
I haven’t had much chance to play with it, other than turn it on and explore the menus and the pre-loaded content. My very, very, very first impression is that I really like this device. It’s small and sleek, but the screen looks huge, since it takes up the majority of the front of the Clix 2. The Clix navigation is very intuitive and responsive. It has a lot of “personality” from the user-configurable wallpapers, themes, and fonts. The AMOLED screen is bright and sharp. The pre-loaded videos look pretty good from a quick glance. I know I’m sounding fangirl-ish already, even though I haven’t even really gotten into the nitty-gritty with the player yet!
At first glance, I think that this player is a worthy competitor to the iPod nano. It trumps the nano in many ways — screen size, personalization of the player with wallpapers and themes, video support, and FM radio (though I couldn’t care less about this feature) built-in. There’s an on-board mic for voice recording, and you can record FM radio (IIRC). A memory card slot for expansion would have been nice, but since my iPod nano is 4GB, this is an even comparison. An 8GB version of the Clix 2 is supposedly due in June. I couldn’t wait that long. 😛 This is a well-done device from iRiver, and I look forward to using it as my “daily driver” for a while to see how it compares to my iPod for routine use, mainly for podcasts.
I’ll be very interested to see how easily I can get content onto the device, considering this has been the downfall of many mp3 players for me (*ahemToshibaGigabeatS*). As always, my best judge of a device is how well it fits into my daily routine. If I have to change my routine greatly just to accommodate a device, it’s likely a no-go for me.
Let me know what questions you have, and I’ll try to address it during my testing.
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Late to the Party 