[jackowayed]

But the N1 isn't even a very good substitute.

Although people who buy iTouches love all the apps and the ability to browse the web whenever they have WiFi, in the end, they're buying an mp3 player. They're buying it so that they can listen to music.

Not only is the N1 much more expensive, but it also has a much worse music-playing interface. Until someone fixes the Android music player or writes their own (luckily, an app can have all the privileges that the core apps have, so anyone could just write the Awesome Music Player app and put it in the market), the demand for a good Android iTouch competitor won't be there.

But I do think that getting an iTouch-like Android device out there is important. There are only so many people who are willing to pay $30/month for Internet on their phone, but pretty much everyone is willing to pay $200-$300 for a nice mp3 player with no recurring cost. And it's important to get as many Android devices out there as possible so that consumers believe that it's a good option (in many people's minds, popular == good) and app developers see more incentive to write good apps.

[watmough]

You wrote: Although people who buy iTouches love all the apps and the ability to browse the web whenever they have WiFi, in the end, they're buying an mp3 player. They're buying it so that they can listen to music.

I'm not sure you're correct. I have a simless old iPhone, equivalent to an iPod Touch, and it runs apps exclusively. It has barely been used for playing music.

In fact, the beauty of apps means the hardwares purpose is completely malleable. In my case, it is primarily a mini-Bloomberg reader and alarm clock.

[catch23]

You and others on HN are probably not the target for the iPod Touch. Just spend some time with my sister and her friends and you'll quickly see that a bunch of them have iPod Touches and most of them are just used for playing music (with a few games here and there)

My sister also has an iPhone, but she's not really tech savvy enough to download apps and actually use them. She's downloaded a few apps, but most of the time she just uses her iPhone as .... a phone.

[armandososa]

    Although people who buy iTouches love all the apps and the ability to browse the web whenever they have WiFi, in the end, they're buying an mp3 player. They're buying it so that they can listen to music.

I don't think you are right.

The touch music player interface is good, but not as good as my old 40GB iPod Video. Man, it has been almost two years now and I still miss the clickwheel.

I got my iPod touch because of the large screen, the wi-fi and the apps. I don't even hear as much music as I've used to because I really hate unblocking the screen to skip songs and change volume.

Clickwheel, I miss you.

[ZitchDog]

The headphones on my iPod touch give me the ability to skip forward/backward and change volume.

[nathanieljones]

Double-tab the home button to bring up music controls without unlocking your touch.

[portman]

>> Although people who buy iTouches love all the apps and the ability to browse the web whenever they have WiFi, in the end, they're buying an mp3 player. They're buying it so that they can listen to music.

Our family has three iPod touches with no music on ANY of them. If you speak to families with young children, you'll find there are millions of iPod Touches out there being used as game/app/video platforms.

[buro9]

> Not only is the N1 much more expensive, but it also has a much worse music-playing interface. Until someone fixes the Android music player or writes their own (luckily, an app can have all the privileges that the core apps have, so anyone could just write the Awesome Music Player app and put it in the market)

I really want someone to fix this. Android needs a WinAmp type thing to play and catalogue any music.

The built-in player I've abandoned as it doesn't support FLAC.

I'm using andless ( http://code.google.com/p/andless/ ) which supports FLAC and is probably the cleanest interface. But it lacks a bit of polish (smooth transitions between screens, a tactile feel).

It also lacks album artwork read from meta-data and stuff like that. And it stutters occasionally on playback.

I really don't know about music file formats but just because I want a decent music player once I have some time I'm going to see if I can find any open source libraries elsewhere that I can plug in to see whether I can figure out how to fill these shortcomings.

Justin Frankel if you're reading this... we all know you could do this in a week or two and improve our lives in the same way WinAmp originally transformed the music experience on Windows.

[edit]OK, So I just realised I should do something about this, so I've just asked JF if he'd consider it: http://www.askjf.com/index.php?q=662s and I'm going to grab the Android SDK and work out just how inept I am at this. I guess the andless code is a good place to start.[/edit]

[billjings]

I know of a fair number of people buying iTouches for their kids exclusively to play games - to keep them off their iPhones, basically.

[CrazedGeek]

Might I ask why you think the Android Music app is bad? From what I can tell, it's nearly identical to the iPod app on iP* (it's more awkward getting back to your library from the Now Playing screen, but that's all).

[jackowayed]

The interface just isn't as nice overall. It gets the job done, but it's not as intuitive or pretty as the iPhone's player.

Also, the vast majority of people have their music in iTunes. The fact that they can't just plug in the device and tell iTunes to sync might be a turnoff

[eavc]

The vast majority?

[jackowayed]

Seems like it. I'd guess that it's ~90% of mp3 player customers in the US, but maybe I see a biased sample.

[earl]

anecdote: friends and family have spent at least 20 thousand dollars on music in itunes. The people who even know alternatives exist are only tech people and they don't spend much money on music.

[barrkel]

My iPod touch is most often used as a remote control for media player classic on my PC. I still use my nano for music though. Click wheel is much more usable and device is much smaller and lighter.