Aireo 2? WTF!
This is one of the stupidest things I have ever seen in my life.
Not TMO. They're good guys, my peeps, I love 'em all. It's the Men's Health Top 100 tech products list that has lodged a great wad of hair across my ass, because they named the Aireo 2 over the iPod as their favorite MP3 player.
The Aireo 2 from SoniqCast is indeed a neat piece of kit. It's a wonky looking hard drive-based MP3 player that features built-in Wi-Fi capability, so you don't need to connect it to a computer using a cable to synchronize your music.
That's terrific in theory. But in practice, Wi-Fi is a shitload slower than USB 2.0 or FireWire 400. It might be fine for occasional synching, but what happens the first time you try to load up your 20GB player? You'll be waiting hours. Hours.
There's another problem too, and this goes to the root of why I'm calling bullshit on this tech list: The Aireo 2 doesn't exist yet. Sure, reviewers have gotten them, but they're prototypes, not production models. In fact, SoniqCast has no plans to sell them itself; it wants to sell the design spec to other companies, who will in turn manufacture the product under their own brand names.
Oh, what's more, it's not available anywhere yet. SoniqCast claims the Aireo 2 will be in production by the end of the first half of 2005.
It's a bit like Motor Trend naming the friggin' Batmobile its Car of the Year.
Comments
I don't know...Men's Health has blown smoke up the iPod's rear-end, too. They touted the iPod Mini in their 2004 Fall Fashion Guide as an 'icon'. It's not like they don't LIKE the iPod, and haven't given it enough play. But there haven't been (official) announcements about cool updates to the iPod for 2005, and there have been about the Aireo. And Men's Health is all about what's cool, right? :-)
If Apple came out with an iPod that was everything it already is, but then also added Wi-Fi functionality, that would be pretty darned cool, and everyone would be oohing and ahhing. Visiting a friend and you don't have your dock/cable? Just grab a track or two. Or if you're using your iPod as a hard drive, to tote data around? No cables required!
"SoniqCast claims the Aireo 2 will be in production by the end of the first half of 2005.
"It's a bit like..."
...Apple saying that they're finally going to release Tiger. ;-)
Posted by: Kerri | December 8, 2004 10:37 AM
"...Apple saying that they're finally going to release Tiger. ;-)"
Yeah, but the difference is that no one is heaping accolades on Tiger yet.
Posted by: flargh | December 8, 2004 10:41 AM
I saw that one the other day. As I commented after the story, the main purpose of the WiFi connection seems to be to sell subscriptions to streaming audio content. Plus, while they don't say what platforms the Aireo 2 will connect to, the first one, out now, is only for Win2k and WinXP.
Posted by: Alphax | December 8, 2004 06:29 PM