Why I Won’t Use a Music Phone (Yet)
I’ve tried. I really have. I’ve tried my hardest to buy into the idea that my phone, that wonderful piece of converged technology in my pocket, can handle ALL of my digital needs. And for the most part, it has. Do I carry a digicam anymore? Naaa, my phone handles that well enough for my needs (since I’m not a pro photographer or anything). Does it get me on the net? Definitely. Do I use it for email? All the time. But the one thing it’s never been able to do well enough for me is music.
Now, I’m a music nut. I have 1000’s of songs in mp3 format, not to mention a ton of CD’s I’ve yet to convert over. My taste varies from Beethoven to Tupac, System of a Down to Willie Nelson. Music is an absolute integral part of my daily life, from the car to work, my tunes are important to me. So last year, seeing the potential that my smartphone had as a music player, I bought a 2GB card and gave my iPod to my wife (hers needed replacement in a bad way). I was all set to take that final step towards convergence, the last part of the digital puzzle in my pocket.
And it failed. Miserably. It’s not that it’s not possible for this to work, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that as much as I like tweaking my gadgets, and spending time playing with settings and whatnot, there reaches a certain point where it just needs to work, or it becomes a detriment rather than a benefit. So why did the S60 music experience fail me? Here are my reasons; whether these matter to you or not, they are deal-breakers for me:
1.) Ease of transfer. Say what you will about the iPod, and believe me
it has it’s critics, there’s one thing it’s always done well, and
that’s ease the transfer of music to it. Whether it’s iTunes on
Windows or Mac (a horrible product in many ways, don’t get me wrong),
or my personal favorite Amarok on Linux, syncing an iPod is about as
easy as it gets. With my phone, on the other hand, there were numerous
problems. First, on the Windows side of things, Nokia’s Music Manager
sucks. It really sucks. It really, REALLY sucks. It sucks so bad
that iTunes was starting to look good to me. Now, I’m not a native
Windows user except at work, so I gave it a try on my work computer.
It was slow. It was awkward. It was buggy. And in the end, it didn’t
work well enough to even qualify as useful. On my home computer I run
Linux, and things weren’t much better there. Sure, I could just drag
and drop straight to the memory card. But you know what? The Nokia
music app doesn’t like it when it has to find too many songs on the
memory card at once. It would miss songs, lock up, and cause more
reboots on my phone than I’ve ever seen with the usually stable S60.
Strike 1 for the phone/music paradigm.
2.) Sound Quality. Now, as much as I’m a music lover, I’m not a total
audiophile (not to the level of many on forums like HydrogenAudio, for
example). But I want my music to be clear and loud, without distortion,
or it’s not worth it. But every phone from Nokia I’ve tried this on
(N80, N93, N73, E61) has had anywhere from passable, to horrible audio
quality. My mp3’s are (quite deliberately), encoded at a fairly high
fidelity (usually 192kbps). But a song that would sound good on my
computer (when the sound card is working anyway, but that’s a separate
rant) or on an iPod, sound thin and distorted on my phone. Strike 2
for the phone/music paradigm.
3.) Capacity. I didn’t think this would bother me as much as it
would. I don’t need more than a few albums at a time to listen to, so
I figured 2GB, or 10 albums or so, would be enough for me. Wrong.
It’s not that I need more music than that on a day to day basis; rather
it’s that I wanted DIFFERENT music on a day to day basis. This mean
constantly re-syncing my phone ever couple days, to keep my music
collection fresh. In order for me to really feel that a phone could
handle my music needs, I’ve realized, I’d need at LEAST 4GB (if not 8
or 12GB) to last more than a week with fresh albums. (Granted, the N91
addresses this issue, but I’ve never had a chance to use one, and it
still doesn’t address the sync problems above). Even the iPod mini that
my wife had laying around gives me the occasional issue with this, and
it IS a full 4GB.
4.) Non-Standard Headphone Jack. Perhaps one of my single biggest
issues with the music phone selection so far. Nokia is working to
change this, as is Sony Ericsson from my understanding, but without a
standard 3.5mm jack, the phone-as-music-player becomes a real issue.
the Pop-Port interface is horrible, and the likelihood is if it’s in
your pocket on a day to day basis, the connection will become unstable,
and you’ll get music cutting in and out. This happened on my 6681, my
n80, and my e61 (though not on my n93 so far). The n95 has a 3.5mm
jack; the n91 does as well… hopefully we’ll see this become a
standard, since without it a music phone is barely worthy of being
called that.
In the end, I’m back on an iPod. But now, since I gave up my 30GB iPod
Video to my wife (thanks Nokia!), I’m stuck using a (pink!!!!) iPod
Mini. But even on this 3 year old iPod mini, I’m happier than I ever
was on my phone. I sync at home with Amarok on my Linux box. I bring
the iPod to work, where I have iTunes installed, and I can plug it in
and listen on my work computer. Syncing is easy (plug in iPod, press
sync) on any platform, and no longer am I worried about HOW my music
will get to my device, I’m simply off and enjoying it. Once again, I’m
listening to more music, rather than fighting with the technology. For
all it’s faults, where the iPod truly shines is simplicity.
Now, Nokia has announced the 5700, it’s next iteration of the S60
Smartphone/Musicphone design. It lacks the hard drive of the N91 (tsk
tsk Nokia!), but adds in A2DP (which I’m still skeptical of
quality-wise), and a "dedicated audio chip" (which we have very little
info about). These seem to be moves in the right direction, but there
is still a large need to be addressed here. Syncing of music needs to
improve, plain and simple, and capacity needs to improve as well. If
Nokia was aiming this as a compliment to a dedicated music device, then
it might suffice. If they were aiming it at simply the casual music
listener with a few tracks, it might suffice. But they’ve made it
clear that they want to seriously get into the music business (with the
purchase of LoudEye, as a glaring example). If that’s the case, then
the sync and capacity issues will need to be addressed, as well as
standardizing that headphone jack.
I’m not a huge fan of the iPhone. It has a ton of problematic features
as I see it. But in the end, if Nokia doesn’t get it’s act together,
it’s the iPhone that will be the first device to truly make the public
see phones as capable music players. Even as late to the game as it’s
coming, the fact that it has a hard drive, and the ease of use of
iTunes (and other software) to sync it up, will make the average Joe go
"oh, ok, I can have music on my phone". Wake up Nokia, you’ve got some
musical competition coming.
-olly
I have to disagree with you about iTunes. Apple’s solution to the program for Windows users was almost an insult. The player and all that comes with it is so damn demanding on RAM to the point where it’s near impossible to run other large programs at the same time (particularly on my recently coma-tized PC).
The other problem that I have, though not specific to iTunes, is that it is impossible for me to sync my whole collection, and I wouldn’t want to. I have over 90 gigs of music on my hard drive accumulated over years and years that just won’t fit on any player on the market. Even if one did come out, most of the music I have is so old that I wouldn’t want to listen to it anymore.
Instead of iTunes, I use MediaMonkey, though others will probably recommend something else. After you import your entire collection, it’s just two clicks to transferring any song or songs I want to any connected memory card or mp3 player. I really like MediaMonkey because you can add album art from amazon.com and other sites directly to the mp3 itself, rather that in a separate folder linked to that song. It works with my phone, my Zen, and my girlfriend’s iPod.
I do agree that the Nokia can’t replace the mp3 player yet though. Though I haven’t messed around with the mp3 player on my N95 yet (formerly not having ever used the new player on the Music Edition firmwares), I don’t think I want to give it a try. Battery life is already barely manageable, having it play music while I use the GPS and take calls over a Bluetooth headset in the car is just one more thing it doesn’t need to be doing.
Awesome post, by the way.
That was a pretty good post Olly.
Kinda ironic how you ended up praising Apple the most even though you referred to iTunes as “a horrible product in many ways, don’t get me wrong”!
iTunes has been around for almost 6 years now and remains the Premier Digital Jukebox/Media Managing Application that everyone compares themselves to but no one can match.
Here is part of a post I wrote on Howard Forums recently regarding the iPhone, Apple & Nokia:
“No offense Ricky but I’m willing to bet most (if not all) of us will eventually buy an iPhone sooner than you might be able to predict.
Mac OSX is such an Adaptable + Powerful Platform that it wouldn’t surprise me if Nokia tried to License it 2-3 years down the road if things really hit a dead end with the Symbian OS (they can’t ignore the U.S. market forever.)”
I use windows media player 11 for my music transfers to my N91 and its so easy, i just leave it to do its business.
It sounds like you havent used any of the S60 3rd edition handsets for you music. They have far better music functionality, even my business oriented E61 can let its hair down well.
Please don’t turn this into another “I may loathe apple but they are the best” discussion, because that just bogus. I wont explain why, a word to the wise is enough. Don’t stroke cultist ego.
The capacity issue, headphone jack and sound quality, i partly agree with. That said, they are improving and some of it is personal preference. One man’s meat is another man’s poison….to all his own.
The N91 is the best music phone in Europe, aesthetics aside. Not an MP3 player replacement, but very much good enough.
@Johnny: Believe me, iTunes is a piece of crap on Windows, I agree… it’s better on Mac, but still not that good, and they aren’t innovating it in any way really, other than the music store. My point was simply that transfer of music to an iPod is far easier than it is to a phone, plain and simple. I haven’t tried MediaMonkey, since I’m not a Windows user, so perhaps that addresses some of the sync issues.
@serkoart: I personally think the iPhone has a better chance than the Newton, but not by much. My only point in bringing it up was to say that the current iTunes/iPhone type setup will make it a lot easier for people to realize phone and music can mix. the iPhone has a whole slew of problems, ranging from a closed platform (making it a FEATUREPHONE not a SMARTPHONE) to untested real-world battery performance (which is always, always, always worse than any Apple research will find). I think your predictions about Nokia licensing OS X though are way in left field. IF Symbian as an OS failed, Linux would make a far better (and much cheaper) platform to move forward on.
@Bazza: This post is actually referring to all 3rd edition devices (except my 6681). N73, N80, N93, and E61 to be specific. I’ve tried all 4, and none can match the ease of a dedicated mp3 player.
Thanks for the comments!
-olly
Oh, and what I should have added to all that talk about iTunes, and to those that think iTunes is the best peice of software out there for music management: Amarok kills it, in every way, shape, and form. It’s a better player, has better support for multiple devices (including flawless iPod sync), has a context browser Apple can’t touch, direct links to lyrics and Wikipedia info on the artist playing, hot folders, etc.
Towards the end of the year, Amarok will be ported to Windows and OS X, and you will see what Music Management software should be, mark my words
-olly
I agree that music transfer is a pain when it comes to mac os and linux with s60 music phones like the n91 (i use drag and drop and create the playlists on the phone). Windows media player support, however, has improved.
But the main reason why I keep using the N91 is because I’m not sacrificing music quality by using the N91. Sure, I have to sync music a lot, but it saves me the trouble of carrying a phone and mp3 player in my pocket.
Good post. I have a 3250 and for the first 3-4 months used it as a music player for my daily car trips and so (not wanting to carry the iPod around). Music quality was good (not the best) and still good through my car speakers (was using a tape to connect the 3.5mm jack on the 3250 headphone to the car audio system… too complicated but it worked).
I have to agree with you that music sync is horrible, I tried the Nokia music manager a couple of times, then gave up and went back to just dragging the mp3s i wanted via File Manager on PC Suite to my memory card, then creating a full playlist on the go.
Still, back in November, I gave up on the mp3 playing capacities of my 3250 since I couldn’t find any way to sync it with iTunes and since I only have a 512MB mem card, which is eaten up by pics, vids, apps, games, documents,…
Now I’m back to using my 30GB video iPod with an iTrip (no tape, no wires) in my car, at the risk of forgetting my iPod somewhere…
In one word, Nokia doesn’t cut it out for me. They still have a LOT to do when it comes to music managing.
Xpress Music, isn’t that much Xpress
Oh and by the way, there seems to be a solution for sync’ing iTunes with Nokia s60 featured on www.s60tips.com
I have lost the full link, just look in the tutorials category (i think that’s how it was called)
I, for one, haven’t tried it (needed net framework to download, but i’m still on dial-up connection… blame the lebanese politics) but it seems to work. Good luck with it.
BTW I’m not trying to do a publicity for the blog (s60tips.com), the writer probably doesn’t know me
I agree for a large part with olly’s post. I bought a 6120 classic to replace my mp3 player, and apart from the sound quality I agree with the negative points mentioned in the article.
Another thing that bothers me is not related to the phone directly; None of the music players I have tried would continue playing music from the point when I closed down the player application. I find myself forced to pause the player and keep it running in the background to emulate this basic functionality that any dedicated mp3 player would support. But this could be solved with a future upgrade to the basic mp3 player software.
On the other hand, a dedicated mp3 player that is not connected to the outside world can never be a platform for such cool concepts as social player / mystrands and the like. These kind of concepts I find very exciting and I’m curious what the future will bring in this area. I don’t think that I’m ready to move back to using my old mp3 player yet