Rumors of iriver's demise (likely greatly exaggerated)

[pinokio]

http://english.chosun.com/w21data/ht...605230009.html

[jeff]

Nothing new there... it's not over...

[pinokio]

well by saying over =over for HD players, its just sad.

[Nork]

i'm glad i got mine.

[pachinkoman]

ehhhhh, yawn....

[gorcorps]

Numbers mean nothing... american idol has had the highest ratings of any program ever, but that doesn't mean it's good by any standard and it also doesn't mean the other shows are just going to die off.

[Anansi]

acording to this Iriver will no longer be focusing on the digital musica player market is this official is all hope for a worthy replacement for my mugged h-140 lost?)...
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/9662/

I know this sounds like fanboy talk (well mainly because it is), but how about emailing an ultimatum/special order to iriver, for something with at least all the features of the h-1xx series (particularly the optical I/O ) and the h-3xx screen and usb on the go, hell I could even just be a h-1xx with an 80g hardrive and a usb on the go chipet I would still buy it...
let the go out with a bang, if they lived up to the the terms of the ultimatum/order I would gladdly sign a contract saying I would purchase it (if they specified a price range first), and even try to influence as many purchase decisions of all the people I know in their favour if they included support for an aftermarket usb dongle wireless adapter.

Let them go out with a bang, would any of you be willing to place this kind of offer to them?

[doomlordis]

I find this very fishy! Just when Iriver release the Clix (there best product ever) tech channels start doing reports on Reigncoms earnings and declaring that they are finished in the dap market. I still cant find any announcement from Reigncom just commentry from tech hacks.
I wonder if this fire is being fueled by someone else.......

[marktate9z9]

Are you serious? ABout your idea, that is.

[caramelsoul]

Of course, stating that the clix is their best product yet is definitely your opinion. I would say there would be far more votes for the H1x0 or H3x0.

[BBD]

That article is just already-known-info repackaged/regurgitated by a MacFanboi "site" as new stuff.

As to your idea, why would you want to buy a high-end product knowing it would be obsolete before it hit the end of the production line? If iRiver doesn't wanna be in the HDD DAP game and concentrate on goofy lookin' toys, I say let 'em. Many on this site have long suggested what iRiver coulda done to truly compete with (cr)Apple: make a slimmed down H100-style DAP with an H300-style color screen (combined with USBOTG, of course), the easily replaced battery of the H10, the still-available Sigmatel chipset and you would have quite possibly the perfect DAP. iRiver dinna listen--iRiver has failed in the HDD DAP world.

BBD

[Nork]

your idea's kinda out there, and BBD's right. it's been suggested - there's been tons of topics about an iHP-580 or some super DAP that combines all our favourite features from their HD player lines.

it's kinda sad that reigncom (iriver) had decided to leave the HD player market, cause they started out well (i'm sad that i can't get an iHP player...stupid lack of money) and went downhill. they had potential.

but if they want to get out, let'em. it's their marketing. there are other companies that are coming out with really nice players that, while aren't replacements, are close.

i'll always love my iRiver, and i'll keep it alive as long as i can (i love the swap-out possibilities of my 320).

[Nork]

i'd vote both H1xx and the H3xx - different features. i've not used the clix, or seen a U10, so, my opinion is biased. it would be interesting to see what iRiver says about all this.

[caramelsoul]

But it is sad though.....

[Febs]

Related threads merged.

[BBD]

Well done as usual, Febs (dig the title, too).

In case it wasn't clear, I think it's sad as well. However, there's always hope that these gimmicky toys (BTW, the Clix and the U10 are great little DAPs, not mere toys like the others) will appeal more to the Asian markets, returning Reigncom to greater profitability, thus making it possible they'll return to the high-end DAP market. If not--oh, well. As Nork said, there's lots of other manufacturers.

BBD

[pinokio]

Well I am not sure is it possible or not but could another big company(best friend of iriver like microsoft) buy out all h100 or h300 series? I know its sounds crazy but remember once Microsoft said they are working on ipod killer.Who knows like microsoft dap will look like.

Ohh i forgot Microsoft for DRM,MTP MTP <> hXXX

[DukeZed]

"At the end of last year, however, just a year and a half since it started competing with Apple in the Flash MP3 player market, some 300 or about half of its staff quit the company." - I wonder how many development and coding staff that included who had worked on the H1x0 and H3x0. Well if this is true I hope someone picks up the baton, perhaps with the Sigmatel chipset or maybe that iriver gets huge success eventually with its wibro gaming, enough to let it financially enter the hd player market again.

[Anansi]

with the established sucess of the nintendo ds in asia and the upcoming release of the lite version in europe (smaller, lighter ) and its entrenched market you can pretty much bet wibro is going to go the way of the gpx32 at best, if they get it right, a nice toys for devs but no good for mass market, most likely it just won't fly, therefore no way to get a decent hd player anymore...
Btw any takers on the idea of a mass custom order, I'm not sure how many people are on this site, but I guess if the specs we demand are reasonable and the price iriver proposes for such a device is equally reasonable , it could be a major pr stunt for them, (I assuming of course there are enough people on this site to justify something like and special editon h-xx series custom job (like I said I would be glad with a h-1xx proper upgrade (maybe just a tad slimmer ) if they ofered the proper price, and maybe they would play ball since it probably would't involve much redesign, just a "special edition" run... (what do you think (ps: and I say h-1xx series because of the optical connections and because it should reasonably easy,therefore realistic to ask ) altough I would of course love to see more features, what do you people think ? )

(and I mean seriously would you e-mail iriver with this kind of proposal if we could agree on a set of specs debated here ? )
(btw, how many users would you recon we could rally up misticjeff? )

[DukeZed]

Then again wibro is established in S.Korea isn't it? Plus there are a lot of mmorpg/online gaming fanatics there, so who knows perhaps it could be "like a DS but tailored more to the particular gaming tastes of the Korean gamer"? I hope they get the success they want with it though.

[Step666]

My personal take on it:

• The first link shows a page writen by someone who hasn't got a clue, they talk about 'the iRiver' as if it were a single product, not an entire brand.
  
  
• As for the second link, the day I believe anything written on a Mac fanboy site is not yet nigh - these are sites written by people who half the time don't know anything about the Apple products they write about, let alone any other companies.
  Also, anything as arrogantly written as that Mac site should generally be ignored - even if they happen to come out with the truth for once.

If it is true that iRiver are giving up completely on the HDD DAP market (and, given their recent releases, it's not all that much of a shock) then that's unfortunate.
But, that's a long way off of iRiver dissappearing altogether - as we know they're focusing a lot of flash players and PMP-style devices - which the Apple fanboys seem to rather conveniently ignore.

[The Laughing Man]

There's a lot of contradictory info about this. Difficult to know what to believe, but I saw this on a French website (http://www.generationmp3.com/index.p...lement-leponge) today. It's apparently an official press release... but you never know. Here it is anyway :

Eschborn, May 29, 2006 – iriver Europe GmbH, the European head office of iriver, leading innovator in digital entertainment, announced today to restructure the European organization. In this exercise, the number of coworkers will be reduced.
“The present European acting organization cannot be maintained in this size for the future,“ says Nina Han, acting Managing Director in Eschborn (Germany). “We must adapt the organization to the market conditions.“
These steps are essential according to Han to ensure a “cost effective” organization.
Han says: “The restructuring must happen in order to set the organization on a healthy basis and prepare the European headquarters for the upcoming line-up. The measures should be finalized by July.”

So I suppose this supports previous rumours and statements about the changes at iRiv