No new player out yet?

I wonder if Sandisk will release a new player tonight at midnight EST. Corporations often do things like that, releasing a new product exactly at the start of a new month. If they don’t release a new player by Wednesday, I will give up hope about seeing one soon, and start considering a player of another brand.

@jk98 wrote:

I wonder if Sandisk will release a new player tonight at midnight EST. Corporations often do things like that, releasing a new product exactly at the start of a new month. If they don’t release a new player by Wednesday, I will give up hope about seeing one soon , and start considering a player of another brand.

I already have.

Sept. and October also are prime months for the Fall season and, beyond that, the end-of-year holidays.

You would think if they were going to announce a player they’d want to do  it before the Apple refresh…which allegedly will be Sept. 12.

 

My suspicion is that they’re selling enough Clip+ and Clip Zip that they’ve decided not to bother doing anything else.  If anyone can prove me wrong, feel free to do so! 

I think you may be right.  But then again, things have been quiet recently . . . .

They’re just resting on their laurels after the resoundng success of the Fuze+.

@tapeworm wrote:

They’re just resting on their laurels after the resoundng success of the Fuze+.

 

 Has Sandisk decided to stop releasing new models of mp3 players, or will they suddenly surprise us with new models near the end of the year or sometime next year? If their new product is delayed, they should at least issue a press release about it, as without any news many might decide to give up waiting for something new from Sandisk, and buy a different brand of player instead.

Sadly, I believe we’ve seen the last new mp3 player from SanDisk. The entire industry is moving on, SanDisk included.

@tapeworm wrote:

Sadly, I believe we’ve seen the last new mp3 player from SanDisk. The entire industry is moving on, SanDisk included.

Personally, I have no reason to believe that; SanDisk is making a nice profit from its players (it’s still selling the Clip+, even), and many people don’t have or use a cellphone for music and other audio playback (size issues/sound and feature issues/battery issues, or just not using a cellphone).  Likewise, I don’t see digital cameras going away.  Just my personal opinion.  (And if I recall, that small Apple company still sells a bunch of varieties of audio players   :wink:   and as we know, Apple don’t do nothin’ without making a nifty profit.)

@miikerman wrote:


@tapeworm wrote:

Sadly, I believe we’ve seen the last new mp3 player from SanDisk. The entire industry is moving on, SanDisk included.


Personally, I have no reason to believe that; SanDisk is making a nice profit from its players (it’s still selling the Clip+, even), and many people don’t have or use a cellphone for music and other audio playback (size issues/sound and feature issues/battery issues, or just not using a cellphone).  Likewise, I don’t see digital cameras going away.  Just my personal opinion.  (And if I recall, that small Apple company still sells a bunch of varieties of audio players   :wink:   and as we know, Apple don’t do nothin’ without making a nifty profit.)

They also have about 90% of the DAP market locked up, so of course they make a nice profit.:wink: They haven’t updated the Classic in about  three years, IIRC, so  sales of that are pure profit now…and people still buy them because it’s the most cost-effective way to get that kind of capacity.(plus the cloud ■■■■■)

@miikerman wrote:

(And if I recall, that small Apple company still sells a bunch of varieties of audio players   :wink:   and as we know, Apple don’t do nothin’ without making a nifty profit.)

But how long has it been since even Apple launched a new player???

Of course, everyone will continue to sell current models. The tooling and factories are already set up for them. As long as they sell, they will continue to produce them. But more and more people are going to a multi-purpose device like a smart-phone, resulting in waning sales and demand of dedicated mp3 players. Nobody is going to the expense to R&D a new mp3 player and bring it to market.

No, in my opinion, the mp3 player ‘fad’ is dying a slow death. At least until some new technology breaks on the scene and maybe revitalizes it.

I’m not quite sure that Apple has to release a “new” player–how many new ways are necessary to do the same thing? Just continue improving the tech.–e.g., increased capacity, lower cost, maybe some new software. Of course, Apple releases new models often just to spur sales on (the iPod Nano model of the year club). It kind of feels to me like MP3, etc. players are now like cassette players of earlier: not a whole lot more that can or needs to be doing, apart from the above–the models/shells can often remain the same. But I just continue to believe that there will be a demand, especially for something as useful and, at times, graceful as the Clips–in their own right, much handier than a phone.

@miikerman wrote:
But I just continue to believe that there will be a demand, especially for something as useful and, at times, graceful as the Clips–in their own right, much handier than a phone.

I wholeheartedly agree that the dedicated mp3 player (and especially the Clip line) is a very useful music player, and I personally think that anytime you have a “Swiss army” style (or multi-purpose) device, while it may do a lot of things adequately, it cannot do any one thing exceptionally well. I don’t own, nor want a “smart-phone” but (and this is the part where I disagree with you) more and more people are getting them or the latest alternative, the tablets. Those are the ‘hot-ticket’ electronic items right now, pure & simple.

Companies like SanDisk, Samsung, Sony, etc. are going to bring to market what the majority of people are asking for (or think that they want), and I believe the tide is turning against the individual mp3 player.

Personally, I’d be thrilled to death if SanDisk merely upgraded the Clip+ or Zip to a larger internal memory to 16, 32, 64 or even 128GB while still maintaining the SD card slot. We’ve been told by SanDisk they have no plans to do this as sales figures indicate the biggest seller in the Clip line is the 4GB model. However, they brought the Fuze+ out in a 16GB version; heck even the ancient View was available is a 16GB model. So why not the Clip?

There’s no doubt there are still technological improvements that could still be made to the lowly mp3 player. The afore-mentioned memory size, stereo Bluetooth capabilities to eliminate headphone cords, wireless charging so your player wouldn’t be tied to a computer or charger, wireless downloading (for the same reason), more powerful batteries and more efficient processors for longer play-time, (right JK98?), HD radio, voice recognition and command, the list goes on & on. All this technology (or at least most of it) already exists. Yes, in some cases it’s going to mean higher prices but it seems SanDisk is compelled to fill a specific price niche and is afraid to venture into the higher-end (or higher priced) market. I think other companies feel their products are where they want them to be as well, so it’s very doubtful (at least in my mind) that we’ll see these improvements except in different devices, like phones or tablets.

It will be interesting to see what develops and what fades away in the next few years.

And now, more deep thoughts! :laughing:

Convergence of mp3 players and small tablets(5’ and less) would be good, as long as sound quality is good, the price can get low enough(under $75, and hopefully even under $50), and battery life can still be decent(over 30 hours and hopefully even much more). I don’t like the convergence of phones and mp3 players though, and have no intention to use a phone as a music player.

Still nothing yet. Will they release a player before Thanksgiving?

Nope. I’m pretty sure we’ve seen the last of (dedicated) mp3 players from SanDisk. They’re moving on to other projects.

@tapeworm wrote:

Nope. I’m pretty sure we’ve seen the last of (dedicated) mp3 players from SanDisk. They’re moving on to other projects.

Up next…the Sansa flip phone! :laughing:

@tapeworm wrote:

Nope. I’m pretty sure we’ve seen the last of (dedicated) mp3 players from SanDisk. They’re moving on to other projects.

I don’t know about that at all–I still see a vibrant market for small audio players, and SanDisk (hopefully) has made oodles from the Clips.  

But as to any other players this year, at this point?  Unlikely, and likely not–SanDisk seems to (wisely) announce new players for the latter part of the year in the August/September timeframe.