Sounds kind of interesting. I doubt I would make the change from an Ipod though.
How do you dislodge Apple's mighty iPod music player, and its popular iTunes music service, from their total dominance in the digital-music market? Numerous hardware companies and music services -- most backed by Apple's historic rival, Microsoft -- have tried, and failed, with all sorts of approaches.
Some contenders were cheaper. Others had built-in features the iPod lacked, like FM radios. Some had more capacity, or greater battery life. Others relied on monthly subscriptions instead of per-song fees. But the public has mainly yawned, and none of these approaches has gained any traction.
Today, a small New York City company called MusicGremlin Inc. is rolling out a fresh approach to denting the iPod hegemony: the wireless music player. Its new $299 Gremlin portable player has built-in Wi-Fi wireless networking, so it can download songs from an accompanying subscription service directly, without requiring the use of a personal computer.
Not only that, but Gremlin users can wirelessly exchange entire songs right from their players, legally, as long as both the sender and receiver are subscribers to the MusicGremlin Direct service, which costs $14.99 a month. This process, called "beaming," allows you to share songs with your Gremlin-toting pals, no matter where they are, without ever using a computer or a CD burner. You can even peer into other users' Gremlins to see what they're playing and what they've downloaded, and pluck any song you like from their devices, if they give you permission.
The Gremlin is available today at Amazon.com, and the company's own Web site, musicgremlin.com. While it doesn't require a computer, the Gremlin can synchronize with a PC, but this only works with Windows machines. Its Web site requires Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser and Windows Media Player for full functionality. The subscription service, which is optional, is free for the first month and offers unlimited downloads from a catalog of two million songs, about the same size as Apple Computer's catalog.
