Is Neil Young's Pono Music Player Poised to Challenge Apple?
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(Image source: CBS)
BY CHRISTIAN BRYANT
Rocker Neil Young plans to square-up with Apple after announcing his new Pono music player and music service. Young debuted the new triangular prism-shaped player on the Late Show with David Letterman.
“I think I got it right here. There it is...”
“This is a prototype that’s working... It looks like, feels like... it feels good in your hand doesn’t it?”
Pono, which means “righteousness” in Hawaiian, will roll-out a line of devices that promise to improve the sound quality of portable music. As SlashGear reports...
“[Pono] isn’t just a single media player but an ecosystem of a download store, the PMPs to play those purchases, and a special digital-to-analog conversion technology which promises studio-quality audio.”
Young’s Pono music service aims to tackle MP3s, a format that, according to bassist Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers, just sucks. As Rolling Stone magazine reports, Young already has support from recognizable names in music.
"Pono's preservation of the fuller, analog sound already has the ear of the Big Three record labels: Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group and Sony Music. WMG – home to artists including Muse, the Black Keys, Common and Jill Scott – has converted its library of 8,000 album titles to high-resolution, 192kHz/24-bit sound."
Young insists this isn’t a music pageant between himself and Apple. The title of his new book, Waging Heavy Peace, is a response to the question as to whether or not his declaring war on Apple. As College News reports...
“Young says he repeatedly contacted the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs in an effort to share the high-resolution music technology with the company, but Apple has not yet commented on the exchange.”
But there are more critical questions of the device, one of which being: Who’s going to buy it?
My Morning Jacket frontman Jim James was quoted saying:
“Neil’s premise is cool, and I think it’s exciting as a traveling musician... I think that’s somewhere that he has to be careful: I’ve already bought Aretha Franklin’s ‘Respect’ a lot of times. Do I have to buy it again?”
Either way, the Pono music service and music player is slated to hit shelves sometime next year.
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