SURVEY: HD Radio preferred over iPods
Posted by Dr. Macenstein
According to a “huge� new study done by Mercury Radio Research, when given a choice between an iPod or a similarly priced HD radio, people “overwhelmingly chose� the HD radio.
This “giant� study (done by a company whose interests are best served by the radio industry performing well) polled 1000 people. The “overwhelming� results show 53% choosing an HD radio over the iPod overall, and 51% of people aged 18-34 preferring the HD radio. Of course, most people had to be told what HD radio is first.
From my generous use of quotation marks [thanks brupe!]apostrophes above, it may seem I am being a bit sarcastic in regards to these results (and I am). However, I actually DO think HD radio is a nice product and does have two advantages over the iPod, namely, new “free� content (once you buy the radio), and very nice sound. However, it is still commercial radio, and is not widely portable yet due to the fact that HD radios need a 500 MHz CPU to process the HD signals, thus making for a very short battery life.
Still, as both products continue to evolve, I would anticipate a merger of technologies down the road (albeit quite far down that road). Rumors of Apple talking to Sirius Satellite Radio head Mel Karmazin about iPod integration with their service never went anywhere, and to be honest, it would make much more sense for Apple to include an HD radio receiver in a future iPod than a satellite radio tuner.
An iPod capable of receiving HD broadcasts would conceivably be a satellite radio killer, and give a huge boost to the HD radio market. Not to mention that the high powered processor needed to decode HD radio signals would likely also be able to play some pretty high quality video on a new HD iPod.
Just throwing that out there.
That is awesome. That would so seal the iPod’s dominance. And I have never heard of HD radio before, either.
What people say on surveys and what actions they take are
often quite diverse.
I can choose my own music, thank you. An iPod for me.
Perhaps you mean quotation marks, not apostrophes. 🙂
Yeah, I call bull****. It totally ignores the fact that the survey respondents have to actually go out and buy such a device. Such hypothetical situations are nice but I don’t think they translate to reality as DMann says.
HD Radio may be good, no doubt, but I seriously think that the survey has a flaw in that it doesn’t compare like devices.
We are seeing mobile phones that can connect at WiFi hotspots to use VOIP. If we look a bit further, why can’t the iPod do the same to download podcasts or to receive streaming audio directly (or through an add-on) at the same hotspots. Ok, HD Radio would be real-time, but how important is that? Not to me, anyway.
And, the more uses these hotspot allow, the more hotspots will be offered. So HD radio might alread be dead before it started, especially since nobody seems to be familiair with it.
HD radio ipod… that would be killer .. I don’t even own an ipod, but that would definitely make me go out and get one.