Sony does too many absolutely senseless things!

[MDX-400]

Out of all the manufacturers I can think of I have to say Sony does the most senseless things possible. Honestly I have no idea what they are thinking when they choose to do things. But the worst part about it is that you think about it as a regular person and it makes absolutely no sense. If Sony were a person, they'd be a real idiot, LOL.

There have to be MANY examples of this with Sony but here's a few I can think of (not in any particular order just ones that come to mind first).

Sony Mobile Electronics

2005:

-Sony markets/promises a Walkman Controller in the UK for 2006 (and earlier) HUs, marking many as "Walkman Ready".

-Sony never releases said adapter/controller and this year instead releases iPod controller???

2006:

-Sony releases MEX-1GP "GigaPanel" Head Unit. Internal CD player plays CDs/MP3 CDs/ATRAC CD as usual. GigaPanel offers fixed memory of 1GB in the faceplate, not much over the already .8GB offered by a CD. Adding insult to injury the FP does not support MagicGate and therefore does not support ATRAC--you can play ATRAC CDs but not ATRAC files from the FP.

-Putting an MS Pro slot on the HU instead would obviously make too much sense for idiot Sony--they must have forgot they used it years earlier on the MEX-1HD...

(can't remember what year, perhaps around 2002?):

-Sony releases the DVX-100 10-disc DVD changer. This changer comes with it's own display panel and remote. Sony does not make the changer UniLink compatible.

-Sony then releases an obscure and not-well-heard-of adapter for the DVX-100 to use UniLink. Adapter costs over $100.

-At the same time Alpine made a similar mobile DVD changer with similar control panel. However Alpine's was also Ai-Net compatible right out of the box, no need to purchase a $100 adapter over the already high approx. $700 MSRPs both had when they were released.

-Sony also had several MP3 capable car CD changers (CDX-T70MX, etc.). These changers could connect to any UniLink HU but instead of making it simple and running the ID3 tag information through the same means as CD-Text information to the HU, HUs older than the 2000 model year will still operate the changers but will not display ID3 tags because Sony wanted to be stupid about it. Nevermind that they already produced two other UniLink devices (MagicGate Memory Stick Reader and XM Satellite tuner) that utilised MD changer mode and MD-Text. Why the same could not have been applied with ID3 tags and CD-Text remains a mystery.

Sony Portable Electronics:

-Sony offered a "joint-text" capability on some PCDPs which was compatible with some MD units. However only top-level MD units had the feature. Later they discontinued it quietly on PCDPs while some MD units still had it. To top it off it apparently works very poorly because, again, Sony is stupid.

-Sony offers MP3 ability on Hi-MD, but it's reportedly crippled and sounds terrible compared to ATRAC.

-Sony released the HD1 and HD3 which are incapable of having a remote connected and Line-Out mode engaged at the same time, this despite their plans to make a UniLink adapter that would have to use the same headphones/remote port.

-Sony puts a connector on the HD1 that enables it to sit nicely in its stand/dock--fair enough. Sony then continues to use this connector on the HD3 which has no dock at all and cannot fit in the HD1's dock, and Sony does not plan or produce any dock/stand accessories for the HD3. The port can do nothing electrically other than power input and USB. In case of loss or damage, the USB/Power adapter for the HD3 is sold by Sony for a whopping $55 US, when they could have just put USB and power ports on the device like they did with the HD5.

-HD1 released pretty much everywhere. HD3 and HD5 are released in the US (and likely everywhere else) but not in Canada. NW-A1000/A3000 are released everywhere in the world (including Canada) but the US? What exactly is the reasoning behind any of this? Do they just like to keep things random? What morons decide these things?

-VAIO Pocket... The remote port on the VAIO pocket is incompatible with Walkman remote ports. For what purpose exactly??? Yes I know they were made by two design teams/divisions, but this is just silly. Why rework an interface they already have? Does the VAIO Pocket's remote display more information that would be available on the more advanced Walkman remotes?

-Other devices. Some devices (particularly older ones) FORCED the user to use ATRAC while other ones didn't support ATRAC at all?

Sony Home Electronics:

-S-Link and Control A1-II. Very nice protocols for comminication and integration of components. Very poorly implemented. Many devices do not have connectivity or have limited connectivity (receivers with one but not the other). This is actually a huge and complex issue so I won't get into it, but needless to say they made something that was a very good idea into something that just went forgotten and unused because of their unwillingness to implement it well.

There are tons of other examples, feel free to add yours!

All of this kind of foolery leads me to think that the people at Sony have never used a Sony product before and therefore put no thought into what they design and therefore devices come out completely unintuitive in many cases.

[pata2001]

A very good insight. Yup, I think I've been discussing how stupid Sony is (especially Sony USA) in the T-board for many times. Just to add on:

-We know when MD and HDx got MP3 support. In contrast, Sony PCDP has MP3 playback first before Atrac. Same thing with Sony CD car decks. They've been supporting MP3 for like 2 or 3 generation, before Atrac support coming in last year.

-Sony has boomboxes and mini hifis supporting MP3, but not Atrac. AtracCD support first came into 2 boombox models. Now there is a mini hifi with AtracCD support. Still, no component home audio device supporting Atrac, even though there are plenty of Sony DVD players with MP3 support.

-Seamless/gapless for AtracCD. AtracCD PCDPs have this feature since 2004 lineup. Yet, none of the other AtracCD devices (boomboxes, CD car deck, mini hifi) have this feature.

-Sony USA intentionally disabling kanji display support on MD/PCDPs in the US, going as fas as modifying the firmware (eg. NE20). Sony is a Japanese company for god sake. It would probably cost them more to differentiate the units from the assembly line, than just use 1 unit. And it's not problem free either. Just take the RH10's alphabet bug, which does not exist on the Japanese units. How hard can it be to just use 1 firmware for all units in the assembly line? Isn't that the point of assembly line?

-PSP supports AAC, yet none of any other audio-related Sony devices do.

-iLink/firewire port on the PS2. It's so not usable that Sony got rid of it for the second revision of the console.

-Clie. Sony Clies are very good palmOS PDAs, and brought multimedia features that was unheard of for a palm. Sales were pretty good too, with great prices. Yet Sony pulled them out, and only made Clies for Japan.

-UMD. Sony wanted UMD to be a new standard media. It was accepted as a standard, but so far, we only have the PSP supporting it. What good a media that supposed to be standard if you can only use it on 1 device?

-Sony has plenty of bad rap in regards to being propietary. Betamx, MD, memory stick, Atrac, blu-ray, you name it. Yet, they're the first one who came up with a DVD burner supporting both +R and -R, while other companies like Plextor, Apple, or Dell only supporting 1 of the 2.

Sony's Sir Howard is right about Sony divisions not talking to each other. Also there are Sony music and Sony pictures, which seems only interested in inhibittiing progress in the name of profit (disguised as copyright protection). However, I don't see Sony doing anything better, with the connect fiasco and the Axxxx series. You just never know.

As for other manufactures. we don't have to look that far out. Just take Apple. They bashed x86 architecture in the past till no end, now they are using intel and brags how it is x times faster than their G4/G5.

Creative. Their flash-based MP3 players are all pure drag-n-drop UMS, yet their hard-drive based DAPs are not even mass storage compliant.

Panasonic. Japanese version of their PCDPs have line-outs, while the US version with the same exact model numbers don't. It would probably cost the more to make 2 different units from the assembly one then just simply use the same unit for both regions.

[EZero]

Sony is just handing their customers over to Apple and others. As much as I want to support Sony, getting an A608 is just too troublesome, so it looks like an iPod it is.

[RedemptioN419]

I don't know...

I still find it hard to convert to Apple. I still find my decision going to Sony mainly because their designs, concepts, and features just seem more in tune with me (maybe not you).