[SpaceMonkey]

http://www.dm-holdings.com/eng/media.../20050826.html

Another iPod casualty?

[OSX Abuser]

Ah, my first mp3 player, a nice little flash based player.

[KeriVit]

Oh well, such is life.

[TailsToo]

Bah - no one even noticed that they were gone! Apple got more press about their 9/7 event.

[rickey939]

Damn, and here I thought the Kia Rio was being retired.

[Scandalous Ion Cannon]

Oh well, don't think it had much to do with Apple but bye bye none the less.

[Salty]

Apple should buy them

[Scandalous Ion Cannon]

Originally Posted by Salty

Apple should buy them

Is that a joke or what?

[JoshuaZ]

No big loss in my book.

[Salty]

Originally Posted by Scandalous Ion Cannon

Is that a joke or what?

Well, its' better than some other competitor buying it and potentially doing a good job.

[moonmonkey]

Originally Posted by Salty

Well, its' better than some other competitor buying it and potentially doing a good job.

Its been sold more times than a rusty Ford Escort, and no one has managed to make any money out of it. One thing Apple could do is buy it, continue making the same machines and developing new technology and the Rio brand in parallel but modify them to work with iTunes only. Having two competitors in one market makes sense (especially as it would drive Quicktime/iTunes adoption), but Apple are unlikely to do it.

[ghporter]

I still have a couple of Rio 300s that I actually use--until my 60GB iPod shows up later this week, anyway. Nice little boxes with an unfortunate propensity to dislodge the battery (and shut down) if you flexed the case wrong. And they are limited to a total of 64MB (32 built in and a max of a 32MB card). Not bad for a first attempt.

I have to agree that they were a victim of the iPod, but all of the flash-based players are suffering from the expansion of the hard-drive-based players on the market. Why pay $100 for a 128MB flash player when you can pay that much for Apple's iPod Shuffle and get 512MB? Or pay twice that much and get a 4GB hard drive-based iPod Mini? It's the whole "bang for the buck" issue, and tiny hard drives are making flash devices less relevant.

[Krypton]

My first mp3 player was a Rio 600, and I liked it a lot (minus the fact that one of the buttons didn't work all that well).

Rio made some good stuff, it's just a pity they've been dissolved just before they were about to release some new gear.

[Scandalous Ion Cannon]

Originally Posted by Salty

Well, its' better than some other competitor buying it and potentially doing a good job.

What technology did they have that Apple would want?

[ink]

Originally Posted by Scandalous Ion Cannon

What technology did they have that Apple would want?

A flash-based player with a screen, a real battery and an FM tuner?

[Scandalous Ion Cannon]

Originally Posted by ink

A flash-based player with a screen, a real battery and an FM tuner?

Oh right that is something they can't figure out on their own and would need to pay millions for another company to get

[ink]

Originally Posted by Scandalous Ion Cannon

Oh right that is something they can't figure out on their own and would need to pay millions for another company to get

Well, they should do it already then. :-)

[juanvaldes]

my Rio 500 is still kicking.
64 whole megs baby! Almost ONE album