Sunday, October 26, 2003, 01:15 pm

Apple's iPod and Latest Beta of Samsung's Napster Player, Compared

By < a href="mailto:general@appleinsider.com">Katie Marsal

Matthew Fordahl, of the San Mateo County Times, has written an article comparing Apple's iPod to the latest pre-released version of Napster's digital media player and accompanying software.

Entitled "Samsung's Napster-branded player offers more than iPod", the article praises Samsung's line-in jack and FM antenna features, but notes that navigation via the player's embedded software is much more complicated than the iPod's.

Version 2.0 of Napster's music software is due to go public on October 29th, but reportedly still retains bugs.

"I tried loading nearly 1,700 songs of varying lengths in the MP3 and Windows Media Audio formats. With USB 2.0, songs transferred very quickly. But when I switched my computer screen to a view that showed transfer status, the program froze after several hundred songs. The problem occurred repeatedly."