CEA, the Consumer Electronics Association, is putting together a group to consider establishing industry standards for portable devices ranging from MP3 players to GPS units. The group will be leading a discussion at the CEA Industry Forum in October.
The primary purpose of such standards would be to ensure products from cars to home stereos could be have support for a variety of devices without the manufacturer needing to work individually with vendors of different gadgets.
Brian Markwalter, CEA vice president, Technology and Standards said "In many cases consumers would like to attach these devices to other CE products to enhance their experiences. CEA wants to explore whether industry technical standards might enable more robust connectivity between portable devices and other products, and whether such connectivity might help to grow consumers' interest in such products."
One potential problem for such a plan would be the dominance of the Portable Media Player (PMP) market by Apple's iPod. Apple has traditionally resisted the idea of using any standards besides their own, which enables them more control over third party support for their hardware. As the industry leader they're not likely to see open standards as an advantage.
Of course it's also possible this would either help their competition, as Apple loses sales to devices that work and play better with other products.
Perhaps the biggest question at this point is why it has taken so long to think about this issue. Most people who own the sort of devices they're talking about can tell you how frustrating it is to see the potential of their PMP or GPS neutered by a lack of support in products that seem like a natural fit.
Brian Markwalter, CEA vice president, Technology and Standards said "In many cases consumers would like to attach these devices to other CE products to enhance their experiences. CEA wants to explore whether industry technical standards might enable more robust connectivity between portable devices and other products, and whether such connectivity might help to grow consumers' interest in such products."
One potential problem for such a plan would be the dominance of the Portable Media Player (PMP) market by Apple's iPod. Apple has traditionally resisted the idea of using any standards besides their own, which enables them more control over third party support for their hardware. As the industry leader they're not likely to see open standards as an advantage.
Of course it's also possible this would either help their competition, as Apple loses sales to devices that work and play better with other products.
Perhaps the biggest question at this point is why it has taken so long to think about this issue. Most people who own the sort of devices they're talking about can tell you how frustrating it is to see the potential of their PMP or GPS neutered by a lack of support in products that seem like a natural fit.
