In 2010, Cowon was ranked number one in the PMP category of Japanese Management Association Consultants’ Global Customer Satisfaction Competency Index, and in 2011, it was ranked number one in the same organization’s Global & Great Brand Competency Index.[4][5]
In the west, Cowon is most well known for its iAUDIO range of portable media players, which has resulted in many people incorrectly referring to the company as “Cowon iAUDIO” or simply “iAUDIO.” Outside the domestic market, Cowon iAUDIO's sales and market share have always been minuscule - however, it gained a certain niche market and retains a loyal following from fans and enthusiasts.[6][7]
In its marketing, Cowon distinguishes between "MP3 players" and "portable media players," where the latter are larger and have a greater focus on video playback. The categories differ slightly between the Korean and the global homepage.
All Cowon products are produced domestically in South Korea.
Each Cowon player is equipped with a set of software sound enhancement technologies collectively referred to as JetEffect. The latest version of JetEffect, JetEffect 5, was introduced with the release of the Cowon Z2 Plenue.
JetEffect competes with products such as Sony's DSEE, Samsung's DNSe, and the SRS technologies found in products by iriver and Samsung and in products by HTC and HP, where they are branded as "Beats Audio".
Features
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In its latest iteration, JetEffect contains the following sound effects and enhancements:
JetVideo, video player application for Microsoft Windows with features which partially overlap with those of JetAudio. Like JetAudio, it relies on external codecs (such as those included in the K-Lite Codec Pack) for some of its data decoding.
Android apps
JetAudio for Android
JetVD
JetVD is an Android application for downloading videos from YouTube in a wide selection of formats. It was first introduced to users of the Cowon D3 Plenue with the upgrade to firmware version x.55. An online version of JetVD, called JetToy, exists in beta stage.
Other software
Other software developed by Cowon includes the iAUDIO LDB Manager, a small application for tagging music files with timecoded lyrics displayable on Cowon media players as well as in JetAudio.
Cowon also offers a number of freeware utilities, including JetCast, JetMailMonitor and JetToolBar. All of the above are available for free download from the JetAudio website.[8]
Cowon’s ultra-mobile PCs W2 and W2 SSD come with JetToolbar pre-installed.[9]