Microsoft Zune MP3 Player Interface Revealed

bain writes to tell us that iLounge has put up details on the Zune, Microsoft's MP3 player. According to the article, "Zune is a bit bigger than a standard 30GB iPod, and apparently made entirely of plastic." Interestingly, Microsoft forgoes a touch-sensitive scrollwheel in favor of wheel-shaped buttons. Included are WiFi capabilities, an FM tuner, and (in stark contrast to the iPod) a white-on-black color scheme. The 30GB model is expected to sell for $300. This story selected and edited by LinuxWorld editor for the day Saied Pinto.

Comments

The one thing missing

[ackthpt]

The one thing missing for Microsoft, is panache. There's nothing hip or cool aboug having some music device from a giant corporation. Without that certain cachet of having something from a company which makes very stylish computers and operating systems and got U2 on board.

It could say Ronco on it for all the Microsoft connection will be good for. It'll sell to some who want to experiment beyond the bounds of iPodness, but with that plastic case and wheel-like buttons it says WalMart-chic all over it.

Of course, we can't discount the notion that Microsoft might further piss-off the EU and risk a severe look from US trustbusters, by bundling some shit into Windows Vista which only works with the Zune and means you have to have one to get those Zune-casts...

Smells like another waste of money from a company that just doesn't understand that they are only profitable at a few things and should stop this kind of nonsense. FFS, who are they trying to be, the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation?

Re:The one thing missing

[arodland]

There's nothing hip or cool aboug having some music device from a giant corporation.

Some day we'll teach the Apple folks this lesson.

Re:The one thing missing

[bi_boy]

There's nothing hip or cool about having some music device from a giant corporation.

You do realise what a trendy douchebag you made yourself sound like right?

Re:The one thing missing

[gad_zuki!]

>There's nothing hip or cool aboug having some music device from a giant corporation.

Because Apple is just a humble ma and pa shop down the road...

>it says WalMart-chic all over it.

Well, it should say "cheaper than an ipod" and "works with windows media player." It will also probably say "discounted when bundled with a new dell." You'd be surprised at the number of people whose first priority isnt "looking cool."

Frankly, the more competition the better in the mp3 player market, even if it is Redmond.

Re:The one thing missing

[AngryDill]

There's nothing hip or cool aboug having some music device from a giant corporation

I know, not having a "cool" image really killed their OS, application software, peripherals, and videogame markets.

Uh... wait a minute...

-a.d.-

Re:The one thing missing

[monoqlith]

I think he was more referring to the image of being a giant corporation.

But you're right, Apple has perpretrated a pretty impressive deception. In fact, it is the ultimate marketing coup : a multi-billion dollar company masquerading as a marginalized, under-appreciated underdog. It works quite well - how else to get the too-cool-for-school, indie, emo, anti-conformist crowd to buy their mass-media-oriented, incredibly trendy device? I'm starting to think all those years of stagnant sales, bad management, and being tethered to a virtually ignored platform are paying off. That's what fostered this image. It's a text-book case study on how to form a brand.

Moreover, this is a winning attitude that we see everywhere. After all, it's how people get elected, too. Make people think you are a little guy, fighting against a greater, unflagging, oppressive evil - even if you are the Man - and not only do they let their guard down, they're on your side almost immediately(witness: the bombastic "Star Wars" take-off the Republicans did at one of their conventions, framing the Democrats as the dark Imperial forces and themselves as the Rebel Alliance. Or the multi-millionaire cable executive Ned Lamont in the recent Democratic primary. )

They won't be able to keep up this facade forever. For almost a year now, everywhere I turn I see an iPod. Even though I myself own one, it's starting to make me resentful. Do people have to be entertained every minute of the day? How much of our life are we willing to spend on distractions?

Apple has to be weary of becoming disconnected - of pitching products *at* people rather than *to* people. Microsoft does the former, especially with Xbox and Zune. They are obviously grasping at markets they have no business being near. I think Apple is less evil, though - or maybe not, judging by the recent accounting scandal. Anyway, Apple doesn't want to go that route. Of course Jobs and his marketing department have mastered the art of the opposite - making people think that Apple furthers their individualism and self-expression, their person-hood. Apple's ads talk to you as people instead of as commodities. They've even gone so far as to anthropomorphize computers, as if to emphasize(or invent) the humanity sequestered in all this sterile circuitry. You're getting a friend, not just a tool. It's aesthetic genius - all geared towards delivering another channel for the mainstream recording industry to reach you with their over-produced crap. So I doubt Apple's music-player monopoly will go away unless some court or legislation tears down their partial vertical integration with ITMS.

Have they sold out? Is this something we want to preserve even if it is deceptive? Maybe. I have no problem with big corporations as long as they don't start unduly influencing our public policies. I do however like it when gigantic corporations see the importance of talking to their customers as if they were human beings and not wallets - or at least pretending to. Google does this. Apple does this. It's great - but we mustn't let our guard down. If it's not too late.

Re:The one thing missing

[snuf23]

"There's nothing hip or cool aboug having some music device from a giant corporation."

I guess you don't remember when having a Sony walkman was a big thing. Sony being a giant corporation.
It's all about how the brand is managed.

Re:The one thing missing

[cyber-vandal]

From the link: nothing they produce ever works properly or performs to expectations. So I guess they already are.

Re:The one thing missing

[arodland]

I agree with you pretty much 100%, and I actually saw the irony in the whole thing before I posted, but hey, it's slashdot. I decided to go with the flippant option :)

Re:The one thing missing

[Lars512]

You're spot on. Microsoft is THE WRONG BRAND for this type of product. The marketing is all off. What they should do is start some subsidiary company or the like, and create it from scratch with this type of panache, with heavy marketting if need be. That way you're not buying a Microsoft Zune, you're buying a Zune. If they do it well, then they can attack Apple's market share much better from this angle. If they were successful with a few products, who knows, they might actually get some mind share with people who care about design and style. Then they'd be talking!

Re:The one thing missing

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Apple is less evil, though - or maybe not, judging by the recent accounting scandal.

*rolls eyes*

Re:The one thing missing

[Dan! Dan! Dan!]

... Without that certain cachet of having something from a company which makes very stylish computers and operating systems and got U2 on board. ...

Personally I'd get the Zune just to avoid the U2-associatons.

Re:The one thing missing

[iusedtobecool]

Yea, because U2 are hip *and* cool

Re:The one thing missing

[7Prime]

Sure, but before Sony came out with the Walkman, they had positioned themselves as a hip, agile, youthful company. Their name was only starting to be common-place in the US, and everyone was willing to give them a shot. When they presented themselves in this light, noone had any reason not to believe them to be just that. By the time the discman came out, and the facade had fallen off to reveal a large corporation, their brand recognition was so huge that it propelled them forward.

This is VERY different. Microsoft's image is inexcapable. They've pulled a good race out of the console wars because: A) they signed good game contracts, B) the video game demographic is much closer to the computer elite demographic, where Microsoft already has substantial force. This is a totally new area, a completely different demographic, you're main target is going to be the centralized "in" crowd of teens, who even the "coolest" video games are lost to. A quick advertising campaign isn't going to turn this around, this kind of image takes years to build... and they haven't even started building it.

I have a hunch that this thing will not even make a very big dent in the non-iPod market. The non-iPod market owes much of it's success to possitioning itself as "underdog to the iPod"... that these are the ELITE gadgets that Apple doesn't want you to know about. Microsoft can't begin to claim that.

Re:The one thing missing

[7Prime]

Actually, they're even better... they're nostolgic, which is probably a much stronger image to have, to be a spokesman. When you're new, cool, and hip, the kiddies want to listen to your music, but they don't neccessarily trust you so well as a person. Once you "last" for a while, you gain their trust as someone will talent and class.

It also doesn't hurt to be named Time's "Man of the Year" shortly after being used as the spokesman, either.

Re:The one thing missing

[kahei]

The one thing missing for Microsoft, is panache. There's nothing hip or cool aboug having some music device from a giant corporation. Without that certain cachet of having something from a company which makes very stylish computers and operating systems and got U2 on board.


See, that _reads_ like a parody of a Mac user -- but it's serious, isn't it? I just remembered that there really are vast blocks of people who probably do stick on U2 in the evening quite regularly, and they probably aspire to being hip, cool and stylish with cachet and panache.

Smells like another waste of money from a company that just doesn't understand that they are only profitable at a few things and should stop this kind of nonsense.


The above, however, is unarguable truth :)

Re:The one thing missing

[IDontAgreeWithYou]

...but with that plastic case and wheel-like buttons it says WalMart-chic all over it.

Do you mean like this?

Re:The one thing missing

[kjart]

The one thing missing for Microsoft, is panache. There's nothing hip or cool aboug having some music device from a giant corporation. Without that certain cachet of having something from a company which makes very stylish computers and operating systems and got U2 on board.

That's one of the problems I sometimes have with Apple - the focus often seems to be more on the panache than on delivering the goods. Sure iPods are good mp3 players, but the last time I poked around at the offerings out there it seemed to me that many competitors were offering more features for less money. Call me old fashioned, but I don't need an mp3 player as a status symbol - I need it to play mp3's well. If the Zune does that the same/better than the iPod for less money than I see it as a completely viable option.

Also, on the topic of cool, doesn't the one who tries the hardest to be cool usually fail the most? That's kinda the impression I get with people showing off iPods nowadays.

Re:The one thing missing

[TheRaven64]

the last time I poked around at the offerings out there it seemed to me that many competitors were offering more features for less money. Call me old fashioned, but I don't need an mp3 player as a status symbol - I need it to play mp3's well

The thing Apple understands (or understood; I'm not so sure about the latest iPods) well is that these two are very different things. It doesn't matter if their competitors offer more features, because you only care about one; the ability to play music. I own a 3G iPod, and it plays music well. It also has some other features, but I never use them.

Every company that has tried to compete with the iPod by adding more features so far has failed. Why? Because people want to play music. If you add more features, you add more UI clutter. If you add more UI clutter, you make it harder to use. If you make it harder to use, then people are going to pick it up, decide it's clunky, and buy an iPod. Microsoft are the absolute worst offenders when it comes to featureitis. They will add a hundred 'features' that no one in their right mind will use, and make it possible to do practically anything they want on the Zune, except play music easily.

Re:The one thing missing

[gEvil (beta)]

Sure, Sony was a big company at the time. However, it's arguable that the Walkman is what helped make them the juggernaut they are today.

Re:The one thing missing

[kjart]

I don't necessarily disagree with you BUT that doesn't mean I feel good for paying more for less. I may want less (features, etc), but why should I have to pay more for that?

Microsoft are the absolute worst offenders when it comes to featureitis. They will add a hundred 'features' that no one in their right mind will use, and make it possible to do practically anything they want on the Zune, except play music easily.

True, but radio tuner? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think iPods still dont have that? That seems like a nobrainer and something all portable audio devies should have. Also, Microsoft may be notorious for featureitis, but Apple seems to be accessory mad. It's nice to pay more for an iPod and then have to shill out more for an accessory that does something that a competing player can do for less.

Re:The one thing missing

[Anonymous Coward]

How the hell did this fanboy tripe get moderated up?

Re:The one thing missing

[jalefkowit]

There's nothing hip or cool aboug having some music device from a giant corporation.

So right! Thank god Apple is a worker-owned co-op building computers out of hemp on an organic farm and not a giant corporation that uses Chinese slave labor to build iPods... that would be totally uncool.

Re:The one thing missing

[lowrydr310]

I do however like it when gigantic corporations see the importance of talking to their customers as if they were human beings and not wallets - or at least pretending to. Google does this. Apple does this.

How exactly do they do this? Google sells ads and makes a ton of cash, and they don't try to hide that fact. Apple sells expensive computers and expensive MP3 players, making a ton of cash. With regards to treating customers like humans and not wallets, how is Apple and Google any different than Yahoo, Microsoft, or any other big corporation? They're publicly traded companies, and profit is their main concern.

Re:The one thing missing

[TheRaven64]

I may want less (features, etc), but why should I have to pay more for that?

You aren't paying more for fewer features. You are paying more for one feature done well. Whether this is actually the case with iPods is subjective, so I won't try to argue it here.

As to whether you are actually paying more, I just went to both the Apple and Creative stores. The top MP3 player on Creative's list was the Zen Vision:M (I'm not familiar with Creative's line up, so correct me if this is not a sensible one for comparison), and I tried comparing this to an iPod. It has a 30GB hard drive and the same sized screen as the full sized iPods, so this seems reasonable. The Zen is $299.99, while the iPod is $299. Apple includes shipping, I don't know if Creative does. For the sake of argument, I will assume they do. Some brief comparisons:

1. The Zen supports WMA.
2. The iPod supports AAC, AIFF, Audible, Apple Lossless.
3. Both support WAV and MP3.
4. The Zen supports WMV9.
5. The iPod supports H.264.
6. Both support MPEG-4.
7. The Zen has a 14 hour battery life, assuming playback of 64Kb/s WMA (does anyone encode at this low a bitrate?)
8. The iPod has a 14 hour battery life, assuming playback of 128Kb/s AAC.
9. The Zen has a battery life of 4 hours playing video.
10. The iPod has a batter life of 2 hours playing video.
11. The Zen has an FM radio and a voice recorder.
12. The iPod has the hardware to record audio, but for some reason Apple didn't enable it, and no FM radio.
13. The Zen is 60% bigger than the iPod.

To me, the size is the most important feature. My 3G iPod is just on the upper bound of what I would want to carry around with me, and so being 60% bigger than the competition rules out the Zen. Both the iPod and the Zen have more features than I would use. Either way, the iPod is not more expensive for less; it's the same price (and I would pay the student price, which is even lower), for a machine that trades an FM radio and voice recording for a smaller form factor.

True, but radio tuner? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think iPods still dont have that? That seems like a nobrainer and something all portable audio devies should have

Maybe. I don't own a radio. The only device I have that can receive FM is my mobile 'phone, and I only tried using this once to see if it worked. To me, putting a radio in something feels like a gimmick. The reason I own an iPod is so I can listen to my choice of music wherever I am, not someone else's. If I wanted a radio, I would get a $5 portable radio, not a digital music player, or use the one built into my mobile 'phone.

I don't know whether people like you are in the majority, or whether I am. Apple appears to believe the latter. Whether this is due to market research or Steve Jobs' opinion of radio, I can't tell you.

Re:The one thing missing

[hobo sapiens]

Disclaimer, I have an iPod and love it. I would never trade it for a Creative Zin or a M$ Zoon or whatever those stupid knockoffs are called.

There's nothing hip or cool aboug having some music device from a giant corporation

Ok. Apple is every bit as much of a giant evil corporation as Microsoft. The difference is that Apple knows how to design stuff. I like that Apple pays attention to UI design. M$ does *not* have that going for them. But it is not because Apple is some upstart, for goodness sakes, that people buy their products. I am sick of the notion that buying from Apple makes you all anti-establishment and stuff.

Otherwise, I agree with you. This thing sounds and looks like a totally sub-par knockoff. No wheel? All plastic? Once again, Apple does what they do best and everyone else flounders in an attempt to duplicate. Think about the fact that an iPod has a metal back. Does this make it more durable? Perhaps. More likely, though, is that it gives the user the feeling of a solid device. In your hand, an all plastic device just feels different. Attention to detail; the little things that maybe don't add value other than user perception is what sets Apple apart here. If something "feels" better, then the perception of quality is much higher. M$ and all the other would-be contenders just don't get it.

Re:The one thing missing

[monoqlith]

I take it you don't really understand what I was saying or didn't read the post, or even the blockquote you used. They *pretend* to care. That was the whole point.

Google does it in a different way. Bubbly icons. A search box. A results page in milliseconds that suggests to you possible typo errors - "Did you mean...." Read: a lifeless computer program that has human surface Yes, of course the bottom line is the main concern. That's why I was tlaking about it as a "deception" - and a "marketing coup."

Some of you slashdot readers are quite literal-minded and need to learn to seperate the thing being perceived from the perception.

Re:The one thing missing

[monoqlith]

Uhm - how is observing how Apple markets its products with a tone of reserved, slightly suspicious admiration "fanboy tripe?" Did you even read the post?

Geez. People can't praise Apple on Slashdot for a second anymore without being branded an Apple 'fanboi' . It's as if you don't like something *just* because it has a devoted following.

Re:The one thing missing

[hobo sapiens]

Here is where we see if Apple actually different than other corporations (as they would have you believe). Will they do something about this, or is this just another corporate "Yeah, we are going to look into the bad conditions of our overseas workers. We'll get riiight on that..." to placate public moral outrage? I'd be interested in the follow up, though I doubt we will ever know.

Personally, I'd wager they don't care two dead flies.

Re:The one thing missing

[LinuxIsRetarded]

There's nothing hip or cool aboug having some music device from a giant corporation.

Who cares? It's a bit funny that you even make a comment about hipness on Slashdot anyway. I doubt the legions of Slashdot nerds wearing white socks with brown shoes will care about hipness. For those in the know, the decision is primarily about functionality and price.

Re:The one thing missing

[The Spoonman]

The one thing missing for Microsoft, is panache.

Typical Apple fanboy. They'll pay more for less functionality and say they do it to be "cool", all the while those of us with PMPs not made by Apple are all laughing at them. Sad little drone.

Re:The one thing missing

[mrxak]

I don't particularly like U2, and I think the black and red iPod is ugly. And honestly I don't think many people are buying it. I've only ever seen them in Apple Stores as a display model. Most people I see either have an old iPod mini, a black nano, or the new vidPod. Steve Jobs likes U2 though, and U2 is relatively respected in the world. It probably helps Apple to sell a couple more iPods, but I seriously doubt U2 is a driving force behind iPod sales by any stretch of the imagination.

Re:The one thing missing

[splatterboy]

For almost a year now, everywhere I turn I see an iPod. Even though I myself own one, it's starting to make me resentful. Do people have to be entertained every minute of the day? How much of our life are we willing to spend on distractions?

Your first point is actually a plus for us New Yorkers - I don't have to feel so nervous about getting my ipod ripped off on the subway... It's no longer such a rarity.

Your second point is well taken, it's one thing to take your music with you - quite another to use it block out the world. It's worse than talking to people who wear their dark/mirrored sunglasses all the fsking time (day, night, indoors...) trying to be cool, only slightly less irritating are the people who feel the need to serenade everybody within earshot be it bubblegum, the stones or gangsta

Re:The one thing missing

[mrxak]

Follow up, eh?

The short version: no serious problems found, a few minor concerns will be addressed.

Re:The one thing missing

[2nd Post!]

In case you couln't tell, it has a wheel and buttons, not wheel-like buttons, and it's case is plastic and steel, not just plastic.

Re:The one thing missing

[IDontAgreeWithYou]

I am not sure whether it is me or you who is missing the point here, but since I am a super-genius, I am going to assume that it is you. Take a look at what the parent of my post was saying. He was putting down the MS player by saying it was WAL*MART chic. Then I cleverly pointed out that they sell the iPod at Wal-mart.

Re:The one thing missing

[Dog-Cow]

Apple charges more because they can. It's really that simple.

There is no monopoly in this market. Apple has a huge market-share because people want to buy iPods. If there is one thing Apple does well, it's marketing.

Re:The one thing missing

[7Prime]

I think you've got it a little wrong. Apple isn't benefitting from U2 because people particularly like their music (I do), or because people are buying the U2 iPod, but because people respect them, and they see in them a vitality that they'd like to be associated with. Apple, in extension, is then viewed as having some of that vitality, too. One of Apple's largest demographics is the artistic/creative types, which include a lot of activists. Getting U2 on their side is a big way of appealing to them, without having to get political, and pissing off other demographics. The U2 iPod is ugly, yes... and I don't think many people bought it, but that really wasn't the point, was it? It was just a symbol of the supposed "connection" between Apple and U2.

Re:The one thing missing

[GreyWolf3000]

I think you've been trolled. I liked your post--but you should just filter out those comments. The signal to noise ratio here on /. gets worse and worse every year, though.

Re:The one thing missing

[snuf23]

My point isn't that Microsoft can do the same, just that company age and size has little to do with it. Crafting the public perception of the brand is what's important. This is where Sony as an old company (founded in the 1940s) was able to position itself in the late 70s.
I still know people that are die hard Sony fans. They buy Sony stuff even though the old perception of Sony=quality is no longer true. They just think it must be better because it's Sony. That's impressive considering how much crap Sony has pedaled in the last 20 years.
I don't think Microsoft's player is likely to any more of a dent in the market than other non-iPod players. And yes because of how they've (un)managed their brand they have a very difficult time being cool. In the eyes of the public Microsoft IS Bill Gates and Gates is a nerd in the classic sense. Good luck erasing that image from the youth of today.

Scroll Wheel

[Baricom]

I did read TFA, but I didn't understand how the scrolling UI works. The photos weren't much help. If the Zune does have a wheel, though, that will be a very interesting development - that's really the feature that makes or breaks the iPod, and I was under the impression that Apple patented it. If Apple didn't, why haven't any of their competitors picked up on it yet?

Re:Scroll Wheel

[Baricom]

I did read TFA, but I didn't understand how the scrolling UI works.

Never mind - I figured it out. I missed the first paragraph.

Re:Scroll Wheel

[flooey]

I did read TFA, but I didn't understand how the scrolling UI works. The photos weren't much help. If the Zune does have a wheel, though, that will be a very interesting development - that's really the feature that makes or breaks the iPod, and I was under the impression that Apple patented it. If Apple didn't, why haven't any of their competitors picked up on it yet?

From what I picked up from the article, it doesn't in fact have a wheel. What it has is a wheel looking thing with buttons. So, basically, the click wheel, but without the scrolling portion, just several buttons imbedded into a piece of the circular piece of the cover that's colored differently.

Re:Scroll Wheel

[flooey]

Not only did I write "a piece of the circular piece of the cover", I wrote it after he said he figured it out. I lose at Slashdot.

Re:Scroll Wheel

[Baricom]

I lose at Slashdot.

We can lose together. :)

Re:Scroll Wheel

[Firehed]

Better than loosing together, as most people seem to be doing today.

Re:Scroll Wheel

[flooey]

Better than loosing together, as most people seem to be doing today.

I think you just need to losen up.

Re:Scroll Wheel

[megaditto]

Well, it was either the scrollwheel, or a user-replacable 400 VAC lead-acid battery, ultra-portable at 4.0 lb

Re:Scroll Wheel

[Chelloveck]

The photos weren't much help.

Now that's an understatement! I've seen clearer photos of Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster.

Re:Scroll Wheel

[Griffinart]

The scroll wheel is nice and makes an attractive package, but I hate it for when I'm in the car. I'd much rather have tactile buttons for eyes free operation when driving.

Good to go

[SuperKendall]

* Wireless
* More space than a Nomad

Raging success I'd say!

Re:Good to go

[ResidntGeek]

http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=193883&cid =15896360

Re:Good to go

[roman_mir]

last sentence in the story (I mean you are not the only smart-ass around here.)

Re:Good to go

[ResidntGeek]

I understood the reference. Both times it was posted.

Re:Good to go

[Teddy Beartuzzi]

Oh man, is that a funny thread to read now, five years later. Some real Nostradamus types there. :)

Re:Good to go

[mobby_6kl]

> * More space than a Nomad

Not really. I've had a 60 gig Nomad Zen for about two years now, I laugh at (anyone with) the 30 gigs players.
The wireless and its brand get it some points over the ipod, though.

Re:Good to go

[FatAlb3rt]

I've got the 30 GB Zen Ultra - a playlist of about 1000 songs that I've been pretty content with for about 3 years now, adding and removing a few songs here and there. Heck, I don't even need 30 GB, more like 10.

I laugh at anyone who thinks they need to carry around 60 GB of music - it's even funnier when they don't have the video model.

Re:Good to go

[mobby_6kl]

>I've got the 30 GB Zen

/me points
Ha! Ha!

Re:Good to go

[noewun]

Heck, I don't even need 30 GB, more like 10

I've found the same thing. At any one time, the amount of music I'm listening to is pretty small: maybe a gigabyte. Maybe. I could probably do fine with a Nano.

UI pics

[ElitistWhiner]

Don't believe anything you hear and only 1/2 of what you see.

Those photos make for a good story but likely have very little to do with Zune.
-r

Re:UI pics

[owlnation]

Don't believe anything you hear and only 1/2 of what you see. Those photos make for a good story but likely have very little to do with Zune.

Absolutely right. What better way of assessing your project and making design changes than to leak a few "details" and seeing the reactions.

Re:UI pics

[Fear the Clam]

Don't believe anything you hear and only 1/2 of what you see.

And don't buy albums entitled "New York."

Cheap bastards....

[1053r]

First, they rip off OS X and create Vista, now they rip off the iPod and create "zune".

Steve: Well, Bill, what successful thing is there left in the market that we *HAVENT* ripped off?
Bill: Umm... There's the PSP, and the DS...
Steve: The team is way ahead of you bill, they've already got a Xbox360M in the works!

(Just my speculation, of course)

Re:Cheap bastards....

[ackthpt]

First, they rip off OS X and create Vista, now they rip off the iPod and create "zune".

No, first they ripped off MacOS and made Windows 95. I'm certain a goodly portion of their R&D budget was spent on Macs and copying "look and feel". Then they basically tried to trounce the video game console market by putting a PC in a cheap-o plastic box (something Dell is getting very good at these days) and adding a few proprietary twists.

Makes you wonder when they'll get around to seriously tacking creating a decent operating system instead of all this fucking around in other markets.

Re:Cheap bastards....

[p0tat03]

Does it matter? Sony rips off Nintendo motion sensing, Microsoft rips off Apple iPod, yadi yada. Now if OSX cloned a XP or Vista feature, all of the Applebots on /. would keep pretty fricking mum about it. I'm an Apple fan (look in my post history if you want), but this is the way technology moves forward. People take ideas from each other, build on top of them, adding and removing aspects as the market demands. It can only be good for the consumer to have more choice.

That said, Zune sounds like it's going to suck hard. All plastic? I hope they mean shiny plastic a la iPod, 'cos we have WAY too many of the "faux brushed aluminum" things floating around as it is. It's not sexy enough to have style. When your audio player looks like a cheap Logitech keyboard, YOU DID IT WRONG. The features do sound solid, but honestly, it's the style that counts.

Re:Cheap bastards....

[abandonment]

it's pretty much any of creative's devices, except with microsoft's name on it.

bOOOring.

my g/f has a creative zen 30Gb, it's alot slicker than this - has pretty much exactly the same interface - including the whole 'scroll & get the letter of the alphabet', except it's not nearly as obnoxious as that screenshot.

I used it for a long busride recently and found that I liked it alot - i find the whole 'scrolling' ipod interface annoying - going up and down menus by scrolling a wheel around makes no sense.

the zen however has an up-down scroll pad, which i found to be very slick.

dunno, guess it's a matter of taste, but anything microsoft is pretty much a no-go for alot of people.

the wifi is a non-seller, unless it lets you do anything you would normally do with a wifi - if i run into a person with another zune (however unlikely), can i send them an mp3? or just a windows-media DRM protected file? if it's the second (DRM only) then it's a non-feature.

this whole 'giving the consumer more choice' marketing slogan is so much bullshit it's unbelievable. how about, create a device that does what consumers want and otherwise just GETS OUT OF OUR WAY?

syncing wifi to an xbox360? isn't the xbox supposed to be the 'center of the living room'? shouldn't it be the other way around? Oh right, no harddrive by default...so much for that concept.

non-sell, non-feature...dead in the water.

illiad, as usual, has the best commentary on this:

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20060725

Re:Cheap bastards....

[gbobeck]

No, first they ripped off MacOS and made Windows 95.

More accurately, first Apple ripped off Xerox Parc and made MacOS. Microsoft then ripped off Xerox Parc and Apple and made Windows 1.0.

Re:Cheap bastards....

[Chosen Reject]

Even more accurately, Apple didn't rip off the Xerox Parc, but were certainly inspired by it.

Re:Cheap bastards....

[nmb3000]

features do sound solid, but honestly, it's the style that counts.

Ah, the mantra of an (self-admitted in this case) Apple fan. No offense, but it seems like since the iMac, that's been the general feel Apple gives off. "Well, it doesn't have the feature I want... Oh! Shiny! Must buy!".

Personally, and maybe this is the engineer part of me talking, if it doesn't have the feature set I want or implements them poorly, I won't waste my money on it no matter how pretty it looks. Style might be "hip" and "cool" but it should be second-seat to functionality (think of a $1,000 1991 Civic with flame stickers and an airfoil on the back).

Re:Cheap bastards....

[Anonymous Coward]

The depressing thing is they aren't even ripping off Leopard they are ripping off a handful of features from Tiger. Microsoft will be making progress when they start knocking off the current Mac OS and not the previous one. Either their developers have to work faster or they need better spies. They also need better people in marketing. Calling "Widgets" "Gadgets" just reenforces the fact they are knocking off OSX. Call it Smart Icons or something. Apple should have pity on the competition and license things like Core Animation to Microsoft. They can make a few bucks then and help the end user by keeping the systems more cross platform compatible. Core Animation has a massive potential for creating things like on line stores but not so long as 90% of the machines out there are Microsoft and not compatible. Throw Gates a bone and license him some of the new technology. He's wasting a lot of resources that could be using to patch security holes trying to reverse engineer OSX. Tiger must have given Gates an ulcer, Leopard must have given him a panic attack. Where as Microsoft focases on patching flaws in security Apple focases on new end user features. Stability? Windows threw in the towel on that issue. I keep being told each new OS from Microsoft is finally stable. I haven't seen a stable OS out of Microsoft since NT 351. After that their motto seems to be "It Crashes Deal With It".

Re:Cheap bastards....

[Anonymous Coward]

An Maseratti or Ferrari is the kind of style and industrial design that has appeal. All too many companies make products that resemble '91 Civics with flame decals. Industrial Design is engineering too - what's wrong with blending form & function to create style and features?

Re:Cheap bastards....

[fbjon]

I'm sure Microsoft has received a lot of sudden inspiration over the years..

Re:Cheap bastards....

[MalusCaelestis]

Shows what you know. Microsoft started Vista development WAY before OS X...

Re:Cheap bastards....

[pboulang]

That damn Maseratti better have enough cup holders.

Re:Cheap bastards....

[Chosen Reject]

Hey, I drive that car! Minus the flame stickers and airfoil and add 235,000 miles, but it's still a reliable car.

Microsoft PR

[Anonymous Coward]

Just announced, Zune will only be available for corporate customers in November. Consumers can get it early in 2007.

Re:Microsoft PR

[Anonymous Coward]

The guy who modded you "informative" is either a moron, or has a subtle and excellent sense of humor.

As often is the case, it's hard to tell which.

Re:Microsoft PR

[Overly Critical Guy]

That way they can pretend they're "on track" to ship by the end of the year when they're really not, or else it would see a public release. The dual-release schedule of Vista is corporate denial on a grand scale.

Re:Microsoft PR

[Anonymous Coward]

Does that mean pirates can get it in September? Arrr!

I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

Will someone PLEASE explain why a *software* company feels its necessary to enter markets in which it has a competitive disadvantage years after the competition? If I were a MS shareholder, I'd want the company to focus on improving its OS and other software products - ya know, the stuff that made all the money in the first place.

I think Apple should develop a random product, say an iToaster Oven, just to see if MS will follow suit...

Re:I don't get it

[kfg]

Will someone PLEASE explain why a *software* company feels its necessary to enter markets in which it has a competitive disadvantage years after the competition?

To sell DRM technology. ACC is the target, not the silly iPod thingy, but they've done ok with mice, keyboards, joysticks, etc.

KFG

Re:I don't get it

[astromog]

They tried that. They got annoyed that none of their industry partners could make hardware for their software that could successfully compete with Apple. So now they're trying a more direct approach.

Re:I don't get it

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

Will someone PLEASE explain why a *software* company feels its necessary to enter markets in which it has a competitive disadvantage years after the competition?

Because they judge that they don't have much more room for growth in the software market?

Re:I don't get it

[mblase]

Will someone PLEASE explain why a *software* company feels its necessary to enter markets in which it has a competitive disadvantage years after the competition?

Because, as the XBox has shown, they can actually succeed at this if they're willing to spend both the time and the money on it.

Re:I don't get it

[Frogbert]

The reason they branch into other areas is because they need to continue to grow to make more and more money. Face it, Microsoft products saturate the market place, there is nowhere for them to grow. There are no stong competitors and I truely believe that the would could run on Windows XP for another 5 years without problems. There is no real incentive to get a new operating system out.

However by branching out they can find new markets to get into, they branched out into an office suite market that was dominated by others and look where Office 2007 is now.

Microsoft (branded) mice are quality products, people buy them and I warrent MS makes a bit of money out of it.

Re:I don't get it

[MauMan]

If you look at their SEC 10K statements for the last 5 years you'll see that they have lost $4.7 billion net (revenue - expenses) and are on track to lose $1.2 billion this fiscal year for the business unit that the XBox is in. They've only had one profitable quarter ever, the one Halo 2 came out in.

Explain to me how in any sense this is a business success to the shareholders?

Re:I don't get it

[uarch]

Microsoft has traditionally been a PC software company. While not there yet, the PC industry is transitioning into a commodity market. You do not want to compete in a commodity market. (I never tracked down the quote but didn't someone from MS recently proclaim the end of the PC era was at hand?)

This is a big reason why you're seeing several companies shift from providing products to providing services.
MS is making a transition to services in a big way (look at all of the services they're selling for xbox360).
IBM did this same transition a few years ago (ask your local IBMer.. "IBM is not a computer company. We're a service company!")

Re:I don't get it

[DavidD_CA]

Say what you want about hardware/software, but Microsoft has made great developments in hardware particularly with their mice and keyboards. I don't know if they *invented* the scroll wheel and forward/back buttons, or the natural style of a keyboard, but they certainly popularized it and brought the price point down so everyone can afford one.

Their entry into the wireless market kinda sucked because they were so late, but had they of tried that a few years earlier we probably don't have Linksys or Netgear anymore.

Oh and, that whole X-Box and 360 thing didn't do so bad either.

Re:I don't get it

[Hawkxor]

because if the console is popular, regardless of profitability, it creates a positive image in the market, which drives the stock price up

Re:I don't get it

[CrackedButter]

Microsoft Office is the older product, not the other way around.

Re:I don't get it

[TheLetterZ]

I believe the reason is because Microsoft is uncertain as to where to go next as a company. There's a limit to how many new Office and OS versions (slated for release by any decade now, for sure!) they can churn out and make people and corporations buy them and still get a decent revenue from it.

That's why what we see now, is a Microsoft who tries to enter every segment of about any tech market where a company has a successfull product and compete with them (so far, YouTube being an honorable exception); it's as if the company's current vision and strategy simply is: "don't innovate, immitate".

Their stronghold in the IT world is decreasing day by day as the underlying OS is becoming less important (re: online services), companies which they screwed in the past is openly fighting them, they struggle on the bugs/virus fronts as well as releasing products on time which are not crippled versions of the original product; simply the previous OS with some new slick bells and whistles attached to it, strategic alliances are formed against them.

Some day, the bully will get what he had coming.

But more to the point: Steve Ballmer is uncertain as to where to take the company next (may I suggest the chair industry?), so they are just watching the industry, sees what catches on and tries to use their bulldozing machinery to enter those market segments, squash the competition and get the monopoly they are used to for pure revenue.

Re:I don't get it

[Duds]

Because any company that exclusively relies on one business is ultimately doomed.

Re:I don't get it

[Tim C]

I'd want the company to focus on improving its OS and other software products

And they are. Any experienced programmer or project manager will tell you that after a certain point, dedicating more people and resources to a project will not make it any better or bring it to completion any faster. In fact, due to increased communication and management overheads, it can make it worse and take longer.

I don't know whether or not MS have reached that point, but I think we can probably safely assume that they're not far from it. Given that, and what I asserted above, why *not* branch out into other markets? They have the money, they have the people (at least in numerical terms, if not skills), and with the PC market more or less saturated and their software under attack from free/Free alternatives, they must find alternative revenue streams.

As another respondent more or less said, if I was a shareholder, I'd be very worried if they weren't exploring other markets.

Re:I don't get it

[Magi77]

Diversification is the name of the game... and if u carefully observe, you will notice that it's all connected...

Re:I don't get it

[zanglang]

Meanwhile, overheard in Redmond...

Slashdot-reading Microsoft exec: "iToaster? Toaster, tunes, zune, boaster, coaster... iCoaster... Zoaster! Bill, can you imagine?! That's brilliant! Write it down, write it down!"

Re:I don't get it

[kjart]

Because any company that exclusively relies on one business is ultimately doomed.

That's essentially it. They also have so much money that they have to spend it somewhere. Investors do not look kindly on companies with huge cash reserves - the consesus seems to be that companies should be *doing* something with that warchest rather than sitting on it.

Re:I don't get it

[Headcase88]

"I think Apple should develop a random product, say an iToaster Oven, just to see if MS will follow suit"

An MS Toaster Oven is the last thing the world needs. God knows how convoluted the process would be to toast a simple piece of bread.

1. Welcome to the Microsoft (TM) Toasting Wizard. What are you toasting today?

• Bread
  
• Bagel
  
• English Muffin
  
• Other
  

2. What type of bread?

• Microsoft (TM) White Bread
  
• Microsoft (TM) Whole Wheat HealthyChoice (TM) bread
  
• Other [text field]
  

3. Microsoft (TM) Toasting Wizard is searching for "Dempster's white bread"...

(little animated magnifying glass on globe icon)

4. Toasting Wizard could not find your bread. Please make sure you've typed the type of bread correctly and try again.

5. Wizard Completed!

Toasting Wizard was quit by user before toasting was complete.

Re:I don't get it

[ischorr]

Losing money also causes the stock price to go down. Sometimes even more than "image" drives it up. Sometimes.

Re:I don't get it

[JohnG307]

Hardware markets where MS has a competitive disadvantage? Oh you mean like-- the video game console market? Yeah I bet the shareholders are wishing Microsoft stayed out of that one too.

Re:I don't get it

[EnderWiggnz]

yes, thats why msft is sitting at 5 year lows....

Re:I don't get it

[poot_rootbeer]

they've done ok with mice

The first mouse I ever used was sold by Microsoft, bundled together with Micrsoft Paintbrush for DOS. It attached to a proprietary ISA bus card, so as to leave the serial port free for a 2400 baud modem. Drawing in 4-color CGA glory seemed like the coolest thing to me at the time.

They were early to market in that instance. In the case of the Zune, they are not.

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, Apple is the main competitor to one of their two big money makers (Windows). Eroding a profitable part of Apple's business seems somewhat logical. Much more logical than trying to compete with Sony/Nintendo.

Plus, as others have noted, they have a bunch of investment in their Windows Media formats which they want to try to make ubiquitous. The more reliant on WMA/WMV people become, the more likely they will choose Windows where those formats are best supported.

Re:I don't get it

[WuphonsReach]

There are no stong competitors and I truely believe that the would could run on Windows XP for another 5 years without problems. There is no real incentive to get a new operating system out.

Most of the world is already planning on running WinXP for another 5-10 years.

Vista's marketshare will be driven by new systems with a small bump from people who upgrade (10% of all WinXP owners might be generous).

Combine that with the fact that computers built in the last few years will probably still be in use come 2010 and 2015. Things start looking a bit thin for how fast Vista will take over the market.

No Marketing versus Established Product Line

[broward]

There's no buzz about Zune. Microsoft will need a significant and unique advertising campaign to make this thing sell.

http://www.realmeme.com/roller/page/realmeme?entry =apple_ipod_vs_microsoft_zune

Re:No Marketing versus Established Product Line

[ackthpt]

There's no buzz about Zune. Microsoft will need a significant and unique advertising campaign to make this thing sell.

So .. Rolling Stones again?

you make a grown man cryyyy...

Re:No Marketing versus Established Product Line

[CastrTroy]

Maybe they could get Billy Corgan to do some commercials. Oh wait, his band was called Zwan. Well, close enough.

Re:No Marketing versus Established Product Line

[Petrushka]

you make a grown man cryyyy...

Or as Weird Al put it: you make a rich man come ... (from the song: Windows 95 Sucks)

Re:No Marketing versus Established Product Line

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

Not Weird Al at all.. Why does everyone say that every parody song is from Weird Al?

Re:No Marketing versus Established Product Line

[bubkus_jones]

Probably because most P2P applications will have the song as performed by Wierd Al.

Re:No Marketing versus Established Product Line

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right. P2P users can't spell for shit.

Re:No Marketing versus Established Product Line

[bubkus_jones]

No, we certainly cnat.

Now all they need is music

[pico303]

iPod isn't just popular 'cause it's cool. It's popular because it's really easy to get music onto the thing. Buy it, install iTunes, plug in the iPod, and start ripping or downloading music. I just don't see Windows Media Player as competing in that space, especially not without blowing Microsoft's whole market strategy of giving users choices when it comes to Windows audio players.

I have a feeling they'll get thousands of people buying these things. They'll get them home, try to install them, not be able to get music to upload, or the thing will crash all the time, or their PCs won't be able to see it when it's plugged in. Pack it up, take it back, and just go spend the $300 on something that actually works.

Nice thing about this is Apple will probably lower the price of the 30GB iPod to $250 just to stick it to MS. Then I'll dump my mini and finally get a video iPod.

Re:Now all they need is music

[arodland]

People have been ripping and downloading music for a looooooooong time now without any help from iTunes, thank you. iTunes/iPod is not easy. Easy is showing up as a mass-storage device when plugged in, and playing every format I've already got without any conversion.

Re:Now all they need is music

[Firehed]

Not only does my iPod show up as a mass storage device when I plug it in, it automatically copies over all of my music too. And as 99% of my music is in MP3 (the other 1% being Apple lossless, which is admittedly a minor niggle, though less so since there's no harm in transcoding between lossless formats), I'd say the latter is covered too. Sorry, but your argument flatly sucks. I can put a CD in the drive, iTunes automatically rips to MP3 and tags it, then ejects the CD (or at least I can configure it as such in about three seconds), then I plug in my iPod and the new music is automatically transferred to it. Without a single click. I tried the mass storage device approach - it's nothing short of abysmal compared to automatic syncing. Not to mention ripping CDs was usually a many-step process, and half the time required me to type in all the track listings. With iTunes, I put or plug it in, wait a few minutes, and remove or disconnect it. No work on my part, no thinking, and it even organizes the local files in a standard and logical manner.

I don't quite know how you define 'easy', but it's certainly not how I do, and I'd imagine not very close to Webster, either. I hated iTunes for the longest time, too, but at least I was never in denial about how my old process sucked. I'm not meaning to flame you here, but iTunes has been the best thing to happen to my music library since the MP3 format. Videos are another story, but I can deal with that (or, rather, just avoid it)

Re:Now all they need is music

[detect]

Really easy to get music onto the thing? Are you kidding? Really easy in my book would be something like: plug in iPod, iPod gets recoginsed as a storage device, drag mp3s into iPod directory. It took me an hour of mucking around in iTunes before I figured out that you couldn't even do that! You need to buy third party software to properly manage music on your ipod, ie. Anapod. iTunes is the most convoluted piece of useless software I have ever used.

Re:Now all they need is music

[Anonymous Coward]

What about hooking the player to an XBox and buying music through Xbox live? Just curious what makes you think the thing will crash all the time, only because it is made by Microsoft?

Re:Now all they need is music

[EggyToast]

Which the Zune doesn't do. I hear you on the formats; to me, the only real competitor out there to the iPod are the products by iRiver. Which, not surprisingly, also cost more than equivalent iPods (due to the bevy of extra features).

I'm an iPod guy cos I've got a mac, but if I just wanted to play some OGGs and FLACs, iRiver would be the way to go.

Re:Now all they need is music

[nickrooster]

Wow, that read very strangely.

Let's start with the first two sentences. "iPod isn't just popular 'cause it's cool. It's popular because it's really easy to get music onto the thing."

Well, I don't know about you, but when I want to transfer music onto a device, I generally like to transfer it from any machine. I often forget how crippled an iPod really is. When you plug it into an "unauthorized" machine and try to transfer songs to or from it, it flakes out big time. This only happened to me once (I don't own an iPod, but a friend does. Yes, they were mad.), but when all was said and done, it would not only not sync with the person's iTunes anymore, but it gave a generic "Error!" screen and told me to go to the support URL. The support URL said to pretty much reboot the thing. That didn't work. The friend ended up taking it to the Apple store, where they formatted it --- but not just a vfat format, no - that is too simple! They formatted it in HFS, then vfat. Why?!? Anyway, for storing music information in a database, that database is very prone to corruption.

So, let's look at the rest of that paragraph: "Buy it, install iTunes, plug in the iPod, and start ripping or downloading music. I just don't see Windows Media Player as competing in that space, especially not without blowing Microsoft's whole market strategy of giving users choices when it comes to Windows audio players."

Windows Media Player directly competes in that space! You can do all that stuff without having to install or download and install iTunes. It's bundled with the OS. You can rip, burn and play back music directly in WMP. And their market strategy is anything but giving the users choice. That is why they were taken to court.

Let's look at this one: "They'll get them home, try to install them, not be able to get music to upload, or the thing will crash all the time, or their PCs won't be able to see it when it's plugged in. Pack it up, take it back, and just go spend the $300 on something that actually works."

Not even out yet, and already you make it sound so much like an iPod. I'm impressed! I love a crazy-ass mass storage driver that gets corrupted almost as much as the database that holds the music. Three different people who's computers I work on have had that issue. I fail to see how that works any better. Also, I enjoy seeing an iPod error screen often. I think it is truly what they do best.

The iPod hardware is neat looking, but the setup is barely functional. And the cute little hard drives that break when you look at them wrong. Beautiful. Another friend used to work at Best Buy and told me that they had many problems with just plain busted iPod hard drives.

The service is great too. When you call you get a real person who tries to google the answer faster than you!

Anyway, sorry to flame ya. I have really had it with iPod apologists.

-Nick

Re:Now all they need is music

[Anonymous Coward]

I've noticed the option to make the iPod show up as a mass storage device and be assigned a drive letter. Do you know if it is possible to just copy music straight over to it without using iTunes so that the music is playable within the iPod interface? I haven't really put much time into testing that out yet.

Re:Now all they need is music

[Lord of the Wazz]

Easy? Jesus Titty Fucking Christ. Easy is Joe Public being able to plug it in and automagically copy his files across and then unplug it and play the music, not some geek manually copying across music to a mass storage drive in formats that very few people actually use.

Re:Now all they need is music

[Anonymous Coward]

Anapod is Windows only, so you must be using Windows.

Therefore iTunes is the 2nd most convoluted piece of useless software that you have ever used....

Re:Now all they need is music

[pboulang]

a) Sure looks like anapod does a lot of the things that iTunes does. iTunes runs on more platforms, though.

b) It took you an hour to find preferences and set it to manual?

Seriously, do you really think that view represents the market? iTunes smart playlist are simple for the consumer to use and for managing music, simply plugging an iPod in doesn't get any easier. anapod has a niche market, but I'm sure it wouldn't be a large % even if it were free.

Re:Now all they need is music

[arodland]

And the "user is an idiot" mentality wins out again.

My point is that most people have a music collection, they have stuff ripped and downloaded, and they have a way of managing it. If they go out and buy an MP3 player, do you think they want a new, completely different program to take over their collection, take over ripping, convert everything to its own format, and make the decisions as to what goes on the player? Or do you think they want to just take their existing collection and copy whatever they want onto the player?

Re:Now all they need is music

[znu]

And the "user is an idiot" mentality wins out again.

Sorry, anyone who doesn't want to manually manage a giant music library is an idiot how, exactly?

My point is that most people have a music collection, they have stuff ripped and downloaded, and they have a way of managing it. If they go out and buy an MP3 player, do you think they want a new, completely different program to take over their collection, take over ripping, convert everything to its own format, and make the decisions as to what goes on the player? Or do you think they want to just take their existing collection and copy whatever they want onto the player?

Are you under the impression that iTunes doesn't let you choose what goes on the player? Not only can you do so manually (by having the iPod only sync with certain playlists), but you can do so automatically, by constructing queries (with a few clicks) that create what Apple calls 'smart playlists'. If you have, say, a 4 GB nano, you can have iTunes automatically select 1 GB of one genre of music, with your top-rated songs, two gigs of music by a list of four specific artists, and top things off with another gig of music that you haven't listen to much, based on the play count.

Apple has done a very good job of offering both ease-of-use and power-user features in iTunes. And yes, I think to get these benefits, many people are more than willing to switch from whatever they were using before. (And this typically doesn't require format conversion -- Apple doesn't consider MP3 a second-class format which needs to be converted to AAC; it's natively supported by iTunes and the iPod).

Re:Now all they need is music

[Yahweh Doesn't Exist]

YOU are the idiot, clearly with some agenda. you aren't making any sense.

iTunes gives you complete control over what goes on the iPod, what doesn't, and what format it has. Jesus f'ing Christ, try using it once before you talk BS FUD about it.

>new, completely different program
I used iTunes on Windows before I got an iPod because its library is the best. then I got an iPod. then I got a Mac.

>take over their collection
wtf? iTunes is one of the few programs that DOESN'T start scanning my hard drive when loaded searching for content to take over. but you have the option of letting it import you old stuff (any format), and an option of whether it should keep that stuff organised or just link to it in its current place.

>take over ripping
iTunes has optional ripping functionality. oh NOES!!!!11 the horror!!!

>convert everything to its own format
you can choose your format. anything imported can be converted to AAC IF YOU SO WISH.

>and make the decisions as to what goes on the player
iTunes assumes that you want ALL your music on your player. you can make advanced selection of what to ignore so you can keep the benefit of auto-sync.

>Or do you think they want to just take their existing collection and copy whatever they want onto the player?
no I think they (like me) want organisation to be as simple and powerful as possible. you can manually rename, retag and copy files if you want, but I'm constantly making changes to song ratings in iTunes, changing playlists, making new ones etc. etc. and all of it is automatically synced to my iPod.

oh yeah, and it does exactly the same thing with my photos. my entire photo collection optimised for iPod screen and synced. and when I crop an old photo I'm not searching through hundreds of files on my iPod to find which one needs to be replaced.

Re:Now all they need is music

[I'm Don Giovanni]

"Nice thing about this is Apple will probably lower the price of the 30GB iPod to $250 just to stick it to MS."

Your statement reminds me of the Sprint commercial.

Executive: With Sprint's "Fair and Flexible Plan", nobody can tell me what to do. I can call who and whenever I want. It's my little way of "sticking it to The Man".

Peon: But you are "The Man".

Executive: I know.

Peon: So you're sticking it to yourself...?

Executive: Maybe

My point is, in the portable music player market, Apple is "The Man", and if they lower prices to "stick it to MS", they'll really be sticking it to themselves, as they'll be taking a hit in profits to beat an upstart that would like nothing better than to get Apple into a price war. MS can take revenue hits on secondary products without batting an eye (see Xbox), but Apple can't afford to take revenue hits on its bread-and-butter product.

Re:Now all they need is music

[Eponymous Crowbar]

Agreed -- I would consider getting an iPod but I will not be switching back to iTunes again. I used it for several months and I uninstalled it. Right now, I prefer Media Monkey. Any mp3 player that I buy will have to be seen as a storage device by the OS. I understand that there are ways to use an iPod that way, or at least without using iTunes but that still makes it a lot less likely that I would ever purchase an iPod.

Re:Now all they need is music

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a feeling they'll get thousands of people buying these things.

Thousands. Wow.
All the money spent developing Zune will be well worth it then.

Re:Now all they need is music

[supermank17]

Actually, as far as I'm aware, the iPod music directory doesn't show up as a mass-storage device and hasn't for a while. At least on mine, you can use the iPod as a mass storage device... but you can't play any of the songs you copy onto the device in that manner. The only way to get playable music on there is using iTunes.

Re:Now all they need is music

[gatzke]

Sounds easy for you and me, but many people don't understand how to copy files, much less where / what devices are. I don't mean the /. crowd, but I have seen engineering students that are totally clueless on use of computers and how to save files in a certain location. Network drive? Desktop? Clueless. The ubiquitous USB is helping students figure this stuff out, but they still are often lost.

Re:Now all they need is music

[bean123456789]

Amen to that, iTunes is a piece of overbloated crap.

Re:Now all they need is music

[wile_e8]

Not only can you do so manually (by having the iPod only sync with certain playlists), but you can do so automatically, by constructing queries (with a few clicks) that create what Apple calls 'smart playlists'.

But when I want to do it manually, I want to be able to drag and drop like I can on Winamp. I have my songs named right consistently, I know where to find them, I know what ones I want on the player, let me handle it. Creating a library and queries and playlists are just hoops I have to go through to get the songs I want on the player. But this is the only option with iTunes.

Re:Now all they need is music

[Lord of the Wazz]

The "user is an idiot" mentality wins out because there are more users who are idiots than not. I agree with you that most people already have a music collection, but the chances are that only a proportionally small number of people have it stacked full of FLAC or Vorbis.

Your accusations against iTunes don't hold too much weight with me since its collection management is second to none, the ripping format can be easily changed (although AAC is a codec that a lot of players support these days anyway) and you can set whether or not to automatically synchronise.

I think you're in a minority of people who don't want to use music management software to deal with their music. Nothing wrong with that - I had an iRiver H120 for a good few years and worked on that principle - but for me it's just so much more convenient to use something like iTunes/Winamp/WMP.

Re:Now all they need is music

[crabpeople]

"Buy it, install iTunes, plug in the iPod, and start ripping or downloading music. I just don't see Windows Media Player as competing in that space"

Well it must be nice to ignore reality, and i am certainly not a microsoft apologist, but when i gave my neighbour itunes and also WMP10 he found WMP10 much more intuative. Granted, he knows almost nothing about computers and the knowledge he does have is all windows based, but everything you are describing, the "one click rip" type features, all work flawlessly. When he was using itunes he found it impossible to get things done.

Sure its just anecodtal evedence, but dont write off microsoft media player, and this zune right away. Personally i use winamp and use actual cd ripping programs to rip cds.

"They'll get them home, try to install them, not be able to get music to upload, or the thing will crash all the time, or their PCs won't be able to see it when it's plugged in. Pack it up, take it back, and just go spend the $300 on something that actually works."

Now your just trolling. I have to support microsoft products, so i know that they make some gay shit alot of the time, but prediciting failure at this stage is basically you being a little applefanboi masturbating troll.

Re:Now all they need is music

[Blakey Rat]

Oh please. Have you ever done tech support? The majority of computer users out there have no clue where files are stored, or how to move them around. Most people think that files are stored *in* Word or *in* Excel, and to copy or move one they have to open Excel, open the file, then use Save As to get a copy of the file.

Re:Now all they need is music

[ClamIAm]

[The Ipod plays] every format I've already got without any conversion.

Sounds like you don't use any formats I do.

Re:Now all they need is music

[dangitman]

But when I want to do it manually, I want to be able to drag and drop like I can on Winamp. I have my songs named right consistently, I know where to find them, I know what ones I want on the player, let me handle it. Creating a library and queries and playlists are just hoops I have to go through to get the songs I want on the player. But this is the only option with iTunes.

This is incorrect. Choose the file(s) you want to manually add to your iPod. Drag said files to the iPod icon. You are done. You can do this from the desktop, as well as from within your iTunes library. Why is it that people complain about "missing features" on the iPod, without knowing the first thing about them?

What is the basis for your statement that playlists are the only option for transferring music to an iPod?

Re:Now all they need is music

[bulliver]

Ignore the fanboys. I hear what you're saying. I currently have 80GB+ of oggs, and like you say, my own system for managing them and my own scripts that automatically create playlists and html indexes. I DO have a G5 running Mac OS X, and for all the hype Apple talks about "Macs are best for multimedia" I have to respectfully disagree. iTunes seems to want to do things its own way, and it certainly doesn't gel with mine. M4a or Mp3 only? No thanks. Ipod? No thanks, I bought a Cowan iAudio instead, as it does Ogg, mp3, wma, and flac. I have to install third party software just to play oggs, let alone rip to them. No thanks, my music is staying on my Linux box. I need to buy third party codecs to get quicktime to do divx? No thanks.

In fact, about the only thing 'multimedia' I have found my G5 to do better than Linux is import and edit DV video (kino just isn't there yet, and cinelerra is just plain baffling). So, Fanboys: Yes you like iTunes and iPods, they work for you, and you like the way they work. Can you not handle a dissenting opinion without pitching a fit?

Re:Now all they need is music

[BigDaddyJ]

The directory with the music files is actually accessible, just hidden: \iPod_Control\Music. In any case, you are correct in that you cannot copy files to the device, only because that doesn't build the metadata necessary for the iPod to browse music quickly. However, there are many 3rd-party options if you don't want to use iTunes: there's ephPod, Anapod Explorer, even a Winamp plugin on Windows. I haven't checked Linux lately, but I do know there are quite a few tools there as well.

--bdj

Re:Now all they need is music

[Anonymous Coward]

The iPod hardware is neat looking, but the setup is barely functional.

lol what?

Lame picture

[Lorean]

What the hell? Is that the best picture they could get? Would it be too hard to remove the headphones? Would it stress the camera too much to take multiple angle shots?

Re:Lame picture

[gad_zuki!]

This is a leak photo. Its acutally not black, its a black and white photo because all the testing units are a different color so MS can track people who break NDAs. The headphones are still attached and their magenetic, so theyre sticking together in the photo. The final product will most likely be different.

Re:Lame picture

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a leak photo. Its acutally not black, its a black and white photo because all the testing units are a different color so MS can track people who break NDAs. The headphones are still attached and their magenetic, so theyre sticking together in the photo. The final product will most likely be different.

Yes... a "leak".

Microsoft: "Scotty! We need more Buzz!"
Scotty: "I'm doin' the best I can!"
Microsoft: "Deploy the leaked photo!"

They'll get 100% of the market, all right.

[Kadin2048]

Well, this has further cemented my opinion that while the Zune certainly would make me very, very afraid if I were the CEO of Creative, I'm not sure that it would have me shaking in my boots if I was in Steve Jobs' position.

I think it stands a chance of being clearly superior to all the other iPod wannabes, and basically wipe up their market-share and send them into some other line of work, particularly because of the WiFi feature, but there's just nothing compelling about it that would displace the iPod.

I have no doubt that Microsoft will capture close to 100% of the market: but the "market" for this device is "MP3 players other than iPods."

Re:They'll get 100% of the market, all right.

[ackthpt]

I have no doubt that Microsoft will capture close to 100% of the market: but the "market" for this device is "MP3 players other than iPods."

Actually, they won't have the cellphone-mp3 player, PSP/other portable video game-mp3 player or cheep mp3 player market, either. They aren't simply a late entry into THE market, they're a late entry into a NICHE

Re:They'll get 100% of the market, all right.

[kfg]

I have no doubt that Microsoft will capture close to 100% of the market: but the "market" for this device is "MP3 players other than iPods."

In ten years that will be virtually the entire market. There will be a few hundred makers and they'll be so cheap they'll be selling them in drug stores at the counter for pocket change.

Whoever controls the codec wins.

KFG

Re:They'll get 100% of the market, all right.

[RareButSeriousSideEf]

Hopefully, DRM will become a higher & higher bullet point item on big-name reviewers' bullet point lists. If that happens, let the most unencumbered player win, and you can bet that won't be Microsoft's.

(Although, I wonder what the economic impact will be for the explosion of new sites devoted to Zune hacking....)

Re:They'll get 100% of the market, all right.

[bahwi]

Yes, the wifi features for MP3 players, small little devices with a bloated, wasteful wireless protocol, making USB/Firewire completely unnecessary. Just what I want, a device to wireless sync to my computer before I leave the house so that I'll have my newest music and when I finally get where I want to be and turn it on, I realize(BATTERY DEPLETED. SHUTTING DOWN.)

Re:They'll get 100% of the market, all right.

[Nutria]

Just what I want, a device to wireless sync to my computer

Dime to a dollar that 48 hours after the Zune in released that someone will have figured out how to use a Zune as a Yet Another Vector for infecting wi-fi enabled Windows machines with malware.

Re:They'll get 100% of the market, all right.

[IAmTheDave]

Not to mention:

Interestingly, Microsoft forgoes a touch-sensitive scrollwheel in favor of wheel-shaped buttons.

Duh, patents. They didn't "forgo", they "prevented a giant lawsuit they were sure to lose."

Re:They'll get 100% of the market, all right.

[Phanatic1a]

Well, this has further cemented my opinion that while the Zune certainly would make me very, very afraid if I were the CEO of Creative, I'm not sure that it would have me shaking in my boots if I was in Steve Jobs' position.

My hope is that it spurs Apple on to get of its ass and make significant improvements to the iPod and its interface.

Like a full-front screen if they want to be serious about video, with built-in touch-screen capabilities to replace the tiny screen and big wheel.

Or, and this is a big one, *nested menus*. Hitting "Artists" and having a single list of every artist in your collection was fine and acceptable back when the iPod was first released and could hold 4 gigs. When you have 60 gigs of music and hundreds or even thousands of artists, it's a bit less practical, the variable-speed scrolling notwithstanding. It sure would be nice to be able to click "Artists" and then see a lower, nested hierarchy of "A," "B," "C," and so forth, so you could click on "B" and now be looking at all artists that begin with that latter. It would be trivial to implement this, it would be a significant improvement in ease-of-use, and the only thing stopping Apple from doing it (iTunes itself even supports nested playlists now, but the iPod doesn't!) is the fact that they have such a gobsmackingly huge market share that they're not driven to.

Even if MS's device doesn't grab a large chunk of the market from Apple, I hope the threat of competition in the market drives Apple to make better products.

Re:They'll get 100% of the market, all right.

[awa139]

Are you kidding???? I heard that the 6th Gen iPod will eliminate the the touch wheel and have a full touch screen in its place. Also, it's rumored it will have blue tooth which could allow for wireless ear buds. If this is true, Microsoft's wanna be will be no match. Besides there is more to the iPod than just hardware and it's iTunes.

Re:They'll get 100% of the market, all right.

[mrxak]

Or hey, just a virus that infects Zunes. Another Zune user walks by you on the street and now you've got a virus on yours.

Re:They'll get 100% of the market, all right.

[poot_rootbeer]

If that's the case in ten years, I expect Apple to STILL have the market sewn up.

Today, one can buy a COBY brand progressive-scan DVD player at the drug store for thirty bucks, yet people are still eager and willing to go to a real electronics store and spend a couple hundred for a player that has a familiar brand name on it (and most likely much better quality as well).

Branding and name recognition still count for a lot. I think there's a greater risk of Apple losing the "ipod" term to trademark dilution then there is to the MP3 player market being dominated by nameless cheapo shitboxes.

Re:They'll get 100% of the market, all right.

[RESPAWN]

/. really needs a +1 Sad But True mod. :)

Re:They'll get 100% of the market, all right.

[2nd Post!]

What codec do you think that will be?

My bet is MP3+AAC

Guess who champions AAC? Guess who champions WMA?

Re:They'll get 100% of the market, all right.

[grrrgrrr]

I believe ms and apple have a patent sharing agreement. That apple makes fun at ms does not mean there is real animosity I think ms understands and accepts that that is part of the apple branding campaign. What is also interesting is that ms seems unafraid of the patent that real is suing apple for at the moment.

Re:They'll get 100% of the market, all right.

[DroppedPacket]

The patent sharing agreement was 5 years in duration. It expired several years ago.

Re:They'll get 100% of the market, all right.

[kfg]

. . .people are still eager and willing to go to a real electronics store and spend a couple hundred for a player that has a familiar brand name on it . . .

And which brand name has the DVD market "sewn up". . .?

Remember that once upon a time Apple had the personal computer market sewn up as well while IBM and DEC were duking it out for who would be king of the "real" computer world.

Michael who? I'm getting a what?

KFG

Re:They'll get 100% of the market, all right.

[walter_f]

"... while the Zune certainly would make me very, very afraid if I were the CEO of Creative..."

My guess: Not even Creative's and Cowon's CEOs will have to be worried too much about that "Zune plus online store" combo.

Remember: Microsoft will not only have to establish their hardware (the Zune player) and their content download shop system in the market. Most important, they have yet to start establishing their own media formats (WMA for music content) and this will not merely be a fight against Apple's AAC, but more like a fierce uphill battle against MP3 and others.

When MS will start pushing sales later this year, problems in launching the MS content store would servely hamper Zune hardware sales and vice versa, delays in hardware manufacturing will keep demand for MS' songs and movies on a very low level.

Ballmer would be well advised to get some kind of subscription agreement with an office furniture firm, say two dozen fresh chairs (or so) per week, and to get it soon. ;-)

They're up to something

[Skeith]

I can't decide to post about how Microsoft is just trying to get into every possible market, or they are diversifying themselves for the unthinkable time when Windows doesn't have 98% of the desktop market. But I'm pretty sure they are doing one of those, or both.

Re:They're up to something

[Random BedHead Ed]

Correct. It's a bit desperate, really. Some people have pointed out that their goal with this product (and Windows Media Player) is to rule the world of codecs and DRM, which is no doubt true to an extent. But ultimately it's about putting some eggs in other baskets. Face it, after many years of trying to diversify they are still the Windows/Office company. That's a vulnerable position to be in. If they can sell these things like Apple can sell iPods, they'll have their third major success in 30 years.

Of course if selling these things helps them rule the world of codecs and DRM, that also helps to safeguard Windows. So I'm wondering if they'll sell them at a reasonable profit to try to have a third cash cow, or if their two-product survival instinct will hijack the Zune product and lead them to sell it at a loss (as they are doing with the XBox). That would be a bad sign.

The other Scroll Wheel

[pavon]

I am surprised that more devices don't use a (mouse-like) scroll wheel for navigation like the Blackberry or Rio Karma. It is much nicer than the up-down buttons that are universal for cellphone menu navigation. It has an advantage over the apple touch-wheel in that you have tactile feedback for moving up/or down a single menu item - on my iPod I am constantly moving two spaces when I meant to move one. Of course it has the disadvantage of having to pick up your finger. As far as reliability goes, I know the Rio Karma had problems with it breaking, but that device had QA issues galore, and AFAIK they seem to survive on the Blackberry just fine. Is the use of a scroll-wheel on a handheld device patented by RIM or someone else?

Re:The other Scroll Wheel

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that a scroll-wheel takes up a lot of space, which is not a problem in a mouse, but in a MP3-player that needs to embed FM-radio-, CF/SD-slot-, audio-DSP- and display-circuitry, it is a problem.

Re:The other Scroll Wheel

[earthbound kid]

Hmm, if only there were some way to free up space. But as we all know the market demands that each of the items you listed be in all portable music listening devices, and any device without them would undoubtedly be called "lame" by an influential figure like Cmdr. Taco.

Re:The other Scroll Wheel

[fbjon]

The problem is that a scroll-wheel takes up a lot of space

No it doesn't. See, a scroll-wheel doesn't have to be a flat, round rubber disc, it can be a cylinder! I'm really, really dissappointed that so few are using this type, because it was positively awesome on a Sony-Ericsson I used to have in Japan.

To be precise: the wheel was a cylinder right where the 4-way keys usually are (clamshell phone), about 1,5cm wide and maybe 8mm in diameter, in a horizontal direction. You could roll it and click it just like a mouse wheel, and had two extra buttons on either side for left-right clicking. It also had just the right feel, not too tight, but not too loose either, so you wouldn't accidentally misclick like you do with some cheap mice. Scrolling along lists was never easier.

Re:The other Scroll Wheel

[Tojo-Mojo]

You mean like the "jog dials" Sony is oh-so-fond of? The fact that they stuck those things wherever they could, including their palm pilot variants, cd players, and pretty much everything else excpet the play station. leads me to believe they probably patented it.

Re:The other Scroll Wheel

[KozmoStevnNaut]

The old Nokia 7100 phone had this as well, and it worked brilliantly. Unfortunately, the phone was butt-ugly and marketed as a WAP phone. I've only ever seen one in use, and the owner wasn't even very pleased with it.

Re:The other Scroll Wheel

[fbjon]

Might be. But the phone I had was shiny ferrari-red, pretty flat, easy to use with all the snazzy functions, never crashed, hinged camera, and had an awesome 480x640 screen. 4 years ago. I'd kill a cow to be able to use that phone in Europe, I still can't buy anything like it here.

Some shots

Re:The other Scroll Wheel

[benplaut]

Didn't the older Dell DJ's have that?

Re:The other Scroll Wheel

[Anonymous Coward]

meh, who cares? The scroll wheel lets me run through thousands of songs with one simple repetative motion. With the lame cylinder I have to bring my thumb back w/o touching the widget.

The scroll wheel fucking owns. The iPod would not be an iPod without the scroll wheel. The scroll wheel is what you pay 400$ for.

Re:The other Scroll Wheel

[Anonymous Coward]

The same scroll barrel (Jog Dial) was used on the Sony Clie TH55. Best PalmOS device ever. :)

Re:The other Scroll Wheel

[$1uck]

I think the Dell mp3 player has a similar wheel to what you're talking about. I personally hate the iPod wheel, but the one on the dell just has a much nicer, more solid feel to me. I however don't own either device, or any mp3 player (besides my computer and car stereo). I'm still waiting for a pda with a 30gb+ HD that can do mp3's and video. Then maybe I'll have my portable mp3 player.

Re:The other Scroll Wheel

[mrchaotica]

Of course it has the disadvantage of having to pick up your finger.

What it needs is a jog dial on the side that the user can just push up or down, and that then springs back to the center position when the pressure is removed. I think the Sony Clio PDAs had this...

Re:The other Scroll Wheel

[kaizokunami]

Yes, and it was great - really intuitive and simple to use.

Re:The other Scroll Wheel

[KozmoStevnNaut]

I does look rather snazzy indeed... Why oh why must the coolest gadgets be Japan-only? I'd kill for a proper localized (danish) Panasonic W5 subnotebook with local support available. Or commit other grievous crimes for just about any other good-quality (close to as good as my Thinkpad T42) completely fanless laptop for less than €2000.

To complicated

[deopmix]

I imagine that this would do much better if they removed the WiFi(wouldn't bluetooth make more sense anyway) and the fm tuner, made it out of something other than plastic, and reduced the price.

Re:To complicated

[Anonymous Coward]

How about they just remove everything and not make it at all?

Re:To complicated

[Anonymous Coward]

The wireless feature is simply retarded. It can't be used with a browser, it can't be used to load music from your computer, it can only be used to help Microsoft's store sell music to your friends (you can't even share music that wasn't bought through Microsoft.) Don't say the device "has wireless" if it's crippled to the point of being useless.

Black and white???

[stox]

Don't think so. The pictures that have been floating around claim that the each unit has a difffent color combination. By using BW photographs, the origin can't be traced back to the current holder of the unit. Of couse, this may be making the fatal mistake that MS didn't code the units so gray-scale images wouldn't reveal the current holders.

Re:Black and white???

[kzinti]

Indeed! It's explained in this article:

The reason the shot is in black and white is because Microsoft assigned a unique color scheme to every Zune prototype in existence right now--all 150 of them--so any leaks could be traced to the employee who leaked it. We don't want to be jerks and get anybody fired.

Re:Black and white???

[ameline]

Cool,

So If I want one of those 150 fired, I just have to get me some pictures, use my photoshop-fu skills and shift the colors over to match those of the "person of interest" (to abuse the euphamism so popular amongst police), and presto, Steve B. is throwing chairs in their general direction.

In case of Slashdotting

[Anonymous Coward]

18 - , @12:01AM ---popyta1tes6 bain microsoft dept iLounge Zune, MP3 microsoft's. , "Zune iPod 30GB, ." Interestingly, microsoft forgoes touch-sensitive scrollwheel -sformirovannyx . WiFi, FM, ( iPod) --cerna4 . , 30GB $300. Saied Pinto.

Microsoft has come up with one original feature

[Hepneck]

for the Zune; It has a color screen that only displays a single color, their patented shade of 'Blue Screen of Death' blue.

trust Microsoft to...

[56ker]

a) be behind the competition
b) bring out something with more features and is the hardware equivalent of bloatware
c) As the wi-fi feature only works with other Zune models it seems pretty pointless to have such a feature until it becomes popular enough for this feature to be worth including
d) be more expensive than the competition

Re:trust Microsoft to...

[viperblades]

you forgot, stupid name. "check out my zune!" "dude your getting a zune!" "zune! zune! zune! zune! I love this mp3 player! zune! zune! zune!" it just doesnt work.

Re:trust Microsoft to...

[Anonymous Coward]

And exactly which other player's wifi capability are you pissed off it is not compatible with?

I love to critique a product but if you have nothing to add, not speaking up IS an option.

Re:trust Microsoft to...

[kfg]

e)win
f)Profit!!!

KFG

Re:trust Microsoft to...

[maxume]

c) As the wi-fi feature only works with other Zune models it seems pretty pointless to have such a feature until it becomes popular enough for this feature to be worth including

No eggs without chickens! No chickens without eggs!

But...

[settrans]

...does it run Windows?

Re:But...

[Inda]

Yes it does.

http://i1.tinypic.com/1zqzt5j.jpg

Re:But...

[Anonymous Coward]

...does it run Windows?

The good news is yes it runs Windows. The bad news is it runs ME. But on the brightside it does have the paperclip to help you navigate.

coincidence?

[xstaytruex]

Are they trying to hard and also making their product have four letters.

What the hell?

[eebra82]

Eh. Apparently you can use the Wi-fi feature to "loan" other Zune owners music for some short period (a day), giving them the opportunity to buy the tracks themselves from the Zune music store. While this is a cool idea, and could work well for ubiquitous iPods, it gets an "eh" here because you're unlikely to randomly bump into other people who have Zunes, and unless Microsoft actually gives away music, you're even more unlikely to find people who are willing to purchase tracks from its latest music store.

I am not sure what this guy is on to here. While it is very wise commenting for any music player from a company like Creative or iRiver, this is just dumb. Microsoft already told people it will market this thing even at a loss. Although I doubt it's going to be as cool as what we're likely to see in the next iPod, I think it is very safe to say that a lot of people will buy this thing. A lot of people speculated this way about the Xbox, but that one turned out great if you ask me. Say all you want, but Microsoft is very successful with hardware. They sell a lot of keyboards, mice, Xboxes and probably also mp3 players.

It is difficult to speculate what Apple has to offer on their next generation of iPods, besides the very large touch screen that has been rumored for so long. Honestly though, I have two iPods next to me that I've stopped using many months ago. I have the latest generation of iPods and the Nano. The big one I don't use because it is simply too big for my taste. I've come to the conclusion that keys, a mobile phone, a wallet and a music player is a lot of stuff at once, and you hardly want to mix the tools because they will just make scratches on the other one (aside from the wallet, which requires its own pocket). So what I did was to get a Nano, but I quickly realized that the small form factor was even offered in phones, so I got a phone with a 6 GB hard drive. Now I'm very happy with that choice. Fewer items to wear in my pockets, less to care about, less to forget, less to charge when I get home.


The summary: I honestly think that cell phones with growing hard drives and flash drive capability are the future. I doubt it would go from mp3 players to phones simply because PDA:s have taken that path with not so much success. It's probably because of the form factor, but also the fact that people want this device to work primarily as a phone, secondarily (yet with ease) as a media player and then every thing else overshadowed. As for businessmen, there are plenty of phone/PDA/media player solutions already, but kids, teenagers and probably a whole lot of other people are probably more and more interested in phones with mp3 capability.

Microsoft will sell Zunes all over the world and I am sure people will buy them. I just don't think Apple and Microsoft can compete with such players as soon as phones increase capacity to 10 GB and with a better interface. I know Nokia is investing in their own music store, so it is a safe to say that we're going to see a lot of new media phones very soon. Bulky players like these will obviously always be there, because some people still prefer large displays and video capability, but I think that larger phones with a large 300 DPI display and 10 GB drive would beat it if it was offered at $300, like Zune and about like iPod.

Re:What the hell?

[Spliffster]

i can second that! i am looking forward to a mobile phone with a couple of GB's storage, a 4+ Mega pixel camera, FM tuner and bluetooth interface all in the size of the current phones (at best an additional usb 2 cable which just make the storage available as block device). I am sick of having to carry so many devices, the mp3 player is usually just with me when i am jogging.

Cheers,
-S

BTW: what phone did you buy ?

Re:What the hell?

[ClamIAm]

Microsoft is very successful with hardware. They sell a lot of keyboards, mice, Xboxes and probably also mp3 players.

Um, right. Even though Microsoft has worked hard to obfuscate its unprofitable businesses, it's still rather clear that they are not making any money in the areas you claim here. For example, the Xbox alone has drained $4 billion from the war chest (through the end of 2005).

Re:What the hell?

[AC5398]

I've gone in the other direction for one reason - batteries. I have terrible luck with any battery other than AA and AAA. Anything I take home that's rechargeable winds up losing their charge in half the advertised time, all in just over the take-it-back-for-a-full-refund period. Twice now, my cell phones would last a week on one charge for the first month. Now they last 3 days. If I started playing mp3s on the damn things, I'd have a charge that lasted, tops, 4 hours.

So, I have a barebones cellphone - no bluetooth, no neato camera attachment. It makes phone calls, has a nifty display that tells me who's calling, and the world's happiest ringtone. By keeping the fluff off the cellphone, I have a phone that is always working.

If I want to listen to music, there's always the Iriver, and a recharge on that simply means popping in another battery. If I find myself on say, Mars, miles away from an electrical outlet, I just find myself A Little Green Man convenience store and buy a pack of AAs. And it isn't like the Iriver is the size of a tank - it's the size of my thumb. The phone, Iriver, spare AA, and headphones fit into a pouch on the belt.

Really funny

[SuperKendall]

Actually, what's really funny about that is that I never saw the comment before! Not even as author... If you'll check my posting history you'll note I was not even around Slashdot for a few days at that time.

I guess there are only so many ways to joke about the original statement, and you'll notice that my message made much better use of the always-funny "Good to Go" statement...

Re:Really funny

[vistic]

Why is "good to go" funny? Because of those lame ass taco bell commercials?

Love this comment

[Kalewa]

I'm loving this quote from the comments on ilounge

"i hope MS has done some studies on the effects of wearing magnetics against ones brain for prolonging periods of time?? considering that our brain works on magnetic pulses i am sure that this one feature alone will be enuff to turn a sh*tload of people off"

Because regular headphones don't have magnets, right? ...right?

Re:Love this comment

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess the poster left their white ear buds in all day and couldn't think straight

Re:Love this comment

[cyber-vandal]

It's probably the same guy who told me that he wouldn't want a hydrogen powered car because hydrogen's explosive.

Enough with the Saied Pinto plugs!

[rgravina]

This is third article today that ended with some shameless plug about a guy called Saied Pinto who is editing LinuxWorld for the day.

There are already advertisements at the top of the page. Do we need them in article summaries too?

Re:Enough with the Saied Pinto plugs!

[Agilus]

Huh. I like it. It shows me that someone's -actually editing- the posted stories now, instead of the crap that was going on before. Plus, by posting the identification of the editor, there's some accountability! I see it as a quality improvement - a higher chance to get intelligible article posts, and a higher chance that dupes don't get posted. This benefit cascades into less complaining about spelling, grammar, and duping of Slashdot article posts. Look at those benefits!

But then again, now we have people complaining about "advertisements." I guess you can't win them all.

Re:Enough with the Saied Pinto plugs!

[rgravina]

Ah OK guess you're right there... actual editing and accountability is a good thing! I was assuming that the Slashdot editors edited the story (i.e. Posted by) so wondered why a second editor was mentoned, but now that I think about it, it means Pinto did the editing and Taco just posted it (while bain sumitted the article).... ok great, that *is* an improvement :)

Anyhow... I, for one, welcome our article editing overlords.

Next they'll rip off...

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple's commercials.

Blue (BSOD) background with a black silhouette of Steve Ballmer dancing around with his Zune to the "Developer, Developers, Developers, Developers" song

Re:Next they'll rip off...

[ischorr]

Too late.

http://www.macboy.com/cartoons/ballmer/

Re:Next they'll rip off...

[Midnight Thunder]

Too late.

http://www.macboy.com/cartoons/ballmer/

What? No chairs?

Let's see...

[whitespiral]

No FLAC? No, thanks.

Re:Let's see...

[hugzz]

This is my number 1 priority for an MP3 player actually. No one could ever work out why the hell I used carry around a god-aweful looking Rio Karma, while they used their trendy ipods.

But then again, few of them could understand why I lugged around full sized open headphones instead of cute white earphones

Any manufacturer who puts flac support in their MP3 player will automatically catch the attention of a niche market. I dont understand why few do. It just requires free software, doesn't it? Or is it something far more complex than I thought?

Re:Let's see...

[corychristison]

This is my number 1 priority for an MP3 player actually. No one could ever work out why the hell I used carry around a god-aweful looking Rio Karma, while they used their trendy ipods.

If you are in the market for a new MP3 player, take a nice long look at the iAUDIO X5.
Supports most audio formats[MP3, WMA/ASF, OGG, FLAC & WAV], and looks relatively similar to the iPod. Oh, as a plus, it is black. The only downside I found with it is the screen. It's not very big compared to the iPod.

Re:Let's see...

[TheRaven64]

The reason FLAC is not in the iPod is that it is too costly to decode. This is why the Apple Lossless codec was developed; to allow lossless playback on existing hardware (and without reducing the battery life too much). There is no reason why you can't transcode your music into Apple Lossless since transcoding from one lossless format to another doesn't reduce the quality.

I don't know what the status of the FLAC plugin for iTunes is, but it may just be a matter of selecting the FLAC files and hitting the convert to Apple Lossless button in iTunes and then plugging an iPod in.

Be aware, however, that playing lossless music will reduce the battery life since you have to spin the disk 2-4 times as much. I would quite like to see a music player which would store lossy and lossless versions of the same music and play the lossless version only when on external power.

Re:Let's see...

[radish]

The reason FLAC is not in the iPod is that it is too costly to decode. This is why the Apple Lossless codec was developed; to allow lossless playback on existing hardware (and without reducing the battery life too much).
Sorry, that's crap. FLAC is amazingly easy to decode, as evidenced by the fact that Rockbox running on the exact same iPod WILL play FLAC. The reason iPod doesn't have FLAC is simple - it wasn't made by Apple and it doesn't have DRM.

Re:Let's see...

[radish]

Still not gapless though... :(

Re:Let's see...

[Weedlekin]

"The reason iPod doesn't have FLAC is simple - it wasn't made by Apple and it doesn't have DRM.".

Apple must therefore have designed MP3, AIFF, and WAV formats too then, together with their subtle but effective COAPWYL ("Copy Onto Anything, Play Whenever You Like") DRM schemes.

Re:Let's see...

[ClamIAm]

All I want in a music/media player is the ability to get the documentation for the hardware, with no NDA or other legal nonsense attached. This way, it would be easy to write software that works for it and supports every format under the sun (perhaps even things like Flash). It would be easy for someone to port something like Rockbox to it as well.

ok...

[bangenge]

i don't wanna sound like a troll or anything, but based on the pic of TFA, it seems like i don't wanna put much stock into it. there's been a lot of the fabricated(?) pics of the zune out there that it makes me wary about that. just my $.02

Touch sensitive

[Wicko]

How is that a con for the Zune? Who gives a shit about the touch sensitive interface, its just marketing fluff anyway.. oh wow a new way to navigate menus in a less accurate, distracting manner! I always found that annoying with the iPod, I kept over scrolling and messing up. I find buttons much easier and useful. You can easily tell what you are doing, or how many songs you've skipped without looking at the player. That's useful if you need to keep your eyes elsewhere, ie driving with your player hooked up to your car or something, or you just dont feel like taking it out of your pocket, etc. I just hope this brings some decent competition. Creative couldn't do it, can Microsoft?

Re:Touch sensitive

[Anonymous Coward]

Um... have you ever tried the next/prev buttons by any chance?

Re:OT - Linux World Editor?

[Twid]

Hey, I was running Linux on Parallels on the MacBook Pro in the Apple booth.

So there. :)

Because they can...

[spagetti_code]

Look, MS has $1,000,000,000 in profits every month to put in the bank.
They can afford to take a few punts to see what works.

If I was an investor, I'd be pretty pleased with this (well,
actually I'd be more pleased if they paid some dividends or
got their stock price up, but hey... this aint bad).

All power to them - they want to create a complete
home entertainment experience, and this is an essential part
of the pie.

Signed
A happy iPod owner.

Re:Because they can...

[I'm Don Giovanni]

Just for your information, Microsoft does pay dividends (and a good thing to, since the stock price has been flat for years, so there's no way to make money based on increasing stock price).

Re:Because they can...

[kjart]

If I was an investor, I'd be pretty pleased with this (well, actually I'd be more pleased if they paid some dividends or got their stock price up, but hey... this aint bad).

FYI, MSFT does pay dividends.

Why are people stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

"Zune is a bit bigger than a standard 30GB iPod, and apparently made entirely of plastic."

Magical plastic that has the power to conduct electricty and display graphics!! ZOMGZ0RZ!!!@

Douchetards.

Re:Why are people stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

you're the stupid one, unable to put the comment in context, i.e. the iPod with a plastic front and metal back.

So that's why Apple started making black iPods ...

[mooncaine]

..., so that the Zune wouldn't seem so special when it finally came out.

Zune??

[Jesus IS the Devil]

Wtf? Zune? With a name like that, why would anybody even care to buy?

Re:Zune??

[Airconditioning]

Wtf? Zune? With a name like that, why would anybody even care to buy?

I thought the same thing when I heard the name iPod for the first time, and when I heard the PlayStation announced.

"Duh, PlayStation. It's a station, that you play. Get a real name like GameBoy or Funvision."

Re:Zune??

[saucercrab]

Almost as ridiculous as releasing a game console with a name that's homophonic to a word for urine.

Re:high

[Lord Prox]

I believe he may be snorting lines of PHP. I dunno, but it kinda looks like it. Look at how big this "first post" was, sumthin's up with that.
Just ain't normal for a FP




Bless Linus

The next step...

[davmoo]

If Microsoft really wants to be like Apple, now they need to file a suit against iLounge for leaking the pictures.

MS fanbois, are you out there?

[Masa]

This made me wondering, if there is somewhere people wearing T-shirts with Microsoft (or Windows) logos and chanting the Microsoft name. Is there such fanboyism, which will guarantee the sale of this kind of device? Because, otherwise it could be quite difficult to penetrate the market with this new device. We already have Apple and Creative and they both provide well-known music players. And I have this feeling (so, no real knowledge) that the music player industry is like mobile phone industry. You have to be hip to be on the belt of a teenager. Right?

So, the question is, is there such a movement - like behind Linux or other subcultures we are familiar with here in Slashdot - for Microsoft products? And now I'm not talking about business software. I'm talking about the passionate young people with ideologies and ideals.

Re:MS fanbois, are you out there?

[93 Escort Wagon]

"This made me wondering, if there is somewhere people wearing T-shirts with Microsoft (or Windows) logos and chanting the Microsoft name. Is there such fanboyism, which will guarantee the sale of this kind of device?"

It's not quite the same, but there are people like that - I work with one of them. Nice guy, but he tends to give Microsoft credit for everything. Such as predicting IE7 will kill Firefox because of its tabs and nifty search box. But thing is, these folks fall into a pretty narrow group - Windows admins, teenage boys and cubicle jockeys who get asked by their friends and neighbors to fix their computers; folks like that. While plenty of Apple fanboys fall in this category as well, Apple seems to have enough "cool" fans to offset this.

So I'd guess Zune will sell to people like this, and to their immediate families... and if MS sells it at a loss they'll sell to the moms and dads whose kids put "iPod" on their Christmas list, then go to Walmart and get told "oh yeah, this is even better than an iPod - I'm sure this is what your kid meant to write down, but just forgot the real name." But I'll be really surprised if this makes much of a dent in the iPod's market share.

(Boy it'll be interesting to follow the moderation of THIS post...)

Re:MS fanbois, are you out there?

[klang]

So, you would rather spend $300 on a totally unknown player than the same amount on a player that has already proved it's worth?

the "too expensive" argument simply does not make any sense.

Re:MS fanbois, are you out there?

[Masa]

the iPod touch scroll thing is a PITA, and MS makes kick ass hardware.

So, you have already used this new player? Interesting. Or are you just saying that automatically every piece of hardware that MS makes will be great? Yes, MS makes excellent mice and keyboards (and I prefer them) but I'm not assuming anything based on my previous experiences.

Shove your "fanboi" thing up your ass and use your brain.

Oh, how rude. I just asked an honest question and you immediately are showing things up my ass. Well, maybe you have difficulties comprehending what I wrote. Just re-read and think. Did I accuse anyone (except maybe Apple fans and Linux users) of fanboyism?

Or is this just too touchy issue for you?

Re:MS fanbois, are you out there?

[KiloByte]

MS makes kick ass hardware.

The only product Microsoft ever made that didn't suck was indeed a piece of hardware -- MS Intellimouse 2.0a and 2.1a.

On the other hand, the chances of a company which keeps shouting "DRM! DRM! DRM!" even though it's sore in the throat for a long time coming up with something capable of playing DRM-free stuff is pretty small.

Shove your "fanboi" thing up your ass and use your brain.

Well said :p Death to MS fanboys :p

Re:MS fanbois, are you out there?

[cfeedback]

(Boy it'll be interesting to follow the moderation of THIS post...)

It's an interesting enough post to make me wish I hadn't wasted my points earlier today on useless drivel...

Can I moderate the same post as Insightful, Interesting, Informative, and Flamebait?!?

Re:MS fanbois, are you out there?

[D4MO]

I bet it requires WMP11 to sync music, which will suck just as bad as iTunes. Whatever about format support, I'll only buy a player that supports UMS. I'm going to stick with my iRiver H340 + rockbox.

Re:MS fanbois, are you out there?

[Tim C]

On the other hand, the chances of a company which keeps shouting "DRM! DRM! DRM!" even though it's sore in the throat for a long time coming up with something capable of playing DRM-free stuff is pretty small.

Well, while WiMP defaults to ripping to protected WMA files, it can easily be configured to rip to unprotected WMA or even mp3 (lower quality, without a pay-for third party plugin). Already locked-out of the (large) iTunes market, I really, really can't see MS locking themselves out of the (large) "already has a few gig or more of unprotected mp3s" market; it would be suicide at this stage.

Re:MS fanbois, are you out there?

[maxume]

You have to be hip to be on the belt of a teenager. Right?

Hilarious, just hilarious.

Re:MS fanbois, are you out there?

[Masa]

You have to be hip to be on the belt of a teenager. Right?

Hilarious, just hilarious.

Heh :-D Thanks for pointing that out. That was totally unintentional.

Re:MS fanbois, are you out there?

[TheRaven64]

The only product Microsoft ever made that didn't suck was indeed a piece of hardware -- MS Intellimouse 2.0a and 2.1a.

I have a Microsoft Sidewinder Freesyle Pro, and it is a very nice product. For those unfamiliar with it, it is a joypad with a motion sensor; great for flight sims and driving games, and a lot of fun in Mechwarrior 3.

Re:MS fanbois, are you out there?

[XxtraLarGe]

"The only product Microsoft ever made that didn't suck was indeed a piece of hardware -- MS Intellimouse 2.0a and 2.1a."

That's a little harsh. Microsoft made some nice joysticks for flight sims, I even had a nice one with an ADB connection for my old PowerMac. The Intellimouse Explorer is indeed the nicest mouse I've ever used, I use one now with my Powerbook.

Re:MS fanbois, are you out there?

[Blakey Rat]

The only product Microsoft ever made that didn't suck was indeed a piece of hardware -- MS Intellimouse 2.0a and 2.1a.

There are quite a few products Microsoft makes that don't suck:

* Pretty much anything from Microsoft Game Studios, with the exception of the Dungeon Siege series, and some Xbox titles that really blew.

* The Xbox, Xbox 360.

* All their joysticks, mouses and keyboards. Especially the Natural keyboard.

* All their short-lived line of home networking equipment.

* Most Microsoft software for Mac OS doesn't suck, even if the Windows equivalent does. For instance, back when IE and Netscape ruled the browser market, IE for Macintosh was better in every way than IE for Windows.

But

[Anonymous Coward]

Will it work with Linux?

Made of plastic you say?!?

[_Griphin_]

OK, so wait till some genius makes a case out of semi-hard but bounceable rubber and sells it as an accessory. So what if it's made of possibly-shattering plastic, the rubber would take most of the stress if the unit gets accidently dropped or kicked around. This might have been brought up before, I haven't checked the comments. BTW: It supports radio, COOL!!! You should always have a portable radio with you at all times just incase your in a disaster.

Re:Made of plastic you say?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

"You should always have a portable radio with you at all times just incase your in a disaster."

Thats classic, I wish I could meet you. You sound bloody hilarious.

I'm all for a Windows based iPod Killer (tm)

[Anonymous Coward]

But does it run Linux?

This comment selected and edited by LinuxWorld editor for the day Saied Pinto.

The obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

What if you don't use a Mac or Win OS?

Re:The obvious

[Firehed]

Then you know more than enough about computers to use some alternative software. Guess what - there's a price for using a non-mainstream OS as a home user. Plus, the little sticker on the box that says "Compatible with Windows XP and Mac OS X" (or whatever) might tell you it's not the best choice for *nix users. The fact is that the desktop Linux market isn't large enough for it to be worth Apple's while to create an iTunes port - and even if they made one, it almost certainly couldn't include the music store, due to DRM and GPL conflicts (and the store is half of what made the iPod so successful, not that it'll matter too much for most (F)OSS OS users)

To the other poster - not really. Certainly not in a normal drag-and-drop approach that most people talk about when they're talking about the removable storage device-esque players. All of the files are on the device as normal MP3s, but the directory structure and file names are nothing like your typical music folder (though, IIRC, if you import those into someone else's iTunes, it'll copy back into the original structure since the tags are left intact).

Re:The obvious

[kwark]

"The fact is that the desktop Linux market isn't large enough for it to be worth Apple's while to create an iTunes port - and even if they made one, it almost certainly couldn't include the music store, due to DRM and GPL conflicts"

Care to explain this conflict you are imagining?

Re:The obvious

[Firehed]

Well, open source DRM doesn't work too well, does it? I don't know enough about Linux or the GPL to not sound like a total idiot, but I can safely say that open sourced DRM will not only be useless in record time, but it'll have DRM-stripping software for Windows and Mac released in probably days (i.e., jHYMN with iTMSv6 compatibility)

How Punny!

[jafac]

and (in stark contrast to the iPod) a white-on-black color scheme.

Touch wheel sucks

[NineNine]

I'm glad that it won't have one of those stupid touch wheels. I haven't bought an iPod, partly because that stupid touch sensitive thing is a real pain in the ass to use. I don't know people like those things. Everyone I've known has to squint and try 10 times to select a song because it just doesn't work all that well.

Re:Touch wheel sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

it works fine, you're just a retard

Re:Touch wheel sucks

[7Prime]

You have unique friends. The reason it works so well is because of it's built-in accelaration detection. It isn't just "once around means 10 lines", the faster you turn it, the faster still it scrolls. In it's ability to pick one song, accurately, out of a list of 500, no other interface comes close to the speed the scroll wheel can handle, period.

Re:Touch wheel sucks

[stud9920]

Make it 5000+ songs and it still sucks. I wish it was possible to change the resolution of the scrolling. Once you are fully accelerated, it's very hard to brake the scrolling at the right stop, making it possible not to arrive at aa or zz.

Also, their fancy font spoils the resolution of the screen.

U-G-L-Y you ain't got no alibi!

[corychristison]

... you ugl-eh!

Seriously though, those photos are terrible quality.
Although I do like the idea of a relatively large screen, I feel it is a total knock-off of the iPod. Not that I like the iPod or anything, as I am a proud owner of the amazing iAUDIO X5 -- a little bulky, but plays everything[OGG, FLAC, etc.], and mounts as a USB Mass Storage Device on any OS, and not a DRM-infested steaming heap of s**t.

Re:U-G-L-Y you ain't got no alibi!

[Anonymous Coward]

More than anything, I hate mp3 players with tiny little plastic joysticks. They're fine for 3.5 minute songs but for audiobook files and radio shows it'll drive you nuts when every time you want to fast forward to the middle of the file and end up skipping to next.

Re:U-G-L-Y you ain't got no alibi!

[Anonymous Coward]

The X5 has a setting to prevent that, so you can set a tap on the stick to skip, say, 30 seconds, instead of the whole file.

/. Tags

[Trogre]

Off-topic for this article, but relevant to this site:

What's up with Slashdot tags these days? Articles seem to have few if any tags whereas a couple of months ago every article had 3 or 4.

You can even see informative, relevant tags listed in the Examples when you expand tags for any given article so they are still being submitted.

Supposedly the rate of tag 'submissions' has declined after the initial novelty wore off, but I would have thought SlashCode would compensate by displaying the top 4 tags once each one passed a troll-filter threshold of, say, 2 occurences.

Re:/. Tags

[pimpimpim]

Yeah, got the same impression. Shame though, because I found them pretty useful. What would also be nice if slashdot editors would have a slashdot development blog were we could ask questions like this on-topic.

Re:/. Tags

[TheRaven64]

What would also be nice if slashdot editors would have a slashdot development blog were we could ask questions like this on-topic

Yes, that is a good idea. It would be about the code used to run Slashdot. You could call it Slashcode or something.

Skip Ahead

[Mantrid42]

Wouldn't it make more sense for Microsoft to make what people are speculating the "true" video iPod will be? I mean, if I were Microsoft, I'd be making a media player with a similar form factor thats entire face is a touch screen. Maybe a little larger than an ipod to accomodate a larger battery.

Just a black iPod

[Rik Sweeney]

Seriously, this thing looks so much like an iPod it's ridiculous.

If Microsoft can threaten people who put up Gravity Wars clones then I think Apple should threaten Microsoft for creating an iPod clone.

Re:Just a black iPod

[Rik Sweeney]

who put up Gravity Wars

Geometry Wars, sorry...

Re:Just a black iPod

[mobby_6kl]

Considering you have to pay Apple extra for the privilege of having a black device, MS might be on to something.

Re:Just a black iPod

[iainl]

They threaten Geometry Wars 'clones'? Does that include threatening Midway every time they re-release Robotron on some new platform, I wonder?

Hey, I like Geometry Wars. But claiming it has an ounce of originality to it is laughable.

Re:Just a black iPod

[radish]

It wasn't Microsoft, it was Bizarre Creations, as they own Geometry Wars. Microsoft have/had nothing to do with it.

You can read the article and press release here.

Re:Just a black iPod

[Blakey Rat]

If you're talking about Geometry Wars, then Microsoft has absolutely nothing to do with it. They didn't develop the game, they don't own the game, and they aren't suing anybody over a game they didn't develop or own.

Re:Just a black iPod

[DaggertipX]

I dunno, my black Nano was the same cost as the white one...

U.G.L.Y.

[Yez70]

I'm sorry but that thing is ugly. It looks like a giant cassette case from the 80's.

Yes, I am an MS fanboy

[Dystopian Rebel]

And the Zune looks like a PERFECT replacement for my Origami!

WinXP + WMP10?

[EvilMoose]

I'm pretty sure it requires WinXP/Vista/Whatever and WMP10, hence why I won't buy it because it's my mp3 player. Not Microsoft's vehicle to get me to change OS.

White-on-black?

[TwilightSentry]

Wow; an mp3-player that runs Dos!

OMG...

[Jonathan.Sidego]

Does this mark the end for Apple?

Revealed My Arse

[jackhererUK]

I think "revealed" is a little strong for the grainy, blured, black and white photo of the UI. I think that "Microsoft Zune MP3 Player Interface Largely Obscured" would be a much better headline for this article ;-)

Don't call it an MP3 player

[DrXym]

It's a WMA player that also happens to play MP3, although just like Apple, Microsoft will ensure that the defaults are set to WMA, as well as only selling WMA content. MP3 is considered "legacy" by these companies. Not because it's noticeably of lower quality, but because they both want to lock you into their proprietary format.

I wish one of them (i.e. Microsoft) would just concede to the other and be done with it - let us buy our music from anywhere and play it on any device. Or at least reach a pact where each supports the other's unprotected format, at least allowing some interchange between devices for content people may have ripped for themselves.

Re:Don't call it an MP3 player

[UnknowingFool]

let us buy our music from anywhere and play it on any device. Or at least reach a pact where each supports the other's unprotected format, at least allowing some interchange between devices for content people may have ripped for themselves.

I don't think that neither MS nor Apple will ever have the final say in that. I think the RIAA want to ensure that you have to buy a copy for every device you own. And there is an unencumbered format that anyone can use. It's called MP3. Both of them play MP3s.

Re:Don't call it an MP3 player

[DrXym]

If MP3 is unencumbered, and WMA / AAC files are unprotected when someone rips their own CDs, where is the harm in all players playing unprotected WMA / AAC files? Obviously there is a monopolistic harm (Apple's monopoly in this case), but anything that tears down the barriers between formats is a good thing from the customer's point of view. I expect the RIAA would whine about it, but its hard to see why - after all it's no worse than MP3. It's hard to see why they even whine about copy protection at all. Lossless copy protection strippers exist for all the major formats so its not like they're benefiting from it much anyway. They'd be better off to make music ubiquitous and cheap and then no one would be bothering with P2P for songs anyway.

Strange as it may sound, there is a device that plays MP3 and unprotected WMA & AAC - the Sony PSP. Who'd have thought Sony would produce a device which is actually one of the better ones for supporting multiple music formats? It's just too bad that Sony are as bad themselves, flogging that dead horse called ATRAC3 in their other devices. Still, the PSP demonstrates that a device can play the major formats.

Re:Don't call it an MP3 player

[dangermouse]

AAC isn't proprietary. Well, not to Apple anyway. It's MPEG standard audio, and lots of devices support it without anybody licensing anything from Apple. Furthermore, it was explicitly intended by the MPEG group to be an improved successor to MP3, so MP3 is "legacy" in that context.

Any lock-in that Apple obtains is from the FairPlay DRM employed by the iTunes Music Store, which is not (by default) present in any files you rip yourself using iTunes-- doesn't really have anything to do with AAC.

WMA, on the other hand, is all Microsoft. Their lock-in comes from licensing control as well as DRM.

Re:Don't call it an MP3 player

[RossumsChild]

let us buy our music from anywhere and play it on any device.

They *do*. YOU just have to be industrious enough to rip in MP3 format.

Your problem is that you are busy whining about the "big bad corporations" instead of educating your fellow consumers. If we all spent a little of our time making sure our friends and family ripped and burned in MP3 format (and used services like emusic and instead of iTunes) instead of the proprietary formats, this wouldn't be an issue.

Re:Don't call it an MP3 player

[DrXym]

No, my "problem" is that Apple and Microsoft and Sony set their rippers to use their proprietary format by default and no amount of education will cause more than a small percentage of users to switch to MP3. If you think any different, you clearly don't recognize or understand the power of the default.

Re:Don't call it an MP3 player

[Alzdran]

What you miss, though, is that AAC isn't an Apple proprietary format. Its not as widely supported as mp3, but then, neither is Ogg - would you object if Ogg was the default?

Re:Don't call it an MP3 player

[ClamIAm]

And there is an unencumbered format that anyone can use. It's called MP3.

I guess I have a different definition of "unencumbered" than you do.

Re:Don't call it an MP3 player

[krell]

In general usage, MP3 is unencumbered.

Re:Don't call it an MP3 player

[ClamIAm]

Definition of encumbered: 3. To burden with legal or financial obligations (American Heritage Dict.)

The MPEG "standard" that MP3 is a part of is heavily patented. Patent law creates legal and financial obligations. Therefore, MP3 is encumbered.

QED.

Re:Don't call it an MP3 player

[krell]

"The MPEG "standard" that MP3 is a part of is heavily patented. Patent law creates legal and financial obligations. Therefore, MP3 is encumbered."

I didn't say it was entirely unencumbered. Just relatively unencumbered. The situation allows people to create MP3 devices and files, and to use and play them with very little restriction (in practice). In fact, the hassle from the "encumbrance" of MP3 is so little that the main advantages of unencumbered OGG end up being technical rather than its lack of emcumbrance.

Zune preview by Rowley Birkin, QC

[SenorCitizen]

"The whole thing was made completely out of rubbah!"

sry, i must be very very drunk

Sorry, I know it is old

[xtracto]

I know this is old but cant help but remember:

Microsoft Ipod anyone?

I just want to see the package of the Zune and laugh so hard =o).

Just like when I laughed when I saw the iRiver intro video (which rememembered of a two color iPod commercial).

Po-tay-to, Po-tah-to

[hachete]

The two design styles are worlds apart. MS pushing this thing into the world, design by committee and one huge focus group oh, like slashdot. Apple never reveals it's design before release, always uses *a designer. For aesthetics, I know which one I prefer.

Microsoft and the big entrance

[skingers6894]

Microsoft are about to make their big entrance to the digital music party.... ....again.

Ta dah! ......... guys, I said "TA DAH!" .....over here with the scroll wheel thing that isn't.....

Looks great but

[BeoCluster]

Can I make a Beowulf Cluster of these mp3 players ?

Tip of the iceberg

[Magi77]

Microsoft may soon add features like picking up your music files from Home computer while you are away from home... I won't be surprised if MS captures sizable share of this market too..

Creative lawsuit

[Anonymous Coward]

So, if the interface is similar to the iPod, then Creative will be suing Microsft next? MS response will be -
a) secretly fund Creative's lawsuit against Apple & take out a license from Creative
b) fight Creative in court
c) buy Creative & ramp up the lawsuit

wonderful

[craagz]

I think this product will do reasonably well... No matter how bad M$ is..it has experience to market the product.. Wi-Fi, Radio, Large Screen, one Day Lending..(i am sure this will generate more business from M$ online music shop) Things that iPod doesn't curently have.. A father goes to a shop..the sales guy says...this , this ,this iPod doesn't have..your child will be unique .. And dont go by Pictures...obviously..the official pictures are the thing to go by

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Well, the logo's cool

[mclaincausey]

looks like the device itself will be irrelevant though.

Re:They'll get 100% of the market, all right.(Not)

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think 100% is feasible when there are some tech savvy folks who like the better sound quality, excellent recording capabilities and the ogg support built into some of the iriver players.

Xbox did do bad

[Winckle]

Err, yes they did, the original Xbox was a 4 billion dollar loss.

Re:Xbox did do bad

[Vr6dub]

I would consider it a 4 billion dollar loss-LEADER. They just wanted their foot in the door and that costs money, especially when you're trying to compete with an incumbant as powerful as Sony was. I won't be surprised if the 360 turns into a cash cow for them with all their "micropayments" (arggghhhh) and arcade games. I myself have spent a good amount of money (+/- $100) on the marketplace.

Re:Xbox did do bad

[radish]

It was always supposed to be. The purpose of Xbox was not to make money, it was to get them brand recognition and a "foot in the door" of people's living rooms. It did astonishingly well at that, selling roughly as many units in it's first generation as one of the most established companies in the field (Nintendo).

UI color

[$1uck]

They talk about the ui being special with white letters on black vs. the reverse. What would work on selling me, being the nostalgic fool I am, would be Green on black (maybe even amber on black, but I'd prefer the green thank you).

ipod this ipod that

[szembek]

A giant comparison to the iPod. That's great if you actually have an iPod. I don't. I've never even seen the interface in action on an iPod. Please all I want to know is if it is good.

Panache and mp3s

[Rogerborg]

We all seem to be accepting the description of this thing as an "mp3 player". I'll bet you an PS3 to a Wii that it'll only store and play (and "loan") wma.

In other news: EMI to pack music videos on Zune

[Krishna Dagli]

Microsoft's Zune digital media player will come preloaded with music videos when it is released later this year following a deal between the software giant and music company EMI. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5262344.stm

Yea but....

[Bravoc]

will it boot Linux?

OK my head hurts

[gelfling]

What EXACTLY is MS going to do to improve my mp3 "experience"? Seriously, it's a codec, a screen and some controls. This isn't Star Trek you know. And there are lots of non iPods out there that do yeoman's service. I have a Chinese USB thumbdrive mp3 player that doubles as an optional encrypted data drive and a voice recorder. If they wanted to stoke my "experience" they'd make the screen a little bigger and double the flash. But for the $30 it cost me, I don't care. In fact I could buy another one and carry both of them.

$300? C'mon. I got one of those for one of my kids who HAD to have a video iPod. Guess what - after about a month of squinting he stopped watching videos. Now it's a just a big audio mp3 player. It's nice to have that storage but functionally it's LESS functional; e.g. heavier and more fragile, then my other kid's 4GB nano. So the 'function' tops out at about $129.

Next we come to what I call the Furious Factor. Let's face facts; it's an MS device. It will require gobs-o-hardware which translates to limited battery life. It will probably try to force me to adopt it as a PDA or ignore the duplicative PDA functions.

It will likely ladle on generous scoops of DRM making is useless for most people.

It will likely not interface well with any other MS code let alone the 'other' MS hardware, the Xbox360.

It will likely not interface at all with any high end phone.

It will be over promised and undermanufactured creating instant unavailability.

I can see the commercials now...

[nsmike]

(Scene: We see 2 men, standing next to each other, one in a suit, looking a little more distinguished and professional, the other in a hoodie, with ripped-up, faded jeans, looking rather young and, "hip"... Backdrop is a non-descript washed-out white)

Zune: Hi, I'm a Zune.
iPod: And I'm an iPod.
Zune: You know a Zune can do a lot of great things. It can play videos, store and play all of your favorite music, and...
iPod(interrupting): Well, an iPod can do all of that too. (pauses, looking at the previously out-of-view left hand of the suited-up man) What's... What's that?
Zune: Oh, this is a Wi-Fi antenna. I'm Wi-Fi active.
iPod (Frowns overexaggeratedly)
Zune: Uh-oh, that's the sad face... Hang on, I think I know what to do to fix this, I saw it on the internet... (Suited-up man picks up the younger man and body slams him)
iPod (on the ground, looking straight up, not at the camera): Thanks man.
Zune: No problem.

omg rip off

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG, it has a color screen and a wheel just like the iPod, what a rip off!!!
Give me a break, stupid fanboys.
If you don't like it, no one will make you buy one, just go away and stop whining.
Oh, white text on black makes my eyes hurt and see stripes, yeah right, this coming from linux nerds who spend their day in front of a terminal!
To begin with, if owning a Zune means being different than the typical retarded emo/hiphop kid around the corner I'm interrested in getting one ;)

Throw in Halo

[aplusjimages]

If they want some buzz they should throw out some rumors that Halo will be playable on it. Even if its a lame Halo flash game.

Micro$oft is scared

[jaweekes]

People get an Ipod and they like it. They are impressed with the quality and service that they get, and the perceived "value for money" in their investment. ITunes is not that bad, and as software goes it works well on Windows.

Now, when they shop for a new computer they see that Apple sells them too! The quality is as good as the IPod, and it all "just works". Guess what they do? They buy an IBook or IMac and Micro$oft has lost another customer because of the IPod.

When Apple released the IMac it was praised for the design and sold a lot. It has been selling well since then, but about two years ago, when the IPod really took off, the IMac's and IBooks started to sell even better! And now they are getting 20% of the new computer sales?

Micro$oft is scared that they might loss their cash-cow because they thought that everyone would want their TV connected to the computer (AKA Windows Multimedia), but that is not the case. People want music and video -to-go. That is why Micro$oft is selling an MP3 player.

Apple on the other hand sells a computer, but treats it as a piece of consumer electronics. They control the hardware, OS and software (via their "Approved for Mac" label) so everything works well.

Cylinder? I think you're on to something

[dsandler]

See, a scroll-wheel doesn't have to be a flat, round rubber disc, it can be a cylinder!

Holy crap, you're right. But---get this----what if we mounted it upright on (i.e., normal to) the music player's surface? Then you could reach out, maybe with your thumb and forefinger, and ... I don't know, rotate the thing? Twist it? "Turn" it?

I could totally imagine this on the front of music players everywhere for volume control and maybe to select between different wireless "channels" (TODO: figure out how to modulate multiple streams of music in a band of EM radiation).

Actually, this could be even bigger! We could use these kinds of controls in any situation where fine-tuning and coarse-grained adjustment are necessary (say, on microscopes), or really on any kind of mechanism where the act of turning the control can be made to do useful mechanical work (TODO: maybe this can be used on water faucets? doors? something like that).

I'm stuck on a name for this physical, continuously-variable, cylindrical widget. Any ideas?

Re:Cylinder? I think you're on to something

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't we name it after you? We could call it a "knob."

Re:Cylinder? I think you're on to something

[dsandler]

Well played, well played.

Is that you?

[jtcedinburgh]

I'll probably buy one. iTunes sucks, the iPod is too expensive, the iPod touch scroll thing is a PITA, and MS makes kick ass hardware. Shove your "fanboi" thing up your ass and use your brain. Some people (like me) will like it a hell of a lot better.

Is that you, Bill?

Re:Is that you?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, this is me.

You, 15% of market, are target.

[twitter]

From the article:

At best, weve heard predictions that Zune will fight for the same fraction of tech geek market share (15%) that Apple hasnt yet taken.

That sounds reasonable, but there's no way it's going to happen. People who have have avoided iPod have done so because they are getting the same functionality from cheaper devices and don't want DRM crippled music. According to the article, M$ has DRM crippled Zune's wifi sharing with some kind of silly "one day" only listening for other people with a Zune. Prediction: big flop.

Coke

[hotsauce]

Maybe. And you could say the same for Coca-Cola and Pepsi. But despite the fact that you can get supermarket cola for a quarter on Coke's dollar, you buy the brand-name every time.

Nobody wants an mp3 player. They want an iPod. That's the genius.

Re:Coke

[kfg]

. . .you could say the same for Coca-Cola and Pepsi.. . you buy the brand-name every time

Stewarts/Polar/Adirondack, local brands; every time they're available.The local brands at my market have as much combined shelf space as the national brands do, so I can't exactly be alone. And my preference is for Vanilla Cream, not Malted Battery Acid.

Nobody wants an mp3 player. They want an iPod. That's the genius

My prediction was for ten years. Ten years ago "everyone" wanted a Sony Walkman. "Everyone" is an ass, and fickle, especially when it comes to fashion.

KFG

Re:Coke

[Erectile Dysfunction]

To be honest the myopia involved in presuming the inevitability of iPod dominance into the distant future surprises me. I would imagine that few people posting here are so young that they couldn't remember the world before the iPod.

Re:Coke

[NMerriam]

The local brands at my market have as much combined shelf space as the national brands do, so I can't exactly be alone.

Statistically, yes you are alone. Coke and Pesi are the brands that everyone knows and everyone copies. Yes, local markets will have other brands, but those other brands are fighting over the 50% of the market left once Pepsi and Coke are done.

My prediction was for ten years. Ten years ago "everyone" wanted a Sony Walkman. "Everyone" is an ass, and fickle, especially when it comes to fashion.

Considering iPods have been around for half a decade already, and are more popular than ever, I'm not sure what you expect to change. There are no new music formats on the horizon, no new distribution even being experimented with. Every change for the previous 50 years was because of a change in physical format and portability.

The only change I can forsee is the perpetually "almost available" convergence device, the MP3 cell phone with everything else in one box. People have been trying to build that monstrosity for almost a decade already and have made little headway, and it isn't a technology limitation. Building it isn't a problem, it's making it usable and attractive that is hard, and coincidentally that is the exact set of problems Apple solved with the iPod (and continues to show uncanny ability in solving). There's a reason the only cell phone rumor that continually gets non-phone geeks excited is the iPhone.

Re:Coke

[kfg]

I'm not sure what you expect to change.

Pepsi.

KFG

The One Thing Not Missing

[rjstanford]

According to the gizmodo coverage, one thing not missing (that I haven't seen anyone mention on here yet) is an FM Transmitter. Yup, not only can you listen to the radio, but you can transmit as well, all built-in. That's pretty significant in my opinion. Not only that, but it also has RDS support, which is something I haven't seen on any of the iPod ones (not that I've looked particularly hard). That way, you get your artist/track information right on your radio while you're in the car. Nice! That's the kind of useful innovation that I'm happy to see in this market.

Arranging the four buttons into the shape of a trackwheel, well, that's just stupid. At least, that's how it looks at this point.

But getting back to the transmitter. That's a great way of defeating, somewhat, the advantage that Apple has in that tons of manufacturers are putting iPod interfaces into their cars now. Tons. I guess I should say mitigating, not defeating, but anyway. Sure, the iPod interface will sound a lot better because its direct-connect, but they'll both sound the same with the windows open. And its been proven time and time again (sadly) that most people just don't care that much. Maybe most /. listeners would, but most consumers just want something that kinda works.

And hey, as a totally unrelated item, for people who like Apple/Windows hybrids, check out Swift, which is basically Safari on Windows. Airborne pigs can't be too far behind.

That's it?

[Anonymous Coward]

What, that's it? After all that hype this is the best Microsoft can do? Hmmm, let's see... They're trying to give the iPod their best shot by presenting us with something larger, uglier, with a kludgy and boring menu interface, and video support with only 30GB of HD space? Oh, but it has Wifi. Bah! I don't give a fuck about Wifi on my media player. Unless you can use the device to wirelessly surf to their music store and download tracks, or just plain surf the web and download whatever you want, then WiFi on the Zune is as worthless as a screen door on a submarine. And you still have to buy a $100 adapter to use it with your XBox 360. Lame! I hate the fact that MS boasts that all their shit can be interconnected, but you have to buy a bunch of extra crap to do it. Want to stream music from your Zune to your XBox 360 wirelessly? You need a $100 adapter even though your XBox is already on your network and you have a wireless router. Want to use your 1st gen XBox to look at photos or listen to songs stored on your PC without hacking your XBox? Better make sure that PC is running Windows Media and that you purchase the XBox media extender. Bullshit! Honestly, I would have preferred that they dropped the WiFi in favor of a 60GB HD. Or not cripple the WiFi by requiring an adapter. I predict this product is still-born before it even hits the shelves. There's little here to draw folks away from Apple, and for the Apple haters Creative already beat MS to the punch with the Zen Vision M.

Have you guys considered carrying a purse?

[Anonymous Coward]

Solves all your "too much stuff to carry" problems right there.

Why none of the PMP have pdf readers?

[Type-E]

Doesn't PMP stand for Portable Media Player? Isn't eBooks a media? I think it's easier to put a pdf reader than to support another video codec. It seems that none of the PMP supports reading ebooks. I thought it would be nice to listen to mp3 and read ebook/watch movie at the same time.

Firmament of Funny

[SuperKendall]

Why is "good to go" funny? Because of those lame ass taco bell commercials?

Good heavens no! They were just trying to elevate their commercial by use of this classic comic term. Sadly they failed to use it in a comic manner which is why the commercial feel as flat as a Taco Bell crunchy taco.

No one knows exactly why good to go is funny, it's orgins are shrouded in the mists of time. Perhaps there was once some neolithic caveman who upon picking up a club said "Good Go" and laughed to himself.

However since then the phrase has been used to adorn various comedic statements to good effect. Good to Go is indeed, Good to Go.

Re:Firmament of Funny

[vistic]

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, but... what's an actual example of this being used like in a movie or TV show or by a comedian? Or is this just the kind of thing that's used only casually among friends?

I need some hardcore data, man.

Re:high

[astralbat]

That's what kind of a chance you get if you subscribe

No Wifi.. Lame....

[blake3737]

No Wifi, la...wait a second.....

Shareholders

[Tony]

. . . the consesus seems to be that companies should be *doing* something with that warchest rather than sitting on it.

Like giving some of it to the people who own the company, the shareholders?

Re:Shareholders

[Duds]

That's one method but a smart shareholder will avoid a company giving a big dividend just as much as a small one because ultimately it'll be a short term investment.

Any business that doesn't plough profits back in is ultimately doomed.

you forgot this one:

[Anonymous Coward]

e) Beat the competition within a year despite (a)-(d), just because they're MS

Actually, Jay Z is in the Gates camp

[Anonymous Coward]

Expect half of Def Jam records to start promoting this thing.

Jay Z and Billy G, running this mp3 player shit.

Not the same

[Tony]

. . . how is Apple and Google any different than Yahoo, Microsoft, or any other big corporation? They're publicly traded companies, and profit is their main concern.

Let's see. Apple makes excellent products and charges a bit more for them. They don't try to lock-in users, nor do they threaten, bully, or try to destroy their own customers (in Microsoft's case, the OEMs).

Google sells ad impressions to other companies. The end-user isn't their customer, it's other companies, who come to Google to purchase ad impressions.

The difference is, both Apple and Google treat their customers as people with money who want goods or services, and they try to attract customers by creating good products, or provided excellent service. Microsoft treats their customers like open wallets. They sell things by being the only game in town, and making sure there is no other game in town.

Making a profit does not require fucking over everyone in the process.

Worth noting some incorrect information.

[Griffinart]

http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/top/exclusive-micro soft-zune-details-194957.php

The original article claims that the UI is white text on black background. That is incorrect. According to Gizmodo (the source of the photo in the article) the UI is white text on colored back grounds with lots of textures. It's possibly skinnable. It's very reminicent of Media Center's UI.

It also left out a very nice feature:
from the above link: "FM support is fairly complete, with both an FM tuner and an FM transmitter so you can beam the music to your car. The FM transmitter also feeds up Song and Artist information so you can see what's playing from your car stereo (if it supports that feature, like in GM cars). "

That's going to add a lot of value to the player IMHO.

A few comments

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll be stating the obvious, but here goes: AFA the Zune's chances in the marketplace, I must say that it does not matter who you are, how much marketshare you have, how dominant you are, if M$ wants to eat your lunch, you are toast. I've seen this repeatedly for the last 25 years+ in this damned industry, where dominant players were anhiliated (sp?) and/or bought out by M$. Think Novell, WordPerfect, Lotus, Borland, Digital Research (CP/M, DR-DOS, etc.), Palm (not dead yet, but in trouble), Ashton-Tate, IBM's OS/2... and I'm not even scratching my head too much here.

M$ are like the Borg, in the bad sense (*): there are relentless, will not tire, will keep on going after you until they hurt you big time.

It does not matter if the Zune is a sick joke and that it looses a boat load of money at first... or at second... Billg & co are in for the long haul and will pump money into this as long as it takes.

The goal here is not to make money for M$, it is to:

(i) "f*cking kill" the iPod, to prevent Apple from benefiting from it to regain marketshare in computers (the "halo effect").

(ii) to kill what stands between them and imposing WM{a|v|} and related DRM as *THE* media formats for everyone -- which is the iPod/iTunes combo. This is a quest for complete control of flow of information (**) and getting money from every exchange of information (audio & video), every sale of media (***) at BlockBuster and/or Tower's. Why do you think the Xbox came out? It was not to make money for M$, it was to get a foothold in the living room and getting the power to dictate the format of your entertainment. Think even more DRM and think "goodbye" to fair use.

Apple is no corporate angel, but M$ is far, far worse. To see the Zune succeed will mean seeing the M$ monopoly extended even further, the consequence of which scares the hell out of me.

As long as Jobs & co keep on making good decisions, Apple's lead should remain more or less the same. But when your opponent is M$, any mistake you make can become lethal. Had Palm faced anyone else, they would not be in the dire straits they are right now (hmm, maybe Palm was a bad example).

Anywho, time will tell. Who knows, maybe the PMP market might turn out to be exception to the rule, maybe M$ might only get a black eye out of it, I don't know. /ac

(*) contrary to the FLOSS movement that is like the Borg in a good sense: collective IQ, a swarm of individual minds working together (or not) towards (usually) a common goal, etc. The faux-SCO joke is a perfect example of this. The minute Darl's supposed "proofs" of code theft were leaked out two years ago, *a lot* of minds & eyeballs went to work and within hours had ID'd every single line of code's origin and pedigree, putting the kibosh big time on Darl's accusations.

(**) like thinking of hi-jaking the internet protocols for the same purpose, like mentioned in one of the Halloween documents.

(***) "if you don't pay us our fee, none of the new CD players out there, none of those newfangled TVs out there will be able to play anything!" Whilst I'm not sure M$ would resort to blackmailing humanity (sorry for the extreme wording here), I don't think they are above trying to make money off the flow of audio and video in the Real World Out There(tm).

Apple Doesn't - the Press Does

[Black-Man]

The pro-Microsoft press is constantly harping on the 3-5% marketshare thing without mentioning that *only* 5% equates to billions in revenue. Now that laptops are 12%... excuse me... *only* 12% that equates into even more.

Knock Off

[pkulak]

I think the almost scroll wheel will hurt them. Anyone who buys that is going to be very aware that all their friends have a very similar device with a wheel that actually does wheel-like things. And if it's the same price as an iPod, I think most people would rather go for the original. No-one cares about wi-fi or an FM radio when it looks like a Wall Mart special iPod ripoff.

M$ exposing self to major DRM issue?

[tygt]

From TFA:

Wi-Fi: Eh. Apparently you can use the Wi-fi feature to "loan" other Zune owners music for some short period (a day)

Does this mean that your "friends" will have a copy of the music - even just for a day? Did the copyright holders say that it's ok to copy it for a day?

I don't think so.

Excuse me?

[Brunellus]

hey don't try to lock-in users, nor do they threaten, bully, or try to destroy their own customers (in Microsoft's case, the OEMs).

So you're saying the whole iPod/iTunes/iTMS/DRM system is not vendor lock-in? Not to mention the fact that OSX is runnable (officially) only on Apple hardware?

How about the fact that Apple is notorious for breaking backwards compatibility when it suits them?

And as far as threatening and bullying their fanbase, have you forgotten the ThinkSecret litigation already?

Apple produces some fine hardware and software, but don't let that gull you into thinking that they're any fluffier or friendlier than the competition--because they're not.

Re:Excuse me?

[monoqlith]

So you're saying the whole iPod/iTunes/iTMS/DRM system is not vendor lock-in? Not to mention the fact that OSX is runnable (officially) only on Apple hardware?

iTunes is vendor lock-in. Most people who buy music from iTMS don't see it that way, however. I'm not defending the practice, but everything you're pointing to is the exact means by which Apple confers the image of "it just works, it's completely integrated from top to bottom without any holes" upon itself. Presumably most of theeir customers view this fact as a benefit and not a cost - ease of using something you want to use vs. being locked into something you don't want to use.

How about the fact that Apple is notorious for breaking backwards compatibility when it suits them?

Which instance of backwards compatibility breaking are you talking about? They've taken great pains to make every transition to new hardware or software with the most backwards compatibility possible. The Classic OS 9 virtual machine in OS X for instance. The 68000 emulation in the PowerPC transition. Rosetta when moving to Intel. It's not like Microsoft who code themselves into circles trying to maintain backwards compatibility at the base of the Win32 API at the expense of performance and stability.

And as far as threatening and bullying their fanbase, have you forgotten the ThinkSecret litigation already?

Apple has had some skeletons in their closet.They are playing hard ball now, which is apparently what it takes in our culture. I don't like the Think Secret litigation, either, though.

Apple produces some fine hardware and software, but don't let that gull you into thinking that they're any fluffier or friendlier than the competition--because they're not.
That's right. My top post pretty much expresses exactly this sentiment.

Anyway, out of Apple and Microsoft, Microsoft is definitely the bigger bully hands down. Their expressed attitude(or at least Balmer's) regarding competition is that it's not healthy and they must crush it. This means being not very good at many things rather than being good at one or two things.

Apple, on the other hand, is doing what it can to preserve its own piece of the pie - it is definitely not out to crush competition and therefore their own customers, but is actually sincerely trying to improve their development of good products whose sales benefit both their customers and themselves.

Re:Excuse me?

[Brunellus]

actually sincerely trying to improve their development of good products whose sales benefit both their customers and themselves.

So when Microsoft has vendor lock-in, it's evil. When Apple does it, it's 'sincere.' Enjoy your kool-aid?

Re:Excuse me?

[monoqlith]

That's not what I said at all. If you read it again, I said that to most customers the vendor lock-in isn't perceived as a negative as it is with Microsoft products, which literally tricked most people into using internet explorer to browse the web. And while buying music from iTMS that only plays on the iPod is a lock-in, it is also viewed as helping to make a better, more tightly integrated product. I don't really agree with that sentiment but most users feel that the benefit is enough that they can overlook the fact that they can't use other players with the iTMS songs. As I said I'm not necessarily "defending the practice." It may be necessarily anti-competitive. But it's not maliciously so as it is with Microsoft - it is truly a benefit to both the customer and the business. It is in the end an honest victory for Apple - better product = more sales.

The vendor-lock-in is only one way. By buying an iPod you are encouraged to purchase music from iTMS with limited DRM. You are by no means forced to do so - the player plays MP3s and other formats, after all. By buying a different player you are forced to use a different music store - of which there are countless many. No one forces you to use iTunes or to buy music from iTMS.

So yeah, Apple is trying to make better products, and succeeds at doing so. Honestly.

No kool-aid here, move along.

Who thinks up these stupid names?

[Cannelloni]

Zune, Urge... Some nameless marketing droid at Microsoft thinks up these dorky, uninspiring, lame-ass names. He or she needs to be fired right away!

Sony, Apple or Google have many successful, very slick products, and so Microsoft comes up with a bunch of badly executed, shamless rip-offs that usually tank embarrassingly. But Microsoft never ever learn from its mistake. They churn on, pumping out their products...

This has become even more clear since Steve Ballmer took over as CEO. This is what happens whan a very large company becomes more and more marketing-driven and loses its focus on end-users.

Happily, most people don't have to be bothered: there are plenty of excellent alternatives.

Actually, No.

[solomonrex]

I don't think this looks better than even a Sandisk. AND Sandisk has a lot of built-in advantages over Zune. Retailers want to push it (higher margins) and Sandisk gets memory cheaper than everybody. Obviously, this isn't a credible Ipod-killer.

There is a threshold below which hardware cannot go, because people just think it looks too crappy to be any good. The Zune is below that threshold. Way below. And by the time MS gets to Zune 95, it will be too late.

companies are jumping in

[cosminn]

EMI music videos to land on Zune

elegant ipod

[johnrpenner]

| > Interestingly, Microsoft forgoes a touch-sensitive scrollwheel
| > in favour of wheel-shaped buttons.
|
| Duh, patents. They didn't "forgo",
| they "prevented a giant lawsuit they were sure to lose."

they also forewent the fastest way to scroll...

imho -- after you've used the scroll wheel
on an ipod, it will just feel so clunky to use a zune.

apple paid a lot of attention to getting the details right on the ipod,
because they know that a small thing repeated often enough is a big thing.
make the interface slightly slower, and generally less elegant,
and it adds up to being a clunker in comparison.

the ipod rules, because it is really usable,
and integrates all its features in an elegant way.
it is very hard for a beaurocracy to produce something elegant.
and this is why microsoft will never kill the ipod...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeXAcwriid0&search= microsoft%20iPod

2cents
j

Crippled WIFI

[nurb432]

"loan the music, for a day".. well.. isnt that almost worthless.

Re:And here is where your logic falls over

[Anonymous Coward]

'iCrap'

'crapPod'

'Craptunes'

You are SO clever! You worked 'crap' into three funny names for Apple products in the very same post!

Your momma must be proud of you.