Microsoft leaks Zune Details in FCC filing

cnet-declan writes "One of my colleagues at CNET News.com has picked up on a filing that Microsoft made yesterday with the FCC. Our article reports that Microsoft's Zune media player (the iPod rival discussed before on Slashdot) is going to have features such as creating mobile social networks and streaming music to nearby friends or strangers. It's going to support the 802.11b and 802.11g wireless standards, have a 30GB hard drive, support music, movies, and photos, and have a 3-inch screen. Is this finally enough to unseat Apple?"

Comments

missing the social point

[yagu]

I've been at Microsoft, I've worked at Microsoft. This Zune may be the hit of the century on Microsoft campus. Too bad that won't be enough to sustain a profitable market for the Zune.

I have visions of geeks, sitting around the room, typing furiously at their keyboards, IM'ing with each other, in the same frigging room! Because they can!

And now, I envision those same people, sitting around with wireless mp3 (not) players, sharing each other's music wirelessly, because they can! That's not how it works for the general population. The distance to which these devices can communicate as peers limits their usefulness as social devices, i.e., the people are all going to be in the same room! I.E., they can plug their iPods into the stereo. And, at the same time will be able to talk to each other.

Apple got it right (even though it's not for me) with iTunes and the iPod. Clever marketing, sexy device (the Zune's not looking so sexy to me), and lots of social advertising. The iPod is the thing. The Zune isn't nor will it be.

The only distinguishing feature of the Zune is its wireless capability. How many of you have ever had non-stop continuous hassle free wireless experiences? I mean non-stop as in music streaming... I use it all the time with Squeezebox with the wink and nod that I will get a hiccup now and then. But, for a device that's moving?, a device that's likely to be hugely underpowered to support signal, especially transmission?. Wireless: a distinguishing feature, but a problematic one.

Looking at the company info on Microsoft, I'm guessing there'll be sales of about 60,000 Zunes.

Re:missing the social point

[Johnboi Waltune]

There are hundreds of millions of people who commute by train every day around the world, many of them carrying iPods or similar non-networked media players. I don't see any problem for this device to have the range of several train cars. I can see it being a big hit for those commuters, if it is advertised properly (on trains, duh).

Also it should be marketed to people who workout in gyms. Many of those people are carrying iPods or whatever, and they're all in basically the same room for about an hour.

Then it can't be crippled with pointless DRM (you should be able to share any song). Fat chance of that, though.