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Zune — $249.99 On Nov. 14
Cubricon writes, "As expected, Microsoft has dropped their price on the Zune in response to Apple's recent iPod updates. Ars Technica has an article that discusses the Zune's use of Microsoft's prepaid 'points' system for songs. Will the masses notice the difference between an iPod and a Zune? Will they want the FM and wireless capabilities?" The Zune lists for $0.99 more than the comparable iPod and songs from the Zune Marketplace will cost just under $0.99.
Wireless. Same amount of space as an iPod. Lame.
Everyone should have a battery powered radio receiver. Hurricanes, Earthquakes, Flooding, Volcanos (like Mt. St. Helens) happen, and you need a way to receive emergency information about which way to run.
As an Apple user, I'm all for this. A REAL competitor in the mp3 player market means that Apple has to "innovate" something cooler in order to stay on the top. I'd like to see a wide-screen iPod by the end of the year. :D
So at around the same time for $250 you can either get an also-ran music player or a brand-new game console. Zounds to me like they are going to lose a lot of tech geek sales.
If I was MS I would drop the price of this thing to $199. I mean, this thing is gonna bomb anyway, minus well lower the price and hope to make more money on the music-selling end of things.
Next MP3 player won't be one of these, I'll get something cheep, like that little jobby that works with a USB drive, which i can then plug into the new generation of car stereos with USB. Hoo Hah!
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Song downloads just under 99 cents? Would that make them 98 cents?
I predict a flood of switchers.
Most people are not "artist" enough to appreciate that "innovative" brown...
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Walmart.com already offers its songs for 88 cents (the songs play on PlayForSure devices), so someone is already undercutting iTMS's prices, but it hasn't made any difference.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
songs from the Zune Marketplace will cost just under $0.99.
At first...
You can't take the sky from me...
When people are asked what they want, they do not say an Mp3 player. They say, "I want an iPod." That alone puts the Zune at a large disadvantage, not to mention all the other things. iPods are trendy, well-known, and easy to see(Look at me!) - so until people start looking at what kind of Mp3 player to buy instead of what version of iPod to buy, the Zune will struggle to find its place in the market, just like everyone else.
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How about one of the manufacturers come out with a user replacable battery. This was a major complaint for the first Ipods, and hasn't been fixed yet. A bigger screen means shorter playtime between charges. That's one feature that would make me choose one over the other. Besides that, they're all comparable.
"Hey, let's offer a player two months from now at the same price as Apple is already selling the iPod at today. Also, let's make sure that our new, unproven propriatary music DRM is completely incompatible with our previous propritary music DRM! That way we get to drive away consumers fearful of unknown technology and piss off our existing music partners to boot!"
Dead on Arrival.
Crow T. Trollbot
Yeah, hearing rhetoric, empty promises and outright lies live over the air while you're up to you ears in alligators would be a heckuva plus.
there are other options you know... i personally love the zen vision: m (which has FM)
I can't believe what a turkey the Zune is. Here are 2 reasons right off the bat:
- It only lets you share one song at a time via wi-fi and then only with another Zune player. What's more, even if the song is not DRM'd, it infects that song with DRM so that the recipient can only play the song a maximum of 3 times or for a maximum of 3 days, whichever comes first. So much for Microsoft's wonderful social networking scheme.
- It can't play songs you've already downloaded encoded with Microsoft's own Play For Sure DRM. Dumb. Just plain dumb.
And if including an FM tuner didn't get people to flock to Creative's Zen video pod, why should it be such a hot feature in the Zune? And who the frack thought brown was cool?
the fake Air Jordans from K-Mart back in the day. And when Air Jordans were out of style, K-Mart kept on trying to sell them. You can probably still buy them.
iPod haters were already saying that the market was saturated with iPods and Apple's time was over...so how is Zune going to fare any better? You can't have it both ways. Zune is simply not a compelling product...especially when the iPod is still "hip".
Whether intentional or not, I think it was BRILLIANT that Apple did not release the true video iPod at this last event. The fact that it wasn't released will have many holding off on buying a Zune. Especially with the mystery surrounding the iTV and how the forthcoming iPod will interact with it. If the Zune was really that great, they wouldn't have had to adjust the price. This clearly demonstrates Apple's influence in the marketplace...even over MS.
but in the US a point is currently 1.25 cents
Um, yeah. I'm not buying into some funky dirka-dirka currency that can fluctuate at the company's sheer will.
From TFA (playmag.com):
But there are a few key differences [from the iPod]: Microsoft plans to use the same transaction system as Xbox Live, its video game console's online service, which will allow consumers to pay for music using prepaid cards they can buy in retail stores -- saving some the hassle of needing to use a credit card.
I can walk into Walmart and buy a prepaid iTunes card with cash. The only I ever "bought" from iTunes was with a code from Pepsi. So please playmag.com, tell me how iTunes requires a credit card again? iTunes already has an allowance system too.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Just wait until some hapless teenager shares a song with his friend only to find out a couple days later he can't move it off his player. "Dude, I just got Zuned!"
Insisting on "correct" English is like saying that there is only one, definitive recipe for chili.
Read between the lines of this MS developer's post, in which he says "PlaysForSure does not require devices to support only MTP - UMS can be implemented too, but under certain conditions that prevent newbies from transferring content via MTP, switching to UMS and then calling tech support because they can't find/play their content"...
Now re-read that sentence while pondering the notion that Zune will not support PlaysForSure.
This is a Microsoft product. More so than Apple products, less so than Sony products, it's still all about vendor lock-in.
I speculate that Zune will be an MTP (Media Transfer Protocol)-only device. UMS (USB Mass Storage) cannot be supported, because only by eliminating UMS can Microsoft mandate the use of WMP10/11 and the accompanying XP/Vista DRM platform.
People think I'm a bit odd... I have a TON of gadgets, but still don't own an iPod or "popular" MP3 player. The reason: Nobody makes one with both an AM/FM tuner in it. So I still use my Panasonic CD player with MP3 capabilities... as it has an AM/FM tuner in it. I enjoy listening to live baseball (and occasionally other sports) games on AM radio, which is why it's of key importance to me. I realize radio is a secondary feature for a music player, but my stance is simple:
If I'm paying several hundred dollars for a portable player, it should damn well have an FM *AND* AM tuner in it.
Simple as that. Until then, the CD/MP3 player that cost me $50 3 years ago will do just fine.
"No fair, you changed the outcome by measuring it!" - Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth
>I won't buy an iPod because I really want the FM radio built in. >I won't buy a Zune because of the way it looks. > >Whichever one improves first will most likely be the one I'll get. Most portable mp3 players will be obsoleted by features in cell phones. Newer phones by Motorola include MP3 players, and Nokia phones have inclued FM tuners for years. Why would I want to carry another device since I already have a cell phone and already update it every 1-2 years. FA
A bit of Slashdot antiquity.
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23/ 1816257
The Braying and Neighing of Barnyard Animals Follows.
... remove the DRM. That's it. I'd buy one in an instant.
I like the Zune, from what I've read and the pictures I've seen it seems pretty cool! Especially the wireless sharing of files - that's really cool. However, the DRM that the wireless transfers forces on your media is unacceptable.
Any takers on how long it will take to crack the DRM?
Or
Any takers on how long it will take to get Linux running - doing the same things - minus the DRM?
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ipod fm radio, http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/A ppleStore?productLearnMore=MA070G/A
This is worse because if I actually wanted to BUY a song (own forever, burn to CD, etc.) then it only costs $0.79.
Ticket booth woman: Would you like to buy some Itchy and Scratchy Money? ... 'fun.'
Homer: What's that?
Woman: Well it's money that's made just for the park. It works just like regular money, but it's, er
Bart: Do it, Dad.
Homer: Well, OK, if it's fun...let's see, uh...I'll take $1,100 worth.
Homer walks in to see signs advertising that Itchy & Scratchy money is non-negotiable at various booths (e.g., "No I&S money," "We don't take Itchy and Scratchy money," etc).
Homer: "Aw!"
Talk about hindsight being 20/20...
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
I won't pay 99 for a DRM-riddled piece of music... I will pay a full dollar for a DRM-free piece of music though.
Ahh, but you'll make than up after you buy your 397th song from the Zune Store.
249.99+397*0.9875=642.0275 (Zune)
249.00+397*0.9900=642.0300
I dub thee... Sir Phobos, Knight of Mars, Beater of Ass.
For famliles it may be unattractive.
As I understand the Zune sales model, if you buy a song it's locked to play only on your computer and your Zune is also locked to your computer.
The problem is then families that have multiple computers or multiple zunes. If both sis and bro and mom like the latest snoop-dog tune, they can't buy it once and share it o all their computer's and Zunes. They have to buy one copy per machine/zune. That's freakin' nuts.
Or did I get it wrong. Sorry if I did, since Im itunes for the long haul and don't really care about Zune.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
they sold over a million units before adding windows, so yes it was a success under those conditions.
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I'm just waiting for the inevitable security holes that will allow "Zunedriving" (you saw it here first) ... Run around crashing Zunes, stealing/erasing/replacing content, forcing the volume suddenly jump to 100%, uploading goatsex photos to replace all the album art. With Microsoft software at the helm, the possibilities are limitless!
I have one of these, of course the 512MB version is now the same price, which wasn't the case when I bought mine a year or so ago.
Still, it does the job, just with more limited storage. It even has an FM tuner that works pretty well.
I just don't understand the need to have several gigs of music copied to yet another device. I keep my music on my harddrive, and on semi-permanant backup CDs (soon to be DVDs), as I do most of my music enjoying from my computer. To me it seems pointless to have a complete copy of that to another device.
The convienence of not having to go to my computer every once in a while to change my music is not worth $200+ to me, sorry. I just don't see the need to always have access to all of my music 100% of the time. If the music gets old while I'm away from my computer, I just turn it off, and *gasp* think my own thoughts and reflect on myself. I really think that music has become a bit too pervasive in many peoples' lives in today's society. I mean, if noone has any time to hear themselves think over the sound of constant music, then how will people ever reflect on themselves and grow emotionally?
But, then again, everyone else has an iPod or some such, so I guess they must have good reason for shelling out such money. I can't think of any that would make me pay so much though...
Maybe I've missed something though. Thoughts?
Being in the UK doesn't change physics! FM Radio waves only transmit over a relatively limited distance from a transmitter. If your nearest two or three transmitters power out, you'll still be able to pick up a MW(AM) (citywide) or LW (national) signal from the nearest transmitter.
I avoid FM radio like the plague most of the time, but it's not quite as bad as you're painting it.
ClearChannel is the biggest player in the radio market, and now that there are no FCC impediments, they usually own multiple channels in a given market. They arguably wield monopoly power in some markets, but they don't even control half the market.
Personally I think the FCC screwed the pooch when it decided to do away with limitations on media ownership. That ship has long since sailed, though. Clear Channel wouldn't have achieved its dominance under the old FCC rules. At the same time I wouldn't be surprised if they started losing marketshare once competitors start to figure out how to provide listeners something better (which really shouldn't be difficult, given the crap Clear Channel churns out). Dominance doesn't equal monopoly.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Yeah, people who use stereotypes are all alike.
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