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David Pogue Takes On the Zune
necro81 writes "The NYTimes' widely read technology columnist, David Pogue, has devoted his weekly product review to Microsoft's Zune. He does an even-handed job of describing what Zune has over the iPod, as well as some product-related letdowns." From the article: "Competition is good and all. But what, exactly, is the point of the Zune? It seems like an awful lot of duplication — in a bigger, heavier form with fewer features — just to indulge Microsoft's 'we want some o' that' envy. Wireless sharing is the one big new idea — and if the public seems to respond, Apple could always add that to the iPod."
Zune Zune!
'Zune' is an Argentinean deragatory term for a native.
This it the guy who admitted when he started blogging that he would write his entry in Microsoft Word, Email that to his tech folks who would then upload it for him.
...but it is made by Microsoft, who is not nearly as cool as Apple or even Sony etc when it comes to consumer electronics. I mean you can say a lot of other things about Microsoft being evil etc, but that aspect aside they just dont have the 'cool' image. So it seems to me that in order for the zune to have any meaninful impact it would have to be head and shoulders better than the ipod.
Unless one really knows what is what one would read this /. post and think a tech savy but otherwise neutral party is doing a review. But of course this ain't so. Of course had Zonk wrote it up as David Pogue, author of "Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Tiger Edition" and numerous other Mac books, it just wouldn't have been much of a story now would it? It would have been seen as yet another of the "Mac zealot bashes Microsoft, prefers Apple; film at 11." story that seems to be becoming a regular staple around here.
Democrat delenda est
Yeah? How quickly? At what increase in price (or decrease in profits)?
And oh, by the way, your shiny new iPod is now obsolete. Wanna buy a new one?
I'll bet this has Apple salivating already. Might even cause them to overlook the deal MS cut with UMG to pay royalty rights regardless of how the Zune is used for "stolen" music that might be loaded by some users.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Until you experienced a blue screen of death while playing "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", your life is utterly meaningless.
Why doesn't MS just stick to what it does well: making a decent Office Suite and a less-than-decent Operating System?
I mean, aren't all the other money losing projects (hello Zune and Xbox) just financed by Office and OS anyway?
Seems like a waste of time and resources to me.
"It's a tarp!" -- Dyslexic Admiral Ackbar
...when i can flash it with unofficial firmware.
but it is made by Microsoft, who is not nearly as cool as Apple or even Sony etc when it comes to consumer electronics.
This is probably why the multi-page Zune ad in the most recent issue of Rolling Stone makes absolutely no mention whatsoever of Microsoft.
How sad is it when you have to run away from your own established brand to try to sell something?
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
Why doesn't MS just stick to what it does well: making a decent Office Suite and a less-than-decent Operating System?
Because of greedy shareholders. It's not enough for them to receive a nice dividend, they demand growth. Oh, and also it's contrary to Borg prinicples.
for this product to succeed it has to reach a coolness factor better than an ipod with 15yr olds. I don't see how a larger and uglier device is going to do it. I don't think MS has ever done that well with coolness (I'm not a gamer so I don't know how the xbox rates). MS is good at corporate marketing and deal making and the company name means something to those people. The MS brand is nerdy compared to Apple with is good at the marketing for this demographic. The last thing a 15yr wants to be is nerdy, except the ones reading /. of course, but coolness is a lost hope for those.
I had no intention of switching, but the review solidified things. I wouldn't have recommended the product to anyone (I'd say just get an iPod) and this only makes things worse.
Let's see what they've got to entice me away? I've got a large collection of music, but basically no DRMed AAC files so I would make an easy switch.
Let's face it, it's pathetic if they think they are going ANYWHERE with this. As for the "We're selling it in 3x as many stores"... who cares? Everyone who matters sells iPods. Target, Wal*Mart, CompUSA, Apple, Microcenter, Frys, Best Buy, Circuit City, Sears, Borders Books, and more. There are some I can't check (because I don't live near them) but I bet Meijers sells iPods. I've seen them in some odd places. They are everywhere. I think even those scam-on-poor-people places like Rent-A-Center probably sell 'em. They'll be more places for the Zune though? Let's see... who else would be a good partner for selling the Zune...
JoAnne Fabrics? PetsMart? I know I'm looking for an MP3 player that's not an iPod when I go into my local paint-ball gun store, but maybe that's just me.
No, wait, I don't go to paint-ball gun stores for consumer electronics.
About the only place I can think of is Radio Shack. I don't know if they sell iPods now but they are going down the tubes fast any way.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
When Microsoft traditionally goes into a market, it brings out a less than stellar first version and incrementally improves it. It throws money at the problem until it is good enough for most people. Then they migrate toward it. In software, this strategy depends on branding, OS leverage, and most importantly a much weaker opponent several magnitudes. It worked with IE and MS Office.
But they are going to have problems with the Zune like they had with the Xbox. In the videogame market, they face a very rich opponent (Sony) and haven't been able to dominate because of that. They have their fair market share, but they bled enough money for that.
Now in the mp3 player market, they face a strong entrenched opponent Apple, who is rich enough and has the incentive to throw money/R&D at iPods as well. Apple also enjoys a very dominant position on top, similiar to MS in the OS market. It's not as stable because the lock-in isn't as bad, but it also means any features MS incorporates that are very good, short of killer, Apple can incorporate the same the next generation.
And I don't see any killer features on the Zune. Maybe next time, though I doubt it. Currently, MS is going to be in the 2ndary mp3 market I think, meaning it will have to split marketshare with players other than ipod. I mean, if I wanted an mp3 player other than iPod, I'd look to iRiver first. They incorporate the features I want (ogg, etcetera) at a lower price.
We all know Microsoft isn't going to deliver a product that doesn't push DRM onto us, so who can we turn to as a device maker, that will give consumers MP3 devices that do what we expect and want (ie. DRM free)?
Oh You POS
My iPod breakdown: ... for when a thumb drive just ain't big enough.
... how do you figure they fared with the basic, main features?
- 12 gigs music.
- 12 gigs movies and vPodCasts.
- 10 gigs data, for just three files.
iPod
Not being able to use the zune as a drive is the ultimate breakdown for me.
Figure: if they couldn't even get that one itsy bitsy featurette right
yes, we have no bananas
it all seems so deliberately complicated and multi-tiered like all of MS products. That can be a good bussiness strategy but it's not a user-freindly strategy. I predict people will prefer their music priced in way they can figure and don't have to work the angles to get the best prices.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Does the target "youth" market really keep their (mostly iPod) earphones in and playing when they're hanging out with friends and socializing? I'm only mid-30's, but I (and my 26-year-old programmer) still think that's pretty rude. Seems like Zune is going to have to really sell a LOT of players before this sharing thing takes root as a truly sellable feature.
Pogue doesn't compare Windows to the Mac... he compares the Zune to the IPod and the ITunes music store. He's comparing "Apples" to "Apple's". In fact, he doesn't mention the Mac anywhere in the article. I think you're projecting some bias of your own.
His disdain for Microsoft's digital music business model is obvious and, arguably, well deserved.
Every journalist has bias, just as every person has bias. But it seems to me Pogue was expressing real and serious flaws in the Zune and Microsoft's DRM model rather than simply going on a partisan Mac vs. Windows rant.
-S
Reply to http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=20578 1&cid=16788517
Well, not only making money, but they are a public entity, and as such, they have the OBLIGATION for their shareholders to make money and grow. They have the opportunity, they will knock at all doors to make money. Even if they lose some in the process, the shareholders prefer a company that tries many things than one that will simply fade into oblivion because they couldn't diversify.
Examples, Sco, that got good share prices long after the trial started... and Word Perfect, that never diversified, and acted like the bully Microsoft now is, only reading its own file format, only working for their own sytstem, without ability to share anything with anyone else. When they woke up, it was too late.
M$ is trying not to have that happening. Even if Windows were to anihilate and Vista sell 5 copies worldwide, they could still focus on other things to do.
Has microsoft ever been successful in the non-computer consumer market with anything other than XBox? I don't like using anecdotal evidence normally....but, being a younger person I can safely say I've never ran into anyone who seemed to feel that microsoft made anything "cool". My feelings are that people seperate Xbox and microsoft. Most people dont think of xbox and think microsoft. oh yeah...Zune sounds silly to me. iPod did as well at first...so I might change my mind. But all I can think of that crappy show "Dune". If the Zune only had a few of the shortcomings Pogue pointed out it might sell a few. But honestly....how much marketing power will it take to take an inferior product with a ton of restrictions and force people to think it's cool all of a sudden? I don't think even microsoft has that kind of power
Better in that he actually tested the Zune, measured its battery life (and found it to be 14% shorter than claimed), tested its WiFi sharing (and found it to not work as well as advertized), and actually used it.
The review is not all negative, and is worth reading.
I didn't seem to find anything new in the column, its like the author took every witty comment that people have made here in the last few Zune articles and combined them all together into a NYT column. To the person above said about the bias of the article; obviously Pogue represents the /. apple loving crowd (for which I am a pod carrying member) and his attitide is readily apparant.
It would have been better if he made a shit-brown joke instead of closing with the question of if 'brown is the new white'.
Boy, the marketing geniuses at Microsoft are really working overtime. Points can only be bought in $5.00 increments? What the hell? This isn't Costco for music - people are already used to two ideals - all you can eat subscriptions (which Zune offers) or a la carte purchases. If i hear one song I want to buy, I sure as hell am not going to go through a lengthy process and spend $5.00 to do so.
g ue.html?_r=1&8dpc&oref=slogin9 3917854-wNNFl42I1SSNBP6dH5xF08kTRlQ_20071108.html
What a dumb move. Each Zune review I've read so far has been down on the player, but more importantly on Microsoft's "treat users like idiots" approach.
David Pogue - http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/09/technology/09po
David Ewalt - http://blogs.forbes.com/digitaldownload/
Walt Mossberg - http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB1163028483
Cars don't have "IPod Connectors". Cars are now (finally) coming with the world-wide standard 1/8" stereo jack for input. You can plug in virtually any audio device in the planet into one of these things. iPods have nothing to do with a 1/8" stereo jack.
The complaint about turning on its side for photos and videos is the stupidest complaint I've ever heard. Yeah, who could possibly want a huge screen to view their photos and videos on. The ipod way of using a tiny, tiny screen is far better. I've been hoping the next ipod would go the bigger, sideways screen for their next gen. But admittedly I was already looking at other brands, with bigger screens and better video playback for my next portable.
If you really can't mount it as a harddrive then that is right on the money as being dumb. Presumably it's to make it that little bit harder for people to hack it?
Well maybe some effort... I'm not sure how your itunes-DRMed AAC file will play on your cellphone. Fortunately I don't have any of those to worry about.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
How can one do a "review" of a product that isn't out yet? This is, at best, an _editorial_ on the Zune, not a review.
http://www.chmodoplusr.com/
Honestly, I'd rather buy a RocBox which was probably the most illconceived product ever -- and blatant atempt to "cash in" on the iPods success just like the Zune.
Microsoft didn't bother trying to put sprinkles on a turd, they just released the turd directly to the public!
Zune, squirts better than the IPod!
Sure they do.
My car (truck actually) has a connector and I can control my iPod from my steering wheel, something that can't be via with an audio input jack. There are also several aftermarket solutions that work over CAN-BUS and the like, that allow control of the player via factory radio, as an AUX device.
"Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
Replying to:http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=20 5781&cid=16788639
h tml
Are you kidding? Most cars that advertise "iPod" connectivity do, in fact have a dock connector and integrated head unit that can used to control the iPod, display track names, and recharge the unit while it is sequestered in a cooled glovebox (preserving the battery's long-term life) or armrest.
It's not like this is a new thing...http://www.apple.com/ipod/carintegration.
I imagine that MS will never be able to cram the wireless into a form factor the size of a Nano/Sansa/etc. So will they someday come out with a crippled "Zune Lite" or will it always be a one (large) size fits all? Feels like they are kinda stuck with just being able to change colors and make it slightly smaller over time.
It's not just him repeating the column, but provides a lot off context. 11:00, available here:
/ viewPodcast?id=155860524
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa
This is why clothes you buy from walmart do not say "walmart brand" on them. They come up with cute little brands.
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
I'll be the first to admit that I wouldn't ever buy this thing unless it was like ridiculously great (I really don't like giving Microsoft my money). So, my own bias aside, is anyone else kind of dumbfounded that you can't use the thing as an external hard drive like every other large capacity MP3 player in existence? (Unless, of course, that David Pogue was wrong when he wrote that.)
gameDB
"What looks like an iPod scroll wheel, though, is a fakeout. It doesn't turn, and it's not touch-sensitive. Instead, it's just four buttons hidden under the compass points of a plastic ring. Scrolling accelerates as you press the top or bottom button, but the iPod's wheel is much more efficient."
What is it that's so hard to "get" about a frickin' _knob?_
There are just some situations where a button doesn't hack it. No matter how many cents it saves in manufacturing costs.
The original-equipment radio on my last car had a rotating knob as a volume control. I didn't think anything of it until I replaced it with an aftermarket radio that didn't. Like the Zune, it, too, had an oh-so-clever sounds-good-on-paper kludge: if you pressed the + button it would increment in steps of 4 units, and if you then pressed the - button within a short time interval it would decrement in steps of 1 unit. On paper, I would never have believed what a misery this substitute for a volume control knob would be. I don't think I ever realized just how often I reach to make a microadjustment in volume (different levels of traffic noise, different stations, different tracks in a classical album). Not only was the system clumsy, but of course one button feels just like another button... unless you spend some money on making them feel different.
In the 1960s I remember a little paper tape program in the bin above the PDP-1 at MIT labelled "Minsky Knob." It looked promising, because Marvin Minsky was the author of a nice little display hack called Minskytron, which... well, never mind. "Minsky Knob" was his attempt to get knob-like control using only keyboard keys. I believe striking one key caused a spot of light on the CRT to accelerate uniformly to the right, and a second press would stop it dead, while alternative presses of another key would accelerate it to uniformly to the left and stop it dead.
When the right tool for the job is knob, nobody's ever found a way to do it with a button. Minsky Knob was all but unusable in the 1960s. He couldn't figure it out then, and nobody else has been able to figure it out since.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
All they have to do is release some sort of SDK that allows programming for Zune. There will be a ton of gadgets in a matter of weeks, "fixing" shortcomings.
Hyperom.com
I think the article was quite fair. The Zune is a decent player. It has some features that an iPod doesn't have. But overall, it isn't spectacularly better than an iPod. So really it will come down to taste and lock-in. MS is betting on that they can lock in consumers with their DRM. I don't know if they've been paying attention but a recent study shows that most iPod users' music collections are mostly MP3s not FairPlay. Also this DRM lock-in probably didn't make their former partners too happy. I wonder how long before one of them sues MS for anticompetitive and monopoly violations.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
PlaysForSure
iPod has saturated its ecological niche, and Zune doesn't offer enough to break into iPod's space. Microsoft needs some inventive marketing.
y =zune_meme_rerun
http://www.realmeme.com/roller/page/realmeme?entr
Every time I walk into EB Games or Gamestop I'm assulted by a pimply-faced teenager pushing the damned Zune on me. I've been insluted to my face because I have an iPod.
One of these kids claimed his boss "was just talking to Peter Moore the other day and he said Peter said that they were making the wi-fi work for downloads." After staring at him and realizing he had convinced himself that this was true, I had to laugh in his face. (I did confirm with his boss later that no, he wasn't talking to Peter Moore by a long shot). At a seperate store a girl mentioned that they had been asked to push/hype the product.
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
you gotta love the cool talk complete with a foot note to remind you about the DRM on the sharing
People who think Apple is some wonderful entity that can't be touched in any way shape or form aren't going to buy a Zune player. The bloody Zune isn't even targeted towards Mac users to begin with. The Zune itself isn't compatable with Mac OS. So it's completely reasonable to expect mac users to shun it, even scorn it (hence the article) The very idea that somebody else let alone the fundimentally evil Micro$oft should want to break into a market that Apple's had a monopoly on is unthinkable.
Apple's clearly afraid of the Zune player. They damn well should be.
I know I'm looking for an MP3 player that's not an iPod when I go into my local paint-ball gun store, but maybe that's just me.
Target practice? :-D
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
What I want to know is how long until there's a 0day exploit for the Zune wireless?
Is the DRM that restricts sharing unto another that which was shared unto you likely to help prevent the spread of virii?
asdf
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
We love Zune because it so big an powerful. It will crush girly iPod!
So I did RTFA and its a bloody troll. It starts of insulting M$, dismisses it as an unbashed copy of the iPod (despite the fact that the headline is iPod is not), dismisses PlaysForSure which bombed yet says there is an issue for all those poor people who bought music from PFS and whines about how the poor user will have to learn yet another complicated piece of software just to put music on the Zune. Then he gets to the review.
Its an excellent player he says - oh except for the colors (black and white just like the iPod but lets please complain about brown and it being rubberized so you wont leave your oily prints over it like the ipod). Oh and its not cool. Because every Tom, Dick and fucking Harry with their white headphones are. And damn those ipod ads are sexy... Matches the ipod on battery life, price point, capacity, got a bigger screen (lets make nothing of this and whine that it is larger and awww poor baby its a whole ounce heavier - too much for you delicate darlings ofcourse)
Oh and it doesn't have a scroll wheel... and people complain about Windows users being used to the interface and not being able to deal with a switch. Or dearie me its got a larger screen and so you have to turn it a whole ninety degrees to watch a video - yes ladies and gentleman a whole Pi/2 radians. The horror. Its got in built FM Radio (but you have to plug in the headphones - wait every frickin player with an FM radio requires this - duh you don't want to stick an ugly dedicated antenna on it)
Yes the thing has its flaws and the big one is not being able to use it as a harddisk (tops a couple of months before MS or someone writes a little bit of code to enable that) and the stupid wireless limitations (the ipods wirless limitation is simple - it doesnt have it - but our dear wonderful apple could certainly add that to the ipod) and the Zune store presently sucks donkey balls (please tell me that all the music on your ipod is from iTMS... and that they will never add features to a website).
No lets whine about the lack of an alarm, and a world clock, and a stop watch... things that a quick and given that its MS, eventual firmware upgrade, will fix (or rockbox will have a nice zune port) and wait ofcourse MS has already said there are new zune features and accesories in the pipeline. Just RTFA for the language and tone and compare it with anything modded troll or flamebait here. Heck the GNAA could take a leaf out of Pogue's book.
Not one mention about anyones complaints about iPods (and please use google all you witty mac fanboys who will claim there arent none)
The Zune is certainly not the iPod. Neither are perfect. Software is upgradeable. David Pogue is a troll. Plain. Simple.
(disclaimer : I hate MS, I hate apple, I own a cowon and I wont buy a zune)
Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
Common sense is not so common
Yes, next-gen iPods should spontaneously create piconets / scatternets for sharing any music a user puts in a special Public playlist, and automatically copied into a Drop Box playlist.
Of course, Apple is all uppity about so-called "intellectual property", so an electronics designer with delusions of being a content gatekeeper will fuck consumers once again.
However, if Apple were clever, they would dissuade users from adding copyrighted music to their Public playlist by inserting their iPod's serial number in the ID3 comments tag of those tracks. In theory serious infringers could be backtracked via serial number to their purchase order or AppleCare account.
From the ZUNE Site:
i ng.htm
"You're connected to your best friend and send the new song your band recorded in the garage last weekend. Another friend gets the hilarious podcast your kid brother made at school, plus that song you just downloaded from the Zune Marketplace and can't get out of your head. And hey, lookee here, your friend wants to send you something that you might like and buy, too.
Best of all, the song you sent isn't just a 30-second preview --it's the whole song! Your friend can sample the song up to three times in three days, flag it on their device and then, if they like it, they can buy it later from Zune Marketplace. It's all connected."
http://www.zune.net/en-us/meetzune/zunetozuneshar
So: if I want to listen to the "hillarious podcast that my KID BROTHER made at SCHOOL" a couple times, I have to "BUY" it from MICROSOFT??
Enough said.
I'd like to see what the linux guys could do with the zune's hardware. Ipod linux was sweet... But for Zune imagine an unbridled piece of equipment for wirelessly sharing songs. The ultimate pirating tool? Take away DRM? Hmmm?
Check out http://www.microsoftshitbrick.com/ It's hilarious!
forget about it -- Microsoft has patented the process of adding features to existing products.
What is really funny about the Zune is Microsoft lets you share music wirelessly but allows you to listen to it only 3 times before it is deleted. Now who the hell is going to buy this device with such an annoying feature?
What few seem to realize is that the Zune is not aimed at the iPod market. The iPod is aimed at the self-absorbed cool kids who either have a Mac or would like to. The Zune is aimed at a more social demo.
The signal event to highlight the difference was Steve Jobs crowning himself King of the Geeks when he dismissed the Zune sharing feature because it wouldn't help you pick up a girl. iPod owners everywhere agreed.
Note that Zune advertising is about Zune sharing. The Zune isn't a media machine with sharing, it's a sharing machine with media.
There are three fundamentally discrete domains of technology that are used differently by different people to do different things: Corporate, Personal, and Network. The iPod is in the Personal domain, the Zune is in the Network domain. It's as useful to compare them as it is to compare a word processor with a wiki.
I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
Gates said that the future of computers was not in content creation but content consumption. That's why DRM is so important now. DRM is to content as the OS is to programs. Once you own the DRM that everyone uses you own all the content.
Clearly, Gates is not necessarily interested in income based on the digital music sold, not any more than he's interested in the XBOX-360. He's interested in market share (rather market control) of the content.
Sit back, close your eyes, and think about it for a few minutes. Do we want Microsoft in control of our content as they are in control of our computer? Look how they tried to shaft everyone with their "one reinstall" of Vista. Look at the price of Vista. Look at the slow upgrade of XP? We really want Microsoft determining how we listen to our own music or how we watch our own video? Do we want the slow drawn out cash-cow oriented approach to their development? With Windows they can do things their way in their own time without anyone showing any sort of competition (due to hidden proprietary software/apis).
Mark my word, they will be doing the same thing with your content (being a little dictator) instead of getting out of our way to let us to do with it as we will as we like.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
This is a ridiculous review. I have an iPod and don't want a Zune, but regardless, how many people use the world clock (I didn't even know my iPod had one -- nor would I care!)? Those pseudo "missing features" miss the point: it plays music, costs less, and sounds about the same.
Of course it might not cost less for long....
Given that last time slashdot slammed on a music player, that player went on to become a huge success, it would appear that Zune is headed to be a real iPod-killer.
Jmorris notes: "as David Pogue, author of "Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Tiger Edition" and numerous other Mac books, it just wouldn't have been much of a story now would it?"
:)
Well, except that David Pogue (that's me) has also written "Windows Me: The Missing Manual," four editions of "Windows XP: The Missing Manual," and "Windows Vista: The Missing Manual."
And I've published, or will be publishing, Missing Manuals on Frontpage, Microsoft Access, Photoshop Elements (for Windows), Digital Photography (for Windows), Office 2007...
Does that mean, then, that in fact, I'm biased *pro* Microsoft?
So I can hack it. Piece of cake... it's made by Microsoft isn't it? I'll just mod the Zune to my taste. No stupid MS store. open Wifi connectivity up so I can conenct to my netowrk and wirelessly send any files format back and forth. An excellent piece of hardware if you ask me. Just the software needs to be retooled. Not a surprise from Microsoft.
... as Pogue reported, is that one of the color choices is ... I really don't know how to say this ... alright, then: BROWN.
(You may recall that PC wore a brown suit in at least one of the Mac-PC ads. Which were full of brilliant little touches.)
What sort of person sets out to buy a BROWN iPod-sort of thing. A rhetorical question, thanks anyway.
Here's to hoping that the price schemes for music will never get as convoluted, untransparant and hard to figure as GSM or ADSL prices. There aren't any GSM people that just say: "If you call this many minutes, you pay this amount." It's always "In the weekends it's cheaper! Also at night! Also to friendly providers!" I don't know how my minutes are divided! I don't care and don't want to care about the provider of the person I'm calling! Usually when it says: this is cheaper, it means the other is more expensive (sic)!
I just hope we're never going there with music. Then again, we probably will.
...that doesn't already carry iPods?
About the only place I can think of is Radio Shack. I don't know if they sell iPods now but they are going down the tubes fast any way. (#16788483)
Radio Shack was bought out by Circuit City here in Canada a while back, and all the old stores are now "The Source by Circuit City." I believe that Radio Shack is now trying to get back into the Canadian market, but I haven't actually seen one of the stores yet.
And yes, Radio Shack does sell iPods. So does The Source.
At any rate, so far as I can tell any place that sells electronics, including a large number that don't generally carry that kind of thing, all sell iPods. So I don't see where Zune could be sold that doesn't already sell iPods (and most likely a whole host of other MP3 players as well). The only thing I can think of is small, single-location non-franchised computer stores; there are a number of those in my area. However, these tend to be run directly by geeks and the general consensus seems to be that most geeks dislike the Zune. I don't know how MS could persuade these stores to cut their already-slim profit margin even slimmer by buying into a product that they don't think will sell.
In my unscientific poll, you are an idiot Gumby.
"I filter at +6, and have yet to miss out on an important comment." (#822545)