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Zune Sales Not So Bad After All
pyrbrand writes "Despite the iFanboy jabber that Zune sales were horrific, CNN has a story to the contrary. Turns out Zune was the #2 Digital Audio player in its first week of sales. Not a bad start for the challenger to the iPod throne. As others have pointed out the Amazon sales rank may have been thrown off by Zune sales being divided between the three colors."
Aren't the sales for ipods also divided between all the various models and colors?
There is a sucker born every minute ...
#2 in which country?
That a RECORD PLAYER is over a dozen places higher in the list than the top selling Zune.
Kiteboarding Gear Mention slashdot and get 10% off!
That's the nature of statistics.
And fanboys.
I am a touch surprised that it beat out sandisk, since sandisk sells more at amazon.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
The situation with Zune/iPod is no different than the situation with Office/ODF. *More* real choices = better for the consumer and lower prices by all! We need a serious challenger to Apple for no other reason than to force them to cross that final frontier - playing nicely with everyone else (i.e., not forcing their product chain down our throats with restrictive DRM). Once their current feature-set become commoditized, they'll have no choice but to add interoperability as a feature to differentiate themselves.
They haven't accounted for returns though ;-)
IMO, it isn't exactly fair to compare "Zune" with "ALL of the iPods".
The Zune targets one small slice of territory that Apple has already staked out.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Let's see, one of NPD Group's clients is listed as Toshiba, the maker of the Zune. Do you think it's in their best interest to massage the stats to make Zune sales look better than they really are?
Personally I believe the WiFi feature will be a difference-maker, but as currently implemented on the Zune it isn't very enticing. I expect MS to come out with a software update in 6 months or so that will dramatically improve the wireless functionality. I used the early Smartphones and they had similar rough edges - they were clunky and missing many "obvious" features. But MS kept plugging along and now they have a very competitive phone operating system. With their resources and long-term view I figure they will ultimately make the Zune a formidible competitor to the iPod franchise. We also should remember that it's still early yet in this game. Portable media players only last about 3-4 years, so we haven't even really seen the first big replacement wave yet.
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
And I hate to reply to myself here, but I can't help but wonder if Apple is making the same mistake they made before - creating a closed-technology stack for short term profits. I can't really argue against Jobs for doing this (he's a billionaire after all), but as was proven in the old days of the Apple, eventually the competition catches up and cuts you off at the knees. There's something to be said for playing nicely with everyone.
"Despite the iFanboy jabber"
Did anybody else stop reading after that?
Disagree with me? Tell me why, but follow these rules.
Since the numbers are from big box retailers only, they are pretty skewed. No online (no store.apple.com, Amazon, etc), probably not Apple's retail stores either.
Considering the initial curiosity factor and Microsoft employees, I would have expected the initial uptake to have a bigger impact than even this. If they are starting at this low of a baseline... lets just say Creative and SanDisk probably don't have much to worry about.
Umm, yeah, and Windows has a lower TCO than linux, I got that.
There are 16 other MP3 players, a mix of iPods Sans and Creative players, ahead of the only Zune on Amazon's top 100 list, the black one which is currently at 63.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/electronics/
They can do whatever they want. I won't buy it, and it doesn't harm me
" shenanigans are setting "precedent". Now, everyone else (Apple) is "encouraged" to do the same...
Wait, huh? Oh crap, I forgot. Microsoft's "we'll-pay-you-an-'all-our-users-are-thieves'-tax
Damn...
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
Certainly there was some base of people who wanted (some later to be usefull) wi-fi plus an FM receiver plus video at that price point. Microsoft advertized enough that these people knew about it, so they got it when they first had their chance. That group of people, however, is not particularly related to digital music player buyers as a whole, as it is only continuous purchases over its life span that will be untimately meaningful. Furthermore, this week was singled out from the Zune being the only new thing on the market. That they only got second when they were the only new thing around--for over a month or something?--is actually rather sad.
A more representative week would be, say, the week after Thanksgiving, which shows a lot about retail buying habits (and is a significant percentage of such).
Who bought this shit?!!! The brown shit?!!!
And tomorrow the stock exchange will be the human race
No one out there in the real world gives two shits for a player that "runs Linux". I'll repeat that, for emphasis: No one out there in the real world gives two shits for a player that "runs Linux".
In all seriousness that's actually a great gift for someone with an old record collection which is pretty much everyone over 40 or 50.
Work Safe Porn
And people wonder why fanboi's are laughed at... *sigh*
I suppose if your talking DRM only then you are correct. Apple holds a monopoly on the idiocy of DRM in digital music stores and players. But the last thing we need is another player with competing DRM, we need to get rid of DRM altogether.
The market for MP3 players is highly competitive, Zune brings nothing new to the market and is simply a Microsoft me too product. It will make no difference in fair use for music consumers and in fact brings a BS royalty tax on every device consumers purchase. Now even if you don't buy the corporate backed music you still have to pay for it in the form of a royalty to the coroprate music industry on every Zune sold. Thanks Microsoft.
burnin
Really, If it started off at anything less than #2 in it's first week, Microsoft should have given up immediately. Any hyped gadget sells when it first comes out. It's sustaining that beyond the first 4 days that I do not think will happen. Only one color, black, has been in the Amazon Top 100 electronics in the last several days, all 3 colors were in the top hundred in the first couple days. I am all for competition, but Microsoft isn't competition, it's a company trying to suck up all the business of its former partners. I hope they fail in a huge way.
Or... let me think... DJ's with thousands of albums that they want to convert to CD or MP3 for DJing instead?
It's a new gadget and it was hyped to the extreme. Obviously it';s going to sell well. The sad thing is the new product buzz didn't stop people from buying "old" iPods at a FAR larger rate. And the study doesn't even include iPods sold in Apple Stores, which is a huge bias. Look at where the Zune is now. It's nowhere. Nice try, but the numbers don't mean a damn thing unless they're sustainable.
Normally I would agree with you .. it would be nice for Apple to have pressure to do new better stuff with their ipod besides make it smaller and redder. But, and this pains me to say, in this case Apple seems to have actually done good with their dictatorship (it pains me to say dictatorships are good, rather than saying something bad about Apple).
./ stories, but because M$ caved into Universal, it's now causing issues for Apple. Apple was the only company willing to fight for a flat rate for the consumer and make it work. If it weren't for Apple's iTunes store, buying music onlne would still really suck.
See the related
And no, I don't like DRM'd crap, but I do like our environment better, and don't care to pollute it with more CDs that I'm just going to rip. Would I rather just because to get plain MP3s. Yeah, but that isn't going to happen anytime soon. From personal experience, Apple's DRM is pretty decent, and only got in the way once, where I had to deauthorize all my computers.
So in this case, competition actually isn't looking good for consumer's rights, primarily because most consumers buying these things aren't well informed.
Any DJ that would take a tremendous leap backward like this should be stripped of his PA and his pseudonym. It would be like Eric Clapton trading his guitars for a copy of Guitar Hero 2.
The future isn't here until I can type "car keys" into Google and have it say "You left them in your pants last night."
Zune as #2 MP3 player, is about as likely as the xbox 360 outselling the wii opening weekend.
If you want a decent player, get a Cowon A2, X5, etc. They use Linux and play it all.
Oh please. If I'm buying a music player, there are a few considerations:
Does it sound good?
Is it easy to navigate?
Can I transfer music realtively easily?
I don't give a tiny rats ass whether it's Linux or MS or Apple or some other dude. I don't care. And the unwashed masses buying these things care even less than I do.
I don't see why you all are getting your knickers twisted in a knot going on and on about how Zune will fail and how it sucks. For fucks sake, if you like the iPod, HOPE for the sales to increase so there is more healthy competition, and lower prices all around.
Christ.
Not sure if this fixes the problem completely, but I noticed the bug referenced in your sig was marked as duplicate--the referenced bug has since been closed (fix committed to CVS on the 6th of November)
Apple's music store has DRM, but there isn't any anywhere else. The Zune adds DRM to your un-DRMed songs for you. Plus the music industry royalty, that they're now pressuring Apple to add. Seems like a definite step backward.
Yes, because having access to thousands of different record albums to fulfil requests without having to car them all around to weddings and the like is just criminal.
How appropriate for a brown music player that reviewers have advised people to "avoid". More appropriate is the speed with which sales fell to 20th and worse. Zune is a turd boosted only by enormous hype. It lasted a day or so then died. The only way Zune sales are going anywhere is if Microsoft buys their own production for the next few months. Given how M$ has stabbed all of their previous music partners in the back, the whole industry should hate it. This player has less hope of success than Dell's jukebox or any of the previous players - it costs more, has a shorter battery life and comes with a worse music deal than their now failed Plays for Sure initiative.
Why was this useless fanboy article posted? No one denied the initial sales squirt.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
The first week, the Zune was indeed in the top ten at Amazon - it's only after that the sales dropped like a rock to the current place below 50th. So what the article is saying is not inconsistent with what was observed from Amazon sales rank.
So the article is only telling us what we already knew from reviewing Amazon sales - sales were good the first week, when the media blitz worked but before word of mouth cooled opinion.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I want it to fail because it is unacceptable that by adding your own non-DRM'ed music to it that the Zune puts it under DRM.
Say I'm an artist. I put my own music on my Zune. Then I beam it to someone else's Zune (squirt just sounds dumb). By Microsoft's reckoning, that person can only listen 3 days or 3 plays. Whichever comes first. What gives Microsoft the right to determine the conditions under which I get to distribute my music?
"#2 Digital Audio player in its first week of sales" Its only the first week. Products usually post their strongest numbers when they launch. Let's see their numbers after 1 year of sales.
How you can compare the DRM infested Zune with ODF is beyond me. One is an open document specification that could enable people on different OS, hardware, or software to exchange files, the other is a closed platform music player with DRM so restrictive that your entire music collection can auto-delete itself because you forgot to pay your monthly bill...
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
Its just that Microsoft had to trample over the battered bodies of their "plays for sure" partners to get there.
Yeah...
As long as it comes with BASH. Navigation made simple and intuitive.
It's obvious what's going on. M$ has their wallet out and is handing ppl free money to favorably cover their mp3 player. They're trying to buy mindshare, to make it look like they're a competitor. It might work, who knows? I think ppl should be awful suspicious, though, before putting their money down on this thing. Buy a 360 and an iPod, and wait a year on the Zune/PS3.
After the first week boost, the Zune feel rapidly while the Sandisk stayed where it was - right in the middle of the iPods in the top fifteen or so MP3 players.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I've seen a lot of Zune ads. None of them mention Microsoft at all. Anywhere. I wonder if this is MS admitting that they have no mindshare. Or maybe the "cool" factor doesn't go with their corporate logo.
You can call it the music industry royalty but we all know it's a pirate tax.
One good reason why it's a dumb idea for others to pay it is because (take the iPod for example) other devices can be used as external drives.
If I were to use an iPod as a portable drive for my camera, should I have to pay a royalty for that?
if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
Yawn.
you had me at #!
You won't comment on this "totally unbiased" article, but you have no problem commenting on another "totally unbiased" article called "How iPods Took Over the World", huh? Why is that?
Apple has had some good competition already - the Archos players, the Creative stuff and the Sandisk. Each of those has brought something interesting to the table and made Apple keep advancing.
What has the Zune brought that's new? WiFi sharing that is so limited it does not exist, and the standard now that EVERY MP3 player going forward will be pressed by labels to pay a small fee just for the right to exist! Has the existance of the Zune REALLY improved the market in any way?
Competition is great, but Microsoft left the door wide open for the RIAA to get a foot in. For that alone they deserve endless scorn and market failure.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Microsoft has enough employees who will have to buy their crappy product (to show company spirit) to stay in the top 3 for at least another two weeks. And then it's over.
Apple wasn't the first out to market with an mp3 player but unlike MS they did their research. Every new generation of Ipod gets better its interface is extremely easy to learn and use. Itunes is not bad and I went out and bought 5th gen video ipod just because of how easy it is to subscribe to podcasts (G4, SG, etc) and ease of keeping everything in sync.
I purchased the very second mp3 player that became commercially available in USA - Diamond Rio PMP300 in 1998 and Creative Lab's Nomad ][ a little bit later. Both were not great and the first suffered from slow transfer speed and second from just-ok interface but at least both products worked out of the box and I didn't have to wait a year for some feature that was promised to start working - NO wireless sync with PC(even my old motorola e680i phone can do this via bluetooth), crippled song "sharing" and no Vista support YET even though Vista is shipping in a month to PC manufacturers. Very rushed - feels like a pot-luck dinner.
Finally, I think MS blew it because they are a software company first and they couldn't even write (OR STEAL) something decent. They only had 10 year to sit there and watch everyone else do it. I feel bad for Toshiba, they didn't really need this.
I guess they didn't learn from Panasonic's 3DO fiasco where Trip Hawking tricked them into giving his company $100 million to blow on a video game system that didn't sell well.
At least MS gives you that option. Perhaps it is limited but it's better than nothing. It's not like they're DRMing your original copy.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Boo.Com
Daikatana
PC Jr.
The Mac TV
The Performa 52xx/62xx series of Macs
Windows Millenium Edition, aka WindowsME
and...
Zune.
'Nuff said.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
I'm tired, but: Maybe he can get some real hifi equipment which doesn't sound like shit instead.
"All I got for Xmas was a Brown Zune"
What are the different colours?
Shit brown, fecal matter umber, diarrhea sepia?
I'm pretty sure the GP was referring to the other kind of DJ.
You know, the "throw your hands in the air" type who mixes, scratches, and crossfades?
Not the one who spun "The Chicken Dance" at your cousin's wedding.
There is a very simple reason to both avoid purchase of the Zune and pray to 42 that it fails. For every Zune sale, the record industry gets a cut. If you buy a Zune, you are propping up the RIAA. You are essentially paying a tax that assumes you are guilty of copyright infringement before you've even committed it (and of course you could get still get sued by the RIAA even after paying the absurd tax). This should sound familiar to Canadians.
If other reasons we do lack, we swear no one will die when we attack
If it proves to be a desired feature, others will follow.
Is it remotely possible that someone can do the wallmart trick for Non-RIAA music? Seamless triple threat of $7 CD's, no encumbrances, industry setting payments to artists, a solid midline player, a music store that banks upon the 'upsell effect' to avoid the need for DRM, and so on?
Last I knew all of this insanity was about protecting the $18 unit price of music from big box stores who feel a need to post a 4% growth gain forever. Last I knew, it was the race of building/land price vs. sales. "Costs are fixed, revenue is fickle".
For example, I'd like to see an eMusic store.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Microsoft makes this product. That you can say "more real choice" and Zune in the same sentence without laughing yourself to death is a testament to restraint.
seriously, it's nice that there's an article and all that uses the word iFanboy, but can we get a real /. article? Who's asking the important questions like "Yeah, but does it run linux?"
Your sig(k) has been stolen. There is a puff of smoke!
...but not the way you were thinking. In fact what the WiFi gets you besides the ability to music in a very limited manner, is the "WiFi Sizzle" - a delightful crackle overlaid on your music while WiFi is enabled.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I don't know why people want it to fail so badly..
Because it's crippled with DRM, it doesn't "play for sure" and there's no love lost for MS in general.
We need a serious challenger to Apple for no other reason than to force them to cross that final frontier - playing nicely with everyone else (i.e., not forcing their product chain down our throats with restrictive DRM).
THE ZUNE'S DRM IS WORSE THAN MICROSOFTS! If the Zune actually did well, you would see the opposite of what you are hoping for.
Life is too short to proofread.
Let us all help the band play merrily along while the Zune ship slides into the murky waters of consumer disinterest, by labeling this and all subsequent Zune trolling articles with the flag "zuneral".
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Apple should run full page ads, showing a unflattering photos of each Zune buyer under the header "Zune Loser"
If anyone mentions Zune in an online forum, ridicule them.
If B1FF says the Zune isn't that bad in WoW, broadcast a message "B1FF thinks the Horde and the Alliance both suck"
You mean like the nice, balanced, totally unbiased reporting that usually passes muster on Slashdot? ROFL.
First of all, the words are those of the article submitter. The article itself makes no mention of fanboyism. Secondly, it is blindingly obvious that (the collective borg of) Slashdot wants the Zune to fail miserably. Their minds have already been made up. Personally, I couldn't care less if it sold a thousand units or a billion units. I don't care for the Zune; I like my iPod just fine. But if something better comes along then I will have no problems dumping my iPod.
The truth is that nothing with a Microsoft logo on it will get a fair shake around here. Whenever a story comes out that tries to shed some positive light on anything that goes against the Slashdot grain, everyone immediately starts looking for ways to discredit it rather than looking at it objectively.
Why the fuck would it be so God damned awful if the Zune did well?
Yeah, your point?
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
"Second comes right after first!"
While I agree in principle with you, iPods are designed to be used as portable audio players. Being able to use them as an external drive is a bonus, not an advertised feature. On the other hand, the blank CD tax in Canada is truly unfair, because blank media is designed to be used in a large number of ways, NOT just audio. I think of the last 200 CDs I've burned, about five were audio (and MP3 CDs at that, which is a data disc on a technicality). Since finding that old cassette adapter that I plug into my iPod, I've had no need for audio CDs.
And for the sake of Devil's Advocate, you should (by the industry's logic) be forced to pay a royalty for using your iPod as a portable drive for your camera. Not for the music, but for the painfully high chance that you've snapped a shot that included something copyrighted... basically anything with a backdrop other than a landscape (ads plastered everywhere, any branded products, etc). Just like the painfully high chance you infringed copyright of (not stole... they still have their copy!) music, right?
Don't get me wrong. The idea sucks, and is downright offensive to almost everyone who actually buys music. But a piracy tax on iPods DOES make more sense than blank media taxes, simply due to intended use. As far as I'm concerned, Apple shouldn't have to pay them a cent as long as they keep the "Don't steal music." sticker on the front (nor should any other brand). As far as I'm concerned, such a tax legitimizes piracy - a Slashdot post I read earlier today indicated that this logic held up in Canadian court. I'd be all for the idea if I didn't know that the logic couldn't possibly hold up in a court system as screwed up as our (US) own.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
This will not happen any time soon. The problem is that there is currently no signature/watermark system that would prevent you from beaming main label music as your own.
The real solution is to sell your own music on the Zune store for $0.00 so people can get it again for good when the squirted version dries out.
Jobs might not be in it 'for the long haul.' He has tended to produce closed but popular 'wonder' products and then move on.
Zune is basically going to pretty much kill off all non-iPod players, other than a few no-name el-cheapo models that just do MP3 and aren't connected to any music store, Plays For Sure, or anything like that. There are going to be a lot of models that start selling so badly they get pulled off the market and the companies making them aren't going to try again because their partner screwed them over and/or they don't want to fight against two behemoths and the tiny-margin "just play MP3s and nothing else" Chinese brands.
So the Zune ends up reducing consumer choice, and faced with a choice between something that costs the same as an iPod, but is heavier, uglier, less friendly and offers only two dubious features that beat an equivalently priced iPod (very limited Wifi and a slightly larger LCD screen) there will probably be more iPod sales than before.
So do they also skip the Apple Store? You can makeany numbers you want if you ask the "correct" set of stores for their sales data.
It's entirely normal and predictable that an early adopter market would generate sales, not to mention people falling for media hype. However, once said early adopters realise how crippled the system is for both playing and sharing music, the existing units sold will go in the bin, and then word of mouth will prevent further sales from occurring.
The single main thing about the FSF's unreasoning, foetal position terror of DRM that has always irked me is that they don't give Joe Six-Pack enough credit. Yes, he might be a drooling imbecile, but the one redeeming characteristic that he *does* have is that he knows what he wants to be able to do. He wants to be able to both play and transfer mp3s in both directions, without encumberence, and without limits, and he ultimately isn't going to accept anything which doesn't allow him to do that.
If we want to talk about bullshit FUD, let's talk about Stallman's "Right to Read," story. He isn't a "visionary"...he is a moron. The assumption that a scenario like that is going to occur does not take *anyone* else's desires into account. I am sick to death of this idea that the rest of us have absolutely no clue and we need some enlightened saviour (read: cult leader) to lead us out of utter darkness.
Take some fucking self-responsibility...and allow others to do the same. Fear doesn't help anyone, and it is also in this case going to be proven to have been entirely unwarranted. Wait and see.
...or could that have really been considered DOA?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
actually, we just use the two extremely good turntables we already own, the expensive mixer we already own & the computer we ALREADY OWN to convert our vinyl to mp3.
Microsoft didn't "cave" to Universal. To "cave" implies resistance. Microsoft and Universal have always been on the same page.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
In the early 90's I decided to join the tech audio revolution and I got rid of an eclectic lp collection that spanned more than a thirty year period. Stan Getz, Herbie Mann, Cannonball Adderley, Leonard Kwan, Carlos Montoya, Bo Diddley, Jimmy Reed and on and on.
No cd ever sounded as good to me as an lp and it makes me sick that I was so stupid as to part with them. I'll bet the guy that bought them is still pretty happy with his purchase though.
From the article:
"While the two reports look strictly at sales at major U.S. electronics retailers, online sales of the Zune appear not to be as favorable."
"i.e., not forcing their product chain down our throats with restrictive DRM)"
As other have pointed out one billion times, Apple doesn't force restrictive DRM on anyone. You can use your iTunes and iPod without one illegal, low quality, DRM'd file.
Not one. I can buy 1000 CD's from my local music store, RIP them, and have iTunes synch them to my iPod und DRM'd, legally (unlike the Zune's software counterpart).
If you wish to purchase songs legally for download via the internets, iTunes not only has a far more sane DRM scheme than almost all others, but I've never fealt restricted by it. Not one bit. I can burn CD's, copy them to other computers (5 a year... do you need to reasonably have them on more?), and can even RIP those burned CD's to produce non-DRM'd iTunes purchased songs.
I have no idea why people still claim this.
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
You might be right .. I profess not to know the inner workings of these companies. I think the point still remain valid -- M$ does not really care about the consumers. I think it is in the end to their own detriment, as I agree with Apple that flat rates for music makes sense (though not for TV shows -- especially when paying $2 for *each* episode of the Daily Show).
I'm definitely in the camp that to support the Zune is to support the big-bad music companies (and terrorists when you're at it).
is a closed platform music player with DRM so restrictive that your entire music collection can auto-delete itself because you forgot to pay your monthly bill...
Uhm nothing gets auto-deleted, the "all you can download" files stop working. And they'll work again as soon as you renew your subscription. Just as you agreed when you signed up. Word is, iTundes may adopt a similar model soon. I can't wait, because for the cost of a CD I am spared buying at least one lousy album a month. Nevermind all of the awesome tunes I wouldn't have heard (and may not have purchased anyway) if I had to pay per-track/album.
If you don't like that, buy the track/album ala carte. Those never expire. I'll certainly agree that the DRM is more opressive on Microsoft's platform, but some perspective is in order here.
And the Zune/iPod/Office/ODF comparison is about market competition. It has nothing to do with their individual traits.
Platform advocacy is like choosing a favorite severely developmentally disabled child.
>> Does it sound good?
I hope you are not using a particular DAP with white earphones. And I am too lazy to point out to a certain blind study conducted by cNet in which this particular DAP stood last among the chosen 5.
Very few people could even name one artist that isn't signed to a major label, let alone care enough to buy an album from them.
I have a shitty sig!
Second place is the first loser.
I don't steal music; I resent being branded a "pirate". I especially resent paying a tax for a sin I don't commit.
I'm talking about electronica DJs. Many still use vinyl, but are moving to CD's (CDJ Equipment) and some laptops (eugh).
"I agree with Apple that flat rates for music makes sense (though not for TV shows -- especially when paying $2 for *each* episode of the Daily Show)."
Season Pass -- 16 episodes/9.99 == $0.62/episode.
Apple didn't fail in the 90's because they sold hardware and software, they failed because their products sucked and they didn't keep up with the pack. In fact, their "closed-technology stack" is probably what kept them alive long enough to get OS-X and the iPod out the door.
Your taxes currently pay for prisons, drug rehabs, and tons of other things that directly relate to the sins (or in some cases perceived sins, i.e. marijuana use, etc.) of others.
Is there really a difference?
It all makes sense. Saw this story earlier today. Obviously, NK is buying up all the Zunes. It's the best they can do, after all. Speaking of the third world and mp3 players, am I the only one who thinks the Zune bears an uncanny resemblance to this gem?
blah blah blah
I agree completely. It's kind of weird to thing of one company so completely dominating a market to be a good thing, but Apple hasn't abused us consumers the way we have come to expect of monopolies (or near-monopoly, in this case.)
Despite the lack of real competition, Apple has come out with new, improved models every year or so, expanded their product line to include cheaper models, and appeased the RIAA with a DRM on purchased songs that is not nearly as offensive as it could have been. All of the songs that I ripped from CDs, cassettes, and even vinyl, are in MP3 and DRM-free, and thus work on my iPod without any issues at all. The Zune, on the other hand, imposes a DRM on any file that gets loaded onto it. It could be an MP3 voice recording of a lecture that I gave, and thus solely MY intellectual property, and the Zune would still put an oppressive DRM on it for me.
On the other hand, the DRM on the songs that I downloaded from the iTunes store has never given me any issues. I didn't even realize they were DRMed until the guy at the Apple Store had me me deauthorize my computer before they would send it to the repair depot to replace the logic board. There's nothing more the RIAA would like more than an overly protective DRM force a consumer to buy a song twice... more money for them. But the Apple guys went out of their way to make sure that I had my music backed up elsewhere and my computer deauthorized so that I wouldn't have to pay for the songs a second time.
It's a fake number (term stolen from Studio 60). It's the first week of sales, that's when the most units are pushed. Look at a cd sale: the first week has the biggest numbers and it dwindles from there. A mainstream album could push the most sales ever in a debut, but can it hold up to Michael Jackson's Thriller in the long run?
Perhaps if you tell us what part of the article strikes you as the work of a "fanboy" we'll know if you have reason to be so insulted (or so it seems).
"...Not one. I can buy 1000 CD's from my local music store, RIP them, and have iTunes synch them to my iPod und DRM'd, legally (unlike the Zune's software counterpart)."
This part is just bogus and a big fat lie.
-]Phreak Out[-
and don't forget the enhanced rate of battery dissipation. The Zune is able to drain its battery much faster than an equivalent ipod.
Take that apple!
"You can't fight in here, this is the war room!"
Yes, I agree. The equivalent iPod is now $50 cheaper thanks to the Zune. I also think that indicates that Apple considers the Zune to be a far greater threat than their fanboys will admit, or Apple would not need to drop the price to remain competitive.
Hey Firehed, sorry but its actually more of the same BS. Taking someone elses property or cash without consent is theft, I don't care if its theft through breaking and entering or theft through some BS business deal. If I paid for the music on my MP3 player I don't owe the RIAA another dime. If they make me pay simply because I purchase a product from another vendor to play the music I already paid for then they are stealing from me. The corporate theft from consumers through blank media royalties is no different than theft through MP3 player royalties.
I wont even label this as a disagreement, fact is they want to steal from consumers for something the consumers did not purchase. Where is the line drawn? How much does the public owe these theives and at what point is the debt paid? Its a ludicrous corporate crime.
Nobody cares about Zune ... Everybody care about "killing" i-Pod :)
:P
Well, for once MS is not on the milking-cow side
I can't name very many artists that the major guys produce.
I bought some gift cards for eMusic with the sole purpose of investigating music "I didn't know I needed", sorted by category. As a simple example, I stumbed upon "Fields of the Nephilim" as some great background music for work. (Your Opinion May Vary.)
Combinations of good CD packaging and highly encouraged listening stations would be the way to go.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Despite the iFanboy jabber that Zune sales were horrific
[off to burn] Ok, so if those people are iFanboys, and some pretty and unpretty another dozen names some people can conjure up every now and then, then how shall we call this guy ? My glass has just gotten full with zealotry remarks. Also, I find it harder and harder these days to refrain myself from slapping every oh-never-mind-he's-just-a-*-zealot dismissers. [/off]
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Thanks! I can finally pirate my records!
You've been drinking the RIAA's Kool-Aid. Transferring music one has paid for to another medium for one's own use is not "piracy" according to most people's concept of that notion.
In all seriousness that's actually a great gift for someone with an old record collection which is pretty much everyone over 40 or 50.
I'm over 50 and so are most of my friends, and I don't know anyone who kept their old records. We deep-sixed that junk a decade ago. One of the many bad things about vinyl records is that they wear out. It doesn't matter how light the pickup is, the essential working of a vinyl record is a piece of diamond scraping in a plastic groove, every time that happens the plastic groove is going to wear a little bit.
Of course some people did keep their record collection but I think it's a tiny minority, and it certainly isn't "pretty much everyone".
Apple is not really making any of the same mistakes they used to - remember that while the iPod supports a closed music format, it also supports quite a few open ones. They really had troubles before because they were overly propriatry in a world that was moving to more open standards - Apple is ready on both fronts, they have a DRM moat (that was meant to surround the Microsoft castle) but also the open path if the content providers choose that direction.
But they are not resting behind that proprietary front, they have been improving iPod generation to generation. As long as they continue the motion of improvement, they can stay a step ahead of the pack - Sansa is gaining some market but mostly at the cost of the others in the segment - a fish in a shrinking pool.
Unless you mean some other mistake Apple made in the 80's... there were a number of them.
BTW - Microsoft does get better version after version. That's when they make new versions. Where is Bob 3.0? They cannot continue dead-ends forever, even Microsoft is beholden to shareholders at some point. Will those same shareholders stomach a billion-dollar fight that takes two generations to surpass the Sansa or Creative?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
oh no - Microsoft is threatening Apple's iPod fiefdom and someone might figure out Jobs is wearing no clothes! Flame on Steve J. nuthuggers!
Well, even club DJ's are moving more towards iPods for live usage. The sound fidelity is much lower than in the studio, and the risk of loss between the copies iPod and his priceless vinyl collection is also important. The dancers in the club want to move, and aren't listening with an overly critical ear. When in the studio recording his next album, though, we most likely will go back to his vinyl records.
Consider it more like Roger Daltrey in his prime having two different guitars: one for studio work that he cares for and frets over the settings, and one "disposable" he uses on stage that he can smash to bits.
I really wonder about the future of PlaysForSure at this point - how can any of the current MP3 manufacturers go on supporting a format controlled by a chief competitor? That doesn't seem like a situation that would make sense to keep going forward with, at some point you have to expect a few of the players to break away and found a third attempt at DRM, or eschew it altogether. You know what would be really interesting, is an eMusic branded player with no DRM and truly pen wireless sharing. I think a tie-in with eMusic would give them enough legal coverage to hold off any lawsuits about the sharing, especially if it were agnostic as to file type being shared.
I like Samsung products a lot but what is up with new players not supporting disk mode? First the Zune, now the YP-T9 does not support being mounted as mass-storage, so in my mind that instantly looses the geek base any of the iPod competitors must have in order to really start taking some iPod market share away. Even if it does support Ogg, which a lot of us like in theory but almost no-one uses.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
While the allusion to the common death ceremony may be quite appropriate now, you have to consider what happens if the Zune really catches fire and takes off!
Perhaps, because of the "squirting" socialization feature, Zunereal Disease (or just "Zunereal") would be a better tag :-)
The survey only covers selected stores and does not include Apple Stores. And how many other stores are even selling iPods? Changes are that the statistics show such good results for the Zune because it doens't representatively include stores where iPods are sold
In digital recording environments, there are several plug-ins that add any type of coloration to a sound. A popular one imitates tape saturation, which makes e.g. bass sounds sit better in the mix; others imitate tube amplifiers. If you have a Mac, you can route the CD output to AULab and then pass it through a plug-in to hear what it would do to your record; I guess similar software exists for PCs. Mind you, you'd have to buy the correct plug-in first, and they can be quite expensive.
the Amazon sales rank may have been thrown off by Zune sales being divided between the three colors.
You mean, like the iPod sales being divided between 14 or so models and colours?
Yes, the zune's initial week was fairly good. If you read just a little further on any mainstream press article, however, you'll see that the total failure was attributed not to first week sales, but to the fact that after all the fanboys and easy-to-fool idiots had bought one, sales dropped to almost nothing. The same Amazon sales rank that was #2 in the first week was #13 in the second if I recall correctly. Right now, it's #60, which definitely qualifies as "abysmal". The 4 GB silver nano, the lowest listed iPod model, beats it jumping on one leg with both hands tied behind its back (rank #15).
Sorry, MS fanboy, zune is as dead as a doornail and twice as hard to sell.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
That article is hilarious. His first comment, "I still think it's an excellent portable media player." Then he goes on to list 10 doozies that microsoft needs to fix, actually what he's saying is, "I need portable media player produced by someone else." But I don't think he's figured that part out yet.
The situation with Zune/iPod is no different than the situation with Office/ODF. *More* real choices = better for the consumer and lower prices by all!
True for every other competitor but microsoft. We all and even the courts by now know that their only interest in a market is owning it. MS doesn't mean more, but less choices - if not now, then later on.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
They are intruducing even harmonics in the reproduction of the music (this isn't distortion, just the way it gets the audio stream out). op-amps produce odd harmonics in their reproduction.
Even harmonics are soothing and odd harmonics are grating. THAT is what "warmer" means. You can disguise the odd harmonics by adding more but a tube amp doesn't have to so it doesn't have to work as hard to get the same quality of sound. That is why tube amps sound louder than their wattge (3x approximately).
And non-class A amps rectify and amplify the signal separeately positivey and negatively, so there is a small error in the evenness of the positivve and negative waveform.
It's also important to remember that Apple almost killed itself with the clone fiasco. The Nineties saw Apple drifting and falling prey to managers and technocrats without any vision.
What makes Apple special and successful is that they make products that Jobs would pay money for if he wasn't running the show. It may lead to misses like the Cube, but it does ensure that each product is designed around somebody actually using it and not merely to meet some committee's shopping list.
Wait until you're 9000KMs from home trying to play something for your dad, when you find out that you forgot to ask permission to use that song you already bought on a different device.
I will NOT ask for permission to use the things I've paid for. This isn't fair use, this is just use and I will not fund this tyranny.
I bought about 5 tracks from iTMS, and I will never buy another one.
Why is this modded as flamebait? The user is pointing out that the Zune hurts everyone whether you buy one or not. Their deal with Universal is already causing grief for us, no matter what player you own.
Also, how you can think Bamafan77 was comparing the Zune with ODF is beyond me. Your reading comprehension is very poor. Bamafan77 was comparing "Zune/iPod" with "Office/ODF" and his obvious point was "having choices." ODF and Zune will hopefully bring real alternatives to the dominant Office format and dominant iPod DRM.
My day job has me working retail, and I'll have to say that the iPods are running circles around the zune. We've sold 1 zune since the first shipment came in and we've already gone through about 40 ipods. I DON'T think Apple has anything to worry about.
"Zune is basically going to pretty much kill off all non-iPod players"
5 1549011/ref=pd_ts_pg_1/002-1687820-0216019?ie=UTF8 &pg=1
Not likely. Despite the title of the article, go take a look at the actual sales rank of the MS-Zune players on Amazon. The black is #52, the rest are significantly below that (greater than 250). Sansa has a player in the top 10, and a 2nd one at number 11, Creative has a player in the top 20, Sansa has a couple more scattered around the top 100. Apple has players everywhere on this list. Everywhere.
Again, I urge folks to look at the actual Amazon site instead of reading articles about Amazon.
Here's the link:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/electronics/
Keeping in mind that the holiday is when a big portion of sales, unless MS drops the Zune prices down by about 40%, this this is headed for the bottom pretty quickly. While that's obviously my opinion, all you need to do is watch the trend of the player. Just the novelty of this thing should have kept it in the top 10 until xmas. But to fall to #52 in just a week is pretty amazing.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
How many people do you think falls into the category of being over 50 but not 40?
Yes, the difference is that the taxes you pay for prisons and the court system are for your safety, not not to punish the taxpayer for crimes not committed.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I wonder on what information you base your belief that CDs are less energy/material efficient than the iTunes store?
And the Zune/iPod/Office/ODF comparison is about market competition. It has nothing to do with their individual traits.Then it would make more sense to compare Zune/iPod to WordPerfect/Word or to 1-2-3/Excel (or even MS Office/Open Office, but that still strains the analogy). You might not care about the individual traits of Office/ODF, but others do. MS Office and ODF are not competing products. ODF is a file format specification. MS Office could support it, just like it supports .txt or .csv files. It's a horrible analogy. ODF is not about offering choices. ODF is about promulgating a replacement *standard*. If OASIS had their way, all "office" files would be saved as ODF but would be editable by any office suite in the same way that HTML files are viewable in multiple browsers.
Of course, by conflating open standards with more proprietary choices, you're trying to claim an outrageous point. Morally, adding a second, proprietary product is not nearly the same as offering an open standard (with potentially infinite implementations). In fact, in many ways, it makes the system worse (how's your Betamax VCR doing?). Now, instead of creating just one, iTunes optimized recording, artists would have to create two recordings. To do so, they'll need to buy equipment from both Apple and Microsoft. Meanwhile, if artists would just use a more open format, like Ogg Vorbis (or even MP3), they could make just one file which would play on multiple players. Of course, they'd lose the DRM...
Using said DAP right now, I can tell you that it's not the DAP, it's the stupid earphones Apple brings with them. Just get a $10 pair of Sony earphones and the quality will be much better for any device.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Forgive me if I speak out of (i)tune, but the first iPods didn't do all that brilliantly, it took a good year for them to take off, if not two to hit the mainstream conciousness? I'm feeling old, so forgive me if my memory is playing tricks on me.
If he's the Walrus then can I be a penguin please?
You rais a very valid and interesting pont and the fact that your post was marked as Troll just proves the amount of mindless sheep there are posting on slashdot.
Oh god, well atleast you can transfer the song irelessly no? Transfer the song alternatively to the wifi feature and you can get around the DRM. Just as you can with the Ipod.
If I thought a piracy tax would end all other forms of litigation and DRM from the RIAA,
I might give it some credence, but we all know it won't. They want it both ways.
Maxim
Arent cnn, time warner and such are a part of the riaa-mpaa-media cartel ? and they and microsoft are each other's darling ?
Read radical news here
== bumper returns next week.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Here's a shocker - the submitter works for Microsoft.
Does your local music store not have 1000 CDs? You're really going to have to be more specific what you're taking issue with. While I'm not sure what Zune's software does, as far as I'm aware the statements about the iPod match what I've heard elsewhere.
My GF has an iPod, but I don't play around with it. But we have in fact ripped CDs and put the DRM'less music* on her iPod, exactly as the GP stated.
What's the lie?
(*) - We ripped them to MP3s originally, but eventually converted everything to whatever Apple's format is so she could use some more features of the software. From what I could tell we were fully able to convert it back to MP3 if we really wanted to re-encode it for the third time.
40 to 50? try anyone in their 30's that caught indi fever during college :D
I have a ton of records that is just not available on cd and this looks great!
My brain threw a parse error on that sentence, but the problem turned out to be a bug in the lexer.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
as I am a pretty open Apple supporter, but after having messed with a Zune at the mall I can say it isn't all bad. And we all know the MS formula of floating something tha sucks and refining it until people actually like it. Apple had best be vigilent and bring something new to the iPod line by next Xmas; some defectors will pop up just because they hate Apple or want to be different.
Someone actually bought the brown one?
Care to back that up with any non-big-fat-lies?
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
Well, unless you've already authorized your 5 devices, all you need to do is open up iTunes (necessary to play the song in the first place...) and authorize the computer you want to play it on. You don't have to jump through any flaming hoops...
And this doesn't give any indication that the Zune is somehow better—indeed, it seems to me it would be much worse, putting DRM on songs that didn't have it in the first place. If you're against any DRM at all on principle, I can understand and respect that...but it's hardly germane to the discussion at hand.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
It's about people complaining about Zune's and people loving iPod's more and more.
ghostbar page.
I see you've scored a flamebait mod, which is fair enough given how you put it, but you're right - apart from a small minority of techies, no-one cares what OS anything other than their PC runs, as long as it works. They only care about their PC's OS so they know their software will run on it, or so they can rest safe in the knowledge that they have the latest version (which is a rare attitude).
It's official. Most of you are morons.
You don't think that Apple dropped the iPod's price when they did precisely to piss MS off and make them rethink their pricing strategy?
I'm not saying that the price drop wouldn't have happened without the Zune, but you can bet that the impending Zune launch was at least a factor.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Most other portable music players cost exactly the same as the iPod. And Microsoft has pretty much abandoned it's PlayForSure partners with the Zune.
So it's time for Apple to step up here and really crush the competition.
1. License FairPlay to the other PlayForSure makers, and allow them all to connect to iTunes. Apple could make a lot of money by collecting a fee for every Fairplay enabled player sold by a third party, and may even be able to charge a $1/month/player fee from the 3rd party makers for access to the iTunes Store.
2. Disable PlayForSure and enable AAC/Fairplay on 3rd party players via Firmware Update
3. Allow 3rd party players to sync with iTunes by giving the makers APIs and let them write drivers.
4. Offer free upgrades of all DRMed WMA songs to AAC on iTunes.
Apple gets a new revenue stream and Napster, MSN Music and BuyMusic.com all go out of business overnight.
The problem is that MSFT does not *compete*. Zune is not a challenger. Zune was born to destroy ipod by redefining the business model of the music player market.
As soon as apple is forced to abandon the music player market (because of commoditization, as you said), you can say goodbye to innovations and zune's DRM will be here to stay as the "standard".
Seriously wtf are you smoking? The Zune has DRM that is way more restrictive than the iPod. Songs that expire? Your own bands music that can be splooged (or whatever they call it) to somebody wirelessly but they can't keep it and it expires after they listen to it 3 times?
Well, yeah. But I don't think he was calling the Zune a good choice, just another choice. I'm being serious here. Choice is not only good because vendors pressure each other; there are other effects. Consider for instance the effect the Zune could have on the attitude of UMG executives if it ultimately fizzles out. Yes there's a risk that Zune will result in Apple being pressured harder for variable pricing and kickbacks, but there's also a pretty distinct possibility that it will actually make those demands go away for good.
Think a little deeper too... Apple has plenty of wireless experience. Why does no iPod have any wireless features? Could it be that doing wireless in a decent way was a point of disagreement which even Steve Jobs couldn't get the publishers to bend on? Could it be that he gave up wireless in order to preserve flat pricing? If so, what happens if Zune's crippled wireless turns out to be a failure?
All pure speculation of course.
Back many years ago when I worked at Circuit City, we sold TONS of big screen TVs around the holidays, and strangely enough, we got a whole bunch of them back after Superbowl Sunday.
I suspect the return rate on sold Zunes will be really high on December 26th.
-ted
From an MP3 Newswire article posted on the day Zune first appeared in stores:
o .html
"Let's say that Zune immediately upends SanDisk for second place in the market, taking 11% of the marketplace. By one standard this is a significant success as only the iPod was able to grab so much market share so fast. But with Microsoft pumping ten-of-millions in ad money another standard will call Zune's barely double-digit market share a disappointment. Maybe even a modest failure.
With the free press Microsoft has generated mated to their try-to-be-hip commercials on television you can understand the argument, though I suspect the later pundits are really looking for a big market battle to muse about rather than an improved player environment that serves the consumer better. I can easily see conflicting stories in the coming weeks, all using the same figures, but interpreting them in different ways".
http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/6002/Zune-intr
Yes, and I also have very bad hearing and have an aid in the worst ear which makes its hearing better than the other ear. I've tried all sorts of things to improve sound quality to fit my hearing but it really never occurred to me to try lowering the encoded quality. Thanks for the ideas you've given me.
Oops, 'wife alert'. Got a bad Winter storm here and I'm supposed to be building a fire to get the moisture out of the house yet I'm responding to /. and playing with audio files.
Because I work at RadioShack and none of the 30 stores in our district have sold any. Where as my tiny store has sold over ten iPods in the past week. I live in Madison just off State Street, and EB Games on State (The Biggest shopping street in Madison) hasn't even sold any to any of the music crazy wealthy students yet.
> Consider it more like Roger Daltrey in his prime having two different
> guitars: one for studio work that he cares for and frets over the
> settings, and one "disposable" he uses on stage that he can smash to bits.
umm, pete townshend?
everything leaks
It may lead to misses like the Cube
The cube wasn't really a miss. The first cube was too expensive, because the technology of the time was not really up to it; laptop components were too expensive to use and desktop components needed a lot of work to pack them in. The second version of the cube, rebranded as the Mac Mini and shrunk a bit, seems to be doing very well.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I can buy 1000 CD's from my local music store, RIP them, and have iTunes synch them to my iPod und DRM'd, legally
Yeah, but can you get them off once they're on there?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
MS would be stupid if it hasn't created an exlusive distribution clause with the 'PlaysForSure' partners. I.e., they couldn't resell Apple products or offer compatibility if they wanted to.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
What is the functional difference between DJ'ing from CD or from a laptop? If it's the same bitstream, who cares?
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
how about it being a point that's oversimplified and beaten to death. Mindless sheep? How about people that have heard this line of argument before?
Just because you open up a standard doesn't mean people will adopt it. The world's a lot more complicated than that. An IBM-produced standard certainly would beat out an Apple-based one in the 80's.
Although I usually frown upon such replies, this one is needed. Good job finding that out. Puts the submission in a new perspective. And, the article is clearly biased towards the Zune. It even concludes with an interview of someone trying to positively spin the sad sales figures and reviews.
Good point. I think it's clear that the Zune had an impact on Apple's dropping the price, even though it wasn't released until shortly afterward. So just the threat of impending competition had an effect, which is a good thing.
|> zuneral, microsoft, troll, lies, zune (tagging beta)
I think it's great that so many people are being directly exposed to a device with such excessive DRM. It'll make it easier to explain to the general public why current copyright trends are so bad if lots of people have been burned badly by it (or know someone who has). What's the quote - the US withdrew from Vietnam only after every adult in the US knew someone who'd been killed there..
apple has consistently been dropping the prices of their ipods. i think a more likely scenario for the price drop was to leave space at the top for a "super ipod" or the true video ipod that's been rumored. they dropped the price of their whole "full-size" line rather than just the 30Gb which indicates a larger plan than just undercutting the zune (which had yet to announce a price). it might be possible that they did it to drive the price of the zune down as one factor of their decision, but it's certainly not as clear as the grandparent implies.
This is ever-so-slightly OT, but it's something I've been thinking about for a while.
Wouldn't this be the ultimate way to circumvent the RIAA? Got a kid that loves music? Don't get them something to play someone else's music; give them a way to make their own.
Get 'em playing, then teach them about copyright issues, the RIAA's strongarm tactics, and how not to fall for their bullshit promises. Raise a new generation of musicians that don't need, want, or kowtow to the RIAA.
Thirty bucks more than a Zune, sure, but not a DIME of it goes to any record-industry suit, for ANY reason.
And if you're really feeling rebellious, paint on it in big letters: "This Machine Kills Dinosaurs."
"Oh boy! Are we going to try something dangerous?"
Sandisk already has an agreement with Real, so I don't think they'd be the one to produce such a player - it would have to be Creative or Archos, probably (or perhaps Samsung could give it a go, they have the clout to go their own way).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
you need to buy your blank CDs from FutureShop; they don't charge the levy, as does London Drugs.
When you are around other Zune users, you can instantly detect them and share media. You can move the average song from one Zune to the next in about fifteen seconds.
That's a cool feature in a strictly media sense, (the microwaves are another issue).
That kind of media distribution fascinates me, and I think it could have dramatically revolutionized things. If the Zune fails, I'd be very curious to see if Apple perhaps took that same extra step.
I can't even picture how that would change things. --If you get on a bus with ten other ipods and have access to all those libraries. What an interesting dynamic! What a fascinating way to be exposed to new ideas from areas of the thought-spectrum you'd never normally visit on your own steam. Very, very cool.
Of course, the Zune has a DRM play-limit imposed on any down/uploaded material. That's going to cause problems, but still, it's a very cool idea in terms of media distribution.
-FL
This is incorrect -- the Zune does NOT add DRM to your un-DRMed songs for you. It doesn't modify songs that have been "squirted" in any way.
What it DOES do is prevent you from playing a song "squirted" (lol) to you more than 3 times. This is easy to do, it can just add a flag that indicates a file was received via "squirt" and then use that to prevent play more than 3 times, and prevent further transfer. This isn't really DRM -- nothing on the file is changed; it's just that the player treats it in a special manner.
Doesn't change my opinion that the Zune is showing its true colors in shart-like brown. And to spit in the face of all their "PlaysForSure" partners shows (not that it was a surprise) that Microsoft will backstab its "partners" whenever it's in its best interest.
It's a snob thing - the same way some photographers look down at people who use digital cameras, because "real" artists use film, not these digital toys that can make anyone's shots look good, or orchestras are pissed that people are using synthesized instruments for film scores now.
It's an interesting phenomenon in artistic circles. When technologies emerge that automate or facilitate making art, artists who use the old tools feel threatened. In a way it makes sense. If you spent years of your life perfecting your beatmatching technique and then learned that there was software that could detect BPM, so that any punk kid could automatically mix beatmatched audio files together seamlessly, you'd be pissed, and feel that your art form was being corrupted somehow.
Those people are attached to the past and its limitations. While some old tools offer a greater degree of creativity or expression in certain areas , they have serious limitations in others. There may be things one can do with a real paintbrush that can't be done in Photoshop, but there are also many, many forms of art that were impossible until Photoshop came along. To expect people to restrict their range of artistic expression for the sake of purity is both unfair and futile.
I'm just now catching on to how funny this is. Maybe Apple should introduce a golden colored iPod?
That's what I assumed, but I was curious if there was anything other than snobbery.
It's funny to watch electric guitar players look down on synth players, as if a synthesizer isn't a "real" instrument. Guess this is the same thing.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
I'm pretty sure we would have seen this already - it's a pretty obvious step. I think the real problem is that whoever does this will be sued, unless they pay off ALL the major media cartels. So although I think Apple or Creative or Sandisk are all thinking about it, I'm not sure we'll see it happen really soon. The only way I can see it going forward is that eMusic branded player I talked about in another post - basically a player that included some period of eMusic subscription and the OK from eMusic to condone wirless sharing.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I think it's pretty obvious that they meant to compare ODF to the primary MS Office format. The analogy is weak, but there is no such thing as a perfect analogy. You either try to understand what someone is communicating or not. Confusing the issue while it may be satisfying for you, does nothing to diminish the point.
The point is ODF drives Microsoft to improve their product as Zune pushes Apple to improve theirs. A sucessful Zune is not necessarily a win for DRM. But that is really beside the point... Which is my point.
Platform advocacy is like choosing a favorite severely developmentally disabled child.
It gets even more amusing when you consider that an electric guitar is just a synthesizer where you produce the source wave with your hands. Then you feed it into something not unlike a Moog Modular to get it to make actual sound.
"Yes, I agree. The equivalent iPod is now $50 cheaper thanks to the Zune. I also think that indicates that Apple considers the Zune to be a far greater threat than their fanboys will admit, or Apple would not need to drop the price to remain competitive." ..
Maybe, or maybe not. It is more likely that Apple doesn't want Zune to get any early traction in the market. Microsoft has deep pockets and is willing to lose billions to get a big market share; so, Apple cutting prices on all their Ipod product lines for the Christmas season is smart business practice. It is good to see Apple tear a page out of Microsoft business practices book. Maybe if Sony had done that with the PS2 the Xbox would have been a footnote.
I don't live in Canada... it's not an issue for me. I was just citing their policy as an example.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
Looking at my son's xmas wish list. No Zune, but:
14. green iPod
17. glow in the dark skin for an iPod
18. remote control for an iPod
19. carry case for an iPod
Number 11 was a PS3. No Wii on the list. My kid must not read Slashdot.
Oh, excellent. So all you have to do is copy the song off your Zune and then put it back on and it's good to go, right? No? Then it IS DRM. DRM stands for Digital Rights Management. This "feature" is Managing the "Rights" on the Digital file. Of course, it's apparently neither here nor there what exactly those rights are or to whom they belong.
This is why I want the Zune to fail:
Microsoft is willing to compromise the Zune to the music industry to the point of making ridiculous anti-consumer deals. The music industry had shot itself on the foot so many times that I wonder how they still don't get it. Right now Apple has the upper hand and can tell them to fuck off if their demands don't make any sense. But if the Zune is successful, expect them to play hardball with Apple and raise music prices, put more restrictions on the devices that play them, make the devices more expensive and play Big Brother with people that got their music by other means. In other words, you buy the Zune, we all lose.
But, let's also say I want the Zune to fail because Microsoft is an arrogant company whose envy is only matched by its lack of innovation. They copy companies like Google, Sony and Apple for no other reason that they can't just see anybody making a buck. And they do not offer any real alternative, other than dumping a lot of marketing dollars on their stuff.
Biggest complaint about Apple Macs in the 80s: Too damn expensive. You could buy an IBM PC for half the price.
Biggest complaints about the iPod: Expensive, battery life, music restrictions. Did Microsoft addressed any of these complaints? No. The Zune costs as much, similar -if worse- battery life and same music restrictions. Essentially is a copy of the iPod with a gimmick nobody asked for.
If IBM copied Apple as much as the Zune copies the iPod, PCs would have never sold.
"Yeah, but can you get them off once they're on there?"
And why would I want to do this (pretend you are answering to an RIAA board)? I still have the CD's, I've made a backup of my ripped music (as all should), so I'm not sure why this would be wanted/needed? And just to add, there are a dozen free apps that will do so easily if you really wanted to share... erm, I mean move your music off your iPod.
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
And why would I want to do this (pretend you are answering to an RIAA board)?
So I can give a copy of gd1977-05-08 to my cousin when I see him on christmas break?
So I can transfer my mp3s to my work PC without always having to bring the ipod in with me?
So I have a back-up in case something damages the original?
So I can do what I want with hardware that I own?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The Zune is currently at an average Amazon position of........drum roll......277. I just added the three 'colours' together and divided by three - hey, its probably bad math, but then these M$ scab phony news items started it first.
"So I can give a copy of gd1977-05-08 to my cousin when I see him on christmas break?"
Burn a CD (they're 20 cents a piece), put it on a thumb drive, do a 5 second search on Google to find out how to get the songs off the iPod, etc... remember, this is not something that Apple wanted, the RIAA stipulated it, end of story. This is also why the ability to transfer songs from the iPod to a computer is now part of iTunes 7, but only with iTMS purchased songs. There is no way to legally know for sure that the songs you are "sharing" are legal. Grateful Dead 1977... obscure enough to make my point.
"So I can transfer my mp3s to my work PC without always having to bring the ipod in with me?"
See above. Besides, bringing in your iPod is that much of a chore? My goodness... if you are armless or do not own any shirts or pants with pockets, I apologize. And just to add, you can find out how to do this (transfer songs to another computer), using your iPod right from Apple. You simply aren't aware of it apparently. (remember, your iPod is just an external HD waiting to be used for things just like this! Put your GD song on it before you leave to see your cousin. Takes 3 seconds to find the song Documents/Music/itunes/iTunes music... jeebus man)
"So I have a back-up in case something damages the original?"
You should always have a backup of your music. Using your iPod as "backup" is a horrible idea whether you can easily take the songs off of it or not (which as I have stated twice now, you can, it's just not built into iTunes. Ask the RIAA why you cannot, not Apple). They are stolen all the time, and the HD has a higher probability to fail as it's being transported constantly.
"So I can do what I want with hardware that I own?"
You can, period. Apple just ins't allowed to make moving unprotected songs to any device willy nilly with one click, that's it. Your gripe is quite nit-picky, especially with such easy work-arounds...
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
As of december 2, at 6:00 PM EST, Amazon.com overall sales ratings are as follows (updated hourly): Zune Black: #66 Zune Brown: #257 Zune White: #524 (Wow!) Apple iPods hold 6 of the top 10 positions and 9 of the top 20 positions. The SanDisk Sansa M240 holds #5. If you select MP3 players only, in order to try to scue the results, the Zune (Black) ranks #18, behind 11 iPods, 2 SanDisk units, and 2 Creative units. iPod holds 13 of the 25 positions, SanDisk holds 6 of 25, Creative holds 3 of 25-- the lonely Black Zune is all alone with 1 of 25. Let's see someone paint a "success" face on these facts!
As of december 2, at 6:00 PM EST, Amazon.com overall sales ratings are as follows (updated hourly): Zune Black: #66 Zune Brown: #257 Zune White: #524 (Wow!) Apple iPods hold 6 of the top 10 positions and 9 of the top 20 positions. The SanDisk Sansa M240 holds #5. If you select MP3 players only, in order to try to scue the results, the Zune (Black) ranks #18, behind 11 iPods, 2 SanDisk units, and 2 Creative units. iPod holds 13 of the 25 positions, SanDisk holds 6 of 25, Creative holds 3 of 25-- the lonely Black Zune is all alone with 1 of 25. Let's see someone paint a "success" face on these facts!
Wow, you just don't stop, do you?
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How many times do you need to let us know you don't like Apple? Yes, we know, you bought a zUne. Now suffer with it.
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In all these arguments, you seem to miss crucial points, and make yourself look like a paid MS astroturfer.
You come off more closed-minded than the average Windows user. Try something different once in a while. You might like it.
Now quit posting MS fanboy crap. Shame on you, wasting our time and bandwidth.
The lie is that the zune software does not require your ripped music to be DRM'd. It can encode to mp3, just as the iTunes software does. The Zune software also one ups the iTunes software, as you can transfer music back to the computer from the Zune. You cannot do this with iTunes, but you can copy the files from the iPod and rename them.
-]Phreak Out[-