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Details of Next Gen Zune Surface
KMG writes "Zune Scene has got a scoop about the next generation Microsoft Zune. There will be two new models; a flash memory based and a hard drive based. Zune with HDD will be thinner and have larger storage capacity while the flash based will feature Wi-fi, video playback. So will we see another try from Microsoft to beat Apple's iPod or it will be another vain attempt from the Redmond guys."
Will it come in brown?
Someone actually bothered to put up a fan site for it?
I don't understand why the hard drive is so popular in these devices. SD cards can withstand up to a 1000 Gs and still operate. I don't think you can say that for a hard drive without some sort of catastrophic head crash or something.
Bring it on I say. MS has shown that they can learn from their mistakes. The difference between the Xbox and 360 being a prime example. MS has the money to burn to keep making mistakes and learning from them. If that means they *eventually* make an iPod killer, so be it. The market needs more competing products, not less.
Zune with HDD will be thinner and have larger storage capacity while the flash based will feature Wi-fi, video playback.
that's a pretty great feature. While I'm not fond [at all] of the zune, that is a welcome addition. I'm just curious how much smaller the flash-based unit will be, if smaller at all. It would be interesting if they offered a smaller capacity, same-size unit with flash for the same price.
Are there any other flash-based portable devices like this that play video out of the box?
when is someone going to release a device like this that allows for auxiliary storage media? like with a USB port on the side to plug in a drive?
...spike
Ewwwwww, coconut...
Why is every new mp3 player hyped as the next "iPod killer" by every hack blog writer and fanboy? Why can't they coexist peacfully? Afterall, more choice is good for the consumer, right?
Microsoft has a history of getting things sort of right eventually, usually around version 5.0 of something. Zune 1.0 was like Windows 1.0. Zune 2.0 will be like Windows 2.0
A viable variant in this line of work will probably hit the market in time for the Christmas shopping season of the year 2012, long rumored to be the next season of the Apocalypse by the tin foil hat types, in cahoots with the Maya calendar freaks. Give my regards to Zule.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
With enough retries, Microsoft usually gets it about right and succeeds in the end. (Deep pockets are a huge advantage). But my crystal ball says portable music will increasingly just be an expected feature of other devices, mainly cell phones. I think Apple may have milked the standalone music player fad dry by the time Microsoft gets out a good product.
This is a halfarsed attempt to get some hype going in the way Apple does. Hint, hint, hint, but no clear release schedule. Zune Scene editors are very hard to spot in the wild - you are more likely to meet them at Ms campus. What a joke.
If they can get the Wi-fi to do something, you know, useful, then the Zune 2 might be a neat little device.
I, for one, am looking forward to the inevitable
Everyone know Microsoft can't get anything right until the third attempt. This is only the second.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Microsoft Zune may not be quite up to the iPod standard but it's getting there. One of the good things about having microsoft join the mp3 player wars is that it will make iPod come out with better updates to their ipod (the 5.5gen ipod was a little weak in the upgrade features). That and with the music copyprotecting systems getting lifted off itunes there is going to be some big changes happening with mp3 players in the future. The competition will make both of their products better.
I'm sure they'll have tens of customers.
Come on guys, you can do better than that! Poor grammar, incorrect punctuation, and the two options don't contradict each other. It's not even a humorous or ironic "there is one option but we're pretending there are two" setup, it's just confusing.
</troll>
Xbox reviews.. We think they're funny.
I don't really think Zune will stand up to the iPod for a few generations of the device, even if that. But lets pretend that they do come out with a competitive alternative...will it create a price war between MS and Apple? Judging from the pricing of PC's vs Macs I'd say no, it might be a $50-100 drop in prices but there is something about the iPod, call it social acceptance or prestige of owning one, its kind of a status symbol to own an iPod. Unless Zune can get to that level as whatever you want to call it they won't be much of a competitor. Just look at how many other MP3 players are out on the market, but the first one anyone will mention is always the iPod.
It's about time to replace my ancient (1st gen) iPod, which has given heroic service. What would it take for me to consider another brand, any other brand, beside Apple?
1. must play MP3 and M4A (AAC)
2. must play nice with my Power Mac
3. must sync with iTunes (practically my entire music collection is in iTunes)
4. must work with the iPod dock connector in my car
Zune should have no problem with 1, might possibly be okay with 2, but is locked out of 3 & 4 -- along with every other non-Apple player on the market, thus far, to the best of my knowledge. If anyone knows differently, please correct me!
(And before anyone says anything. . . . No, my 1st gen iPod doesn't have a dock connector. In fact, my car stereo has only an aux input, it doesn't yet have an iPod dock connector either. My next one will. I'm looking to the future here.)
They'll keep at it no matter how bad their device is and eventually, people will accept them. BUT, it'll cost Microsoft 10's of billions and 10's of billions in losses. Does anybody remember the first Microsoft WindowsCE based handhelds over 10 years ago? I think they were clamshell versions and after about 3 years on the market, most of those vendors quit selling the WinCE devices for lack of interest/sales. Microsoft then renamed the product to MS PocketPC after the courts said they could use PalmPC and also allowed vendors to build portrait based versions. Another 7+ years passed and billions in losses but today, people accept the product.
/. ) stopped giving them any air time. Atleast make em pay you for it. IMO.
So it really doesn't matter what they put out, they'll just keep doing it, paying billions in marketing, discounts, and other incentives to vendors to keep pushing the product. The ONLY way this would not happen is if the press( hello
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
The first Zune boasted Wifi too. Misleading as hell.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
So will we see another try from Microsoft to beat Apple's iPod or it will be another vain attempt from the Redmond guys.
Just because you don't put a question mark at the end of your badly phrased attempt to stir up the flames doesn't mean it's any less of an annoying and pointless question.
PLEASE stop with the inane, pointless, content-free rhetorical questions at the end of submissions. They're annoying, biased, and make Slashdot look like amateur hour. The conversations would flow just as well, if not better, without the obvious "here's what you should think about this story" cues. Too bad the editors keep falling for them.
ClutterMe.com - easiest site creation on the Net. Just click and type.
Maybe microsoft is trying to put out the best product it can without having to one-up other companies?
In all seriousness, perhaps they should wait until apple is forced to open up their drm scheme so that they can compete in the installed market. Everyone knows that ipods have a life span of anywhere between 6 months and 2 years before either being dropped, over used, or just used (anyone remember the battery issue?). If microsoft could come out with a cheaper substitute that worked with itunes, they'd probably replace people's 3rd or 4th ipod.
Is it sad that I am more likely to recognize you and your posts by your sig than your name or UID?
This one somehow reminds me of the futile attempts Nokia made to get into video gaming market. Some people might remember this as the NGage.
WOW! This is IT! Thinner and larger storage capacity both? This is the breakthrough! However did those Microsoft boys do it?
I'm buying one for my granddaughter. True, she already has two iPods (don't ask), but she won't want them once she hears about this! I sure hope Microsoft can meet the demand. I wonder if any of the stores are taking pre-orders now? I wouldn't want to pay $800 to get one on eBay, but, gosh, when all of her friends have them and are squirting songs to each other, I can't let her be the one to be left out.
Actually, if she has two iPods I'd better get her two Zunes.
And just the other day, my wife was saying to me "If Microsoft ever makes a Zune that is thinner and has a larger storage capacity I'd like you to get one for me."
It really sounds almost perfect, but I wonder... do you suppose... there will be new colors, too? Maybe a triple-shot!
This certainly puts the lie to all those rumor sites that were saying the next Zune would be thicker and have less storage.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
I am just stating the manufacture specs for failure. (SanDisk)
Their failure in creating new market hits is so constant, it doesn't even excite me anymore.
Just when Microsoft manages to catch up to the iPod's current 2-year-old design, the iPod is going to move to something totally new. I'm sure the iPod will be updated sometime this year to look much more like the iPhone with a large, wide screen.
They always get it right by version 3.0.
They scoffed at Microsoft Bob, but look what happened with Microsoft Bob 3.0.
They laughed at PlaysForSure, but where are all the skeptics now?
They winced at WinCE, but can you name a single cell phone that doesn't use it today?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Microsoft's being rather ambitious if they're going to be manufacturing these things by the millions, considering the poor reception v.1.0 got.
;-)
My biggest gripe with the Zune is that their most touted feature, the ability to throw songs at other people. My gripe is that it wasn't implemented properly. People should be able to stream the songs as soon as they start receiving them. (And kill the receive if the song is crap.
Where's the Gapless Playback?
Summation 2
You assume that he purchased all of his songs from the iTunes Music Store, rather than having just ripped them from CDs into iTunes (the software program). No Kool-Aid necessary.
My other post is +5, Interesting
There was no mention of DRM there whatsoever. AAC is an open format, it doesn't necessarily have Apple's proprietary DRM applied.
It sounds more like a convenience thing than anything else, they want to keep using iTunes and of course they don't want to have problems with it working with their mac. If they really wanted to they could switch away from iTunes and use another player without losing their music.
Salesman: The Zune allows you to wirelessly share songs with friends...
Customer: That sounds cool.
Me: But you can only play the shared song 3 times and it deletes itself after 3 days.
Customer: Thats lame and pointless then.
Test your net with Netalyzr
He didn't mention that his music collection was bought from the iTunes Music Store, just that his entire collection is in iTunes, the application. He may not have any issue with losing music because of DRM restrictions.
My entire music collection is in iTunes, but none of it is encumbered with DRM, as I ripped it from my own CDs.
SlashDot used to be amateur hour, but these days it's mostly warmed over PR pieces from large "tech" corporations. (30% Google PR pieces, 15% Apple PR pieces, 15% game company PR pieces, 10% Microsoft FUD pieces, etc.)
If you're depending on SlashDot for anything more than entertainment value, you're probably getting duped right now.
The annoying questions at the end are basically added at the end of each PR piece to make it sound like each piece wasn't just copied straight from the related company's (or competitor's) PR department.
It never even overtook the PS2 monthly sales.
Smartphone is a flop too.
But at least their search engine is doing well, just kidding, that's a flop too.
Still there's always Vista.
What DRM lock-in? I'm not the original poster, but my requirements are the same. I've got a few DRM tracks (most I got for free), but not enough to worry about. And I can easily un-DRM them.
But those are my requirements, and there's only one device that fits them all.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
This has less details than the April 1st Zune 360 article. But instead a nice big Google adwords banner running down the right hand side of the page. As for someone writing an unoffical Zune fansite running into an MS employee by accident, how likely is that? It looks like astroturf to me.
Anyway the Zune 360 in the April fools post sounds a lot better than the Zune announced on Zune Scene.
Seconded. I won't touch an iPod, but I have a Creative Zen Xtra which came with a 60GB laptop hard drive inside it. It's full, and has been for some time. Every time I want to add some more music, I have to agonize over what to delete. Planning to swap the drive for a bigger one in the near future.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=935 48
I don't know if these players are any good, but they are compatible with iTunes and they aren't made by Apple.
Others have already jumped to answer this, but just to make it official. . .
When I wrote that my whole music collect is in iTunes, I'm talking about stuff ripped from CDs and acquired from. . . ah, other sources. I haven't bought music from ITMS thus far because I didn't want my music collection contaminated with DRM. When the non-DRM tracks become available, then I plan to give ITMS a spin.
And yeah. . . It's a convenience thing. I could live without a dock connector for my car, but I would be missing something highly convenient. I could live with a player that doesn't sync with iTunes, but it would be a pain in the neck. Why should I subject myself to a pain in the neck rather than simply buy an iPod?
Using iTunes to store and organize my whole music collection was a revelation to me. I can't imagine going back to the multiple shelves of CDs that I used to have stacked here.
Don't forget watermelon-colored!
http://www.skullsecurity.org/blog/
Both: we will see another try, and it will turn out to be a vain attempt. Oh yeah, and here's a question mark for you:
"?"
butter the donkey
Really a shame. So sorry you failed reading comprehension. What a shame. Now, go kill yourself, dufus.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
... will it run linux?
-1 not first post
Make the WiFi capable of easily handing off songs without attaching DRM and we can talk. Unleash what WiFi could really do on these and you're in business.
Make it so that if you're at a Starbucks and like the background music playing your Zune can check what artist and song and buy the album from the server streaming the music at Starbucks if you wish.
While you're at, if you have WiFi you should never have any reason to need to "dock" right? Just be on the same 802.11 network and sync over it.. right?
But I agree, give MS time, and let them throw their money in a hole slowly developing a good product.
I also agree that anybody whining that they can't switch because they have so many tunes locked in on iTunes should have to suffer through an inferior product until they get the DRM lock-in monkey off their back.
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
It's fun for us iPod people to make fun of the Zune *squirt* but after trying it out it's not really that bad. *squirt* Let there be competition *squirt* in the market! That's the whole point. That's why it's ok to have a bunch of linux distros and a couple of BSDs *squirt* and different desktop enviroments *squirt* like KDE and Gnome. Hopefully this will push Apple to innovate even more and release even better products *squirt* like bluetooth or wifi (I'd prefer bluetooth for neighbors but I know it's not the best protocol). Innovation doesn't hurt *squirt* anyone. Oh, you've got some, uhm, on your face.
He said supports MP3 and M4A.
iTunes DRM'ed songs are M4P (think 'p' for protected). (which will mean the EMI ones are M4A as well). The interesting thing is that a number of WinMo things are starting to support M4A quite well - shocked me when I stuck in an SD card with my defanged iTunes Store songs and they were playable. And naturally, I always test my defanged songs using VLC (which plays M4A/AAC trivially).
(1) So will we see another try from Microsoft to beat Apple's iPod
or
(2) will [it] be another vain attempt from the Redmond guys.
False Dichotomy.
It will be both.
ShoutingMan.com
Just so you know, putting a non-DRM file into iTunes does not, I will repeat for the special people out there, DOES NOT add DRM.
If you buy from iTMS, you have DRM on those files. If you just rip something with iTunes it will not have DRM.
How this FUD keeps getting modded up is beyond me.
I guess my dislike of the Zune wifi features were too early and/or poorly implemented. I'm not going to discuss the details of the shortcomings of the Zune's Wi-Fi feature. Some people may credit them with being the first to offer wi-fi of any sort but did anyone ever think about why no other manufacturer implemented it first? (Apple, Creative, Sandisk, etc) The reason being was that wireless would be (and still is) impratical.
Sure it would be cool to send songs wirelessly but that is only pratical for a few songs. You cannot transfer whole collections (measure in GBs) in a reasonable amount of time given the current state of wireless technology. 802.11g has a max rate of 54Mbps. 802.11n (540Mbps max) is the only version that can handle the rates required but wasn't in draft status until recently and won't be ratified until 2008. While USB2.0 has 480MBps and Fire400 has 400Mbps now. So if you were a manufacturer comtemplating wireless wouldn't you wait until 802.11n was more mature before implementing wireless?
Even if wireless had the transfer rates required today, there are issues with battery life and security. I have a large collection and it took over 20 minutes to put into my iPod using USB2.0. Transferring all that data wireless is going to drain the batteries quickly. And then there is security. I can see a lot of ramifications with using wireless transfers. Eventually these can be overcome but it will take time. I think MS was a bit too early. Just my 2cents.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
By "standard", we mean "right enough to be accepted by most people".
So yea, MSFT is "right" about a lot of things. Both past and present.
That does not mean, however, they are "right" about the Zune. Personally, I think it's wrong. Its the wrong product at the wrong time with the wrong capabilities and features.
Yeah, right. And then monkeys flew out of his butt.
It would explain the color choice, though.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I see the buzz on wifi for blackberrys. How hard is it to put wifi in a flash-based zune the size of a nano? Smart phones already have a file management system and a way to handle connecting, would the overhead of DOS be too much for something the size (or maybe its the price) of a nano.
thanks
Its not a special business model for apple. Microsoft has the same model. Look at the zune. Look at Windows Media. Look at Windows. Look at IE. Look at Office! Its very common in the computer industry.
By the way going open can be lock in too. If you think about it, you are stuck on that open source program which is not supported by a company (possibly). Say you use some player with say ogg from source forge. Then next week the OSS movement decides ogg sucks. That guy stops writting the app, a new GTK version comes out and boom.. your little sound program doesn't ship with your linux distro anymore. You can't run the same kernel forever. Someday you'll have to buy new hardware and want it to actually work.
I know, you're thinking but its open so I have the source code. Well guess what, not everyone can write code. I'm not thinking of an old school linux user, but more of people in business environments or home users that are typical. (the ms/apple crowd) Linux adoption means the community has to standardize and support things for the long term. This has to be addressed in the OSS community. Some apps are replaceable like web browsers. Some apps are not. Read the palm article threads with users complaining about a switch to linux could mean the end for their favorite palm app.
Someone else pointed out that you are wrong about iTunes DRM. I'd just like to clarify that burning to a CD/DVD only works for music. Video is still DRM'd from the ITMS. I know because I've been using iTunes since it came out and now I have this huge collection of content that isn't easy to migrate to MidnightBSD. Oddly, I boot into windows to use iTunes (for videos) and for gaming to a lesser degree. I could move my music over if I felt like burning all the cds/dvds.
Obviously my argument applies to any open source operating system.
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
If not then it's a no go from me. Squirt 1.0 and the update Squirter 1.5 just didn't have the squirting range I was looking for. Rumors about Squirt 2.0 include a 30 foot radius and a cool squirt sound when it's done.
Can I bum a sig?
In regards to the iPhone taking off, there is another thing holding in back in the smartphone market. It does not integrate with Exchange. If you look at who is carrying around Blackberry's and similar products, it's the people who need to stay connected to work on the go. As someone who works in consulting, a lot of the higher-ups are constantly bouncing around to different client sites all over the country/world. Even during normal business hours, they don't have an opportunity to check e-mail in the traditional way. Almost all of these types of people carry some kind of smart phone with Exchange integration. It is the only way for them to do their jobs. The iPhone is not for these people because it will not sync with Exchange. I don't know about other enterprise mail servers, though, so maybe the Lotus Notes folks are in the clear.
This feature may be in the works in the future, just like I'm pretty sure Cingular won't be the only provider in the long run. But I feel that this is the main thing holding it back.
"It's not whether you win or lose, it's how drunk you get." -- H. J. Simpson
OK, I've never actually used a Zune, but I will say this--Microsoft is poised to actually make a significant dent in Apple's sales. I've maintained all along that it is not healthy for the recording industry in general for one company to have a dominant position in market share. We need competition. Apple needs competition. Apple simply cannot maintain their leadership position for very much longer, for the very simple reason that Apple has already commoditized the digital audio player. The iPod and iTunes experience clearly works for a huge number of users, and there isn't anything about it (aside from a few questionable patents) that prevents any other company from nearly duplicating the iPod's success. The staggering fact that no other company has been able to get out of their own way for long enough to do this is not evidence that it cannot or will not be done.
First of all, the one thing that everyone needs to wrap their heads around is that there is no effective way to protect digital content. DRM simply doesn't work from a technical standpoint, let alone a human rights standpoint. Once Apple (and by extension, everyone else) starts selling DRM-free files, there nothing preventing you moving your iTunes purchases (or any other digital content purchases) from device to device, regardless of manufacturer. When this happens, every other DAP manufacturer gets access to the iTunes store, and Apple gets access to everyone else's stores. I still think that DRM-free means the recording industry will be gutted, but that's going to happen even if we keep the DRM, so we may as well just get it out of the way now. There will always be a market for recordings that cost money, but it's going to be a lot smaller than the current mostly-CD based model. I think the recent report of CD sales being down 20% year over year is the first evidence that we've reached the tipping point.
Second, how many "innovative" features can you pack into a DAP before you run out of options? Let's face it, mobile convergence is upon us. The iPhone will be the first of the next generation of mobile computing platforms, but development isn't going to stop there. I'm sure that within five years, we will all be carrying primarily one mobile device. This class of devices will integrate all the telephony, Internet access, audio/video entertainment, gaming, photography, data storage, and PDA functions into one relatively seamless package. We've come close so far, but not quite grasped the cigar, with devices like Palm and Windows Mobile smartphones, the Nokia 770/N800, Sony Mylo & PSP, etc. Possibly, there may even be a few more new features that could be added, but eventually, you're going to reach a point of diminishing returns.
What are the main hardware factors that need to be solved? Battery life, flash memory prices, and power consumption, all of which we are making great strides on every year. What are the main software factors that need to be solved? Well, really none. It's more of a marketing issue than it is a software issue. Apple has already demonstrated (and conclusively, at last) that there actually is a market for software that works well and easily with iPod+iTunes. The complexity of Windows is becoming less of a factor, especially when you consider that from the mobile devices perspective, Apple has also demonstrated that you can make a standalone software package that works the same way on Windows that it does on Mac OS X.
So, bring it on Microsoft! And bring it in brown! I like brown! It's not going to kill the iPod or iTunes, but it will make everybody sit up, take notice, and keep innovating.
Maybe the Zune doesn't work as well as it should, but it was a good idea. I definitely think that we'll see a "squirt" feature not long after the iPhone ships, if it doesn't have it on day one. It runs Mac OS X. The programs are Dashboard widgets. I predict that the development platform will not be as closed as some others think. It will be hackable, and it will be hacked, at least in the classic sense and not t
I was curious exactly what you'd have to do to get 1,000 Gs, so here are some back-of-the-envelope numbers for comparison:
r ation/ referencing medical literature from helmeted motorcycle crashesc ess_of_Wales
It wouldn't survive being fired out of a handgun (zero to 800fps along a 5" barrel [1] implies an acceleration, assuming I did my math right, of ~468000 m/s^2 or about ~47,000 Gs).
Still, it's better than your brain inside your head, which can only take about 150-200 Gs before you start doing serious/irreparable damage [2] (the rest of your body is a lot lower, like 8-20 Gs depending on direction and body part, but your head alone can take a bit more since it doesn't have all those squishy bits).
I was curious how fast you'd need to be going in a typical car accident to get 1,000Gs: The fatal accident that killed Princess Di was supposedly somewhere around 70-100 G [3]; if we assume that was the result of crashing at 120 MPH or so, 190 km/h [4], we can extrapolate that to get 1,000G, you'd need to have a speed of around 1682 MPH. [5] (That doesn't say anything really about surviving a car crash at that speed, because obviously there are mechanical and thermal problems involved...)
So if you swallowed one of those things, I think it's pretty clear that you'd be mush long before it got bothered.
[1] Pulling these numbers out of my ass, but they're roughly typical for a 1911.
[2] http://hypertextbook.com/physics/mechanics/accele
[3] ibid.
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Diana,_Prin
[5] You use the acceleration value and speed to calculate a "time" for the collision, around 0.07s, and then use that to get the velocity for an acceleration of 1000G. I never said it was that reliable a figure...
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
First you say:
"I'm not a child, either"
Then you say:
"Sometimes I throw it [the ipod] across the room"
As I would say to my 12 year old son... that is the definition of being childish.
Remember ClubIE.com? It was a "fan site" set up by Microsoft ca. mid-1996 for Internet Explorer. Apparently they let it lapse and now it's domain-squatted.
-- Old Man Kensey
Wait for Microsoft to claim they were already talking to the labels about DRM-free music when Apple stole their idea.
...eww.
You can't get to the third attempt without getting through the second attempt. So, the second attempt cannot be in vain.
I'll take it!
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
This short article seems to me as just a way to get some free publicity for the Zune (Slashdot front page will reach a few million just by itself). Seriously how many "Zune Scene Editors" are there? Maybe a handful if you're generous, but more likely one. A random business trip will not have you sitting next to a Zune engineer on a plane (or where-ever) who will freely talk about the product. There are either details left out such as this editor visiting the Redmond campus and running into this guy eating lunch in the cafeteria or, much more likely, this is a ploy by the Microsoft marketing machine. I'll have to believe the one that is more plausible.
Does the current Zune have a 'disk mode' so that I can use it to store and transport large files?
Are you an AI? I think you may need service.
ipod is very heavily branded and Apple have worked very hard to build this as a coolness icon. You can't play the 99c vs $1 game against that. Unless Zune was at least 10-20% cheaper than ipod, price won't matter.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Products like the iPod don't die, they fade away. What you'll see in the next few years is the strange combination of iPod sales that are flat or growing, but steadily falling marketshare as the market grows, and more and companies put out products that are "good enough" to steal a few sales. In the aggregate, over time, the crowd will overwhelm any one company's share.
A semi-relevant example I can think of off the top of my head is the IBM PC. IBM always made great PCs, but in the end they lost the lead of the market to the "other" category. Today the largest single PC manufacturer in the world by marketshare is Dell, but even they have under 25% share. Expect the same thing to happen to Apple in the category of portable digital music players. They see the writing on the wall, which is why they are aggressively moving into a new market with the iPhone.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Details of Next Gen Zune Surface
Oh, I get it now. Surface is the verb. Geez, for a minute there I was thinking that it was a noun, and I was really curious about whether it had some revolutionary exterior coating or something... What a let-down.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
"So will we see another try from Microsoft to beat Apple's iPod or it will be another vain attempt from the Redmond guys."
Good writing?
Question: how long will it take the people who got burned by Play for Sure music not playing on Zune to forget they were sucker punched?
I don't seem to recall Apple sodomizing their customers this way with the iPod ecology.
I hope you're not serious with this post.
.zoo or .lha? This software is all available for Linux distros, even though it's been probably 15 years since I ever saw a file in one of those formats.
1) Ogg is not going to be abandoned any time soon. First, there's no replacement on the horizon, and everyone is happy with it (who cares about open-source codecs). It appears to be as good as or better than all other audio codecs out there (better than MP3 easily, probably about as good as AAC). Second, OSS people would never migrate from an OSS solution to a proprietary/non-open one without a great reason. It's unlikely any huge advance will be made in the field of audio codecs any time soon to warrant any big change. Audio codecs appear to be quite mature and stable at this time.
2) Linux distros never abandon old software unless it's so old that there really isn't anyone that uses it any more. I can't think of a lot of things this has happened to offhand. Do you have any old files in ancient compression formats like
As for Palm users complaining about the switch to Linux, that's irrelevant. They're complaining that their Palm app won't be available on Palm's Linux version. That's exactly one of the big problems with closed-source, proprietary software; when the vendor abandons it, you're SOL. If Palm had used Linux all along, and these apps were open-source, these users wouldn't have anything to complain about.
features: "Wi-fi" and "video playback"
Don't the current Zunes already have those?
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Microsoft may have great plans to make the Zune the world-beating portable device that everyone wants, but until they actually release something they've got only their Zune.
Any company can promise greatness. That takes nothing more than a few rumours, some conversations on the side and a few hints. It's easy to do.
Actually delivering greatness is hard.
Microsoft promises greatness, but delivered mediocrity. All we have now are more promises, but nothing more tangible. If I were buying a music device, I wouldn't factor in some nebulous promise like this. There's no substance and a poor track record.
1) Ogg was a bad example. I was trying to make a point which apparently was missed by some.
2) Linux distros eventually upgrade their kernel, and gui components. Things break. You may not see it, but there is a lot of differences between versions of your favorite open source software. Things move fast in OSS. Try maintaining a ports system sometime and you'll see what I mean. Hell just watch a popular linux distro's software update feature. Redhat used to have more updates than Microsoft back when I ran linux. Its not necessarily bad since I think more things were patched that were reported to OSS vendors. You picked two easy packages to support. Try something complex like a QT app that runs on QT2. For instance, earlier versions of konquerer-embeded do NOT run on QT3. signal/slot handling changed in gtk/gtkmm 2.x which changed or broke some apps. (again just examples)
Yes, their apps won't run. This is no different than someone relying on PHP 4.0.x and then finding out when they move to 5.x that many things were changed including how to access environment various, mysql and a slew of other things. So it does happen in OSS.
It is relevant about palm since its a platform just as linux is. You can argue the merits of open source all day long, but for some people (non-programmers) it does not matter. They can not port their own app over to the new crap. Say the palm app was open source.. that doesn't mean it can magically run on linux. Say they did use linux and wrote a kernel module for 2.2. That won't work on 2.6. Sure it could be *made* to work if the person was a programmer. Yes, they could hire someone to fix it, but they could also hire someone to write a palm emulator for linux too.
I am serious.
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
14% of the 15% of Apple PR you mention are probably just really satisfied customers like myself. I believe insecure people call us "FanBois" or something of similar intellectual emptyness.
Even companies that weren't bought out by Microsoft had similar features...Blizzard's service comes to mind. So yet again, Microsoft merely took someone else's good idea and either bought them straight up (Bungie) or just threw a lot of money at it to become the de facto standard. Not that I'm complaining, because Xbox Live is very good, but let's not pretend Microsoft invented it.
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