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Microsoft Killing Off Zune, Windows Live Brands?
suraj.sun writes with this excerpt from The Verge:
"Microsoft appears to be killing off two of its key user-facing brands with the upcoming Consumer Preview release of Windows 8. Windows Live applications have been rolled into preinstalled apps that work as the core 'Windows Communications' applications for Windows 8, and this lack of Windows Live branding is only the tip of the iceberg. 'Microsoft Account' will replace Windows Live ID in Windows 8, and the software giant has also removed traces of Zune from its Windows Store, Music, and Video applications, although Zune Pass functionality remains."
I miss the minimalistic approach of Windows 7 where it came with barely anything, Windows 8 is starting to turn back into Vista but with a horrible UI.
I own 2 Zunes. I've been using them to listen to music at work nearly every day for the past 3 years. I've found them to be very high-quality pieces of hardware. I'm not a huge fan of the Zune software, but I don't think it's any worse than iTunes. Yet most of the time when I tell co-workers that I listen to music on a Zune, I have to endure ridicule for not using an Apple product. I have even heard from ex-MS colleagues that by-and-large, MS employees don't think very highly of the Zune.
What gives? Did I totally miss the boat on this and the Zune actually sucks? Am I just destined to be forever uncool by being associated with a failed MS product? I just never understood the hate, and somehow it seems to be worse now than ever. And now MS is apparently trying to distance itself from Zune as much as possible.
Keep your chin up, Zune. You still have a few fans out there.
My userid is prime!
What are your options here?
Apple, does the same thing.
Google, does the same thing (beta...).
Oracle? You better have a *LONG* service contract and it will cost....
IBM? You better have a *LONG* service contract and it will cost....
Linux sometimes your lucky if the GUI stays the same for 6 months with some distros... You can use a LTS version but those are usually 3-4 years themselves...
Doing this in light of the fact that iTunes was already free, used by millions, and was more mature and "better" than Zune is rather psychopathic. But it is Microsoft, and I expect nothing less than Evil from them.
I find iTunes UX to be quite annoying whereas I enjoy using the Zune interface. I'm not a Microsoft fan-boy, I just like having a Music UX that doesn't make me want to pull my hair out.
and think of how boned the Zune lifetime pass owners are.
They didn't say YOUR lifetime.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
KDE4 can be set up almost exactly like KDE3.
You don't like the scrolling start menu? You like the old classic KDE3 menu? Simple: right-click on the K menu icon, select option #2: "Switch to Classic Style Menu". Presto! You now have a KDE3 menu.
You don't like Dolphin? You prefer the old Konqueror for file browsing? Simple: run Konqueror. It's still there; no one's forcing you to use Dolphin. You can even set it to be the default file manager (I'm not exactly sure how offhand).
KDE is the same as it's always been: loaded to the gills with configuration options. If you don't like the defaults, you're free to change them. Spend a half-hour going through all the menu options in System Settings when you first install it, and leave it like that for years.
zune as a shipping sw brand is well alive as is large parts of the design and code.
if you get your hands on a windows phone(7) and want to load some apps or music you'll notice it very fast, at the point when you'll be downloading zune sw just to get some photos off the damn thing.
it's funny because ms makes pr effort of when they were designing windows mobile 7 they decided to start from scratch(they didn't! they just took the zune and ran with it, that pretty much explains why wp7 feels like a rather simple media player and not a proper phone os).
in that light it's not that big of a wonder they'll do a mass renaming on the sw(that's something they probably picked up from nokia, uh, and if they picked something else from there they'll also drop half the useful features while doing the mass rename on the source..). because they'd really, really like you'd to forget that it has zune roots, for some weird history rewrite reason.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Actually one of the few smart things they are doing with Win 8 is they are FINALLY gonna have services that start when they are called and stop when they are no longer needed, most likely because the sweaty monkey still thinks he can sell a WinPhone and WinTab so if you don't set any family settings the service won't actually be running so no worries there.
What IS a huge worry is how a company with THAT many engineers can't see the giant screaming FAIL in 50 foot letters! I mean first they tried to jam the Windows desktop metaphor onto phones, complete with teeny tiny start button even though its a completely different form factor and when that fails miserably what do they do? they go "Herp derp i know, we'll stick the Windows tablet UI on the desktop!" which shows that anyone with common sense has done left that company for Google> I mean HOW many desktops and laptops were sold with touch enabled screens this year? MAYBE .03% of the entire market? hell take out Kiosks and POS machines and that number is probably something like 0.001% of the world PC market. So what fucking moron thinks jamming a touch focused UI on something WITHOUT A TOUCHSCREEN is a brilliant idea? Anyone? Beuller?
The ONLY thing I can think of that makes sense is the engineers have frankly gotten sick of Ballmer's Apple fetish and bullshit and are letting him have everything he wants in the hopes he'll flame so badly that even being Bill's little buddy won't save his sweaty ass. I can imagine them going "Sure Mr Ballmer (snicker) having a cell phone UI on the desktop IS a brilliant idea (chokes back a laugh) and yes sir i bet this will finally make us a "cool and hip" company like Apple (rushes to hang up phone before they bust out laughing)". But hey, don't take my word for what a big heaping of fail Win 8 is, try it yourself for free! The Consumer preview is being released to the world at the end of the month, this is the "90% complete" version so what you see is what is gonna be crapped all over desktops and laptops this Oct...well until the OEMs have a screaming shitfit as their sales plummet and they demand downgrade rights to Win 7 like they did with Vista and XP.
To me though the sad part isn't win 8 being a giant failwhale because Win 7 is supported until 2020 and hopefully Ballmer will be shitcanned by then, no what is sad to me is first with Vista and now 100 times more powerful with the combo of Win 8, the death of XP, and everyone practically living on the net Linux has been given all these great gifts. its like the competition is giving them a 250 meter head start on the 300 meter dash and what does the devs do? Do they announce a distro with ten years of support and a rock solid foundation, built upon a "It works and will consistently continue to work" philosopy? Nope first they gut the entire soundsystem for an unstable mess and then if that didn't set them back far enough they trash the two biggest DEs for a buggy blingfest that set everything back a good 5+ years with regards to stability! Its like someone went back in time with the design of the iPad and tried to hand it to the Linux devs only to have them go " Naaaaah, we're betting it all on the Foleo baby!". So instead of just taking that huge lead and waltzing across the finish line so they can finally give us a true "third way" over apple and MSFT they promptly shoot themselves in the foot and then plop down in the middle of a field to write a script in long PHP codes that makes the CLI answer them with "You are so cool master"...sigh.
As much as I can't believe i'm agreeing with that linTroll Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols all these new UIs just suck, like REALLY hard. Its like all the devs of the world just lost their damned minds when iPhone came out and then lined up to horribly fuck up their offerings in the hopes they could somehow "capture the magic" of the iShiny. It reminds me of the old Python upper class twits bit, these devs probably couldn't even shoot themselves correctly.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.