Okay folks, the moment you've all been waiting for is almost upon us (and by you all, we mean the .01% of you who don't already own an iPod or SanDisk DAP). We've already heard
the name, seen
the prototypes, got the lowdown on
all of the features, and even peeped some
blurry snaps of the GUI (not to mention the
artist's renditions), and now the future of portable audio is about to be revealed. Tomorrow, we get the first official peek at the
Toshiba 1089 Microsoft Zune. That's right, according to Seattle Weekly, the suits at Redmond are finally ready to unveil their closely-guarded (but
not very secret) pet project to the world at an invite-only press event, where the WiFi-sportin', video-playin', friend-makin' Zune will have its first public appearance. To gauge the importance of this occasion, you need only search our archives for the word "
Zune," where you'll find approximately one million posts covering every
fact, rumor, and wild bit of speculation about this device -- it's even important enough to get an announcement post regarding the pending announcement. Since we already know so much, though, what can we really expect to learn at the press conference? Well we'll be looking out for the little things, such as codec and DRM support, definitive pricing and release information, whether or not Bill G will make an appearance in a black turtleneck, and most importantly, what kind of headphones will be bundled in the package -- oh wait, we know that too. Stay zuned, uh, we mean tuned...
posted September 13th 2006 4:35PM
I can't say I've read up on Zune, but I'm in favor of any and all competition. I'm one of those that loves my ipod, but evertime I buy a song from itunes, I realize I'm furthering my dependence on Apple. It bugs me. There has not been a good alternative so far, but as soon as there is (and this might be it), I'll be looking into switching. I'd much prefer to by content with an open DRM than one that is just owned by one company. If being tied to Apple's music players were not bad enough, if you buy movies and tv shows you will be tied down with Apple's media players and servers. If I keep going down this path of buying content from Apple, I'll be tied down for life. So I'm getting out ASAP.
I swear some of you people are so freakin' twisted that that your rectum would need to be threaded before your head would pop out.
I feel like I dropped into Mayberry and Barney Fife is talking about music players. Using a whatever from Apple or MS doesn't make you hip or smart unfortunately. It plays music. It's like society drank heavily the night before and barfed up wingnuts.
First of all that 15 million people apple has? Microsoft never said they would take the 15 million in fact they already said it will be probably 5 years until Microsofts gains the foothold they want to have.
Microsofts got the market power and the staying power to push this just like they did the Xbox into the 360 and into whatever it eventually will become.
The same is true with Zune, people see this first player and think that it is Zune... why is it no one understands that this Zune is the first of many that will be coming, this 3.5" screen video version isnt even the real Video Zune, who knows perhaps they'll do the entire surface video player for the real video zune.
The fact is Zune is a longterm plan spanning multiple devices, and if the 360 and xbox itself are anything to gauge microsoft is good in breaking into markets dominated by others....
Apple is basically the same as Sony, their the huge market leaders that basically OWN the entire ecosystem basically only with small tiny competitors... and look now Sony's lost a huge chunk of marketshare and this round sonys not looking too good at all.
Only time will tell if they can pull it off in the portable media like they did in the console gaming... but atleast their realistic in saying it will be 5 or so years till they will see it truely flurish how they invision
Any guesses as to what that asstastic ape Ballmer will be wearing and how far down his sides the sweat stains will extend?
This thing is ugly.
And no I am not an Apple fanboy, Apple sucks. But MS under Ballmer sucks as well.
10:00 AM - Microsoft launches Zune
10:02 AM - Bill Gates crashes Zune
10:05 AM - First Zune virus wipes out Bill Gates' Wham! B-side collection
10:10 AM - Microsoft promises "Zune Patch Mondays" will begin in October
Right on Simone.
Apple just gets it. They know that the vast majority of the population are technophobes at heart. They may use and even like gadgets, but they certainly don't want to fuss with them. They want to pull it out of the box and use it.
Geeks cruising the tech sites may be clamoring for WiFi in a portable music player, but I can assure you that not one non-geek I know could even tell me what WiFi even is, let alone why they would want it in their music player.
Can you imagine the technophobic masses trying to configure this thing for WiFi access?! It would be about as easy as doing it on Windows. Oh wait...
The first player *will* be a dud, as the previous poster commented.
However, that's how MS works: v1 of most of their products is there just to get in the market, and get first buyers to start paying for the v2 R&D costs.
I'm pretty sure v2 of the Zune is already well into development...
It is possible that wireless will take off with Zune, and if it does I think Apple will quickly come out with their own elegant Wi-Fi iPod.
We'll know more tomorrow, but the Wireless functionality could be seen as a gotta-have by many.
Consider this: you're sitting in the 10th grade lunch room, and your iPod buddy is listening to a song you're curious about. To hear it, you unplug your earbuds and plug into his iPod jack. To download it, you write down the name of the song, and wait until you're home in front of your PC so you can buy it from iTunes.
Now sitting across the lunchroom are two dudes with Zunes. One DJs the song to the other. He likes the song, so he gets a copy wirelessly from the first guy. (A timelimited promo copy, yes.)
It's pretty sweet compared to the lack of connectivity in iPod.
- frabgod
http://www.Zunerama.com
Has everybody got enough popcorn?
First, fire the design people. Second, I hope it doesn't weigh a ton because it looks like it could.
im really interested in the Zune now....the new iPods dont interest me, i would have bought one yesterday if Apple actually released a fully fledged video iPod instead of just adding a brighter screen
so if the Zune is decent and released at a good price then i'll be buying one because i cant be bothered waiting until next year for the next iPod
Is it just me or did a 42 year old man just say ginormous? If that's your idea of "cool" then this device is dead before it's seen the light of day.
Okay so here's the deal...
On Sept. 12, Apple released it's next generation iPod Nano and Shuffle. Please note that the 5th generation iPod simply got enhanced with brighter screens, capacity at the high end, search capability and a price drop. Why? It's obvious that they're holding back their 6th generation player for a reason. It could be alot of things - perhaps it's an engineering difficulty, perhaps it's market related - we'll never know for sure. We do know that Jobs is quite the stickler for things being "done right". In any regard, this little refresh was simply aimed at reigning in those that are holding out because of price so that they can stay hot during the holidays. An 80GB iPod for 349 is hard to beat, afterall and the price alone will make it plenty competitive this season.
Don't kid yourself into thinking that all of this isn't very carefully planned out either. Apple is moving very deliberately toward something on a larger scale. Let Microsoft release their Zune player this Christmas and they'll be forced to compete on price alone. Come January we'll have another major Apple announcement and it's then that you'll see something that will truly make everyone forget about the Zune...and portable media devices as we know them today. The proof is in the patent filings that Apple has been furiously submitting in recent years. While its true that most patents never make it to market, if you look at the big picture, Apple is definitely digging hard at several interesting concepts. Put it this way, during Apple's annual shareholder meeting, Steve Jobs commented that some of the products in Apple's pipeline are the coolest products he's ever seen in his life. No consider the revolutionary products that Steve's help bring to market. Excited yet?
Competition is great and all, but let's be realisitic: iPods have 70 percent of the market, which means iTunes have 70% of the market, which means nobody's going to buy this because it doens't work with iTunes.