Not that I would replace my iPod, yet the new Zune looks really good.
Sadly M$ did that terrible job on software side - they should have integrated with WMP. But as usually they "did it again:" rewrote all sync standards for their own new toy. Note that previous standard - MTP - was also co-developed by them. They single-sidedly replace standards like... nvm. For time being I'll stick with iTunes.
I can't say for certain, but I bet the reason they didn't initially was because they don't want to be seen leveraging the bundling of WMP with the OS (that is what all of the trouble with the EU was about after all). MS admits that the first zune shipped with a scary short development window (something like 6 months). From a development standpoint it would have made sense to just leverage WMP and save some dev cycles rather than going to all of the trouble with a standalone application. They can't be seen leveraging bundled applications to compete in a different market space (incidentally, if Apple ever increases substantially in OS market share they are going to have the same legal constraints pushed on them, since they do this to a far greater degree than MS does).
The first iteration of the software blew goats (manual syncing was so much easier in WMP, though to be fair, I still liked the Zune software over iTunes, which I hate with a passion paralleled only by my hatred of any other Windows app written by Apple. Can your quicktime update utility please buy a damn clue and not push itunes as an "update" for quicktime), but apparently MS recognized that and rewrote the software completely for the new versions/firmware. Hopefully they will have done a better job.
yeah because itunes is the holy grail of managing music.... bashing zune software based on wmp11 i can see but itunes is one of the worst applications ever on a pc (right next to real player).
zune v1 was already better at managing music that itunes was and v2 will only widen the gap and they got rid of one of the big selling points of itunes in podcasting.
> [...] itunes is one of the worst applications ever on a pc (right next to real player).
This is just fanboyism. Many users frustrated by WMP (what is rather easy achievement: WMP won many awards of WORST EVER utility and design) run to Real player and iTunes - and live with the bloat just because WMP is so frustrating.
Release of dedicated Zune software means only one thing: MSFT is not much better than Apple with iTunes - boasting (again) proprietary (as usually) undocumented interfaces with player. They both fail. And Real player - is not a starter at all.
Ithar, I would agree with you were it not for WMP11. The program was worhtless until 9 and 10 were feature packed but too complicated. 11 sets the bar, has all the right features, and it easy to use. Every bit the peer of itunes.
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Not that I would replace my iPod, yet the new Zune looks really good.
Sadly M$ did that terrible job on software side - they should have integrated with WMP. But as usually they "did it again:" rewrote all sync standards for their own new toy. Note that previous standard - MTP - was also co-developed by them. They single-sidedly replace standards like... nvm. For time being I'll stick with iTunes.
dude... trust me...
Im currently using the pre-release version, and it is REALLY REALLY better than the old crappy Zune Software
I can't say for certain, but I bet the reason they didn't initially was because they don't want to be seen leveraging the bundling of WMP with the OS (that is what all of the trouble with the EU was about after all). MS admits that the first zune shipped with a scary short development window (something like 6 months). From a development standpoint it would have made sense to just leverage WMP and save some dev cycles rather than going to all of the trouble with a standalone application. They can't be seen leveraging bundled applications to compete in a different market space (incidentally, if Apple ever increases substantially in OS market share they are going to have the same legal constraints pushed on them, since they do this to a far greater degree than MS does).
The first iteration of the software blew goats (manual syncing was so much easier in WMP, though to be fair, I still liked the Zune software over iTunes, which I hate with a passion paralleled only by my hatred of any other Windows app written by Apple. Can your quicktime update utility please buy a damn clue and not push itunes as an "update" for quicktime), but apparently MS recognized that and rewrote the software completely for the new versions/firmware. Hopefully they will have done a better job.
yeah because itunes is the holy grail of managing music.... bashing zune software based on wmp11 i can see but itunes is one of the worst applications ever on a pc (right next to real player).
zune v1 was already better at managing music that itunes was and v2 will only widen the gap and they got rid of one of the big selling points of itunes in podcasting.
> [...] itunes is one of the worst applications ever on a pc (right next to real player).
This is just fanboyism. Many users frustrated by WMP (what is rather easy achievement: WMP won many awards of WORST EVER utility and design) run to Real player and iTunes - and live with the bloat just because WMP is so frustrating.
Release of dedicated Zune software means only one thing: MSFT is not much better than Apple with iTunes - boasting (again) proprietary (as usually) undocumented interfaces with player. They both fail. And Real player - is not a starter at all.
Ithar, I would agree with you were it not for WMP11. The program was worhtless until 9 and 10 were feature packed but too complicated. 11 sets the bar, has all the right features, and it easy to use. Every bit the peer of itunes.