Fear not,
Zune lovers, your beloved media player isn't going anywhere just yet. Interviewed at the McGraw-Hill media conference, Microsoft's head honcho Steve Ballmer said that the hardware will continue to improve, but reaffirmed that its future may be as software / ecosystem found on other devices. "I won't say full steam ahead because that implies acceleration of investment," he said, "but we're going to sustain our investment." It's unclear from the transcription -- much of it paraphrased by
The Wall Street Journal -- whether or not Ballmer had given any indication as to the future of the hardware itself. Of course, should one of those mentioned hardware improvements managed to take a notable bite out of Apple's iPod business, we reckon those investments will see an uptick. We've already heard that the service would find its way on
non-Zune devices sometime this year, but mum's still the word on any details thereof.
posted March 23rd 2009 7:10PM
Some firmware updates to the existing Zune devices would be nice...
People actually own zunes? is the zune the best they can do? They should discontinue, start from scratch and create something new and something that can compete with the ipod/ itouch
The Zune is actually very good when compared to the iPod classic, hell i'd choose it 100x over for the larger screen, monthly music pass, and software (on and off the device)
however im now an iPhone owner, so i no longer use the zune. they dropped the ball on not copying that device, they would have a much easier time gaining market share with a phone than an MP3 player. hell make a iPhone clone, do some good software and multitouch, then make a deal with verizon, they need a phone that directly competes. simple as that.
"People actually own zunes? is the zune the best they can do? They should discontinue, start from scratch and create something new and something that can compete with the ipod/ itouch"
That is more or less what they are doing. Microsoft, IMO, are the big platform people. The little Zunes are perfectly good devices, but obviously not any kind of threat to the iPods. If they make Zune a platform for mobile media which 3rd parties can develop for they could stimulate some decent innovation and a nice bit of competition for Apple to push back against.
What's a zune?
To fix what? I recently got a Zune (won it at a Microsoft conference) and I think it's already a whole heck of a lot better than my iPod Classic. The desktop software is better, the on-device menu system is easier to navigate, and the Zune Pad is just straight up superior to the Click Wheel. Personally I think the ability to stream full albums from the Zune Marketplace over WiFi right on the device is about the coolest feature ever.
Someone needs to get the original of that Ballmer photo and photoshop in Steve Jobs with Jobs' head in Ballmers hand so that it looks like Ballmer is sucking the lifeforce out of Jobs' body.
What they should do is have the Zune have a touchscreen and a touchpad, but instead of the touchpad being a magic button, have it have individual ones. It would be perfect.
Nothing illustrates the sanctimonious nature of iPod owners more than the mere mention of the 'Zune'.
For this reason and others, I embrace the Zune.
Nothing illustrates the pathetic nature of Zune owners more than the mere mention of the 'iPod'.
For this reason and so many others, I embrace the iPod.
"Nothing illustrates the pathetic nature of Zune owners more than the mere mention of the 'iPod'.
For this reason and so many others, I embrace the iPod."
Nothing illustrates the pathetic nature of iPods owners more than their need to appear on Zune threads to criticize people that had the nerve to use something other than the Apple product.
There are some good alternatives to the Ipod but the Zune isn't one of them.
For the record I own Macs and Windows machines and I'm a big fan of Bill Gates.
But its sooooooooooooooo fugly!
@ All
I was not trying to be rude..is there anything I said that was not the truth?no.
I honestly don't know anyone who owns a Zune.
Zune cannot compete with the ipod/ipod touch. I mean what are the statistics, when every 300 ipods sold 1 zune is bought?.
Aside from creating a more innovative gadget they should work on their image as well.....starting with steve ballmer
@shism
You must be talking about yourself, self-projection maybe.
@ Just some girl
So you don't own one, and you don't know anyone who owns one, but you feel you need to weigh-in on the quality of the product and whether it shoud be discontinued.
Thread-crapping 101.
I have used iTunes and Zune marketplace and I prefer the latter. Zune's playback is generally rated better than iPods. I have the flash player, and while it lacks the 'coolness' of the iTouch, it's a high quality, compact player. AND for $14.95 a month, you get subscription service and 10 downloads. Not a bad deal.
While the iPod is a good player that suits the needs of many people, it is also the prefered choice of posers everywhere.
@why should I have all the fun
I’m not saying it should be discontinued because it’s a bad product…. but because it obviously cannot compete with the ipod/itouch.
If it is a good device and no one wants to buy it is because of bad marketing and I also said they should work on that.
I’m not really sure what “posers” have anything to with this, posing for what? Lol
So no touch screen zune? I wanted that. :(
Likely will be on WM7.
Yea, WM7 will probably be the improvement in music players people are looking forward to. WM6.5 shows a little bit of what they are planning. Should be some awesome devices by then. Plus with wm we can sync through bluetooth none of that cable mess.
Thing is, I already have a phone. Generally I don't like mixing phones and PMPs anyway. I'd like a touch Zune before (if) they nix hardware. You know, go out with a bang.
There still probably will be a touchscreen Zune, here's a quote I pulled from the article: "Hardware will continue to improve."
So there will still be hardware versions, at least as of now, and probably the 3rd generation of Zunes will have touchscreens (it's the next progressive way to go) and will be released, as well as finally being released in Europe and Australia. Perhaps there will be even multi-touch support, considering Microsoft continued work in Surface and Windows 7's multi-touch capabilities.
and I guess iPods are for people who eat pods full of iShit. I rather sniff a fart then eat shit
Well we definitely know which devices won't be getting zuned...
It is really that difficult for Engadget to ever use a photo of the Z80 instead of constantly pulling up choped images of the old brick?
It would be breach of contract.
Have to agree here.
Ross, for the love of everything you love, use this image:
http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/6484/zunenew.jpg
I hope AOL doesn't have any restriction for you guys to use a picture of a new Zune!
How would they give a negative connotation then?
What's the matter? Afraid of your (and your devices') heritage?
I generally agree that Engadget should use the new version, but Microsoft doesn't even use it on their own Ford Sync site.
www.syncmyride.com [click on Media Players]
@ KarlW
Well, they don't do that with iPods. If every iPod article had the first iPod there'd be lots of comments on how outdated it looks.
better than sniffing steve jobs gentles.
I only sniff my own farts when no one's looking
I really just wish they'd let you create playlists on the fly, still shocked to see that its missing.
I know how you feel, I really hope they add the ability in future updates.
Being unable to store a playlist made on the go sucks so bad.
First thing is first, throw out the code to the current desktop software. its really terrible.
Where have you been? The current software is worlds better than iTunes and is really good and smooth, especially in terms of presentation. They have already thrown out the software from 1.0 and rewrote the whole thing from scratch for 2.0, I doubt they would do it again.
I wouldn't say that, while I could certainly see a massive improvement in stores it's still unintuitive to me. I could care less about radio when... You know, I'm only using the damn things in my car.
I forgot to mention slightly slower in response (while that might be a perception thing, I've used other players before and still do, so I don't see why I'd be biased in that regard).
I buy all my music from Amazon, so I can't comment on the Zune marketplace. The software for music management and organization is great, though. It runs much better than iTunes and it looks way better. They simply need to open it up for more customization.
And also they need to update the Zune hardware so it shows up as an external drive. That would go a long way to distinguishing it from the ipod among the enthusiast crowd. Okay, more file format support, too.
Yeah iTunes isn't exactly that intuitive, but once you get the hang of it...
I don't care about on-computer intuitivity (unless it's really awful - I'd say iTunes is on par with your general Windows experience), it's the device that matters to me because each second I spend tapping/scrolling/whatever on that pad to do what I want is a minute less in battery life.
iTunes looks like spreadsheet software.
I don't care about the "look" of iTunes, but I do care about how fucking impossible it is for me to move my music around. I update and purchase new machines fairly frequently and shift services from device to device for load balancing and even after doing it twice before, when I moved my music library to my newest media server I had to look up a tutorial on it. Just ridiculous.
Genitals. There you go my fellow Zune fan.
Zunes are versatile devices if you know what i mean, which i don't expect you to since you have already proved you will pay any amount
of money for a crippled feature-less player.
And i do not expect you to understand the complex statement i just made too.
* Sell Zune software to run on non-MS hardware
* Discontinue Zune hardware business
* Start new MP3 player hardware+software+DRM ecosystem that is not compatible with Zune *or* Playsforsure
* Wash, rinse, repeat.
I'd rather they sell everything Zune to someone else. I'd rather see the Zune actually taken places by someone like Archos or Creative that would actually develop and advertise a good products. MS seems to have decided their halfass effort was good enough and that anyone who likes the Zune hardware are inconsequential.
I personally dislike the Zune simply because of how sluggish and unintuitive it is, it's the reason I gave up on my Creative players so I don't see why I'd pick a Zune up.
I got 3 4G iPods so far (two of which were gifts), I'm disappointed by the battery life if anything, and the one I gave my girlfriend after she basically ended up killing her Sony player) is having the weirdest issues when formatted on an OSX-based computer.
No device is perfect, but the interface is what makes me stick with iPods... At least the flash-based, non-glossy ones.
Portable Media Center (PMP OS) gets upgraded to Zune (OS + hardware from Toshiba) gets turned back to a software platform under a new name
Engadget, can we PLEASE stop using generation 1.0 zunes in all of our stories!?
Engadget, can you please not used photos of Steve Ballmer in your stories?!!!
The frighten me a bit.
But seriously, they've gone this path before and they felt the need to get themselves involved in the hardware business because manufacturers weren't doing it right in their opinion, why would it be different now?