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iPod touch Apple needs something like Zune Pass.

M

MegaDell

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 12, 2009
91
0
Seriously. If there is anything MS has done right, it's the Zune Pass idea. 15 bucks a month and you get to download as many songs as you want to your Zune without paying for them, getting to download 10 of them for keeps?

You're pretty much paying 5 bucks a month, you can download 50 albums a day to the thing until it's full. I was just made aware of what the Zune Pass actually was, and damn, Apple needs something like that. I'm hoping the Zune succeeds, so it'll create some competition and force Apple to stop dragging it's feet in a lot of regards.
 
Indeed, itunes is the top when it comes to digital downloads. This Zune Pass though, is CLEARLY in favor of the consumer. You can download 15 new songs a month, or you can download unlimited songs a month.

If you are the kind of person who likes to buy at LEAST, one to album a month, the Zune Pass is amazing. Amazing. It's tempting.

With the way apple seems to be stunting it's growth, and with MS having every reason to throw huge improvements into its product, next year, I may get a Zune, I'm sure they will learn a lot, make a lot of improvements to the Zune, and they aren't going to play domineering overseer and ban everything that attempts to provide any alternative to the app store, like, oh I dunno, flash on safari?
 
To me, the Zune Pass is the only significant advantage that the Zune has over iPods.

The Zune has been around for a couple of years, and this seems to be the biggest update to it yet. However there still are some large drawbacks. The most serious is that the Zune is only available in the U.S. There is also, no mac compatibility. Last, there is a definite lack of apps for the Zune. I'm sure this will change over time, but I doubt it will ever get as large as the iTunes App Store.
 
You live in Colorado? Well I live in VA, which means we live in the US. Honestly, I don't care if someone over in Germany can't get a Zune, that doesn't affect me, it doesn't change the fact that the Zune has a lot of good features, and only has room to improve.

And here's the thing, yes, the iphone/ipod touch does have 75,000 apps, and like, 13,000 of those are games....but how many of those do you ACTUALLY want to play? I mean, how many of those are useful, and how many are just glitchy pieces of crap taking up space on your hard drive?

That's not to say that every app to come to the Zunes marketplace will be wonderful and perfect, but I mean, the wii has a lot of games too, and how many of those are quality, and how many are garbage little mini-game compilations with ps1 graphics, shoddy controls, and repetitive gameplay? See what I mean.
 
MegaDell said:
You live in Colorado? Well I live in VA, which means we live in the US. Honestly, I don't care if someone over in Germany can't get a Zune, that doesn't affect me, it doesn't change the fact that the Zune has a lot of good features, and only has room to improve
Click to expand...

That's nice. :rolleyes:
 
MegaDell said:
You live in Colorado? Well I live in VA, which means we live in the US. Honestly, I don't care if someone over in Germany can't get a Zune, that doesn't affect me, it doesn't change the fact that the Zune has a lot of good features, and only has room to improve.

And here's the thing, yes, the iphone/ipod touch does have 75,000 apps, and like, 13,000 of those are games....but how many of those do you ACTUALLY want to play? I mean, how many of those are useful, and how many are just glitchy pieces of crap taking up space on your hard drive?

That's not to say that every app to come to the Zunes marketplace will be wonderful and perfect, but I mean, the wii has a lot of games too, and how many of those are quality, and how many are garbage little mini-game compilations with ps1 graphics, shoddy controls, and repetitive gameplay? See what I mean.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it doesn't affect me either when someone in Germany can't get a Zune. What it does mean is that the Zune will not be able to gain significant market share since it is in just one country. Without enough market share, how long until MS kills it off? I agree the Zune does have some nice features. But MS is playing catch up with Apple and I just don't see the Zune offering enough "gotta have" features to pull a significant share away from Apple.

I also won't deny that there is a lot of crap in the App Store. But there are also plenty of great programs as well. You do have to sort through the junk however.
 
I just think it's a moot point that Americans complain about a product not available in a country they don't live in. People buy tons of stuff others can't get to go geographic location and don't bat an eye, why is this any different?
 
ucfgrad93 said:
Yeah, it doesn't affect me either when someone in Germany can't get a Zune. What it does mean is that the Zune will not be able to gain significant market share since it is in just one country. Without enough market share, how long until MS kills it off?

I also won't deny that there is a lot of crap in the App Store. But there are also plenty of great programs as well. You do have to sort through the junk however.
Click to expand...

Seriously, just one country. Just one small, tiny country. One little itty bitty country that by no means represents the BIGGEST source of consumer spending in the world. Just the little old US of A, with its Trillion Dollar Economy, even in crappy economic times. I mean, yea.

See where I'm going?
 
MegaDell said:
I just think it's a moot point that Americans complain about a product not available in a country they don't live in. People buy tons of stuff others can't get to go geographic location and don't bat an eye, why is this any different?
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It is about getting enough Zunes into the hands of people so that MS doesn't kill it off.

Also, you do realize that the Zune Pass won't work in other countries either right? In my opinion, there goes the main reason to get a Zune.
 
I get if, if you don't live in the US, if you plan to use Zune Pass outside of the US, it's an issue, but I'd agree that can easily be remedied. Think you might wanna listen to a song on your trip? Download it, hell, download the next album on the list alphabetically, then download whatever else.

I really think you're nitpicking with this whole, outside of the US thing. For those living in the states, it ranges from not an issue, to largely insignificant.

You act like products that aren't sold world wide are doomed to fail or something. I think we can all agree that isn't the case. Or maybe not, you really seem to take issue with this whole, US exclusive thing.

Americans are the Kings, no, the Gods of consumer spending, we buy so much crap we don't need, it's ridiculous. How do you think Walmart, Fast Food places, and strip malls are all over the place? The US represents a huge chunk, the biggest chunk, of the ipods sales.

Do I know this for a fact? No. I've no numbers to back it up, but come on...spending money on gadgets and gizmos is what Americans do.
 
MegaDell said:
You act like products that aren't sold world wide are doomed to fail or something. I think we can all agree that isn't the case. Or maybe not, you really seem to take issue with this whole, US exclusive thing.
Click to expand...

Considering the Zune has about 1% market share while the iPod has 70% it would be smarter for Microsoft to sell it worldwide.
 
Well I'm sure that should they get established in their old stomping grounds, they will broaden their horizons to other markets.

But again, it's not like MS is making this thing exclusive to Italy or something. If your biggest concern is the number of consumers available to buy this product, then it being sold in the United States of spending money should put all your fears to rest. People on welfare are walking around with $200 shoes talking on iphones all the way to pick up their unemployment check.
 
MegaDell said:
Seriously. If there is anything MS has done right, it's the Zune Pass idea. 15 bucks a month and you get to download as many songs as you want to your Zune without paying for them, getting to download 10 of them for keeps?
Click to expand...
And once you stop paying, you only get to keep those 10 songs per month and they cost you $1.50 each. Most people prefer to own music rather than just rent it. That's why subscription services have never really caught on.
 
Like I said if you buy one new album a month, it's perfect. I use gamefly right now. I don't own any of the games, I play them until I'm done, if I stop playing, they go back, same with gamefly.

Now, if gamefly/netflix said I could rent as many games/movies as I wanted? Everyone would use it.

I can either pay 15 a month and download thousands if I want to, getting to keep 10 of the, or I can use something like itunes, and pay 15 bucks to get 15 songs that I may get tired of in a week, but I already spent my 15 bucks, and that's not coming back, and that's all I get for the money.

If you like listening to new music all the time, the Zune Pass makes perfect sense. I listen to new music, get tired of old on a daily basis, buying every single song would seem like serious wasted money.

With itunes, I'm hesitant to get a new album. With Zune Pass, what do I have to lose? I'll download that album, I'll download 500 other albums, who cares, all you can eat buffet. Listen to tons of music, which would cost thousands using itunes, all so I can get tired of it in a week.
 
MegaDell said:
Seriously. If there is anything MS has done right, it's the Zune Pass idea. 15 bucks a month and you get to download as many songs as you want to your Zune without paying for them, getting to download 10 of them for keeps?

You're pretty much paying 5 bucks a month, you can download 50 albums a day to the thing until it's full. I was just made aware of what the Zune Pass actually was, and damn, Apple needs something like that. I'm hoping the Zune succeeds, so it'll create some competition and force Apple to stop dragging it's feet in a lot of regards.
Click to expand...

Hmmm, let's see. For $15 a month I can download all the songs I want, but only actually own 10 of them permanently. That's $1.50 per song to own. Now I can keep all the other songs I download, as long as I keep paying the $15 a month. In perpetuity.

Doesn't sound all that great to me.

And how are the artists making out on that? I mean, if I download 500 songs this month, for $15, that's $0.03 per song. Not a lot of revenue to share out.
 
dsnort said:
Hmmm, let's see. For $15 a month I can download all the songs I want, but only actually own 10 of them permanently. That's $1.50 per song to own. Now I can keep all the other songs I download, as long as I keep paying the $15 a month. In perpetuity.

Doesn't sound all that great to me.

And how are the artists making out on that? I mean, if I download 500 songs this month, for $15, that's $0.03 per song. Not a lot of revenue to share out.
Click to expand...

Yes, it makes far more financial sense to do what itunes offers. Wanna listen to 100 songs? that'll be 100 bucks. 1000 songs? 1000 bucks. Tired of 500 of those songs? Well, you have em, you can't return em. Wanna listen to these 200 songs? 200 more bucks. Adds up real quick, songs coming and going, in and out of your ipod. In and out of interest.

Or, you can pay 50 cents a day to download all the songs you can listen to, getting to keep 10 of them, which is pretty good, because I can listen to an entire album, and only want a quarter of the songs, and I have this option, to keep those 3-4 songs from this album, 3-4 songs from that album, and all the while, have millions of others at my finger tips, that I don't have to pay for.

Or, again, you can throw money away by paying for every single song you listen to. People who have thousands of songs on their album, it's like, do you even listen to half the stuff on there? Doubtful, but you keep them because you paid for them, you paid thousands for your record collection, the money you paid to buy those 10 albums, could have been spend downloading 10's of thousands of albums, and at the end, you get to keep those 10 albums you really wanted.

And my guess is that Artist are realizing that the music market is changing. Album sales are dropping every year, Radiohead is aware of this. Eventually artist are gonna have to start making money on concert tours again.
 
Fail.

Subscription services always failed because people want to own their music.

MS had another version of Zune Pass before. It's call Play For Sure. MS dropped Play for Sure DRM and all the money you spent went to MS wallet and you had no music.

With subscription
- if you stop paying, your stuff is gone (except the overpriced songs you bought but might disappear due to MS dropping their DRM again)
- they can raise rate and you are at their mercy

When would people learn?
 
...ever hear of totally irellevant to the topic at hand? For people really into music, Zune Pass makes perfect sense. Pay 15 a month for millions of songs, 10 of which you can keep a month, or pay 15 for 15 songs. The fact that you get to keep 10 of the songs makes all the difference. You're pretty much only paying 5 bucks a month for a subscription.

Plus, itunes stays stuff at it's **** bitrate of 128. Want better than that, and you have to pay for it.
 
Like I said, for those who love new music, all the time, it's perfect. 10 songs a month, at a higher quality than the **** itunes peddles, plus unlimited access to Millions more.

People lease cars, we rent apartments, we rent games and movies, hell, putting something on credit is effectively renting it, people do it all the time, for what you pay as rent a month, you have the option of using every apartment around the world, so long as you keep paying rent.

Obviously you're gonna pay rent either way, same with music, you're gonna always be buying new music, who cares if at the end of the day you don't physically possess every single song you've ever listened to. I don't need to own them, they aren't worth ****, especially not in digital form, we're not talking about records, we're talking about digital music on your computer. You act like you're planning on selling your used music or something. What's the resale value on your typical itunes download exactly? What's the going rate on Craigslist? How about Ebay? Exactly, nothing. You own it? You own what? Unless you never plan to buy another album again, you'll have acess to far more via something like Zune Pass.

And best of all, you won't have to take out a loan to use your mp3 player to it's full capacity. I love my gamefly. I've got a good 12 games in my Q. At 60 bucks a pop, that really adds up. Or, I can pay like, 20 bucks a month to rent 3 at a time, which is really overkill, especially since after a while, I'm done with them. What am I gonna do then? At least with a game, I can sell it for a fraction of what I paid for it a week ago. With music you bought off itunes, your money is gone.
 
Different strokes for different folks I guess. As it stands the vast majority of people will never be able to tell the difference between 128,256, etc bit-rates. Not with the crap earbuds everyone uses (stock, skullcandy, etc). Remember the appeal in marketing is the lowest common denominators.
 
dejo said:
Except all iTunes songs and music videos are now 256 kbps AAC.
Click to expand...

Since when? I've seen the set up of having an option of getting improved bitrate for an extra 30 cents a song. You're saying they've done that for every song standard at 99 cents?
 
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