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Microsoft Announces 2nd Generation Zune Music Player
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I've messed around with a Zune in Best Buy (1st Gen) I thought it was pretty slick and actually considered getting one, but the lack of OS X support killed that idea. Its not a badly designed product, hell I didn't even mind the brown, people just see the MS name and get all hurt and want to kick up the sands.
Will it blend? 
They don't look that bad. Competitive pricing too... If they worked with iTunes, on OSX, those wouldn't be all bad I guess.
On the other hand, I just bought a new iPod nano for my girlfriend and it's pretty amazing how nice the screen is. The interface looks dull and bad in screenshots but totally makes sense if you're actually using it.
I'll keep my 2G nano for a whike though... fits nicely in the coin pocket
They don't look that bad. Competitive pricing too... If they worked with iTunes, on OSX, those wouldn't be all bad I guess.
On the other hand, I just bought a new iPod nano for my girlfriend and it's pretty amazing how nice the screen is. The interface looks dull and bad in screenshots but totally makes sense if you're actually using it.
I'll keep my 2G nano for a whike though... fits nicely in the coin pocket
Honestly, I like this very very much. Wireless syncing is darn cool as well.
It looks very very nice....the UI is 10x nicer and smoother than the new iPod.
But No OS X support? Why? Every Mac Fan Boy would buy one just to prove that their iPod Touch is better........
It looks very very nice....the UI is 10x nicer and smoother than the new iPod.
But No OS X support? Why? Every Mac Fan Boy would buy one just to prove that their iPod Touch is better........
Indie artists are commonly the only ones who will give away pre-loaded content. Macs used to come with some pre-loaded content, too, indie and major label, to introduce the iTunes feature. Once people caught on, they quit. I assume MS will too.
As for community and sharing, Apple assumes their media line customers are socially adept creatures who have associates with whom they know many ways to share their interests. Microsoft assumes you are a geek who lives in a dark basement room in your parent's house and needs all the help he can get.
As for community and sharing, Apple assumes their media line customers are socially adept creatures who have associates with whom they know many ways to share their interests. Microsoft assumes you are a geek who lives in a dark basement room in your parent's house and needs all the help he can get.
ok- so that's...
A media centre PC (specific OS which you can't buy seperately and a TV card) vs. any Mac with a USB2 slot and a £75 digital TV dongle.
I think you missed the bit where I said an iPod Touch or iPhone anywhere in the world with an EyeTV can stream recordings. Meaning I can buy an 8gb iPod Touch and not have to load TV shows onto it. Just let EyeTV run it all (which, btw, incase you're getting confused by this is a free application with the Digital TV dongle). I could be hiking up on some god forsaken Scottish island, check the listings and see a film I'd like to watch. Press Rec to put it on the schedule and stream it via o2 or a hotspot.
All in lovely H.264 quality.
CONGRATS! Neither do I! As I said so long as I can connect to the internet I'm okay. I can manage this on even WAP enabled mobile phones
OMFG WITCHCRAFT
You're not too bright are you
then again you are sticking up for the Zune...No OS X support *is* just plain stupid. Easy to implement manually, write their own or MS could buy some off-the-shelf indie 3rd party Mac music/media player that's about to go broke due to iTunes domination. There are plenty of Mac users who are anti-iPod just because the iPod is so popular -- which isn't a good reason, but doesn't change their minds -- and they'd buy a Zune just to be different.
But you know what Kanye West said: Steve Ballmer doesn't care about Mac people.
No brown colour anymore, eh? Well, that's a turn up for the books, the browns is dropped, couldn't see that coming
Idiots
Idiots
Cut him a break. It's a peripheral, he lives under a rock, whatever. It's in the FM Tuner remote. Well implemented, too.
ok- so that's...
A media centre PC (specific OS which you can't buy seperately and a TV card) vs. any Mac with a USB2 slot and a £75 digital TV dongle.
I think you missed the bit where I said an iPod Touch or iPhone anywhere in the world with an EyeTV can stream recordings. Meaning I can buy an 8gb iPod Touch and not have to load TV shows onto it. Just let EyeTV run it all (which, btw, incase you're getting confused by this is a free application with the Digital TV dongle).
CONGRATS! Neither do I! As I said so long as I can connect to the internet I'm okay. I can manage this on even WAP enabled mobile phones
OMFG WITCHCRAFT
You're not too bright are you
All TV recording devices on the Mac allows the tv shows to be transferred to the iPod, for free. You can also transfer your DVDs to your iPod too (not directly in iTunes because the labels prohibits it, but it works). Getting a TV recoding box is certainly less expensive and more stable then windoze media center (b.t.w, serious video people won't touch Windoze Media Center, think about that).
About FM, iPod does have it as an accessory, for those who don't get sick of listening to the same repeating songs played on FM stations.
This is a pretty ridiculous reason not to buy something...how very emo of you.
As for the new Zune, I'm actually impressed. I considered for a heartbeat picking up the 80GB as it has almost as big of a screen as my iPhone does AND has a huge hard drive...kinda what I wanted Apple to release when they released the touch. Well done Microsoft. I'd be mildly concerned if I were Apple, not alarmed, but I'd definitely have my eye on this one.
Well, competition is good. I wish they'd push Apple a little more. This is mostly a (partial) catch-up release.
The big Zune seems to be in a nice spot for mobile video, though:
* Bigger screen than an iPod classic
* More capacity than an iPod Touch
* If the PVR synching works well, that's a great feature. With iTunes losing NBC, iPod video content sources are shrinking. I've guess Eye-TV provides a third-party option for PVR --> iPod, though, so that's actually pretty even.
The big Zune seems to be in a nice spot for mobile video, though:
* Bigger screen than an iPod classic
* More capacity than an iPod Touch
* If the PVR synching works well, that's a great feature. With iTunes losing NBC, iPod video content sources are shrinking. I've guess Eye-TV provides a third-party option for PVR --> iPod, though, so that's actually pretty even.
No OS X support.
Yeah...that is a remaining issue that MS refuses to deal with it seems. I do like the the wireless sync. feature though.
I will not buy one btw...!
I agree....if MS would have come out with these models instead of the Gen 1 Zune...it would have sold better. Zune market place is not bad...appears they will have podcasts now and wireless sync. sounds cool. If they would only make it work on OS X.
A few years back, that was exactly the same way I was thinking, until my SanDisk and Samsung players went screwy, and the Creative Zen Micro was a pain in the ass. Then I decided to get an iPod mini and thought, "so this is why everyone has one of these!" Needless to say, I never looked back.
Touché. If he just didn't know I'd say you were being a butt to razz him like that, but since he was using it to compare available iPod features with available Zune features, you're right.
Also, to try and prove my "Zune sucks" position is not anti-Zune for the sake of being anti-Zune, or I'm anti-MS biased, let me thing of an Apple product that sucked. Pippin sucked on marketing and filling a niche that at the time did not need filling, not as much on design or implementation, plus it's too easy a target, so I'll point out something.
I can't go for the default, the hockey-puck mouse, because I rather liked it as I have small hands (shut up, that's a myth, there's no direct statistical correlation whatsoever). Well... You know, Newton for one. Newton did some very cool, very, very advanced for the time things. But it couldn't do enough on its own that it didn't need tight integration with a Mac, and they failed pretty well with that integration. Oh, I got it:
The Mac Portable. Had one on my desk as a test machine when I worked for Aldus. Suck. Suck, suck, suck. But I have to take that back. It didn't suck. We used to have foam dart-gun fights. I could get under my desk, close up the Mac Portable, set it on end in front of me, and I had *total* protection from all incoming projectiles.
Also, when I say Zune sucks, I say Zune sucks relative to Apple media line products. It's really rather one of the better non-Apple media players. But it can't compare to Apple products. My wife and I were at Target playing around with the display Zune -- ahh, geeks in love -- her iPhone was buried in her purse, mine was in my pocket, so I pulled it out and we started doing some of the same tasks, her on the display Zune, me on the iPod feature of my iPhone. Just no comparison; really no comparison to the 5G, but when you bring iPhone or touch into competition, no way. No comparison to the point "Zune sucks" is a fair statement.
And, oh, I *liked* the brown color. I thought that was MS's boldest move. If it weren't for all the black-is-the-new-black robots, they should have moved a lot of them just on that unique color alone.
The only thing I hope comes out of the Zune is another video like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhUAr-P_39U&mode=related&search=
"ZUNE! ZUNE! ZUNE!"
Anyone else notice they didn't release the specs on battery life?
Also, if the iPod sold for a loss like the Zune does, we'd probably see a "better" product. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/26/technology/26soft.html?
p.s. I still don't think its a better product.
"ZUNE! ZUNE! ZUNE!"
Anyone else notice they didn't release the specs on battery life?
Also, if the iPod sold for a loss like the Zune does, we'd probably see a "better" product. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/26/technology/26soft.html?
p.s. I still don't think its a better product.
Oh Apple is nervous, alright. Nervous the sun will explode. Zune 2 will not dent the iPods. And they'll have serialized audio and/or video programming under some kind of name, not podcasts. If the Zune store throws up a "Podcast" section, they will however have a multimillion dollar lawsuit. After a little bit of shove a while after podcast became popular, Apple has been very liberal with the use of the term podcast. But they won't let MS infringe. Now whether or not a court will determine they've been so popular for so long the term is now part of the common language, therefore infringement claims unenforceable, I don't know.
Not a whole lot.What does this have to do with quantum electrodynamics?
True, Microsoft is pretty bad on that front
How is saying I loved my X360 bagging on it? It has a flawed design and perhaps poor build quality. But when it works, it's great. Tremendous fun, great games, great graphics, great audio. When it works.
Pippin was unmitigated product disaster. How is pointing out the flaws in X360, which despite the hardware nightmare and support issues is very much a going concern in current generation consoles and deserves to -- MS should fix the damn things for good and all after almost two years, but its' got some smashing content -- how is being frank about X360's problems in anyway saying Pippin should then or now be used for anything other than a uniquely designed rather expensive tea tray?
To wit:
Zune sucks.
Current X360 hardware design sucks.
X360 gaming experience is great.
Pippin sucked.
NPP. (Nuclear and Particle Physics)
Actually I was more or less referring to how Microsoft is actually diong pretty well with the 360 all things considered. The Xbox wasn't a failure, it just cost MS more money than they could make (blame Intel and Nvidia for that). Selling hardware at a loss is a tricky business, it isn't something Apple would ever dream of doing. I mean I would love to hear how Apple could do better.
My main issues with the Zune were the god-awful software (which looks to be much, much improved) and the crappy video codec support (which looks to be remedied). I actually prefer the feel of the player to the iPod Classic, although it's considerably bulkier, and the interface is fine. After using the Zune and the iPod touch going back to a scroll wheel actually feels clunky.
And the software update for Zune 1.0 users is a fantastic move. I hate Microsoft, but this does build considerable goodwill from my perspective. Now I have a way to watch Arrested Development if I'm too scared to bring out my iPod touch.
And the software update for Zune 1.0 users is a fantastic move. I hate Microsoft, but this does build considerable goodwill from my perspective. Now I have a way to watch Arrested Development if I'm too scared to bring out my iPod touch.
It's .Mac, it's not marketed as social networking site but does everything. Not sure how often I've seen a "musical" been shared though, maybe you meant music. In that case there is a program that can serve all your itunes music over the web (for iPhone).
Well, I just found out this morning I'm getting a replacement 360 for free Monday or Tuesday. Not from MS, but that's another story. I am pleased as punch. And this one has lifetime support, which is another story, too, but I won't have to worry about it dying and costing me to replace or fix it.
This is the reason I think you'll never see Apple make a games console: the business model requires selling hardware at a loss, aiming for a good attach rate, and making the money up on licensed games sales. Except for Nintendo, but they are a special case. They actually make money on hardware but will cut specifications and features to do that -- first rev. Wii won't play DVDs or even audio CDs! I can't see Apple aiming low on the tech like that. I mean, sure, Apple sticks a less than hotrod GPU in the iMac so they can make more money, but limiting the capabilities of a games console so they can make money on the hardware. I can't see it. And they will not sell at a loss. If they do, I'll like faint, eat a brown Zune or something.
This is the reason I think you'll never see Apple make a games console: the business model requires selling hardware at a loss, aiming for a good attach rate, and making the money up on licensed games sales. Except for Nintendo, but they are a special case. They actually make money on hardware but will cut specifications and features to do that -- first rev. Wii won't play DVDs or even audio CDs! I can't see Apple aiming low on the tech like that. I mean, sure, Apple sticks a less than hotrod GPU in the iMac so they can make more money, but limiting the capabilities of a games console so they can make money on the hardware. I can't see it. And they will not sell at a loss. If they do, I'll like faint, eat a brown Zune or something.
Not a whole lot.
True, Microsoft is pretty bad on that front
Actually I was more or less referring to how Microsoft is actually diong pretty well with the 360 all things considered. The Xbox wasn't a failure, it just cost MS more money than they could make (blame Intel and Nvidia for that). Selling hardware at a loss is a tricky business, it isn't something Apple would ever dream of doing. I mean I would love to hear how Apple could do better.