I like the bigger screen and it sounds like the interface is pretty good. Even though the screens are of equal resolution, bigger is certainly more attractive. If I could use the wi-fi for more useful stuff it would be a great selling point for me. Radio, nice. I can see that as a very useful feature for news and such. I like my nano but the interface could use improvements. I'm certainly not interested in purchasing the Zune but I am moderately impressed. If nothing else, it will keep Apple on it's toes. Give me my full screen video iPod and iPhone and I'll shut up.
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iPod Zune Out
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For the Zune to have been successful they would have had to do these things:
1. Allow it to work with itunes or come up with a mac version of the software.
2. Make the zune software work period. Buggy and too confusing.
3. Make the zune software work with vista.
4. Provide software to convert MCE recordings.
5. Slimmer.
6. Cheaper
7. Nicer looking.
8. Wifi that works. Sharing is stupid. Get your own songs.
THe only things this zune does well.
1. Doesn't scratch
2. Navigation of the player shows on a tv screen.
Thats it.
I got the zune killer for ya, its called the ZUNE!
1. Allow it to work with itunes or come up with a mac version of the software.
2. Make the zune software work period. Buggy and too confusing.
3. Make the zune software work with vista.
4. Provide software to convert MCE recordings.
5. Slimmer.
6. Cheaper
7. Nicer looking.
8. Wifi that works. Sharing is stupid. Get your own songs.
THe only things this zune does well.
1. Doesn't scratch
2. Navigation of the player shows on a tv screen.
Thats it.
I got the zune killer for ya, its called the ZUNE!
"Even though the screens are of equal resolution"
The new 5G iPods are actually 640 x 480 resolution as of the 5.5G announcements...
Wasn't sure if this was already posted!
The new 5G iPods are actually 640 x 480 resolution as of the 5.5G announcements...
Wasn't sure if this was already posted!
Is the Zune Marketplace international from start?
One thing I would really like to know is whether the Zune Marketplace and the related Microsoft points currency make it a truly international store or not. If so, this could turn out to be a winning concept compared to the annoying "a separate iTunes store in each country" strategy practiced by Apple. I constantly find songs on the US or UK sites that I am not able to buy since I am a Swedish customer. The lack of TV shows outside the US store is of course also annoying. Since content is important, this diminishes the perceived value of my iPod compared to if I had been living in another country. I know that the Zune itself is not available outside America for now, but if the Zune Marketplace is a truly international store from start it would certainly be a good selling-point for the Zune in many countries.
/Galex
One thing I would really like to know is whether the Zune Marketplace and the related Microsoft points currency make it a truly international store or not. If so, this could turn out to be a winning concept compared to the annoying "a separate iTunes store in each country" strategy practiced by Apple. I constantly find songs on the US or UK sites that I am not able to buy since I am a Swedish customer. The lack of TV shows outside the US store is of course also annoying. Since content is important, this diminishes the perceived value of my iPod compared to if I had been living in another country. I know that the Zune itself is not available outside America for now, but if the Zune Marketplace is a truly international store from start it would certainly be a good selling-point for the Zune in many countries.
/Galex
I feel the same way; I saw some video of the Zune in action, and if nothing else, the transitions and look were pretty cool. But...I mostly use my iPod for music, and don't spend much time looking at the screen, so the screen real estate doesn't seem like a huge advantage (it would almost make more sense for the Zune to be a TV/movie player; try to become established in a budding market instead of an established one). A girl in my program has one of the Zen Creative mp3 players, and that looks pretty cool too, but it's not enough to convince me to switch.
Also, it seems like Microsoft is targeting the late teen -- early 20s demographic (I'm thinking of all their install screen images and ads); the iPod's appeal seems to work across the spectrum. I can also imagine some parents taking issue with the make out scene install image if their 12 year old child sees it.
For the sake of your insanity, don't visit those new zune forums. You'll get an urge to advertize the iPods over the zune-thing...
No they're not. They're still 320x240 but 60% brighter. They are capable of playing back 640x480 video to a television but scale the video down to fit on the built-in screen. You've just confused the two resolutions, the screen did not gain any res, just the H.264 video files the iPod can playback.
The Zune and the iPod have the same resolution screen.
Just a few short remarks on this discussion:
It really amazes me that we still see, in threads like this, the good ol' statement that "oh, it's Microsoft; so we should be careful, they have an iPod killer now!!!"...
1 - As many have said before, it's not the sheer number of features that makes iPod such an astounding success. People want it easy and well-integrated, and there is no Zune in the world which is gonna do that, unless MS changes its whole business model to ensure a perfect design, a seamless operation between software and hardware, and a smart balance between DRM and freedom. So far, neither MS nor any other maker have matched Apple's excellence;
2 - If you think MS's dominance in the OS world is reflected in any other area of the tech market, think again. Windows is clearly losing market share to Apple and Linux over the years, and MS has little to show in terms of future valuation; its remaining cash cow is MS Office, and Vista has lost its momentum a long time ago. We don't talk here about MS fanboys who want to be the next Rob Enderle...we talk about businesses which don't give a rat's ass to whatever eyecandy copycat Vista has.
As for the consoles area, Sony still kicks some serious MS ass (and even moreso with the PS3 in full production); and in the home media/music field, Apple IS the de facto standard maker, not MS. After a thousand launches of iPod killers (and, let's say, LITTLE groundbreaking improvements by Apple), the iPod just RULES. And why, again? Because it's nicer, sturdier, better integrated, with a killer business model and a very generous offer of DRM protection x freedom to rip.
3 - Let's just check again Zune's "features":
a) FM radio - mp3 players have been created exactly because FM radio sucks nowadays, period. If you want good, ad-less radio, you tune into Internet stations in your desktop. This feature has been out there for ages, and nobody gives a damn; NEXT!
b) Wi-fi sharing - please, don't make it sound as if it was a great thing, because it is NOT. I play songs I like in MY playlists, and will be hardly interested in listening to what the next Joe has in his rap collection. Besides, battery life is greatly depreciated with it, along with the ridiculous 4-song limit; NEXT!
c) Interface and design - the Zune is just ridiculous and bulky, period. The iPod is a winner also because of its patented touch/click wheel. No player equals that, and no player will for that matter. Navigation is just marvelous in the iPod. Besides, who wants a brown piece of brick? NO, thanks. NEXT!
d) The Zune has taken a pounding after the iPod price break. In other words, it's another crappy product in which MS loses money, for the sake of market grabbing...it's NOT gonna happen this time, MS...and it didn't happen either for the XBox.
Conclusion? File this under "Wannabe iPod Killers that have vanished". MS does NOT equal success anymore, and certainly does not have a winner with the Zune. Ridiculous name, ridiculous form, ridiculous paradigm. Now you may go back to "Zuneworld", fanboys...
It really amazes me that we still see, in threads like this, the good ol' statement that "oh, it's Microsoft; so we should be careful, they have an iPod killer now!!!"...
1 - As many have said before, it's not the sheer number of features that makes iPod such an astounding success. People want it easy and well-integrated, and there is no Zune in the world which is gonna do that, unless MS changes its whole business model to ensure a perfect design, a seamless operation between software and hardware, and a smart balance between DRM and freedom. So far, neither MS nor any other maker have matched Apple's excellence;
2 - If you think MS's dominance in the OS world is reflected in any other area of the tech market, think again. Windows is clearly losing market share to Apple and Linux over the years, and MS has little to show in terms of future valuation; its remaining cash cow is MS Office, and Vista has lost its momentum a long time ago. We don't talk here about MS fanboys who want to be the next Rob Enderle...we talk about businesses which don't give a rat's ass to whatever eyecandy copycat Vista has.
As for the consoles area, Sony still kicks some serious MS ass (and even moreso with the PS3 in full production); and in the home media/music field, Apple IS the de facto standard maker, not MS. After a thousand launches of iPod killers (and, let's say, LITTLE groundbreaking improvements by Apple), the iPod just RULES. And why, again? Because it's nicer, sturdier, better integrated, with a killer business model and a very generous offer of DRM protection x freedom to rip.
3 - Let's just check again Zune's "features":
a) FM radio - mp3 players have been created exactly because FM radio sucks nowadays, period. If you want good, ad-less radio, you tune into Internet stations in your desktop. This feature has been out there for ages, and nobody gives a damn; NEXT!
b) Wi-fi sharing - please, don't make it sound as if it was a great thing, because it is NOT. I play songs I like in MY playlists, and will be hardly interested in listening to what the next Joe has in his rap collection. Besides, battery life is greatly depreciated with it, along with the ridiculous 4-song limit; NEXT!
c) Interface and design - the Zune is just ridiculous and bulky, period. The iPod is a winner also because of its patented touch/click wheel. No player equals that, and no player will for that matter. Navigation is just marvelous in the iPod. Besides, who wants a brown piece of brick? NO, thanks. NEXT!
d) The Zune has taken a pounding after the iPod price break. In other words, it's another crappy product in which MS loses money, for the sake of market grabbing...it's NOT gonna happen this time, MS...and it didn't happen either for the XBox.
Conclusion? File this under "Wannabe iPod Killers that have vanished". MS does NOT equal success anymore, and certainly does not have a winner with the Zune. Ridiculous name, ridiculous form, ridiculous paradigm. Now you may go back to "Zuneworld", fanboys...
The Zune works like it looks, like crap.
I browsed through the install process Engadget and boy was that a doozy!
I browsed through the install process Engadget and boy was that a doozy!
You may want to read this, then... US only for the player for certain. And this on the absurdity of the pricing scheme. And, lastly, this for some speculation on the international side of things.
To reinforce Chundles (directly from the iPod Tech Specs page):
Display
- 2.5-inch (diagonal) QVGA transflective, over 65,000-color liquid crystal display with white LED backlight
- 320 by 240 pixel resolution, .156-mm dot pitch
I think that the Zune maybe do quite well it does have some good features. There are a lot of Windows users out there who do not like using an iPod because they do not wish to be tied to using iTunes. I was in a research group and only 1 other person there in a group of 10 owned an iPod because of this very reason.
My cousin who is a Windows user bought an iPod video and now she wants to sell it because she wants to put videos on there but the only videos that she can get is three minute video clips from the iTunes store which she is not happy about. She cannot play any other videos on her iPod.
She is now looking at some other options out there in the market and this is just another option for her to consider.
My cousin who is a Windows user bought an iPod video and now she wants to sell it because she wants to put videos on there but the only videos that she can get is three minute video clips from the iTunes store which she is not happy about. She cannot play any other videos on her iPod.
She is now looking at some other options out there in the market and this is just another option for her to consider.
So they'll replace being tied to iTunes with being tied to the Zune Marketplace. There's no difference in the business model here - both systems are locked into their respective software. I'd much rather be tied to something that works seamlessly and well whilst looking good than something so clunky as the Zune software.
You can play nearly any video on the iPod if given the proper format conversion. There are many programs out there that will convert any video to a format playable on the iPod, even commercial DVDs. I have videos of DVD movies, TV shows and music concerts ripped to iPod-friendly video formats ready to be loaded on my upcoming 5.5G iPod and doing so was a simple and painless procedure.
Current options (Mac)
Handbrake
iSquint
QuickTime Pro
iMovie
Visual Hub
PC
Videora
Don't know of any others because I'm a Mac user but a quick google search will turn up many options for the PC.
and itunes has an option (I'm not sure where) called 'convert to ipod' which converts any video to ipod compatiable format, if Quicktime has the appropriate codec installed, by which I mean DivX.
Funny, I described one of my dog's turds with the same description to a vet a few weeks ago.
Boy, how'd I forget that little gem?
I suppose you already know though eh JC?
Yeah, not too many excuses for not being able to get a video on an iPod. The only ones I know that are hard are Real Media and some of the new fangled WMV ones. Everything else should work.
So they wouldn't like to be tied to what is the best-working DMP/application combo out there? And would rather have their computer crash throughout installation and usage just to use the Zune, which people have already figured out how to crash and shown that it's completely worthless. I almost think you're a Microsoft troll...
Well, it might be out in time for the holiday season in Belgium, according to a MS spokesman (holiday season 2007, that is) but if they follow standard M$ scheduling who knows how long it takes until "the social" is limited to USA only.
Plus, there seem to be an awful lot of footnotes in the abovementioned articles, like songs outside WiFi sharing, songs outside the unlimited subscription (which might frustrate a lot of users in years to come)
Plus, there seem to be an awful lot of footnotes in the abovementioned articles, like songs outside WiFi sharing, songs outside the unlimited subscription (which might frustrate a lot of users in years to come)
Um, I believe that the Zune is only available in the US right now, so no, it's not international...
Er... its play one song 3 times then you have to buy it using MS credits.
Seriously I think MS would actually be better off not releasing the Zune. Its already being slated left right and centre by critics etc. They are losing money on it and they are alienating a large chunk of existing MS customers (playsforsure) so they are infact damaging the brand name.
They would be better off just doing nothing, they would make more money, have more customers and a better feeling towards the brand.
Just saw a post on the local Craigslist, someone is selling their new Zune for $350. I have a feeling that the Zune is not going to be in the same resale class as the hard-to-get PS3.
Just wait until you see them on sale at Best Buy for 150 because they've got so large of a backstock...