Time to axe Microsoft's Zune If any Microsoft product group is a candidate for getting the chop during the next 18 months, surely - surely - it's the one leading the disastrous Zune. Either the technology people building it, those in marketing promoting it, or the channel group responsible for working with retailers to put the thing in the hands of …
I've never seen Microsoft pit the Zune against the iPod in price. They're not going to out-cool the iPod. They're not going to out-feature the iPod. What have you got left? Price. Microsoft should have taken the hit, way undercut the iPod on price, and out iTunes-stored the iTunes store.
Isn't the reason for stuff like the Zune just a holding action to keep Microsoft in the market in case anything comes from that direction to threaten the core OS business? Same with MSN, Windows Mobile, XBox, etc, etc.
Bit of a waste of money though, but it isn't that much money that's being thrown away in terms of MS overall profits. (Online services and devices together lose USD2.7bln. The rest of the business makes USD20bln.)
This reminds me of the Coke - Pepsi cola war during the 1930's. Zune is perceived as being the poor man's iPod as Pespsi was the poor man's cola.
Pepsi fixed this by offering bigger bottles for less money and, later, marketing Pepsi as a youthful drink option to the more traditionally stodgy Coke. The problem is that a Zune costs about as much as an iPod. If someone is buying a non-iPod MP3 player, they buy a Sandisk or other brand that is less then half the price of an iPod and offers the same functionality.
The Zune is not a bad design. The iPod has had a number of short-comings (crappy batteries, easily scratched displays) but is still popular despite them. It's a mater of consumer perception.
Since Microsoft can not seem to market itself out of a wet paper bag ("I'm a PC" was pathetic) I will predict the death of Zune in the very near future.
@AC, no they aren't sold outside of the US / Canada. They'd probably do better if they'd just export the things...
Although I wish I had never bought mine, the problem with it is that neither the software, nor the device understand Unicode, not too much of a problem, except for the fact that the software "Updates" your music library. I really enjoy seeing all my song titles represented by squares....
Seriously, it'd take, what. ~50 megs MAX to support Unicode(and through in an extra font or so) everything else that Microsoft sells supports Unicode (Hell even the original releases of NT did)
The display on it pretty nice, Much bigger than anything else I've seen and pretty good quality (except for the iPod Touch, but 8 Gigs MAX, WTF guys?)
This article misses the point.
If Zune is a really good device, then MS should get out there and sell it, not kill it.
If Zune is no good, then MS should either improve it, or - yes - give up.
So what is it?
(It's never been offered here in .au , so I've never seen it, but some reviews I've seen apparently like it).
I don't want to see a good device die before it even gets here. (Who would? I just don't get that). And I don't really mind if the masses like it or not - I'll buy what I want because I can choose for myself, based on my own criteria. I don't need the comfort of looking cool in front of the high school kids.
and a quick internet search shows a 30GB model for £159. Had a look at the description and they seem to think that telling me their player is packed full of DRM is going to entice me!?! That it's a plus point!!
Fact is that 30GB is way too small for my collection and I'm very happy with formatting my 2GB Sandisk player, £39, every few weeks for a new mix (I know that Zunes come in bigger, more expensive forms)
Never seen a Zune in a shop, don't know anyone with one, on the rare times they're mentioned people seem to shake their heads and laugh.
You've spent all day battling with MS software, trying to make sure your code is devoid of any proprietary MS 'extensions' and telling WU you don't want it to reboot since you have 10 applications open and are attempting to finish and unit test the component which has to go into the repository by 3pm to get into the nightly build.
You come home and find the kids crying because the XBox has the Red Ring.
Then you notice that your home desktop didn't have anyone to sit there and tell WU not to reboot in the middle of the 12 hour render you started before going to work.
Then you sit down to fix the website your brother has been working on and have to spend an hour or two stripping out all the frontpage tags. During which the missus has had you reboot her vista laptop 3 times already because it is having one of those days where it can't find the wi-fi router even if it is sat next to it, despite the other 5 machines in the house having no problem doing so in any room.
Finally you have to explain to your Dad on the phone that he has to set word 2007 to save in .doc because the publisher he is doing some work for can't read .docx
I don't care if the Zune came in solid gold and cost £1 the last thing I am going to do is buy something from MS by choice.
The only way to sell it is to provide a tall, dark, sinister individual with leather gloves and a gun to your head to accompany each unit.
Me too, AC. I can honestly say that Ive never seen one, neither for sale or in use. As for being the butt of jokes on websites well thats different, there seems to be heaps of negative comment.
My sons response, when questioned about Zune was "The only use for a Zune, is to remove the internal crap & use it as a skin for your iPod, so no one would ever steal it"
Actually, Apple hired the president of PepsiCo in 1983. His name is John Sculley. We all know how that worked out. We all learned how that worked out.
The thing is, there is no REAL competition between Apple and Microsoft on MP3 players. Apple was late to the game and raised the bar; Microsoft was much later to the game, and they did what they always do -- lower expectations. Shortly after, tech giants Intel and Dell dropped out, in large part because they knew they couldn't compete with the iPod. Dell actually sold iPods on their Web site for a time. Amazing.
I don’t doubt that many or even most Zune owners are satisfied with what they have. Here’s my thing: Apple dove into the MP3 market when that market was already well on its way to maturity. The iPod quickly made a big splash, and iTunes has played no small part in helping the iPod acquire and maintain a 70% market share. Apple did not engage in illegal, monopolistic business practices in order to achieve this level of prominence; nor did Steve Jobs hypnotize buyers, steering them towards the iPod.
When the iPod was released in October of 2001, it succeeded during a major recession caused by the terrorist attacks of 9/11. If the current economic climate adversely affected the Zune and other consumer products, then it stands to reason that it also adversely affected iPod sales. Yet, Apple reported a growth in iPod sales for the most recent quarter, versus a 54% drop in Zune revenues. How much better would the iPod have faired this quarter without the deepening recession?
I believe that Microsoft and its investors need to re-evaluate the Zune with regard to how it affects other products, and how it affects shareholder interests. And they need to take this very seriously. If I’m a Microsoft competitor — and I don’t believe that Apple and Microsoft compete in the sense that they appeal to very different groups of customers — then I truly hope that Microsoft continues to throw money and other resources at the Zune. Let them and their investors learn the hard way. Again.
The zune was never going to be a the ipod killer that MS hoped it would be and it is difficult to see why MS entered the market.
Basically if you are going up against the gorilla that is Apple in the ipod market, you have to have something that differentiates markedly. The only thing the zune had was the wireless sharing. However two problems with that. Firstly it was hopelessly crippled by MS usually DRM fan boys. Secondly it relied on enough mass usage of the zune so that there was a chance someday you might meet another zune user. If you took that away you were left with a nice MP3 player competing with all the other nice non apple MP3 players in a sea made by Apple. And remember an ipod is not just a music player but is the focal point of a whole industry providing ipod addons. Zune never had a chance.
The question is what could compete with ipod? History has shown that it would either take a whole new technology shift(wireless music ???) or Apple to make a mis-step. So far Apple has shown they are not likely to do the latter, in fact you have to be impressed how they do not sit back and wait for the competition to catch up, but are constantly pushing the envelope. This makes it very hard to compete against. You only have to look how a few months after the zune was produced apple produced the itouch so totally changing the market before the zune ever got going.
So what about MS. Probably what they should of done instead of spending millions on Zune was got into phones. Here they have a slight advantage in that their software runs the corporate world so if they made a phone that seamlessly connected then corporate world would probably buy a few.
However even here they have a few problems. Firstly it would eat away at their mobile OS market, since they would be competing against the same people who buy there software from them at the moment. This would almost certainly push these same manufacturers to android and the like.
Secondly MS hardware sucks. They just do not have the ability to integrate the software and hardware into one unit, in the same way apple do. This must be partly to do with their reliance on 3rd party hardware suppliers to do the hardware design, then having to fit their software to it.
In the end of the day, MS should really concentrate on doing what it knows best, making operating systems for gray boxes
A couple of years ago i was in the market for a new mp3 player, i was looking for a well featured device that had little to no DRM. The zune was a the perfect choice, it has more features than the iplod and is a solid piece of hardware. Microsofts move to update the Gen1 zunes with all the improvements that the zune 2 brought was a master stroke.
I harbour the typical anti-microsoft views but the zune is a great piece of hardware that has been overshadowed by the starbucks drinking, celebrity obsessed iplod owners. Would be a real shame to loose yet another competitior in the mp3 market.
Im a Zune owner in the UK. First off, its a great product, I got rid of my iPod to use this. Its just easier to use. Its cheaper. Looks smarter. The interface was, in iterations, getting better.
Microsofts only problem was in not releasing the Zune outside of the US. Ive never been a fan of iTunes, the zune software is slicker in my books. My only great annoyance is not being able to log in because I cant agree to the terms and conditions lol because Im out side of the US.
The technology behind the Zune is sound, I love mine. £120 for a top quality 80Gb Music and Video player is not to be sniffed at. Zune is failing because of the idiots managing its marketing. Its not the Zune that needs axing, its the management.
I bought it online, as you can't actually get them outside the Americas.
It's actually quite a nice piece of hardware, and the updates for it have been quite regular, and have added a few new features. Being able to send songs wirelessly would be cool if a) anyone else actually had a Zune and b) it didn't add the stupid DRM restrictions to the track you send. The FM radio isn't bad either, and adding XNA games support was a good idea (though I haven't bothered to get any games for it, since I can't actually access the Zune store due to living in the UK).
The headphones you get with the 120GB, so I'm told, aren't anything special, but the premium headphones I got with my (now broken - accidentally smashed the screen) 80GB Zune are good for a bundled pair.
The problem Microsoft has is two-fold. First, the first-generation Zunes (never had one) looked like crap. Second, iPod is such a big name that your average punter is going to buy one of those instead. I actually used to own an iPod Nano. The hardware was good, but the headphones kept breaking (went through three pairs in one year), and I found iTunes to be a pig on Windows (iTunes is the main reason I've stayed away from the iPod and iPhone - Apple seem to be really bad at writing software for anything other than Macs).
Then again, Microsoft has the money to piss away, and I for one am glad of that - I like my Zune a lot.
"Microsoft will try to explain this in terms of planned "Zune services," no doubt."
And there's the problem. People just about tolerated Apple tying the iTunes store to the iPod, but only because Apple were selling everyone's childhood memories and it was the only such store in town. Given a choice, everyone now uses Amazon, 7digital, or whatever.
Memo to just about everyone in the tech business. Services suck.
I don't rent my consumer electronics, and I don't want to rent the things I use them for either. Once I've shelled out the cash, I want to *own* stuff. I *certainly* don't want to buy the bit that goes out of date (the hardware) and rent the stuff that is forever (the content). That's *totally* arse backwards.
I concede that there might be a market for renting a Zune and swapping it for the latest model on a yearly basis, a bit like mobile phone handsets, but I doubt that's what Microsoft have in mind.
Paris, coz she knows about services that suck?
MS have never really innovated, only absorbed new tech or good people.
Now Apple are well beyond being Borg'd, have some of the best tech engineers in the business, and street cred thats priceless.
I'm sure plenty of overconfident, high-fiving, wanky yank managers up in MS towers thought they could fuck over Apple no problem, at least if you threw enough cash at it (see Xbox for an example).
It will never, ever be a contender, even before the eye-popping brilliance of the Touch and iPhone came out.
I bought an 8GB a few months ago.
Taken separately:
The player was really a very nice piece of kit, in my opinion, beautifully made and worked a charm. Was majorly disappointed, though, that it didn't have any sort of equalizer/sound enhancement features, which even the cheapest players nowadays do.
The Zune software was great for organizing your music, too, much better than WMP.
However, the combination of the two was like being in a straight-jacket, primarily due to its deliberately designed inability to be used as a mass storage device.
And then there was the inescapable impression that actually listening to music was really just a secondary consideration in all this, that its main purpose was to get you to *buy* music from the Marketplace.
That, and the whole "Social" thing; that might hold some charm for teenagers but I'm well beyond that holding any interest for me.
After a week, I traded it in for a Samsung P2 and couldn't be happier.
Maybe the fact that this product is not sold and therefore unknown in the most of the world doesn't help to make it a "cool" object and build the "Zune" brand. Not to mention that some of countries where the Zune is not sold are not experiencing such a bad recession as the US.
I am sure that if Apple had launched the iPod only in the US they would be in the same situation now.
Music, videos, internet, apps, games etc..etc...
Why buy an ugly Zune that offers you less?
How can you buy a Zune anyway, they're only available as grey imports.
Microsoft should have put Zune resource into Windows Mobile, updated the WM OS and made it more modern. Then used that as a base for Zune.
This is pretty much what Apple did, developed one OS used in the iPhone and iPod touch.
Microsoft has form in seeing someone else doing something successfully, and trying to emulate it. They did it in the early days of the internet, with IE, and Word and suchlike, but unfortunately the world has changed, and its attempts to copy rivals just don't work any more.
Really, the management need the balls to say 'we do these things well, we should stick to them', rather than chasing butterflies, but unfortunately, from bitter experience, they won't.
Rumors abound that Xbox is also to go, as it's a large cash liability (despite making small amounts of profit for a couple of quarters), Shareholders are not happy about the accumulated losses, in the region of $9Billion, than Microsoft have swept under previous quarters earnings reports. Sony have a nice new evolutionary platform to develop PS4 ("Cell2"), and Nintendo can't do anything wrong, Microsoft are stuck with PC-Like tech and shareholders unwilling to invest lots of money to develop the next Xbox.
I had a 1st Gen Zune and at the time I thought it was the Dog's doodahs. I think I was the only person in London with one at the time.
I was on honeymoon with the missus and we went to a mall and spent some time looking for DS games and asking whats good etc.... The salesman plied me with Guitar Hero and asked what else we were buying and I told him that we were going to go to the apple store to replace an ipod some scumbag had nicked at our wedding reception and he talked me into putting in a preorder.
Anyway, got it and it was much loved until over a year and a half later when the iPhone came out and I changed phones so it was not needed.
But it does do a lot of technical things right. Wireless sync would be one of them. Lending tracks via wireless would be the other. If only MS got more studios on board for tracks, allowed it to play divx/xvid natively and priced it better it would get more of a foothold.
But don't deride the Zune - it is actually a good product.
Stop crippling each of the areas of OS, tools and Applications by stupid lock in tricks.
Three separate companies/divisions none of which have to lock to the others. It will make Windows higher quality if it has to run any tools and applications and no stupid undocumented API tricks for Explorer, Media Player or Office.
Internet Explorer and Media Player etc in the applications division. Make all of it run on Windows, OSX, Solaris and Linux. Quality will be better. Put Sharepoint, Exchange and such here.
Make the IDE (.net studio etc) run on any platform. Stick SQL server and IIS here. Put GUI development group here.
Ditch Xbox, Zune, WinCE,/WinMobile. Two versions of OS:
1) Desktop/Server identical. Only one version, not the crippling Home, Buisiness, premium and Server versions. At install time pick Server or Desktop and then if Desktop all the extra services are disabled. Any free SQL/IIS/IDE versions on a separate disk. MediaPlayer/Exchange/Office/IE etc free versions on a separte disk. Make GUI/Explorer an optional component on Server.
2) A more like NT3.5 version with no GUI for embedded and mobile devices.
Microsoft cant compete on style or functionality, they wont compete on features, or on hardware. they dont stand an ice cubes chance in hell.
The deserve all they get. and if they'll just accept it instead of adding foibles to there OS they might keep thier OS customers happy... if they keep screwing the OS they will lose that too.
not to produce useful, usable software - I'd have noticed that - but to dominate the market.
What happens when the 'music industry' finally collapses due to reality and musicians sell direct?
The only way for MS to take a share of that is to try and convince people they're providing a service - something they do brilliantly compared with their software 'development'!
Wot, forgotten their disastrous Zune leap year bug already -- the one that temporarily bricked virtually every 30Gb Zune on the planet, and for which Microsoft's fix was "just wait until the new year rolls round and reboot it"?
Yes, that happened late in December -- but it won't have done any good to the post-Christmas sales, or to customer loyalty for that matter.
(Wasn't there also a DRM server whoopsie, or am I getting confused with someone else?)
You know not the harm you do! It goes like this:
MS: Here is our New Hotness(TM), you will love it! Buy now!
Hapless Consumers: OK
Blogosphere: This is shit! It should never have been born! <Laugh and point at MS and hapless consumers>
MS: Oh, er, you're right. OK, we'll make something better this time, and let's agree not to talk about this episode ever again, mkay?
Hapless Consumers: Hang on, where's the support you promised us?
MS: Support for what? The product you refer to never existed, you made it all up! <cough>
Blogosphere/help-forum denizens: HA! You bought WHAT? Stoopid n00b, go away you make my throat bleed.
I know nought of Zune, but you're encouraging Redmond to orphan it just as they did with Win ME and apparently Vista. Won't somebody please think of the early-adopters?
It cannot be slaughtered because it would mean the end of WMA as a format.
Zune was conceived because of the failure of WMA+DRM with hardware "partners", and with the rise of DRM free stores MP3 and AAC players don't need Microsoft's proprietary audio format (and the license fees that go with it).
Similarly VC-1 (i.e. WMV-HD) was once ubiquitous on HD-DVD but is less prevalent on Blu-ray, and is only seeing life in Xbox video downloads atm.
If this route continues the only software to use Microsoft's codecs will be Silverlight and Xbox.
You can't actually buy a Zune outside of the US.
That's probably reduced their target audience so much. I was looking to buy one to replace my aged Samsung player, but as I couldn't I just grabbed an iPod Touch instead. Now all my music are belong to Apple, so even if they do bring it out over here, I probably won't get one.
Unless it includes an ebook reader and web browser. Then Apple can go F**k themselves.
I can see two reasons why the Zune probably isn't going to be axed. For starters, everyone I've ever encountered has more of a love for it than anyone I know with an iPod instead. When you get past the anti-Microsoft propaganda, and buy it for what it is - a personal media device it actually seems like people think it's a really good product.
But secondly it's worth pointing out Microsoft has spent the last year since XNA 2.0 was released updating XNA to 3.0 with one major feature in place and little else- Zune support. Microsoft seems pretty keen to get indies developing games for the Zune whilst integrating it with the whole Live product range.
I think Microsoft has a plan for the Zune but that it's simply not come to fruition yet. Microsoft has the XBox 360 in the living room, the PC in the study/bedroom and the Zune is to be their mobile component of the overall Live system. Ignoring the now long dealt with RROD problem the XBox 360 is a really good product, managing to put Sony - who led the console market hands down for the last decade - in clear last place, whilst they aint up with Nintendo yet, that's a hell of an achievement. The PC is of course the clear winner as the computer gaming platform and as the general computer entertainment platform be it for chatting to friends on MSN messenger or playing games online. The mobile market is the last place Microsoft has to truly bring its hold on digital entertainment to and I'm guessing Microsoft probably plans to take on either the Nintendo DS, the iPhone or both at once and it's experimentation with the Zune (and it was experimentation, hence why it was only released to a limited market- North America) is just a precursor to doing the thing on a larger scale.
Microsoft is not without it's competition- Steam currently dwarfs Live for the amount of available content for example and the fight into the mobile market will be a tough one.
One things for sure however, the XBox 360 is a demonstration that Microsoft can extend further into additional entertainment markets and do so strongly, knocking flat out along with Nintendo what would previously be seen as an infallible contender- Sony. With Windows mobile devices still being prominent out there as second only in units out there to Symbian devices (although the iPhone is gaining ground on this lead) they have the experience to do it. It's all just about the execution and whether they can pull that off.
Microsofts vision is this- you have your Live profile, that profile holds your XBox 360 and Windows Live games achievements and your Zune achievements. It links all your downloadable content and your MSN Messenger, Hotmail, Live spaces (and to an extent Facebook with their latest deal) together. It will link your media, your music and movies together to be downloaded and played on your XBox, your PC or your Zune and so on.
I can see where Microsoft is going and the Zune is certainly a key element there, to kill it off would kill of a sizable chunk of their current overall focus. It would ultimately be pointless because they'd only have to come back and start all over in the mobile entertainment sector again at a later date.
The Sony Walkman was the iPod of its day - which wasn't THAT long ago - but eventually the mystique wore off and people realised they could buy the same functionality and sound quality elsewhere and the Walkman became a museum piece. The same thing will happen to the iPod, and then the Zune will be playing in a level field. Where it will still fail because of the DRM, but that's another story.
At the moment, the iPod is just a brand with no compelling reason to buy it unless you're into the brand, which a lot of people are for now.
It's not available anywhere outside US, so how can MS hope to sell any?
I do own an ipod and a sony (sony has a better sound imho). I played around with a Zune, and think it's a rather nice device. If it was able to work without the Zune software and able to function as a storage device too I'd have gone for it in a heartbeat (grey import and all), retiring the ipod.
Apart from its ergonomic keyboards, I have no particular preference or dislike for Microsoft products. One brand is as good as any other, it's the products that count.
30gb might not be enough for some people's entire music libraries, but it is enough for several days of audio. Good luck trying to navigate that with the original Zune's discrete button controls, and try not to feel too ripped off that they're designed specifically to look like a click wheel, in an attempt to pull the wool over your eyes.
After that, it's the second generation Zune versus the iPod Touch. I think the various comments above mine are correct - the only people who would be likely to be swayed by Microsoft as a brand are significantly more likely to be swayed by Apple. People who feature hunt are no more likely to pick Microsoft than e.g. Sansa. In fact, they're probably more likely to pick Sansa because of the extremely negative press that Microsoft have bought themselves among the technically knowledgable with Internet Explorer, five separate editions of Vista, XPS, the killing of ISO, etc.
Since the Zune launched, the world (including even Apple) has ditched DRM for music. Surely there's now no way Microsoft can achieve what they want? The best they can hope for is a small chunk of a commodity market. They should either ditch the Zune or chuck it out to whatever departments makes the keyboards and the mice. And kill its requirement for it's own special synchronisation software and marketplace. Apple can get away with that because of their marketshare, Microsoft can't given that they also supply the synchronisation software that everyone else uses with their OS, that nearly everybody uses.
That all said, from a brand positioning point of view it might make sense for the shareholders to keep the XBox. If they kill that then will Microsoft have any meaningful quantity of fans? The whole world sitting every day through Windows, Office and Outlook simply because of a lack of alternatives isn't going to last forever and Microsoft are going to need to appear something other than stodgy and belligerent.
...seems to come directly from folks that havent seen one let alone used one.
Some basic points -
1. The sound quality is superb. Head to Head-Fi, most folks agree its one of the very best.
2. The UI is actually far quicker and easier to use.
3. The software is pretty damn good and (bizarrly) for a MS product isnt bloated like its rival.
4. The leap year bug was the fault of the Freescale chip, not any coding on MS part.
5. Sales will drop if your market is not world wide.
6. If you dont market it, sales will drop.
7. Zune gets regular free updates that include actual features that Zune users ask for!
8. The Zune Store is a far better model than the Apple Store.
9. The hardware is more robust and doesnt pull scratches out of the air.
10. If MS makes crap hardware, what are all those Mice/webcams and Kboards doing?
11. I havent seen ANY DRM on my Zune ever. My Gf has been infuriated many times by the DRM on her Shuffle.
12. I dont think MS ever regarded the Zune as a takeover product for the iPod. I like the competition, its good.
13. Due to the regular updates being for ALL models I dont feel obliged to buy a new one every new release.
14. After having a iPod, Zen, Archos 404, I've finally found the player that works for me.
The main problem for the Zune is the marketing folks. The hardware, software etc. is all there and its got good really quick. I just dont understand the marketing, or lack of.
Well well.. when you don't have a monopoly in a segment, things are a little different, eh? You can't just poop out something mediocre and expect it to fly off the shelves because most people don't know they have a choice.
It's not just the iPod, there are lots of viable competitors to the brown monstrosity. It's a perfectly competent player, though ugly and boring- but a lot of people got burned by Microsoft-based media players before. "Plays for sure", nuff said. The fact that people are demanding DRM-free files pretty much kills any future MS monopoly play based on device lock-in in the portable music player sector anyway.
The fact that only Americans has them, and don't understand why the rest of the world finds them hilarious when they encounter one is another sign that Microsoft's marketing failed, too, of course.
It's hard to imagine a less "cool" bit of kit, or a less exciting one. Ironic, as there are far worse Microsoft products.
The reasons why the Walkman died aren't really relevant to the iPod. The WM was a good brand in its day, but cassettes were on their way out. So they came up with the Mini Disc, but nobody was interested.
The only way the iPod will run into problems is if digital music becomes obsolete. I can't see that happening any time soon, and the iPod is in a far better position to evolve than Sony ever was.
I'm not sure about "the iPod is just a brand with no compelling reason to buy". Come on - the iPod Touch is THE best music player on the market. No question.
Don't turn your nose up at branding - branding is everything in this market, but when it's coupled with good products it's unstoppable. People may complain about the price and following the crowd, but the iPod lineup is made up of very very good products.
I got myself a Creative Zen because I am genetically programmed not to lock-step with the crowd. Because I want to listen to classical music, I didn't fancy how iPods worked. Creative Zen needs to be wrestled into the ground not to mess up the order of, say, concerto movements, but at least Zen doesn't flog me a store, nor lock me into anything. It's small, it works OK, and with my own headphones, a pleasant addition to long-distance flights.
Now if I could find an MP3 player that understood something other than pop albums and singles, I would beat path to door.
I own a 120GB zune and am very happy with its integration into the zune pc software. The zune marketplace has 80% of its songs as mp3s. Also for $15 a month you can download and listen to any song in its marketplace (rental) and also purchase 10 songs each month for free. This gives the zune a unique advantage to the ipod. Unfortunately MS is not advertising ths aspect of the zune. As others have said, it is only available for now in the US
Agree completely with Jason's comments. My son has an 80GB current gen Zune and loves it dearly. He escaped the firmware brick issue of a week or two ago and has had zero other problems with it. The sound quality is superb, the stock earbuds that come with it are more than decent, etc, etc, ad nauseum. Price was the ONLY reason I didn't get a Zune for myself. If, as several have suggested, MS would just lower the price it would be seriously competitive.
As for myself, I prefer the flash-based models because I don't carry around my entire library at any given time. Therefore, the one other thing I'd like to see on (the flash-based model) Zunes is an expansion slot like that on most of the Sandisks. Rather than buy a new unit, I just added an 8GB microSD to my Sansa View and doubled its capacity for about US$25. For that reason alone, I remain loyal to the Sandisks.
Sure Sara, you deleted the 30 odd messages that refered to the article's typo.
But some (at least mine) were a whole lot of relevant subject commentary with one sentance devoted to chiding the typo. So either my observations about the lack of a Zune-ecosystem for products and the lack of MS's integration of Zune with their mobile phone OS were terribly off-topic and irrelevant, or you just deleted any posts that had even a single line of criticism about the type.
Touchy touchy...
if MS axes the Zune division, I will be tremendously disappointed. Show me any music service that even comes close to Zune Pass, and I might reconsider my stance. The fact is, the Zune is a worthy competitor vs. other music players in its category (such as iPod classic) by itself. But with the addition of Zune Pass, there's simply no competition. Unfortunately for Microsoft, people are slow to adopt the subscription model, partly because no one knows how good it is.
It sounded crap (better than a Ipod thou), it looked clunky, and the menus were sluggish and bland. I sold it and bought a Sony NWZ-A729 16GB, and I couldn't be more pleased, It wins on every front, it sounds fantastic, it looks great, the UI is responsive, and there is no DRM in sight (MP3, Unprotected AAC and WMA, and music can be loaded via Explorer, WMP or MediaMoney), it even works in Linux... If only Sony did a 32GB model, then it would be perfect.
I have an imported Zune (I'm form the UK), and have used both the Zune and iPod side by side. Honestly I can't see why so many uninformed people are slagging it off?!
Compared to the iPod it has better sound quality, clearer screen, more intuitive controls (why go clock-wise for down!?!?!?!?!), the software is easier to use than iTunes, It doesnt bug you with DRM crazed sync issues, It supports more formats (excluding own-brand formats).
Sure, the first gen (30GB) version had issues. But then who hasnt heard of iPods breaking down. My ex-girlfriends iPod locked up and had to be sent off for a solid month to be fixed. Most my 80GB Zune had was a firmware glitch, fixed by reset and automatic update. 5min vs. 4weeks.... you do the maths!
The reason iPod outsell all other brands is because of the branding! People dont go out to buy an MP3 player, they want an iPod! Why? Because they fixate on the brand that shouts the loudest, not the most appropriate player for their needs.
What about iRiver? Very good player died due to ignorant public.
People need to look at what technology is available and pick sensibly, not just wander zombie-like towards the bright lights of Apples minimalist shops
The on-screen Interface to the Zune is beautiful and much, much better than the original iPod's. BUT the case is big and chunky and you can't get past the first impression it is an inferior iPod clone.
But the real killer was the iPhone / iPod Touch transformed the market; with nothing similar, Zune just looked old fashioned.
I do like the twin-shot moulding process that gives the case two colours. Shame it wasn't utilised by a company with any taste. I mean - brown???
Ignorant people? Hmm, people who diss the iPod and scream how things like iRivers or Zunes have splendid sound quality generally have cloth ears, and aren't the sort who had to take their iRiver back to the shop, after racking the damn thing up on the bench and pumping the obligatory sines through it to calculate the SNR.
Being able to hear in decent headphones when you switch the player on, even while walking along a busy road=Fail. Being able to take it back to the shop, invoke the sale of goods act, and then provide documents detailing the SNR of the equipment, comparing it unfavourably to a cheap FM radio, occasioning an instant refund... priceless.
The iPod stacks up a lot better, actually.
Somebody, anybody, please build a better iPod. Apple need the competition.
- A 240Gb version
- Built in radio
- No DRM, no ties to iTunes
- User replaceable batteries
- Ogg support
- USB Host support
and so on. And just sell it as a bit of USB connected consumer hardware, not as the centre of some notional music-video ecosystem.
But it's clearly not going to be Microsoft.
I'd rather have MS kill the XBox, its reputation is bad and the only reason they're still selling is because they've slashed the prices... which also means they're *losing* money on the turd. I'd rather have SEGA or even Atari reviving consoles than MS bringing out another console.
However, the Zune... well... meh. My old SE W300 was enough for me, as well as my current Blackberry 8300. I don't need a shiny mp3 player so I can get mugged. But still, I do like the idea of MS *attempting* to beat Apple on the mp3 player biz.
Mine's the one with the DualShock 3...
Zune fulfils a need from Microsoft's point of view. They need a pit into which to dump money in order to place themselves in a lower tax bracket. Plausible Deniability for the fact that they are making money.
What I can't understand is why there was never a market glut of cheap cassette players styled to look something a bit like a scaled-up iPod .....
Apple's iPhone and every iteratioin of their iPod flew of the shelves during the holiday shopping season.
I understand that many Zune owners like what they own. This doesn't mean that the Zune is better or worse than the iPod/iPhone. It also doesn't mean the the iPhone/iPod is better or worse than the Zune.
What this DOES mean is that many milions more people were willing pay for the iPhone/iPod as compared to any other -- and usually cheaper -- product on the market during what in my opinion is an economic depression.
You can fight words. You can fight the government. But you can't fight facts...unless, of course, you're mentally disturbed.
@zenkaon
That's because it's not officially sold over here. I got mine for £99 a long time ago.
Even now I can't replace it with an iPod of similar spec without spending double the money.
They really need to sort the software out though. Stop tying it down to a PC with so many system files so a portable version could be used. Sort out the syncing issues (which it keeps saying it has fixed..)
Most of all sort out the stupid ID3 tag problems, fussiest app I have ever used EVER. Got a compilition album? Oh that must be 40 seperate albums then..
The Zune can be saved if MS does the following:
1) Upgrade the video codec to include DivX - then I could play my recorded TV shows on it without the lengthy conversion
2) Allow it to be managed with Windows Explorer, like my other MP3 players can
3) Allow it to be used as a USB hard disk
4) Scrap the Zune Social
5) Parner with Amazon as a source of content
6) Make it work with iTunes!!!
I actually like my Zune better than my iPod - but I'm a geek :-)
Cheers.
Bill
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
