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Microsoft Zune MP3 Player Interface Revealed
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Thu Aug 17, 2006 11:01 PM
from the monkey-see-monkey-try dept.
from the monkey-see-monkey-try dept.
bain writes to tell us that iLounge has put up details on the Zune, Microsoft's MP3 player. According to the article, "Zune is a bit bigger than a standard 30GB iPod, and apparently made entirely of plastic." Interestingly, Microsoft forgoes a touch-sensitive scrollwheel in favor of wheel-shaped buttons. Included are WiFi capabilities, an FM tuner, and (in stark contrast to the iPod) a white-on-black color scheme. The 30GB model is expected to sell for $300.
This story selected and edited by LinuxWorld editor for the day Saied Pinto.
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Technology: Microsoft leaks Zune Details in FCC filing 274 comments
cnet-declan writes "One of my colleagues at CNET News.com has picked up on a filing that Microsoft made yesterday with the FCC. Our article reports that Microsoft's Zune media player (the iPod rival discussed before on Slashdot) is going to have features such as creating mobile social networks and streaming music to nearby friends or strangers. It's going to support the 802.11b and 802.11g wireless standards, have a 30GB hard drive, support music, movies, and photos, and have a 3-inch screen. Is this finally enough to unseat Apple?"
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The one thing missing (Score:5, Insightful)
The one thing missing for Microsoft, is panache. There's nothing hip or cool aboug having some music device from a giant corporation. Without that certain cachet of having something from a company which makes very stylish computers and operating systems and got U2 on board.
It could say Ronco on it for all the Microsoft connection will be good for. It'll sell to some who want to experiment beyond the bounds of iPodness, but with that plastic case and wheel-like buttons it says WalMart-chic all over it.
Of course, we can't discount the notion that Microsoft might further piss-off the EU and risk a severe look from US trustbusters, by bundling some shit into Windows Vista which only works with the Zune and means you have to have one to get those Zune-casts...
Smells like another waste of money from a company that just doesn't understand that they are only profitable at a few things and should stop this kind of nonsense. FFS, who are they trying to be, the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation? [wikipedia.org]
They'll get 100% of the market, all right. (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it stands a chance of being clearly superior to all the other iPod wannabes, and basically wipe up their market-share and send them into some other line of work, particularly because of the WiFi feature, but there's just nothing compelling about it that would displace the iPod.
I have no doubt that Microsoft will capture close to 100% of the market: but the "market" for this device is "MP3 players other than iPods."
Parent
Re:They'll get 100% of the market, all right. (Score:5, Insightful)
I have no doubt that Microsoft will capture close to 100% of the market: but the "market" for this device is "MP3 players other than iPods."
Actually, they won't have the cellphone-mp3 player, PSP/other portable video game-mp3 player or cheep mp3 player market, either. They aren't simply a late entry into THE market, they're a late entry into a NICHE
Parent
Re:They'll get 100% of the market, all right. (Score:5, Interesting)
In ten years that will be virtually the entire market. There will be a few hundred makers and they'll be so cheap they'll be selling them in drug stores at the counter for pocket change.
Whoever controls the codec wins.
KFG
Parent
Re:They'll get 100% of the market, all right. (Score:5, Insightful)
(Although, I wonder what the economic impact will be for the explosion of new sites devoted to Zune hacking....)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:They'll get 100% of the market, all right. (Score:5, Funny)
Dime to a dollar that 48 hours after the Zune in released that someone will have figured out how to use a Zune as a Yet Another Vector for infecting wi-fi enabled Windows machines with malware.
Parent
Re:They'll get 100% of the market, all right. (Score:5, Informative)
Duh, patents. They didn't "forgo", they "prevented a giant lawsuit they were sure to lose."
Parent
Re:The one thing missing (Score:5, Funny)
Some day we'll teach the Apple folks this lesson.
Parent
Re:The one thing missing (Score:5, Insightful)
But you're right, Apple has perpretrated a pretty impressive deception. In fact, it is the ultimate marketing coup : a multi-billion dollar company masquerading as a marginalized, under-appreciated underdog. It works quite well - how else to get the too-cool-for-school, indie, emo, anti-conformist crowd to buy their mass-media-oriented, incredibly trendy device? I'm starting to think all those years of stagnant sales, bad management, and being tethered to a virtually ignored platform are paying off. That's what fostered this image. It's a text-book case study on how to form a brand.
Moreover, this is a winning attitude that we see everywhere. After all, it's how people get elected, too. Make people think you are a little guy, fighting against a greater, unflagging, oppressive evil - even if you are the Man - and not only do they let their guard down, they're on your side almost immediately(witness: the bombastic "Star Wars" take-off the Republicans did at one of their conventions, framing the Democrats as the dark Imperial forces and themselves as the Rebel Alliance. Or the multi-millionaire cable executive Ned Lamont in the recent Democratic primary. )
They won't be able to keep up this facade forever. For almost a year now, everywhere I turn I see an iPod. Even though I myself own one, it's starting to make me resentful. Do people have to be entertained every minute of the day? How much of our life are we willing to spend on distractions?
Apple has to be weary of becoming disconnected - of pitching products *at* people rather than *to* people. Microsoft does the former, especially with Xbox and Zune. They are obviously grasping at markets they have no business being near. I think Apple is less evil, though - or maybe not, judging by the recent accounting scandal. Anyway, Apple doesn't want to go that route. Of course Jobs and his marketing department have mastered the art of the opposite - making people think that Apple furthers their individualism and self-expression, their person-hood. Apple's ads talk to you as people instead of as commodities. They've even gone so far as to anthropomorphize computers, as if to emphasize(or invent) the humanity sequestered in all this sterile circuitry. You're getting a friend, not just a tool. It's aesthetic genius - all geared towards delivering another channel for the mainstream recording industry to reach you with their over-produced crap. So I doubt Apple's music-player monopoly will go away unless some court or legislation tears down their partial vertical integration with ITMS.
Have they sold out? Is this something we want to preserve even if it is deceptive? Maybe. I have no problem with big corporations as long as they don't start unduly influencing our public policies. I do however like it when gigantic corporations see the importance of talking to their customers as if they were human beings and not wallets - or at least pretending to. Google does this. Apple does this. It's great - but we mustn't let our guard down. If it's not too late.
Parent
Re:The one thing missing (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess you don't remember when having a Sony walkman was a big thing. Sony being a giant corporation.
It's all about how the brand is managed.
Parent
Re:No Marketing versus Established Product Line (Score:5, Funny)
There's no buzz about Zune. Microsoft will need a significant and unique advertising campaign to make this thing sell.
So .. Rolling Stones again?
you make a grown man cryyyy...
Parent
Re:high (Score:4, Funny)
Just ain't normal for a FP
Bless Linus [i-bless.com]
Parent
Scroll Wheel (Score:3, Interesting)
The other Scroll Wheel (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The other Scroll Wheel (Score:5, Interesting)
To be precise: the wheel was a cylinder right where the 4-way keys usually are (clamshell phone), about 1,5cm wide and maybe 8mm in diameter, in a horizontal direction. You could roll it and click it just like a mouse wheel, and had two extra buttons on either side for left-right clicking. It also had just the right feel, not too tight, but not too loose either, so you wouldn't accidentally misclick like you do with some cheap mice. Scrolling along lists was never easier.
Parent
Cylinder? I think you're on to something (Score:5, Funny)
Holy crap, you're right. But---get this----what if we mounted it upright on (i.e., normal to) the music player's surface? Then you could reach out, maybe with your thumb and forefinger, and ... I don't know, rotate the thing? Twist it? "Turn" it?
I could totally imagine this on the front of music players everywhere for volume control and maybe to select between different wireless "channels" (TODO: figure out how to modulate multiple streams of music in a band of EM radiation).
Actually, this could be even bigger! We could use these kinds of controls in any situation where fine-tuning and coarse-grained adjustment are necessary (say, on microscopes), or really on any kind of mechanism where the act of turning the control can be made to do useful mechanical work (TODO: maybe this can be used on water faucets? doors? something like that).
I'm stuck on a name for this physical, continuously-variable, cylindrical widget. Any ideas?
Parent
Good to go (Score:5, Funny)
* More space than a Nomad
Raging success I'd say!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
UI pics (Score:5, Insightful)
Those photos make for a good story but likely have very little to do with Zune.
-r
Cheap bastards.... (Score:4, Funny)
Steve: Well, Bill, what successful thing is there left in the market that we *HAVENT* ripped off?
Bill: Umm... There's the PSP, and the DS...
Steve: The team is way ahead of you bill, they've already got a Xbox360M in the works!
(Just my speculation, of course)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft PR (Score:5, Funny)
I don't get it (Score:5, Interesting)
I think Apple should develop a random product, say an iToaster Oven, just to see if MS will follow suit...
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
To sell DRM technology. ACC is the target, not the silly iPod thingy, but they've done ok with mice, keyboards, joysticks, etc.
KFG
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Because they can... (Score:5, Insightful)
They can afford to take a few punts to see what works.
If I was an investor, I'd be pretty pleased with this (well,
actually I'd be more pleased if they paid some dividends or
got their stock price up, but hey... this aint bad).
All power to them - they want to create a complete
home entertainment experience, and this is an essential part
of the pie.
Signed
A happy iPod owner.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
However by branching out they can find new markets to get into, they branched out into an office suite market that was dom
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Their entry into the wireless market kinda sucked because they were so late, but had they of tried that a few years earlier we probably don't have Linksys or Netgear
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Funny)
An MS Toaster Oven is the last thing the world needs. God knows how convoluted the process would be to toast a simple piece of bread.
1. Welcome to the Microsoft (TM) Toasting Wizard. What are you toasting today?
2. What type of bread?
3. Microsoft (TM) Toasting Wizard is searching for "Dempster's white bread"...
(little animated magnifying glass on globe icon)
4. Toasting Wizard could not find your bread. Please make sure you've typed the type of bread correctly and try again.
5. Wizard Completed!
Toasting Wizard was quit by user before toasting was complete.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Explain to me how in any sense this is a business success to the shareholders?
Now all they need is music (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a feeling they'll get thousands of people buying these things. They'll get them home, try to install them, not be able to get music to upload, or the thing will crash all the time, or their PCs won't be able to see it when it's plugged in. Pack it up, take it back, and just go spend the $300 on something that actually works.
Nice thing about this is Apple will probably lower the price of the 30GB iPod to $250 just to stick it to MS. Then I'll dump my mini and finally get a video iPod.
Re:Now all they need is music (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Now all they need is music (Score:5, Informative)
I don't quite know how you define 'easy', but it's certainly not how I do, and I'd imagine not very close to Webster, either. I hated iTunes for the longest time, too, but at least I was never in denial about how my old process sucked. I'm not meaning to flame you here, but iTunes has been the best thing to happen to my music library since the MP3 format. Videos are another story, but I can deal with that (or, rather, just avoid it)
Parent
Re:Now all they need is music (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm an iPod guy cos I've got a mac, but if I just wanted to play some OGGs and FLACs, iRiver would be the way to go.
Parent
Re:Now all they need is music (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry, anyone who doesn't want to manually manage a giant music library is an idiot how, exactly?
My point is that most people have a music collection, they have stuff ripped and downloaded, and they have a way of managing it. If they go out and buy an MP3 player, do you think they want a new, completely different program to take over their collection, take over ripping, convert everything to its own format, and make the decisions as to what goes on the player? Or do you think they want to just take their existing collection and copy whatever they want onto the player?
Are you under the impression that iTunes doesn't let you choose what goes on the player? Not only can you do so manually (by having the iPod only sync with certain playlists), but you can do so automatically, by constructing queries (with a few clicks) that create what Apple calls 'smart playlists'. If you have, say, a 4 GB nano, you can have iTunes automatically select 1 GB of one genre of music, with your top-rated songs, two gigs of music by a list of four specific artists, and top things off with another gig of music that you haven't listen to much, based on the play count.
Apple has done a very good job of offering both ease-of-use and power-user features in iTunes. And yes, I think to get these benefits, many people are more than willing to switch from whatever they were using before. (And this typically doesn't require format conversion -- Apple doesn't consider MP3 a second-class format which needs to be converted to AAC; it's natively supported by iTunes and the iPod).
Parent
Black and white??? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Black and white??? (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Microsoft has come up with one original feature (Score:3, Funny)
trust Microsoft to... (Score:3, Insightful)
b) bring out something with more features and is the hardware equivalent of bloatware
c) As the wi-fi feature only works with other Zune models it seems pretty pointless to have such a feature until it becomes popular enough for this feature to be worth including
d) be more expensive than the competition
But... (Score:4, Funny)
What the hell? (Score:4, Insightful)
I am not sure what this guy is on to here. While it is very wise commenting for any music player from a company like Creative or iRiver, this is just dumb. Microsoft already told people it will market this thing even at a loss. Although I doubt it's going to be as cool as what we're likely to see in the next iPod, I think it is very safe to say that a lot of people will buy this thing. A lot of people speculated this way about the Xbox, but that one turned out great if you ask me. Say all you want, but Microsoft is very successful with hardware. They sell a lot of keyboards, mice, Xboxes and probably also mp3 players.
It is difficult to speculate what Apple has to offer on their next generation of iPods, besides the very large touch screen that has been rumored for so long. Honestly though, I have two iPods next to me that I've stopped using many months ago. I have the latest generation of iPods and the Nano. The big one I don't use because it is simply too big for my taste. I've come to the conclusion that keys, a mobile phone, a wallet and a music player is a lot of stuff at once, and you hardly want to mix the tools because they will just make scratches on the other one (aside from the wallet, which requires its own pocket). So what I did was to get a Nano, but I quickly realized that the small form factor was even offered in phones, so I got a phone with a 6 GB hard drive. Now I'm very happy with that choice. Fewer items to wear in my pockets, less to care about, less to forget, less to charge when I get home.
The summary: I honestly think that cell phones with growing hard drives and flash drive capability are the future. I doubt it would go from mp3 players to phones simply because PDA:s have taken that path with not so much success. It's probably because of the form factor, but also the fact that people want this device to work primarily as a phone, secondarily (yet with ease) as a media player and then every thing else overshadowed. As for businessmen, there are plenty of phone/PDA/media player solutions already, but kids, teenagers and probably a whole lot of other people are probably more and more interested in phones with mp3 capability.
Microsoft will sell Zunes all over the world and I am sure people will buy them. I just don't think Apple and Microsoft can compete with such players as soon as phones increase capacity to 10 GB and with a better interface. I know Nokia is investing in their own music store, so it is a safe to say that we're going to see a lot of new media phones very soon. Bulky players like these will obviously always be there, because some people still prefer large displays and video capability, but I think that larger phones with a large 300 DPI display and 10 GB drive would beat it if it was offered at $300, like Zune and about like iPod.
Let's see... (Score:4, Funny)
The next step... (Score:4, Funny)
MS fanbois, are you out there? (Score:5, Interesting)
So, the question is, is there such a movement - like behind Linux or other subcultures we are familiar with here in Slashdot - for Microsoft products? And now I'm not talking about business software. I'm talking about the passionate young people with ideologies and ideals.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not quite the same, but there are people like that - I work with one of them. Nice guy, but he tends to give Microsoft credit for everything. Such as predicting IE7 will kill Firefox because of its tabs and nifty search box. But thing is, these folks fall into a pretty narrow group - Windo
Just a black iPod (Score:4, Interesting)
If Microsoft can threaten people who put up Gravity Wars clones then I think Apple should threaten Microsoft for creating an iPod clone.
Don't call it an MP3 player (Score:4, Insightful)
I wish one of them (i.e. Microsoft) would just concede to the other and be done with it - let us buy our music from anywhere and play it on any device. Or at least reach a pact where each supports the other's unprotected format, at least allowing some interchange between devices for content people may have ripped for themselves.
OK my head hurts (Score:4, Interesting)
$300? C'mon. I got one of those for one of my kids who HAD to have a video iPod. Guess what - after about a month of squinting he stopped watching videos. Now it's a just a big audio mp3 player. It's nice to have that storage but functionally it's LESS functional; e.g. heavier and more fragile, then my other kid's 4GB nano. So the 'function' tops out at about $129.
Next we come to what I call the Furious Factor. Let's face facts; it's an MS device. It will require gobs-o-hardware which translates to limited battery life. It will probably try to force me to adopt it as a PDA or ignore the duplicative PDA functions.
It will likely ladle on generous scoops of DRM making is useless for most people.
It will likely not interface well with any other MS code let alone the 'other' MS hardware, the Xbox360.
It will likely not interface at all with any high end phone.
It will be over promised and undermanufactured creating instant unavailability.
Re:Love this comment (Score:4, Funny)
Parent