From OLED to Tegra: Five Myths of the Zune HD - Page 13

Except WinCE is by no means desktop Windows with stuff stripped out to make it fit. It's an embedded OS designed around extremely constrained power, memory and CPU conditions. It's not supposed to do any heavy lifting, it's supposed to be small. And it shares no code whatsoever with Windows.

OS X on the iPhone is indeed truncated to meet the needs of the hardware, with a touch optimized UI on top of that. But that's a very different thing than being limited in scope, and Apple can add and subtract the modular bits depending on form factor and the inevitable improvements in hardware. "Leaving off the parts you don't need" doesn't mean "lobotomizing the OS", it just means matching things like I/O and printer drivers and graphics and file systems to the hardware at hand.

This disparity is only going to get more pronounced as phone sized hardware gets every more powerful, and Apple take advantage of every bit of it with their scaleable OS. MS will be in the unenviable position of attempting to bolt on ever more functionality to an OS that was originally written to run on devices that by today's standards were little more than calculators.

This is pretty inacurate. Actually, the background for windows CE is pretty interesting. It is a real time OS and it was design for that purpose. (So you can guarantee that interupts are fired and that drivers not responding properly are sliced out by the kernel, each thread has a fixed amout of time to perform it's tasks, if it doesn't finish in time, the kernel moves on.. )..

Windows CE is modular in the way that it has.. modules.. Like any other semi decent OS on this planet.

I would say that MS actually had an advantage when designing Windows CE, they didn't have that much baggage they had to implement (it still supports quite a bit of the win32 apis though).

I have no CLUE what parts of the OS Apple took out to get it to work on a different platform, but it's normally a little more involved that what you are describing.

To claim that Windows CE is not up to par for a PMP or streaming video or playing games, it a blatant lie. The Zune HD does that now, and windows CE has been doing that for ages.

Read up on the APIs for windows CE. Check out the XNA framwork relased for the Zune HD. Then comeback and point out something it cannot do.

/twospoons.

I have no idea what that means.


Of course it works for you and "the few apps", that's what it's designed for. What happens when you want to cut and paste a line from an email into a doc? Or download an image from a webpage and forward it in an MMS? Or use location services to locate a restaurant, look at the menu, check a map and get a reservation? Does the transition from the map to the reservation app zoom way out, spin around and then land you on a page with "ERSERV" at the top?

I know, MS will just make up some new UI stuff when they need it. Except that's not how operating systems, or at least good operating systems work. Everything needs a coherent, scaleable framework to coexist within. Giant zooming text is not that framework.


Well, the Zune is just the perfect blank slate, isn't it? The hardware "could" do more, the OS "could" do more, the UI "could" do more.

And dude? There isn't any publicly available SDK. But I bet it would be awesome if there were!

If you're trying to make the case that WinCE is the equal to any of the mainstream desktop OSs out there, I'll just have to leave you to that. I mean, good grief.


Good God amighty, are you just determined to derail the conversation with bizarre inversions of everything I say? I never said that WinCE isn't up to par for a PMP or streaming video, I said just the opposite: that that's what it's good for.


I don't have to, we have the actual shipping product at hand and we can see, clearly, what it doesn't do. A lot so speculative hand waving about what it might or could or should pretty soon maybe do is beside the point. The Zune is very clearly not designed as a general purpose device. That doesn't make its dick smaller, for fucks' sake, it's just a design and marketing decision MS made. They want the heavy lifting to be done by WinMo, which, as you know, is also based on WinCE.

But, again, if there's nothing that WinCE can't do, why isn't MS shipping WinCE laptops? Big battery wins, I would think, and certainly no fear of the kind of netbook unfriendly trouble they got in with Vista. So, where are the powerful large WinCE devices?

Funny that you point out the features which JUST came out on the iPhone. Like cut'n paste and MMS. Windows CE could cut'n paste when it came out.. 10 years ago? Seems like forever. MMS is a very old feature for most cell phones.


Hehe. Yep, the iPhone does a lot of great things. Never denied that.


Well, the UI is not the framework, it has CE .net underneat the hood.




http://news.softpedia.com/news/Zune-...e-121823.shtml

Here you go Have fun, it's pretty awsome.

/twospoons.

He’s now comparing a feature that accessed by several of 40 different buttons and a stylus to a touch interface that uses a meaty finger for input. His argument is that they are somehow the same. I gave him the benefit of the doubt before, but his logic (or lack there of) is just getting more and more ridiculous.

Palm has had cut and paste on their devices for longer and yet the Pre has very limited cut and paste features. Imagine that? it’s like it’s different somehow. I think I’ll have to put on my ignore at this point.

Are you serious? Cut'n paste is somehow a genious feature? My Amiga 500 from 1987 called dibs on it. Not sure how using a stylus is so different from using a finger.

This review shows the Zune HD display in sunlight. Completely washed out.

http://www.suntimes.com/technology/i...091609.article

Who cares? What people see is the interface and the applications. Many of the Zune's apps suck, but that's because of the ads they force you to watch. But it seems to play music and videos as well as the touch, and that's what people buy these things for.

The XBox 360 runs a PowerPC build of Windows NT. Who cares?

(Begins to weep softly)

One more time. People buy the Touch for a lot more than its ability to play music and video. People will certainly buy the Zune for its ability to play music and video, because that's pretty much all it can do. That's the point. The WinCE underpinnings are well matched for playing music and video. The WinCE underpinnings are not well matched for the kind of scaleable, desktop derived OS that runs on the Touch. That's. The. Point.

I don't know if people care. I don't care if people care. I don't care. I'm just making a point about the relative strengths of the two platforms, and what it means for their prospects going forward. I don't have religious feelings about Windows CE, OS X, or Power PC builds of Windows freaking NT. Jesus.

Same problem I had at the fotball field with my iPhone today. None of these devices are great in direct sunlight.

/twospoons

Is that so?

I remember very clearly the iPod launch. I bought one on the first day of its launch here in Hong Kong.

Please name one other MP3 player at the time the iPod was launched that was anywhere near the size of the iPod, with 5GB of capacity. Just one.

There weren't any. At. All.

The iPod was the first player that got the size/capacity equation right. Full stop. And that's why it sold. Not because of marketing.

It took a very long time for other players to catch up with that size/capacity sweet spot, and when they finally did, it was the software and interface that kept the iPod on top.

As for the Zune being a music player, and the iPod touch not concentrating on music, I'll say something here...

As a music player, and only a music player, the Nano and the Classic beat both the Touch and the Zune by leaps and bounds. You don't need a touch screen to do music, and it actually becomes a serious hindrance. I'd love to see a test where a Classic user and a Zune user go head to head and are asked to find and play ten tracks consecutively, and perform various tasks like pausing at certain intervals, going back, going forward, etc., while multitasking (like reading a stock ticker on the television, for instance). Under such a situation, the interface of the Classic and the Nano wins hands down.

Ok, where to start.

1) I never claimed that WinCE is a desktop OS. That's your words. It is designed for a different type of architecture with different needs. So, why don't you install the iPhone OS on your mac laptop? That would a completely retarded thing to do. These OSes are tuned for the specific tasks they are doing. Windows CE supports some 180 different CPUs, all of them targeted at smaller devices and embedded devices.

2) OSX on the iPhone is NOT a regular OSX. If you did a little digging you will find out that you can't just upload OSX to any platform and make it run. You have to recompile every binary for that hardware. You have to REDO the kernel. If you notice the iPhone kernel multitasks poorly. That's completely different from a standard OSX kernel.

The reason for poor multitasking is simple; it's a hell of a lot easier to redo a syncronous kernel than make it a full blown multitasking kernel. (The Zune actually multitasks pretty well in comparison)

And you can't just ADD shit from OSX to the iPhone OS. IT requires it to actually WORK on that plattform. It's different hardware.

In addition you need to add support for GSM and other phone functions which is NOT part of the OSX core. Even the UI framework on the iPhone is different than OSX.

If I were to venture a guess, they started with a slimmed down build of FreeBSD, added phone support. Redid the kernel for ARM. And added a new UI layer with touch support.
Or perhaps there was already a FreeBSD version which worked with ARM cpus' and they just added some flavour to it.

You claimed that WindowsCE is inferior to the OS on iPhone. I asked you to list some features missing from WindowsCE which is in the OS on iPhone. Since you cannot do that, I assume that you just made it up.

Remember, an APPLICATION is not the OS. Even though there are applications on the iPhone which does not exist on the Zune HD, that doesn't mean that you cannot write similar apps for Windows CE.

Dude, just look at the Windows CE APIs and you will know that you arguments are really weak.

/twospoons.

As a recovering Apple fanboy, I can comment a bit on this.

I just got the Zune HD and like it better than the Touch, but I'm one that could care less about the apps. I want something that can play music and videos. Having a few games, a calculator, etc is fine. But if I want something small that can do computing then I'll go get a netbook. Sure, it's bigger than the iPod Touch, but so much easier to get things accomplished with.

The voice controls are terrible, just as they are on my phone. Besides, if they were so good then why even both with the touchscreen expense.

As for the Zune HD's display, it's lightyears beyond anything Apple is using. Yes, in direct sunlight it is washed out, just like the Touch. But it has no problem unless there's a ton of sunlight shining on it. My old MacBook, iMac, and iPods all had the same issues.

The Zune sounds better, looks better, and feels smaller.

And the big plus is that it doesn't use iTunes. iTunes works well on the Mac, but on the PC it causes numerous blue screens because Apple has done such a poor job programming it. It's the main reason I decided to ditch the iPod. I stopped buying Macs because they don't have what I want at a reasonable price and I love Windows 7, but iTunes is notorious on the Windows end for its problems.

If you love the apps then the iPod Touch is for you. Though I believe I read something that only 11% of users of the iPhone and Touch actually regularly use their apps. Most get ignored a week after download. Great tool to drive Apple profits and squeeze more money out of their customers, but I'm not sure how dedicated the average Touch user is to the apps.

Please allow me to clarify as I always respect what you have to say.

I wasn't talking about posters, especially the regulars, nor did I mean in any way to impugn or stereotype the mentality of any portion of the Apple Insider community, e.g., imply that anyone or any segments "sound like 12 year olds."

I simply don't think the f-bomb's appropriate in a site which is open to kids, or at least with no notice that it contains "mature content," and It's well-known that many young people are avidly into computing - many with skills and chops I'll never have at any age, and there are doubtless at least some reading the forums - and whether that's 10 or 100 or 10,000, and whether they hear it all the time elsewhere or not, or use it themselves already, I stand by my opinion that we therefore have some responsibility to curb our language in how we express our opinions here however strongly we hold them - on a site parents trust to let their kids pursue their interests.

E.g, I know for a fact that Leo Laporte moderates his chat rooms and forums just for this reason.

Context: It's somewhat ironic for me to be the bluenose here as I'm a performing spoken word artist and much of my material is R-rated. However I only do the R-rated stuff in r-rated venues, and if I do, say a reading at a Barnes and Noble, I tone the material down to PG-13. I've also done workshops in elementary schools and obviously I did only G stuff. There's a time and place for everything.

So that said, if you think I'm still out of bounds, I'd listen to why.....

Macs used PCIx as well for a few years. Nice to know you have an old, obsolete machine around.

Yes, we had PCIx raid controllers, sound cards, tuners and the rest.

Of course, modern machines don't use PCIx, they use Express.


Well then, you must be unique.


You think you're a really funny guy.


I don't believe a word you have to say. I'll match my knowledge against yours any day, and we'll check your Wiki abilities. I don't need them.

It was the way you stated it. Whether or not you meant it that way, it came off as though you were saying that many people here (Mac users) are under 12, indicating that a large part of the Mac community is composed of children under 12, and thus not being able to think like adults. That's a between the lines reading, but that's what it read like.

I always, if I see it, or it's brought to my attention, delete offensive words from posts, though I'm not a blue nose either, because there are younger folks who come here. Even if they didn't, it's still open enough to be considered to an extent, a family site, and many people don't like seeing offensive language in public posting. It also remains on the record, and do people really want that?

All I need, if I'm not in a thread to see for myself, or enter later, is a private post requesting a removal, or one can be made to the mods in general.

Yeah, my bad. I meant PCI express.


No, it takes about average IQ to be able to install an OS. About 95% of the worlds population has it figured out. But, if I were to guess; I'm pretty sure you've never installed Vista.


I LOLED.


So, you don't believe I have several Apple products as well as the Zune? Or are you saying that you are better at judging the quality of a product on paper w/o even owning it?

Anyways, your knowledge seems to surpass that of most humble human beings. Congrats.

/twospoons

Why you say that, I don't know. That assumes everyone that uses Windows has installed it for themselves, which isn't true. You don't need to install Windows in order to be able to use it, you just buy the computer and Windows is usually already installed. That said, I don't think Windows is that hard to install, it's a bit much to presume most computer users have done it for themselves.

Not only that, there are estimated to be just over a billion computers in use and over a six billion people, I doubt more than 25% of the world's population has used a computer.

I don't understand how you could have confused PCIx with PCIe if you really knew computers as well as you say. You can't just blindly throw out acronyms, they mean something, and they aren't hard to get right in the first place, especially if it's your passion.

I've installed every PC OS going back to PCDOS 1. How about you? I've also installed OS's for Digital Equipment VAX's. How about you? I learned my first computer language, Fortran IV, in 1966 while in HS. How about you?

If you want to get into that kind of contest, you'll lose.

Very few people owning PC's have ever installed their OS, and when they do, it's often not that easy. But if you've ever done so, you would know. Try installing Win 7 on an XP machine. Have fun saving all your info first. I've had the pleasure of doing it on four machines now. Can't wait until the public gets its hands on it.


Good. Perhaps you do have a sense of humor.


I don't particularly believe what you say about them.


You don't act humbly.

And you couldn't get Vista installed?
(footnote, Alpha deserved a better destiny)

Never done fortran, I did Cobol, assembly (motorola 68000), Turbo Pascal, Borland Delphi, C, C++, and now mostly c#. I know a few things about a computer. The "I know more than you contest" seems somewhat immature.


That duration of that process is dependant on how much data you have. Most people recommend a clean install which takes about 15-30 minutes. All your old files will be dumbed into windows.old so you can always copy them over.

How long did it take to upgrade from Mac OS 9 to OSX?


So, you don't believe that OLED is more vibrant in colors?

/twospoons.

Yeah, my argument there was referring to the households with a computer, not the general population. I'm pretty sure most people can figure out how to insert a CD/DVD and answer yes a few times and type their name.


I made a mistake, I'm only human.

/twospoons.

Did I say anywhere that I couldn't install Vista? No, I didn't. What I said, as we know very well from the fiasco from when Vista first came out, was that it couldn't install on many machines that were one year old, and that only the cheapest Home version could install on many newer machines. You just might remember the problems both MS and Intel had over that. With MS certifying machines that couldn't run a version with Aero Glass as being able to run the "full Vista Experience" because Intel asked them to.


I didn't start it. You did.


The average person will get stuck at the warning that their data will be overwritten. It won't get done at all.


About 45 minutes, without having to move and reinstall programs and data, which will be required at least in part, going from XP to 7.


OLDs have advantages, and disadvanteges right now. In a year or so, they will be much better.

Right now, their advantages are better blacks most of the time. Much better view-ability at angles from the center.

More vibrant colors? Well, I've seen a bunch of OLED screens, and it depends. What I've noticed is that the darker blacks make the colors seem to be brighter on graphics. But in videos, maybe, maybe not.

I've noticed in videos that shadows can be more blocked up than with LCDs. Not the fault of the OLED per se, but because they're encoded using standards that don't expect dead black.

Highlights can also end up washing out more.

What I've seen, which is why I have some problems believing some of what you say, is that my iPhone outdoors, can, as long as the day is cloudy, look almost as good as it does indoors. On very bright days, it's almost washed out, but I can still read it if I use my hand to shield it. The OLEDS I've seen are washed out even under clouds. I would rate my phone as being noticeably better.

Unless the Zune has an OLED that is much better than those, and all of the reviews are wrong, can't perform as well outdoors as my phone.

As I say, in a year or so, they will be much better.

I've never run into that issue. The Aero Glass you can disable in Vista anyways..
The mac upgrade story from PPC to Intel wasn't exactly perfect either.


Let me quote you; "I don't believe a word you have to say. I'll match my knowledge against yours any day, and we'll check your Wiki abilities. I don't need them."


Agree, they need to change the wording on that screen, it looks like it's about to wipe all your data, when infact it doesn't.



Let me quote you again "Personally, I'd LOVE to get an AMOLED display. I'm all in favor of it. All we're disagreeing about is the cost and the efficiency, not the concept."

I do agree that it is not as bright as the iPhone outside, but it doesn't prevent you from being able to use it.

/twospoons.

It was Aero Glass that people wanted. It was what Ms was showing off as their biggest improvement after all the things they dropped from it when they were calling it Longhorn.

So yes, people were ticked they couldn't run it.

Nothing is totally perfect. But going from 9 to OS X wasn't difficult.


As I said, you started this, a quote from you:

"I know the standard wikipedia stuff anyone can look up, but what's different from me and you, is that I actually have both devices and speak from experience. I guess hearsay and guessing is better."


That's one of the difficulties. You still have to reinstall much of it, and put your data back.


I am in favor of it. I should have added that I hoped it would be ready now.

OLEDs are the future of mobile devices, at least. I'm not arguing that.

Quite True...

I'm standing outside, in the intensely bright Las Vegas afternoon sun, holding my ZUNE HD in one hand and my (3rd Gen) iPod Touch in the other, and though the Touch is more visible in direct sunlight (though pixelated), when I step into the shade, the ZUNE HD is easily the more legible due to it's much better pixel density.

Personally, this is the condition under which I would have need to look at the screen of my DAP/PMP 99.9% of the time, not with the sun beaming directly on its surface.

When indoors, the overwhelming superiority of the OLED display relegates the LCD/LED -BL display of the Touch completely uncompetitive. It's looks washed-out, faded, dim, pixelated, and like the older technology is obviously is.

Additionally: Apps are all good and well, and it you're fortunate enough to find a few providing a modicum of productivity for the Ipod-line, then I'm happy for you, but for what a media player should do, which is to provide a throughly immersive audio/video experience, the ZUNE HD is vastly superior to the iPod Touch (3rd Generation) in both sound and video reproduction.

Make no mistake, the iPod Touch is a very nice multi-purpose toy for the masses, but the ZUNE HD is much more the specialized/precision personal media device for the more discerning consumer.

There's room for both in today's marketplace...

To the cost of about 21 cents to 51 cents a song, yes, you are right. But that is just the breakdown on those 10 songs. Anything else you buy matches Apple's prices.

More importantly, if you spend $15.00 a month at the iTunes Store you get about 13 songs you can keep and listen to. On the Zune marketplace you get to keep 10 songs and listen to any of their other songs, which is numbered around 3 million.

Not a fair contest. And when Apple finally implements this option on the iTunes store, Apple folks will cheer and state it is a Godsend. Yes, yes, folks will say this won't happen because Apple says so. Just remember Apple also said (3 examples):

1. No video on iPods.
2. No radio on iPods (not needed)
3. No raising of prices on iTunes music.

It will happen. The question is simply when.

I was talking about this on another thread, but it's a good example:

The Post Hoc fallacy seems to be a real favorite when discussing possible moves in the tech industry (Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc, "after this, therefore this"). The fallacy lies in making causal connections between unrelated phenomena, claiming that merely because one thing happens after another that the first thing caused the subsequent thing.

The fact that Apple has not done some things, then subsequently done them, is in no way whatsoever an argument for the likelihood that they will presently do something else.

If it were, I could use the same list of things that Apple didn't do and then did do as "evidence" that Apple will presently release a vacuum cleaner.

Oy Vey!

Most of us don't care if Apple introduces this or not, even if we don't want it for ourselves. The fact that it's unpopular is a good reason why Apple hasn't done it.

But if Apple decides that they want to offer it so as to undermine the rest of what's left of the subscription service market, then that's their decision.

I do think that if Apple did do it, many people who like the idea will move to Apple.

But I won't cheer, because it's not a big deal to me.

I will say in threads about it that I'm happy that those who want it can now get it here.

Most of us have been giving reasons why Apple hasn't done it, but conditions change.

Like the tuner in the Nano. Almost no one buys a different player from someone else because of the lack of a tuner, but Apple has found a way to monetize it, so they've included it. If they think they will find a way to make money on subscriptions, they will include that too. But as no one else has, it may be difficult. This is what Jobs said years ago about it.

The iPhone is great under direct sunlight. Use an OLED screen and see what happens. Your arguments are completely senseless. You're just flogging a dead horse.

o rly? :d

... and how does that make YOU feel?

Embittered from the pain, you say?

iPhone great under direct sunlight? It is useable enough to control it, but frankly, it's not great. For looking at pictures, taking a picture, anything where image quality is desired, it's not very useful.


Is this your personal experience, or are you repeating someone else's impression?

Great? Maybe we have different definitions of the word 'great'. Mine is just a giant mirror if I ever try to use it outside in the sun.

I think I should get a medal or some sort of prize for reading through this enormous thread!

I think I'll go and read a short story now, like the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

One thread to bind them all.

That would have been really funny if you'd got the reference right! lol.. cry..

It's:

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Ring

No it's not great under direct sunlight. None of the small LCDs are.

The Zune HD is okay in direct sunlight. Someone posted the Sun Times article which seems to me to have the Zune HD set on the "low" setting for brightness based on personal experience. I do think the iPod Touch does slightly better in direct sunlight, but the Zune HD does better in all other situations. It is crisper, more vivid, and brighter outside of direct sunlight even on the low setting. I only go to the "high" setting when I'm in direct sunlight, which is not often.

The Zune HD has many other advantages. The UI, surprisingly, is far better than the iPod Touch. The Smart DJ feature, Zune Pass, the HD radio, etc are also great added features. Only thing missing is greater app support which isn't a big deal for me but is for others. Yet I think MS is playing a wait and see game here.

The Zune HD is very likely to surpass all previous Zune sales quickly. It will not come close to the Touch just yet, but it will be the most viable alternative and when MS sees more sales they will invest more in the apps, etc. That will likely cause an increase in sales.

Right now it's funny how the roles are reversed. Apple is playing MS in the PMP market. They are dominate and were innovative to start out but have stagnated a bit. Their UI is stale and they have an enormous marketshare. Microsoft is Apple with a tiny marketshare but the Zune HD has shown the most innovation in the market over the past few years. I don't expect MS to get iPod numbers, but there are enough people dissatisfied with Apple (iTunes is terrible on the PC, which is still dominate) that several million will move to the Zune. A couple million Zune HDs sold by Christmas and MS will be feeling pretty good. That's tiny compared to the hundreds of millions Apple has sold, but Apple is the Goliath here, not Microsoft.

Of course, Apple is getting a lot of negative press lately. They are acting far worse than MS ever did with their monopolistic tendencies. MS has really opened things up while Apple is more controlling than ever. That's why I ditched them. So few choices. You're stuck with whatever Steve Jobs wants to throw you. That grew tiring, especially at the crazy prices.