Microsoft exec says Zune software coming to the Mac - Page 3

You might consider getting a better dictionary then, the adverb "funnily" is listed in all dictionaries I have (including Collins, Oxford, Pons and American Heritage)... you can also find it under section 3. here: http://mw2.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/funnily

HTH

I'm sorry, but this makes absolutely no sense whatsoever .... you let "other Apple users" dictate to you what computer you would use? I have no logical response to such an inconceivable rationale.

It's clear most people here haven't even touched the Zune software and are already dismissing it. Zune is by far much more pleasing to use than iTunes. I for one am extremely glad macs are finally getting it so I don't have to bother with doubletwist anymore (iTunes is so awful I flat out refuse to use it anymore).

Looks like I'll be getting myself an HD7 after all.

deleted

Whatever your view of Office 2008, the reviews of Office 2011 are very posiitive (as are the independent blogs where people have used the beta)

If one's still allowed to have an open mind, then it's actually good to see that Microsoft are still making a big effort to produce a sophisticated and worthwhile release, with some unique features that really make use fo the Mac (Dynamic Reordering needs to be seen live to appreciate what a smart 'Apple like' 3D way to navigate and move document layers and objects..)

Anyway, if you've closed your mind you'll just flame me.. but if you're actually interested in a very worthwhile update - take a look at the reviews.

4.5 Mice - Macworld
http://www.macworld.com/reviews/prod...ml?expand=true

10/10 Trusted Reviews
http://www.trustedreviews.com/softwa...or-Mac-2011/p1

8/10 - ZDnet.

However you do know that putting Mac odd on non approved computer is against the EULA and is what got Pystar sued into oblivon

The problem with being a technological follower, who never really has innovated (microsoft).... is you will eventually get left behind. I see this slowly but surely happening to MS. Their products have SUCKED forever now.... too many back doors with security issues, too many unstable operating systems and applications. They did a great job marketing and screwing people over at all the right times (Netscape)..... but that will only get you so far.... Eventually Open source apps, Linux and Apple just might finally clean their clock. If these guys don't get an original idea soon..... I'd guess we start seeing their market share finally shrink. Zune software for Mac should have been released when they actually put that POS out in the market place. But what is it now? 2 or 3 years later and now they are making this "brilliant" move.

There are some mindsets with Office you have to abandon when moving to iWork apps, remember that Apple is targeting more of a point & click crowd with their apps than shortcuts folks. That being said there are advantages & disadvantages to both

Pages:
Pros - creating professional looking layouts is a super breeze and it is easy to start from a template & adapt it to fit your formatting needs.
Cons - When typing keyboard shortcuts are far more efficient than using a mouse, Apple really needs to work on their shortcuts (for the overall OS X System as well, can we get lock screen shortcut already?!).

Numbers:
Pros - Once I got used to the idea of using the mouse & keyboard together to create complex functions involving other cells I actually find Numbers to be much faster at creating things like expense reports or budget sheets, doing same amount of work I would have done in Excel in about 1/4 the time. Numbers is also way faster than Excel on my Mac when dealing with lots of formulas & changes.
Cons - Functions library still needs more expansion, still some things that it isn't able to easily calculate but in this regard I think I'd rather use OpenOffice over Excel anyway. Some of this could be the functions exist but that I just don't know how to apply them, apps often aren't just limited to what is documented or included in templates.

Keynote:
Pros - presentations are much more professional looking than PowerPoint, very cool animations. Also love that I can easily export whole project to a Video and even burn it to a DVD for environments where I don't have a laptop to showcase from.
Cons - Needs some improvements in the way of themes, here I think PowerPoint has some serious offerings.

Cons for all - Apple products are usually known for their interconnectivity but here I think iWork is still quit infantile, mostly between Numbers & Keynote. They ramp this up and iWork could be really great.

All in all the more I use & learn iWork the more it's destroying some of the old myths I once believed about MS Office being vastly superior. Spending 4 or 5 days dabbling with a software app isn't enough to make you an expert on functionality. I've been using both products for 3 years now & I'm still learning some very cool new things about both. In the last 2 years iWork has really accelerated in my eyes.

Surely that's a result of Apple not having "quality assurance" on the many 100s of PC machines available. They can control the quality of their machines .... but not of their competitors .... a problem not likely to get solved in my lifetime.

I agree with you there, but you cannot blame MS for not allowing/making easy the installation of OSX if Apple itself does not allow it.

More on topic though. My wife uses Zune, and I have to say, it is more visually appealing than iTunes, and I would say easier to navigate, but not by much. We have about 500 GB in media (200 GB in music alone), and both iTunes on my Mac and Zune on the Win 7 machine are slow to load, so there is not much of a difference there.

When I first heard of Zune I thought the subscription service had merit especially since people could keep ten tunes per month. The price of the Zune with lesser functionality compared to others was also a deciding factor in not making a purchase at that time. I looked into iPods too. Since I hesitated on that purchase, because it wasn't a necessity for me, I've decided to not go with an iPod or a Zune.

I've learned about the benefits of open source systems in the interim and I'm moving to Linux. That means I want to have a music player that works on that platform which means no iTunes or Zune.

If Linux weren't my OS of choice I think I'd go with having a Zune Pass if it worked with other portable music players. Having Zune on a Mac should be a cool thing. I saw a video of the updated Zune software for Windows and it looked good and easy to use. If Microsoft can make it just as functional on a Mac then it should be a great competitor to iTunes.

I still own a Mac in addition to an HP using Linux and Vista, otherwise why would I be here?

I agree and I try to have an open mind. I also came into using Pages and Numbers after a solid decade of not using MS Office for anything other than an occasional reading, so I was a pretty clean slate in that regard.

My biggest issue with Pages is making Outlines work for me. MS Office does a much better job of setting up an Outline, IMO.

One niggling issue with Numbers is the inability to shrink text to fit cells like you can on MS Office. The only option I can find is to resize the row or column to fit the text.

Point taken. I thought I had a respectable amount of music .... but I'm not even in the same ballpark as you. Me .... 13,000 items .... 64G .... against your 200G .. no contest. Congrats (did I mention I was jealous?) haha

Well, I am nearly 50, and been an audiophile since I was 12 or 13. When we lived in TX, I had a listening room with Naim electronics and self built speakers. The HT had Rotel gear and Totem Acoustics speakers. When we moved to Hawaii to take care of my in laws, I kept the Rotel and self built speakers and dumped everything else.

The size of the collection is due to the fact that most of it is in a variety of lossless formats like FLAC or Apple Lossless. So the collection itself is only about 21,000 songs.

Wow... MS must be pretty desperate if they seriously need mac users to save their WP7 platform. People buy macs to get AWAY from windows, why should any of us go back, especially when we have a better option (iPhone)?

How many Mac users have bootcamp working? I know I do on my MBP. I am willing to bet that a lot of Mac users still use Windows.

I think it makes perfect sense. Many times I have found myself embarrassed by those around me. It makes me want to disassociate myself from them and whatever they're espousing. I agree completely with this person.

I dont think its that common unless you are playing some Windows game. I think a VM of Windows is more common.

In fact, I went to run VM Ware to use a program only available on Windows right now and found that I didnt have any of the VMs I created or any VM app installed. I dont know when I last had it installed but it has probably been at least a year since Ive used Windows.

The Internet has resolved a lot of the compatibility issues. There isnt a site I access that wont work on Macs or Linux browsers well. I never see IE-only sites that use ActiveX, not even on .gov sites where these were common requirements.

This does make me wonder what Apple will do with Mac OS in the future. The current design is very archaic. The iPad and iPhone has shown us that.

You may be right about VM being more common, but the point still remains that a lot of Mac users still probably have Windows on their machines in one form or another. I do, simply to ensure that Power Point presentations do not get "scrambled" when going from Mac to Windows (although with Office 2011 for Mac, that has not been an issue anymore).

Runs fine on my Mac.

Not by choice and only because I have to. My work still uses WXP. I need both bootcamp and VMware to work from home sometimes. If it wasnt' for that, I'd dump both. Looking forward to the day when I can open my own office and and kiss MS goodbye.

Id think business needs would be the last hold out and it sounds like youre saying you no longer need to pay for the VM app, for Windows and MS Office. Now you can just have Office of Mac without all the extra effort and cost.

Oh, the pressure . . .

Whatever.

Why did they even bother with making it removable? What a bunch of ultra maroons...

Why am I even bothering to rant about it? *Sigh* Micro$oft is as Micro$oft does.

Well....Silverlight seems to be a much better performing product then Flash.

I believe that starting around 10 years of age and up the x-box 360 owns the majority mind share of the gaming population. I hate to say it but I think for the next several years they will own the console gaming market. IMHO.

Sorry, but when you allow "other people" to make up "your mind" about a computer that you already own still makes no sense to me. Getting rid of something because somebody else happens to own the same brand and happens to be someone you, rightly or wrongly, have a low opinion of, seems to me, at least, to suggest some "need for approval" issues .... but hey, that's me ...YMMV!

In the US, maybe, in Europe, Africa and especially Asia. No. The console wars is far different from the PC platform and Microsoft is facing 2 800 pound gorillas in Sony and Nintendo who will have no problem in taking Microsoft on. Also, don't forget that there is a big possible that Apple and soon, Goggle might decide to try get in the game console market. The big question is this, how long can the Halo franchise carry the X-box platform against the Playstation and Nintendo platforms?

A couple of comments.

1. What evidence is there that either Apple or Google might try to market consoles? This would be completely new.

2. Nintendo's Wii (their console) is after a different demographic than either the PS3 or the Xbox.

Hit the nail on the head with this. This is confirmation from MSFT that the Mac platform can't be ignored, especially in the consumer space. Given how much Ballmer has tried to ignore Apple and its products, it is a tremendous turnaround in philosophy for MSFT.

Neal

Paranoia at its best

Specially part about self-proclaimed cream of tech society. Modern drugs do magic, eh?

Microsoft will finally realize that it is in their best interest for them to realize that they should just copy Apple, Admit It, and Appreciate that they can still be a force to reckon with.

Google has realized it. Of course most people would say that it was just good Spying from Mr.
Schmidt. But lets give them some props. They have not only done well with Android, they have now
realized that they have a very powerful engine to drive there interests to places they never could figure out before.

This two big companies have got to accept their position on the Tech Totem Pole. Apple is not their enemy. Ballmer might not have wanted to accept it, (perhaps Gates and Brin had a little sitdown with Steve Jobs) they are finally giving Apple their due and recognizing that Apple is way ahead in
many current markets. But more than that, NOBODY is innovating like Apple. And also, NOBODY is
tying everything together as brilliantly as Apple.
Google might have a homerun with Android, but they seem to be having a harder time than they thought in having their Netbooks tie into it as Apple has done.

Microsoft has also found out how difficult it is. But they will do a better job with their new Win 7 phone.

But that is all right. All three of them can be successful.
Apple is making a lot of money. Jobs will live a happy life seeing all these great stuff coming out.
Google will continue doing well with there stuff too. And it is great that they continue using a lot of their money on Wind Farms, Driverless Cars, White Space availability, etc.
Microsoft will feel great if they can just remain a force in these changing times. Who knows maybe Ballmer can even keep his Job. (I think they will do well with the new phone.)

BUT, they all have to understand, that we are living in a very important time tech wise.

Between these three companies. They have the makings of the new Heat trio. Apple(Lebron),
Google(Wade), and Microsoft(Bosh). We don't really know if they can win a lot of championships.
But things have gotten interesting in the NBA. But I don't think its more interesting in what is happening in TECH.

Two words, Living room or entertainment room. Whoever controls the living room might get the opportunity to dominate the mobile world. Why would Apple continue with Apple TV when even Steve Jobs is saying that it is just a hobby or why would Goggle bother to make their own version of it with the cooperation of Sony and other TV manufacturers? Hell, why would Microsoft decide to make a Windows 7 ecosystem that also incorporates inter connectivity with their X-box 360 with the help of their mobile devices such as the Win7 smartphones and the Zune music player and their future Win7 tablets if they did not have whole house in mind.

Nintendo Wii appears to be after a different demographic group than those two but unlike the Wii, PS3 and X-box 360 is more than competent tp cross over the Wii demographic group and effectively beat Nintendo in it's own game. See Playstation's Move and X-box Kinect. Both companies understood the secret of the Nintendo Wii. Get the parents playing and the rest will follow.

iTunes is a heap of crap, on both the PC and Mac

Honestly, unless you are a business user and HAVE to use MS Office for compatibility reasons, and are ready to put up with bad software, fair enough. But seriously all the users I work with hate it and would rather use iWork instead !! That being said I read only praises on Office 2011 which I'm about to try.. so we'll see.
So not to be a bad mouth, I am ready to give Off2011 a try, and see what the fuss is all about. I'll do my best to stay open minded....

I agree with your assessment of PS and Xbox, but there is no evidence that Apple is developing a console which is a very different beast from a hand held. The Apple TV would need a serious upgrade to handle today's PS and Xbox games.

A comment like this is useless without some examples of why you think this.

It is slow, it is fat, it is buggy, it has a terrible interface, it has an inconsistant interface. I love the way they have an 80MB download to add syncing for one new device. It is terrible both on the Mac and the PC. At least I don't have to install it on my PC, but I am sort of forced to on my Mac.

How many more examples of how terrible it is do you want?

Some people are embarrassed to be a member of any group that would actually accept them.

lol. they both look like douches.