Early glimpse at Zune HD: "better" than iPod touch - Page 7

Originally Posted by solipsism

I dont see how that was ever an argument. We know that it can output 720p to an external device so it was a given that those 720p files would reside on the device and play, downgraded, to the built-in display.

Originally Posted by addabox

I think it's kinda interesting that with Vista and Zune, and presumably Windows and WinMo 7, MS has really gone to town on the eye candy, while with OS X and the iPhone OS Apple has further refined a kind of low key pragmatism.

Used to be that Windows folks pointed and laughed at Apple users for their unseemly devotion to "esthetics." XP and grim little text list and stylus based mobile devices were plenty fancy enough, because anything more was a waste of CPU cycles.

And here we are: the Zune HD is "better" than the iPod touch because it has flippy animations and "edgy" graphics and "fun" typography. Things like making the category headers so big you can't really read them does nothing whatsoever for usability, it just gives the UI a little kick the first time you see it. But that little kick-- the stuff that is there to signify that MS is hip and fun-- seems to be becoming more and more its signature style.

And poor old Apple is stuck with their old fashioned ideas about how the UI ought to make it easier to do what you want to do and clearer as to how you would do that.

Originally Posted by teckstud

We all know Apple's overall design is fantastic and award winning and there is no competition. But don't be spreading bullsheet and putting down something that is not an Apple product for that reason alone. That current mishmash of an iMac is not MOMA material by far.

Originally Posted by chronster

You might, but I had read a few places people were misguided in what they thought would display when playing files. One person pointed out they can watch their hd movies on their ipod touch, just scaled down, and the zune won't do that. (Please don't make me find these posts. I've been skimming through a ton of them lol)

Originally Posted by chronster

I mean, it's nice to see Microsoft finally giving the public a thumbs friendly interface with a device like this

Originally Posted by wigby

who cares? i think the company that bases its bread and butter on app support in their operating systems might just care. microsoft's entire marketshare dominance is owed to all the app developers for their operating systems. without a great selection of apps, this will just become another ipod wannabe killer. it needs to be more than that because it's competing with the itouch and even iphone (the phone that's much more than a phone).

and that brings me to the apps...a few months ago, i might have agreed that it was more about quantity than quality but the tide has definitely turned. i've began purchasing a few apps here and there (flight control for .99 cents and geodefense for $3.99 for example). but my point is that i found out about both of these games from a videogame review podcast and website. iphone games are now a regular feature on every major game site. that is big. these games are becoming a real commodity on this platform and the zune hd absolutely needs games and other apps to survive much less thrive.

i don't know why you say iphone/itouch will never wireless sync. the hardware is all there but maybe apple might not unlock that ability, at least not until they use 802.11n or bluetooth 3.0 chipsets. as far the music subscription goes, no , apple will never allow a zune pass to be used on their hardware but there will definitely be a day that they do support streaming subscription services. but that's more of a music industry call than apple's. when they get desperate enough, apple will implement it for them in a big way and make zune pass look like a quaint little idea.

Originally Posted by pairof9s

So is that why Windows CE phones are so much more advanced than the iPhone? Mac OS 9 is still around...doesn't make it a great OS for a media player or a phone. Both your rebuttals lead to the same point I was making originally. That is Microsoft has no intentions much less capability to lead. They can only attempt to strangle what becomes successful to make it their own. Even your OS rebuttal to the Mac is full of examples you attest to Microsoft when indeed they were developed by others prior to being incorporated into Windows. Jeez, NEXT had multi-tasking before Windows and that's what Mac OS X is built on.

And honestly...those examples (forgetting that you're completely off base on some of your Mac hardware knowledge)...do you really call that innovation (regardless that Microsoft didn't develop)? The average Joe has no idea what those are or the benefit from it. I'm talking about innovation as an industry standard. The Mac GUI, the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone...these have all caused changes in the industry as well as the consumer's conscience. BOB, WebTV, SmartWatch, Zune, Tablet PC, talking PCs, Passport, Windows ME, the 1st Edition "The Road Ahead" (ie - Gates completely dispels the Internet)...all examples of where Microsoft tried to lead and has fallen flat on their face. I certainly don't see or hear of Apple trying to build a "Zune killer"!

Originally Posted by chronster

Good point, but perhaps the hardware is catching up to the software these days to a point where the fancy UI is not something people need to worry about when it comes to performance. After all, RAM is much cheaper comparatively from just 4 years ago. I remember that was one of the things people always pointed out about Macs, was they needed more RAM than a PC because of it's UI.

I don't think anyone with a brain in their head will say the Zune is better than the Touch because of the UI though. I mean, it's nice to see Microsoft finally giving the public a thumbs friendly interface with a device like this, but it's not what will give it a chance at being better. It helps I suppose, but really, a good UI is what makes it compete better with the Touch.

Originally Posted by GTL215

and it only took them 3 years to bring it to market since the iPhone was announced in Jan 2007. As far as we know, it doesn't run apps either, which means it's still behind where the iPhone OS was in Jan 07. Steve Jobs' assertion that Apple was 5 years ahead of the competition is turning out to be fairly accurate.

Originally Posted by chronster

what would MS or any other company in a market like that be doing if Apple hadn't done what they did?

Originally Posted by chorister

Yeah no kidding, but what would MS or any other company in a market like that be doing if Apple hadn't done what they did? I mean, it's obvious Apple has a big achievement under their belt. I just find it awesome it got the other companies off their asses to make competing products. Lets face it though, if Apple isn't challenged, will they still innovate or will they get just as lazy as Microsoft did?

I wish Apple would put the bar even higher and give us the next ipod touch on a role out oled screen that fits into a pen or something! lol.

Originally Posted by mosx

You act as if Windows CE's development has been stalled all this time. Windows CE has been developed all through this decade.

Windows CE actually has nearly a decade and a half of development and refinement behind it. iPhone OS is the new comer here.

So don't go discounting Windows CE. It's been well developed over the last few years and uses the industry standard for 3D graphics, Direct3D. You also have to take into account that nvidia Tegra supports Direct3D Mobile. The GeForce ULV even supports programmable shaders. The Tegra's 3D capabilities are definitely well beyond that sub-Dreamcast/barely above N64 PowerVR chip in the iPod touch and iPhone.

So Apple is going to suddenly rewrite their OS to take advantage of new hardware? You have to remember that iPhone OS has only been written for one piece of hardware, one with a slightly faster processor, and ONLY that hardware.

Zune has sold 3 million as of 5 months ago. Not bad for a player that is only sold in 2 countries.

The Mac mini is the only one that ships with an adapter. The MacBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and iMac? Nope.

I'm on my 3rd MacBook (2 replacements), and none of them have shipped with adapters. In fact, I bought one adapter for my original MacBook and when they replaced it with the UniBody they wouldn't replace my adapter! Had to buy yet another. $50 in adapters just to get connectivity my PC notebook has out of the box.

Don't worry, I won't. I only have OS X installed on my Mac in case theres firmware updates. Most of my time I use my Mac its spent in Windows

You're one of the few. Everyone I know with an iPhone or iPod touch complains about Safari crashing and site incompatibilities.

Vista still pushed more than 10 times as many licenses as there are Apple users total. So its not a failure by any stretch of the imagination.

Yeah, OS X is just meant to sell computers to people who care more about looks and less about functionality. People who will pay twice as much for the same hardware to say "I have a Mac" without any regard to how much they lose.

And Windows CE has about 12 more years of development behind compared to iPhone OS. Wheres Push in iPhone OS? Only in very limited circumstances. I'm not about to give Apple $100 a year for services that should be free and are free otherwise.

Maps? Because maps are so useful away from WiFi.

Games? They'll definitely be there. Direct3D Mobile + GeForce ULV = there will be games. And better than the junk thats currently offered in the App Store as well.

If Windows is so bad, then howcome so many are using it?

Subscription music kicks ass

MS invented multitasking

HP has a touchscreen monitor

Originally Posted by vinea

Sure. But CE 6 is getting a little old. It first came out in 2006 and the latest rev was from 2007.



For whatever reason it seem to take 3 versions for software devs to really get something right (Apple, MS, whomever) and WinCE 3.0 was a significant rewrite for WinCE. That was about a decade ago.

However, iPhone OSX has worked out very well and has the usual Apple refinement derived from Mac OSX in terms of a rich SDK. Core Services and Cocoa Touch are far more mature than a year old. It's not a typical rev 1 product because it's not rev 1. There's a lot of Mac OSX in there.



Yep. On the other hand I note that the Wii, despite being nothing more than a souped up Gamecube, is doing rather well. With 40m sales, the iPhone/iPod Touch is doing PSP numbers.

Not strictly for gaming but there are a lot of games on the app store.



Yes, they have to rewrite the entire OS and not just a new driver.

Moving to the next gen ARM is not going to be onerous for Apple. Nor is adding support for either Neon or Tegra.



Yeah. Compared to 40M iPhones and iPod touches. That's not even considering the iPods it was directly competing against.



My MBP came with a DVI to VGA adapter. Meh. The Mini Display Port to DVI adapter is only $12.50 from Monoprice. And I dunno what you are whining about given you got a unibody as a replacement.



Then you should have bought a Lenovo to begin with.



Well it has site incompatibilities because it's not IE. As far as crashing it does crash occasionally but not every day or even every week. Once in a while it'll go poof but it restarts quickly and you can generally get to your last page easily.



Vista was a failure in terms of what it should have been (in comparison to say what had been shown at PDC 2003), in terms of the sales it should have had and the beating MS took by releasing it.

Heck, as a MSDN developer I don't bother with Vista on any of my boxes. XP, Windows 7 and I used to run Windows Server 2008 as one of my desktops (Desktop Experience + .NET Framework) but windows 7 is stable enough and I haven't the time to mess with Windows Server 2008 R2 (the win7 server version).

Face it. Vista did a huge face plant and never recovered and is getting retired as soon as Windows 7 can ship.

Vista was showing around 30% share and OSX around 8% share last I checked. That doesn't sound like 10 times to me. And when Win7 ships that number is going to start cratering.



As a part time .net developer (now on Java again) who dabbles with xcode and the iPhone I can say that it's a pleasure to be on OSX as an OS. I still prefer Visual Studio to XCode and C# over Objective C (or java for that matter) but I find myself a lot more productive on OSX than Windows for non programming activities.



WinMob is sokay. But really, even with Studio, and .net compact framework it's simply a lot more fun to work with the iphone despite objective C.



Works just fine for me on the iPhone.



D3D mobile is sokay but not nearly the huge advantage you're thinking. The last time I played with it in WinCE 5 it was based on DX8 and cut down quite a bit. WinCE 6 I don't believe added much to it.

In comparison with what MS is doing with WPF and XNA that whole toolchain is like 3 revs behind the desktop and about as dead as MDX. Even as an old C/C++ coder that used to do a lot of embedded work I simply don't want to drop back to unmanaged embedded Visual C++ for casual game development. And don't even think about GAPI if that isn't dead yet.

In comparison I can buy iTGB (or iTGE) for $500 with a reasonable toolchain for the iPhone or just code directly to the iPhone SDK fairly painlessly. Apple did a great job with their SDK.

Frankly, I don't think you know what you're talking about. For the console market I'd code for the 360 based on tool chain and dev environment. MS simply did a great job. Not even in comparison to Sony...they simply did a great job. For the mobile market I'd target the iPhone for similar reasons.

Originally Posted by D.J. Adequate

The interface is too busy for my tastes. Much like Vista, it's meant to look flashy and edgy, but doesn't look all that usable in the long run. The weird fonts on the menu, while eye catching, would get pretty old after a short time.

That said, I hope the OLED screens catch on and come down in price.

Originally Posted by lkrupp

Microsoft's problem is that it has no mojo and never has. When people think of Microsoft they think old, stale, not cool. Maybe this gadget is as good as the reviewer says (I seriously doubt it) but there's an image problem. And having Uncle Fester (see what I mean) as the imperial leader doesn't help the image problem. Ballmer has about as much charisma as a dog turd.

Remember that the original Zune was declared to be THE iPod killer by all the M$ paid analysts and reviewers.

Originally Posted by gholland

I think MicroSoft has again missed the point.

With such a device the last thing you want to represent is an OS. it's an Information device, not a desktop computer.

There still using the "Start Button - Menu" theory.

Apple figured out a long time ago that removing the complexity to the user was key. Keep the OS out of the way. The only concept of OS should be to those who develop applications.

I find it amazing that after 30 years that some still think that representing an Electronic-Piece of paper is the key to a user interface. People do not think of the world in terms of a notepad, the perceived world/reality are Objects with Relationships. And as the user's perception changes so does the Reality. For example, at home provides a different perspective of the world than that of being at work.

Sorry to babble..

Bottom line... these devices need the ability to change with the user and their perception. Microsoft has never figured this out... they simply want compatibility with Windows. All of their SmartPhone demonstrate this, as does the Zune it just provides a little higher abstraction.

Originally Posted by slapppy

Well, even if the product is a sales failure like all previous Zune models, you really have to admit that they are catching up. MS can afford to fail forever on this thing, and in about 2 years time, it will start to surpass the iPod Touch. I expected it to be longer than 2 years, but it doesn't seem like it. MS really learned quick from Apple and MS has the money to fund the failures for as long as it takes.

Originally Posted by tt92618

I hope you are being sarcastic. If not, no, it hasn't caught up - not by a long shot. First, the device doesn't have any kind of operating system capable of supporting the richness you see with iPhone OS. Second, everything I am reading so far indicates that there will NOT be an app store for zune, and that anything available for it will likely be limited to games. Third, even if there is an app store, you need a good development environment and that means there needs to be an actual OS behind this thing, which there does not appear to be. Fourth, let's talk about mobile web: The web browser in development for Zune HD is a slimmed down and custom version of IE6. IE6! So, this 2010 time frame device will have a browser based on standards and technologies 9 years old. Fifth, OS3 for iPhone / iPod touch opens up abilities to create hardware that will interface with the device and any custom software also. Blood pressure monitors, glucose monitors, and anything you can even think of, and people will think of a LOT. Can Zune do that? Nope.

I think it's a nice looking device, and I like the OLED screen. But the gushing the press is doing about how this is some sort of iPod killer just amuses me. This thing has a LONG way to go before it can stack up against a touch.

Originally Posted by eAi

I'd say the accelerometer 'lag' is intentional to make sure you're actually intending to rotate the device, perhaps not though. Either way, Apple have plenty of time to counter the Zune if they wish...

Originally Posted by Zaphodsplanet

REally rich..... how does Apple "Counter" the new Zune... It's like taking a yugo into a Mercedes Dealership and saying, "Do you guys think you can beat this?.

Originally Posted by WPLJ42

I don't think it is better than the iPod, but do like the idea of a radio tuner built in. HD is too new for a lot of people to benefit, plus no AM. AM HD could be sweet. I hope Apple gets with the program and includes radio in future iPods, and I don't mean just the touch.

Originally Posted by addabox

I don't disagree, and compared to some of the UI stuff MS has come up with in the past, what I've seen of the Zune HD is much, much better.

However, my point is that Apple has actually never put "stuff" in its UIs just to be glitzy. The animations all serve a conceptual purpose, and, particularly on the iPhone, the transitions and relationships of UI elements are designed to clarify and inform, not just impress with action.

The Zune HD UI looks to have a lot of "impress with action." Apple would never in a million years do that giant font trick, because it's not helpful. It's the purest kind of eye candy, with no nutritional value.

So while the Zune UI might make an immediate impression as "fresh", what will it be like to use over the long haul? After the cool factor of the animations have worn off?

And I have to say, I'm not buying the idea that "eye candy" is now permissible even by the regular Joe standards of sturdy PC users, who once eschewed such things as the provenance of dandies and effete snobs, just because of increased graphics firepower in the hardware.

The idea of the Mac as a twee toy has been central to PC chauvinism for as long as I can remember. They just didn't have patience for all that silliness. Now that silliness is in vogue at MS, however, I guess that's just non-operational, which of course was pretty predictable.

Originally Posted by bigpics

Yay! There are at least two AM radio fans in the digiverse!

Originally Posted by macFanDave

It doesn't matter because 2008 is past and the world is going to end in 2012 (you know the Mayan calendar ends that year!)