You know, for all the fevered denunciation of "Apple fanboys" in this thread I can't help but noticed that some of the most over the top, hysterical stuff is coming from what appear to be Zune, or MS, or OLED, uh, enthusiasts. Really, angry OLED partisans? WTF?
The same people that are disgusted that someone would slam the underlying tech of the Zune before it is released are also sure that the Zune is just the specialist, most awesome, bestest thing ever, for sure.
I'm sure it will be perfectly nice, and the zoomy animations between every screen will amuse the kind of people who are amused by that sort of thing. The screen will probably look pretty good under certain conditions. MS may even get a game or to available for launch.
That eclipses the Touch how, again? Obsoletes iTunes and the App Store by what magic? I want to pay the same money for a media playback device that may or may not get some apps or games instead of a general purpose pocketable computer with a vast ecosystem of peripherals because.....
Anyway, MS fanboys/apologists are good at one thing: bullying. As long as they can leverage platform dominance into a sneering contempt for Apple users as some kind of fatuous tribe of posers, ganging up at the average tech site like of crowd of drunk frat boys, they have a high old time.
When obliged to defend a minority platform, I swear to God, MS fanboys are the whiniest, shrillest bitches on the internet.
Sony has made amazing profits from the PS series of machines over the years. In some of those years, PS profits were over half of Sony's profits. It's only with the PS3 and its difficult development with the new, and expensive technologies involved hasSony been losing money on it, though that's about ended.
But also, Sony has had its Blu-Ray become the new hi def standard. This is considered to be so partly, if not mostly because of PS3 sales. So Sony has benefitted from that to offset the PS3 losses.
But MS has had no such synergy. Their entertainment division, which includes not only the XBox itself, but also the games licensing, music subscription services and the Zunes, has consistently lost big money since the first day the old XBox was introduced. The first five years of it MS lost at least $1.2 billion a year, which has since dropped to about $1 billion a year.
And just when MS thought it was coming out of its 360 losses, they were hit with the red ring of death and other failure modes for the device, and have had to put at least $1.3 billion into an escrow account to pay for the repairs, problems which have been continuing.
No other company would have kept its entertainment division going with those losses. The XBox would have been discontinued years ago. The same with the Zunes. There have been calls for MS to drop them as well.
The only reason why they haven't is because MS feels that they are required for MS's future growth as Windows and Office sales slow down.
Do you want me to post links? I have plenty, going back years.
Now, quoting T3, 2% of 2 million U.K. Spotify users pay. There are 4.5 million European Spotify users. Let's say 2% of European users pay too. That's 899100 pounds per month, or US$1.48million PER MONTH. If that's not successful, I don't know what is. Yes Apple makes a lot more, but calling subscriptions as "unsuccessful" is unfair.
That's really not very good, is it? What, $18 million a year? That's peanuts. And the valuation is artificial. It's not a public valuation. This is a bunch of investors who have put money into the service. It's no different from what we've seen with all the other subscription services where hundreds of millions were poured in at the beginning, only to have it evaporate over the next year or two.
Everything you read about this was said about all the other failed, and about to fail services.
They were all supposed to be different, or to have a name favorably recognized, or had some special "hook" that would get people to join and pay.
When you think about it 2% of people paying is pretty bad. That's less than the number of people who respond to surveys sent in the mail, which is over 3%.
This was a really well written article until the HD Radio section. The HD Radio stuff attempted to dispell HD Radio as a worthwhile technology, which I agree on, but does not match the tenor of the rest of the article. Previously it dealt in facts (mostly), but at this point it veers to the left.
The "software will wow you" section continues this trend by being 100% opinion-based, rather than factual in nature. I think the article stood well on its own without these two sections at informing consumers.
Man, I didn't realise that OLED screens sucked so much!
Just as well I read this article, I was going to buy a Macbook Pro for the OLED screen, now I think I'll just buy a Dell for half the price. Phew, that was a close one.
Which MacBook Pro has an OLED screen?
That would have been really big news.
do you know the difference between LED backlighting and OLEDs?
Now is the time to say that you were just kidding.
"After tearing-down an Apple TV and itemizing the cost of each internal component, iSuppli arrived at an approximate BOM -- or Bill of Materials -- of $237. That amounts to a meager 20.7 percent gross margin."
A "meager" profit is still a profit, not a loss. A loss is something that happens when you actually lose money. See how that works? I would be so happy to have a "hobby" that made a 20% margin that I'd piss rainbows.
I know it's hard to accept that a company can do anything better than the Microsoft behemoth. I mean, if Microsoft had to lose billions of dollars to enter the set-top-box business, then that's obviously what it takes. Right? Right?...
You know, for all the fevered denunciation of "Apple fanboys" in this thread I can't help but noticed that some of the most over the top, hysterical stuff is coming from what appear to be Zune, or MS, or OLED, uh, enthusiasts. Really, angry OLED partisans? WTF?
The same people that are disgusted that someone would slam the underlying tech of the Zune before it is released are also sure that the Zune is just the specialist, most awesome, bestest thing ever, for sure.
I'm sure it will be perfectly nice, and the zoomy animations between every screen will amuse the kind of people who are amused by that sort of thing. The screen will probably look pretty good under certain conditions.
Doesn't it go both ways? The Zune isn't out yet, and article writer on this site making complaints about the screen that the author hasn't seen is a bit much. There are several OLED technologies and the sites that have seen the device did like the screen.
The world is filled with mindless sheep that follow trends. When Ipod launched there were much better mp3 players on the market with more features but because of the clever marketing people soon associated mp3 with ipod. That's why it became so successful.
And how is that now? How did Apple convince 90% windows using population that they should buy an Apple device? It was all "clever marketing"?
If it's only clever marketing, then those buyers would have been disappointed when they used their iPod, and certainly wouldn't have bought them for relatives, recommended them to colleagues, and came back to buy new models. But they did do all those things. That certainly suggested they appreciated the user experience of the iPod far more than a feature list on the side of a box.
It seems the market has a different definition of "better" than you do. One could say a better definition, but I don't think you understand that.
The way it read on the ArsTechnia article is that the Zune PC software will have a section for apps, but there are no 3rd-party apps and that all apps will be free. While I think it?s nice that they aren?t charging and aren?t cluttering up your device with a bunch of apps you?ll never use, it seems more of a marketing tactic to show that they also have an app store, like the iPod Touch and iPhone.
PS: I wish Apple would let me remove apps that I won?t ever use, like the stand alone Address Book or their weather app that won?t even use the GPS to find my location.
Not an ideal solution for you, but here's a tip as a stopgap: when you really NEED those two apps gone (when you run out of app slots on your device, as I have) you can just push those two unwanted apps off the end of the last screen. (You can even store more WANTED apps there: they are launchable from Spotlight.)
P.S. I like that glass-half-full attitude
No apps now, a small number of unknown ones coming at some unknown time from Microsoft, and no third-party apps planned. Translation: "t?s nice that they aren?t charging and aren?t cluttering up your device with a bunch of apps you?ll never use"
I have to disagree with this totally. Developers where presuring Apple for a real SDK before the first Touches even where of the boat. Developers saw this brilliant platform and instantly want on board.
How can you say that?
While developers were interested in an SDK for the phone and touch, there wouldn't have been nearly as many developers on board as there were once Apple had sold over 8 million of the things when the SDK first came out.
Quote:
Similar to Apple all MS needs to do is to debut a product that grabs developer attention. If the SDK is truely innovative and provides for a good user experience developers will be on board with the first device.
MS has announced that programs for the Zune HD will be free, at least for the foreseeable future. That's really going to excite developers. Ms has been cagy about third party developer support, so we'll have to see what happens there.
Here's one quote:
Quote:
Pinero (of Microsoft) says that an internal team will manage app approval and that the emphasis here will be on quality over quantity.
You know what that really means. They don't expect to get many apps for the Zune.
Quote:
Actually they will do what most business do. That is evaluate the opportunity and determine if it is worth the gamble. In a nut shell every new app is a gamble even on iPhone/Touch.
It's a vastly bigger gamble when there are no sales for the current product, and past sales for the older ones hardly added up.
Quote:
I think it is more of a case of developers recognizing Pre as a piece of junk with a crap development platform.
It's developers counting the Pre's sales and figuring that there aren't enough for them to cover development costs for themselves, much less make a profit.
There's power in the numbers.
Quote:
It doesn't have to sell any. This is an important reality, developers will flock to a platform that inspires them. For confirmation look at all of the Linux platforms that hardly sell at all but yet have developers.
Dave
No they won't.
Developers will want to make money, or at least, fame.
Sure, a few developers might find something to love, but most are far more livelihood oriented than that.
I think the point being missed is the philosophy of both companies, and the reason they both introduce certain technology.
MS often don't even know why they introduce certain technologies. Usually it's to kill a competitor or protect their core asset (Windows). When you look at OLED, while it may seem innovative, MS have only added it for marketing reasons. It's not necessarily the best device for the job, or has the best power/performance or price/quality ratios.
When Apple introduce a new technology, it's usually to the benefit of the user (not the marketing guys). This difference between the companies has existed for 3 decades, and will probably continue so long as Balmer and Jobs are in their relative positions.
The only time I have ever seen MS truly innovate and truly take the user into account was with the Xbox360, which aside from it's unreliability was almost a perfect product. Xbox Live was great, leaving out Blu-Ray and HD-DVD was the right decision (unlike Sony's), partnering with ATI and IBM worked well and the Xbox has done fairly well... but not as well as the Wii.
Now I don't hate MS... they are what they are and we take take it or leave it. I am writing this in IE7 on Win XP (not by choice). But there is a real issue that they are holding technology back by blocking standards. IE6 on their latest, greatest device? Seriously? I suppose it will run flash and lets see what that does to battery life etc.
MS have a history of defeating superior products with inferior ones because they've been able to abuse their market position. So now they need something MUCH better, and they don't seem to be able to deliver it.
You're completely missing the point. This article "research" is being based on evidence that is non-existent, meaning the Zune reviews have yet to be posted and users are JUST NOW getting their hands on the devices.
Wait for the reviews to come out, see how the performance stacks up, see how the screen performs in daylight/indoors, see how the UI operates, etc.
You don't just do an article with no hands-on time with a product tearing it apart saying that it will have poor performance and a poor screen if you haven't even laid hands/eyes on it yet.
His article isn't a review. It's an overview of the technologies used in the Zune, from information supplied by MS and others, and "his" evaluation of the software prospects.
How is it more expensive? I have been using napster to go for a few years now and have over 3000 tracks in my library. If I were using that horrible program itunes that would cost me more than $3000.
I don't understand why Apple has so many fanboys for their inferior overpriced products and their lame software Itunes. I mean the program runs like crap on PC and it can't do basic things like monitor a folder for new music. Just the other day they were charging $400 for an itouch lol. Another thing Ipods have limited music format support and they do not include an FM tuner. They don't support other music formats like all the other players like wma, wmv and the sound quality is below average. Yet they have all these fanboys.
If it wasn't for some clever marketing that brainwashed the masses into thinking mp3 player meant ipod and the only way to get music was itunes I don't know where Apple would be today.
The Zune seems like a really good MP3 player if you ask me. HD tuner is really good but the fact that it operates like a gimped ipod troubles me. I like the freedom of connecting my mp3 player to any pc and drag or delete tracks from it without the need of software.
Spouting more nonsense doesn't make your post useful, interesting, or true.
Like others here who are slamming the article, you haven't bothered to go to the other sites that have discussed the particular areas which Prince commented on. his facts are pretty close for most of the article. His description of the Tegra, for example, is spot on.
His biggest error is in failing to provide links to other places where his info would be confirmed, so you could all easily go there yourselves rather than having to do the work of searching.
That article is a smear job melgross and you know it. He hasn't provided links because they would dispute his claims.
Here's some reality:
1. OLED screens look so much better than LED ones, like those used in the Touch and Iphone. I've used both and there is significant differences. Only a matter of time before the technology is adopted across the board.
2. Microsoft only markets in dark roooms. Go to any BestBuy and see if they've hidden the Zune HD's in dark lit corners. No they have not.
3. Tegra is a beast for graphics and video. According to PCWorld it is composed of eight processors two of which are two ARM11 cores. These are the HD Video Decoder, HD Video Encoder, 2D Engine, Imaging, GPU (3D graphics), Audio, and two ARM11 cores. http://www.pcworld.com/article/17028...a_details.html
I don't agree with everything or most things Microsoft does but they did an excellent job this time with the Zune. Yes the internet has plenty of places to do real research.
I have serious doubts about the accuracy of this article, especially about the OLED part, but the other parts seem dubious to me.
However there are some real differences, and the comparison chart on page 1 at the bottom (the one with all the corrections on it) seems fair to me.
You can't deny that Microsoft have finally got something right with the ZuneHD (the third generation Zune, i.e., the generation Microsoft normally get things mostly right, c.f. IE3).
A like for like comparison will be needed, that includes battery life under similar situations.
Also in a year many of the detractors about the Zune will be less worse, the app store for one.
However I can't buy a Zune in the UK, so it's irrelevant. Also the iPod does work, no hassle, so it takes a lot to make me change my choice now. Haven't got the time to get burned by hassle. "Marketplac" indeed ... treat me like an adult, Microsoft.
Doesn't it go both ways? The Zune isn't out yet, and article writer on this site making complaints about the screen that the author hasn't seen is a bit much. There are several OLED technologies and the sites that have seen the device did like the screen.
Sure, but at least Prince's caveats are grounded in some of what we know about the limitations of the tech, as per currently shipping products. For instance, he may be overstating the shortcomings of OLED in direct sunlight, but it's a fact that OLED doesn't look as good in direct sunlight as LED. Higher battery consumption when displaying mostly white or lighter screens is a fact, as well.
Similarly, the sort of awestruck chanting of "Tegra, Tegra" that one sees on tech sites needs a corrective dose of reality, the tech simply isn't some kind of astonishing leapfrog of the Cortex based implementations out there, and certainly doesn't live up to the Nvidia marketing hype (no surprise there, most tech is wildly oversold).
Anywho, my response was in regards to the breathless delight being expressed about a non-shipping product from a company with a pretty abysmal track-record in the space, which, as far as I can see, isn't really even competing with the Touch, despite the heated rhetoric. It seems to have been optimized as a really nice media playback device with a MS's notably inferior mobile browser thrown in. If people want to LOL at how it beats up on the Nano, I have no problem with that.
That is something rarely considered on these forums. Apple will have access to the same new tech that MS and others do, but there is no way that Apple can buy certain tech with the scale they sell on. I doubt very much that Apple could get 40M(?) OLED screens for their iPhone and iPod Touches for this year. How many Zune HD will MS end up selling in comparison? Heck, we are even having NAND shortages that are blamed on Apple?s iDevice dominance.
None of that's true though. Don't let people tell you that. There are no production problems for the small OLEDs used for phones and such. They were being used in car audio units for years before, and made in the millions.
The problems were with quality and reliability.
Most of those problems have been solved.
If Apple wanted 40 million screens from a big manufacturer, they could get them. The problems are with big screens.
Those problems are twofold. One is that as with other displays, costs go up disproportionally with size. Two is that rejections go up disproportionally with size.
Getting 3.5" screens is easy. Getting 10" screens is hard.
Apple is not the cause of NAND shortages. I've made this clear in another thread. It's just a result of memory production cutbacks from manufacturers. Apple is ordering bit more than before, where last year there were no shortages, but manufacturers are producing much less to get memory prices up, which is happening, and causing shortages this year.
Comments
Why all the news macbooks have it ??
First, I don't think OLED is that bad.
Another, MacBooks don't have OLED. They are LED backlit LCDs.
The same people that are disgusted that someone would slam the underlying tech of the Zune before it is released are also sure that the Zune is just the specialist, most awesome, bestest thing ever, for sure.
I'm sure it will be perfectly nice, and the zoomy animations between every screen will amuse the kind of people who are amused by that sort of thing. The screen will probably look pretty good under certain conditions. MS may even get a game or to available for launch.
That eclipses the Touch how, again? Obsoletes iTunes and the App Store by what magic? I want to pay the same money for a media playback device that may or may not get some apps or games instead of a general purpose pocketable computer with a vast ecosystem of peripherals because.....
Anyway, MS fanboys/apologists are good at one thing: bullying. As long as they can leverage platform dominance into a sneering contempt for Apple users as some kind of fatuous tribe of posers, ganging up at the average tech site like of crowd of drunk frat boys, they have a high old time.
When obliged to defend a minority platform, I swear to God, MS fanboys are the whiniest, shrillest bitches on the internet.
Sony does as well. http://www.google.com/search?q=sony+...ient=firefox-a
Sony has made amazing profits from the PS series of machines over the years. In some of those years, PS profits were over half of Sony's profits. It's only with the PS3 and its difficult development with the new, and expensive technologies involved hasSony been losing money on it, though that's about ended.
But also, Sony has had its Blu-Ray become the new hi def standard. This is considered to be so partly, if not mostly because of PS3 sales. So Sony has benefitted from that to offset the PS3 losses.
But MS has had no such synergy. Their entertainment division, which includes not only the XBox itself, but also the games licensing, music subscription services and the Zunes, has consistently lost big money since the first day the old XBox was introduced. The first five years of it MS lost at least $1.2 billion a year, which has since dropped to about $1 billion a year.
And just when MS thought it was coming out of its 360 losses, they were hit with the red ring of death and other failure modes for the device, and have had to put at least $1.3 billion into an escrow account to pay for the repairs, problems which have been continuing.
No other company would have kept its entertainment division going with those losses. The XBox would have been discontinued years ago. The same with the Zunes. There have been calls for MS to drop them as well.
The only reason why they haven't is because MS feels that they are required for MS's future growth as Windows and Office sales slow down.
Do you want me to post links? I have plenty, going back years.
Last time I checked, Spotify was worth $242 million.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/07...-e170-million/
Now, quoting T3, 2% of 2 million U.K. Spotify users pay. There are 4.5 million European Spotify users. Let's say 2% of European users pay too. That's 899100 pounds per month, or US$1.48million PER MONTH. If that's not successful, I don't know what is. Yes Apple makes a lot more, but calling subscriptions as "unsuccessful" is unfair.
T3 article: http://www.t3.com/news/spotify-has-o...ccounts?=40701
That's really not very good, is it? What, $18 million a year? That's peanuts. And the valuation is artificial. It's not a public valuation. This is a bunch of investors who have put money into the service. It's no different from what we've seen with all the other subscription services where hundreds of millions were poured in at the beginning, only to have it evaporate over the next year or two.
Everything you read about this was said about all the other failed, and about to fail services.
They were all supposed to be different, or to have a name favorably recognized, or had some special "hook" that would get people to join and pay.
When you think about it 2% of people paying is pretty bad. That's less than the number of people who respond to surveys sent in the mail, which is over 3%.
Pretty dismal.
Why all the new models of macbooks have it ??
They don't. They have LED-backlit LCDs.
The "software will wow you" section continues this trend by being 100% opinion-based, rather than factual in nature. I think the article stood well on its own without these two sections at informing consumers.
Man, I didn't realise that OLED screens sucked so much!
Just as well I read this article, I was going to buy a Macbook Pro for the OLED screen, now I think I'll just buy a Dell for half the price. Phew, that was a close one.
Which MacBook Pro has an OLED screen?
That would have been really big news.
do you know the difference between LED backlighting and OLEDs?
Now is the time to say that you were just kidding.
Apple has been losing money on AppleTV for years.
This is demonstrably false. To wit:
"After tearing-down an Apple TV and itemizing the cost of each internal component, iSuppli arrived at an approximate BOM -- or Bill of Materials -- of $237. That amounts to a meager 20.7 percent gross margin."
- AppleInsider, 2007
A "meager" profit is still a profit, not a loss. A loss is something that happens when you actually lose money. See how that works? I would be so happy to have a "hobby" that made a 20% margin that I'd piss rainbows.
I know it's hard to accept that a company can do anything better than the Microsoft behemoth. I mean, if Microsoft had to lose billions of dollars to enter the set-top-box business, then that's obviously what it takes. Right? Right?...
You know, for all the fevered denunciation of "Apple fanboys" in this thread I can't help but noticed that some of the most over the top, hysterical stuff is coming from what appear to be Zune, or MS, or OLED, uh, enthusiasts. Really, angry OLED partisans? WTF?
The same people that are disgusted that someone would slam the underlying tech of the Zune before it is released are also sure that the Zune is just the specialist, most awesome, bestest thing ever, for sure.
I'm sure it will be perfectly nice, and the zoomy animations between every screen will amuse the kind of people who are amused by that sort of thing. The screen will probably look pretty good under certain conditions.
Doesn't it go both ways? The Zune isn't out yet, and article writer on this site making complaints about the screen that the author hasn't seen is a bit much. There are several OLED technologies and the sites that have seen the device did like the screen.
The world is filled with mindless sheep that follow trends. When Ipod launched there were much better mp3 players on the market with more features but because of the clever marketing people soon associated mp3 with ipod. That's why it became so successful.
And how is that now? How did Apple convince 90% windows using population that they should buy an Apple device? It was all "clever marketing"?
If it's only clever marketing, then those buyers would have been disappointed when they used their iPod, and certainly wouldn't have bought them for relatives, recommended them to colleagues, and came back to buy new models. But they did do all those things. That certainly suggested they appreciated the user experience of the iPod far more than a feature list on the side of a box.
It seems the market has a different definition of "better" than you do. One could say a better definition, but I don't think you understand that.
The way it read on the ArsTechnia article is that the Zune PC software will have a section for apps, but there are no 3rd-party apps and that all apps will be free. While I think it?s nice that they aren?t charging and aren?t cluttering up your device with a bunch of apps you?ll never use, it seems more of a marketing tactic to show that they also have an app store, like the iPod Touch and iPhone.
PS: I wish Apple would let me remove apps that I won?t ever use, like the stand alone Address Book or their weather app that won?t even use the GPS to find my location.
Not an ideal solution for you, but here's a tip as a stopgap: when you really NEED those two apps gone (when you run out of app slots on your device, as I have) you can just push those two unwanted apps off the end of the last screen. (You can even store more WANTED apps there: they are launchable from Spotlight.)
P.S. I like that glass-half-full attitude
No apps now, a small number of unknown ones coming at some unknown time from Microsoft, and no third-party apps planned. Translation: "t?s nice that they aren?t charging and aren?t cluttering up your device with a bunch of apps you?ll never use"
I have to disagree with this totally. Developers where presuring Apple for a real SDK before the first Touches even where of the boat. Developers saw this brilliant platform and instantly want on board.
How can you say that?
While developers were interested in an SDK for the phone and touch, there wouldn't have been nearly as many developers on board as there were once Apple had sold over 8 million of the things when the SDK first came out.
Similar to Apple all MS needs to do is to debut a product that grabs developer attention. If the SDK is truely innovative and provides for a good user experience developers will be on board with the first device.
MS has announced that programs for the Zune HD will be free, at least for the foreseeable future. That's really going to excite developers. Ms has been cagy about third party developer support, so we'll have to see what happens there.
Here's one quote:
Pinero (of Microsoft) says that an internal team will manage app approval and that the emphasis here will be on quality over quantity.
You know what that really means. They don't expect to get many apps for the Zune.
Actually they will do what most business do. That is evaluate the opportunity and determine if it is worth the gamble. In a nut shell every new app is a gamble even on iPhone/Touch.
It's a vastly bigger gamble when there are no sales for the current product, and past sales for the older ones hardly added up.
I think it is more of a case of developers recognizing Pre as a piece of junk with a crap development platform.
It's developers counting the Pre's sales and figuring that there aren't enough for them to cover development costs for themselves, much less make a profit.
There's power in the numbers.
It doesn't have to sell any. This is an important reality, developers will flock to a platform that inspires them. For confirmation look at all of the Linux platforms that hardly sell at all but yet have developers.
Dave
No they won't.
Developers will want to make money, or at least, fame.
Sure, a few developers might find something to love, but most are far more livelihood oriented than that.
MS often don't even know why they introduce certain technologies. Usually it's to kill a competitor or protect their core asset (Windows). When you look at OLED, while it may seem innovative, MS have only added it for marketing reasons. It's not necessarily the best device for the job, or has the best power/performance or price/quality ratios.
When Apple introduce a new technology, it's usually to the benefit of the user (not the marketing guys). This difference between the companies has existed for 3 decades, and will probably continue so long as Balmer and Jobs are in their relative positions.
The only time I have ever seen MS truly innovate and truly take the user into account was with the Xbox360, which aside from it's unreliability was almost a perfect product. Xbox Live was great, leaving out Blu-Ray and HD-DVD was the right decision (unlike Sony's), partnering with ATI and IBM worked well and the Xbox has done fairly well... but not as well as the Wii.
Now I don't hate MS... they are what they are and we take take it or leave it. I am writing this in IE7 on Win XP (not by choice). But there is a real issue that they are holding technology back by blocking standards. IE6 on their latest, greatest device? Seriously? I suppose it will run flash and lets see what that does to battery life etc.
MS have a history of defeating superior products with inferior ones because they've been able to abuse their market position. So now they need something MUCH better, and they don't seem to be able to deliver it.
You're completely missing the point. This article "research" is being based on evidence that is non-existent, meaning the Zune reviews have yet to be posted and users are JUST NOW getting their hands on the devices.
Wait for the reviews to come out, see how the performance stacks up, see how the screen performs in daylight/indoors, see how the UI operates, etc.
You don't just do an article with no hands-on time with a product tearing it apart saying that it will have poor performance and a poor screen if you haven't even laid hands/eyes on it yet.
His article isn't a review. It's an overview of the technologies used in the Zune, from information supplied by MS and others, and "his" evaluation of the software prospects.
I wish people would understand this.
How is it more expensive? I have been using napster to go for a few years now and have over 3000 tracks in my library. If I were using that horrible program itunes that would cost me more than $3000.
I don't understand why Apple has so many fanboys for their inferior overpriced products and their lame software Itunes. I mean the program runs like crap on PC and it can't do basic things like monitor a folder for new music. Just the other day they were charging $400 for an itouch lol. Another thing Ipods have limited music format support and they do not include an FM tuner. They don't support other music formats like all the other players like wma, wmv and the sound quality is below average. Yet they have all these fanboys.
If it wasn't for some clever marketing that brainwashed the masses into thinking mp3 player meant ipod and the only way to get music was itunes I don't know where Apple would be today.
The Zune seems like a really good MP3 player if you ask me. HD tuner is really good but the fact that it operates like a gimped ipod troubles me. I like the freedom of connecting my mp3 player to any pc and drag or delete tracks from it without the need of software.
Spouting more nonsense doesn't make your post useful, interesting, or true.
Like others here who are slamming the article, you haven't bothered to go to the other sites that have discussed the particular areas which Prince commented on. his facts are pretty close for most of the article. His description of the Tegra, for example, is spot on.
His biggest error is in failing to provide links to other places where his info would be confirmed, so you could all easily go there yourselves rather than having to do the work of searching.
That article is a smear job melgross and you know it. He hasn't provided links because they would dispute his claims.
Here's some reality:
1. OLED screens look so much better than LED ones, like those used in the Touch and Iphone. I've used both and there is significant differences. Only a matter of time before the technology is adopted across the board.
2. Microsoft only markets in dark roooms. Go to any BestBuy and see if they've hidden the Zune HD's in dark lit corners. No they have not.
3. Tegra is a beast for graphics and video. According to PCWorld it is composed of eight processors two of which are two ARM11 cores. These are the HD Video Decoder, HD Video Encoder, 2D Engine, Imaging, GPU (3D graphics), Audio, and two ARM11 cores. http://www.pcworld.com/article/17028...a_details.html
I don't agree with everything or most things Microsoft does but they did an excellent job this time with the Zune. Yes the internet has plenty of places to do real research.
omg please... OLEDs are better than lcd-tft: better image under direct sunlight and drains less power.
Except that what your saying is not true.
Since you don't believe, why don't you give some links?
However there are some real differences, and the comparison chart on page 1 at the bottom (the one with all the corrections on it) seems fair to me.
You can't deny that Microsoft have finally got something right with the ZuneHD (the third generation Zune, i.e., the generation Microsoft normally get things mostly right, c.f. IE3).
A like for like comparison will be needed, that includes battery life under similar situations.
Also in a year many of the detractors about the Zune will be less worse, the app store for one.
However I can't buy a Zune in the UK, so it's irrelevant. Also the iPod does work, no hassle, so it takes a lot to make me change my choice now. Haven't got the time to get burned by hassle. "Marketplac" indeed ... treat me like an adult, Microsoft.
Doesn't it go both ways? The Zune isn't out yet, and article writer on this site making complaints about the screen that the author hasn't seen is a bit much. There are several OLED technologies and the sites that have seen the device did like the screen.
Sure, but at least Prince's caveats are grounded in some of what we know about the limitations of the tech, as per currently shipping products. For instance, he may be overstating the shortcomings of OLED in direct sunlight, but it's a fact that OLED doesn't look as good in direct sunlight as LED. Higher battery consumption when displaying mostly white or lighter screens is a fact, as well.
Similarly, the sort of awestruck chanting of "Tegra, Tegra" that one sees on tech sites needs a corrective dose of reality, the tech simply isn't some kind of astonishing leapfrog of the Cortex based implementations out there, and certainly doesn't live up to the Nvidia marketing hype (no surprise there, most tech is wildly oversold).
Anywho, my response was in regards to the breathless delight being expressed about a non-shipping product from a company with a pretty abysmal track-record in the space, which, as far as I can see, isn't really even competing with the Touch, despite the heated rhetoric. It seems to have been optimized as a really nice media playback device with a MS's notably inferior mobile browser thrown in. If people want to LOL at how it beats up on the Nano, I have no problem with that.
That is something rarely considered on these forums. Apple will have access to the same new tech that MS and others do, but there is no way that Apple can buy certain tech with the scale they sell on. I doubt very much that Apple could get 40M(?) OLED screens for their iPhone and iPod Touches for this year. How many Zune HD will MS end up selling in comparison? Heck, we are even having NAND shortages that are blamed on Apple?s iDevice dominance.
None of that's true though. Don't let people tell you that. There are no production problems for the small OLEDs used for phones and such. They were being used in car audio units for years before, and made in the millions.
The problems were with quality and reliability.
Most of those problems have been solved.
If Apple wanted 40 million screens from a big manufacturer, they could get them. The problems are with big screens.
Those problems are twofold. One is that as with other displays, costs go up disproportionally with size. Two is that rejections go up disproportionally with size.
Getting 3.5" screens is easy. Getting 10" screens is hard.
Apple is not the cause of NAND shortages. I've made this clear in another thread. It's just a result of memory production cutbacks from manufacturers. Apple is ordering bit more than before, where last year there were no shortages, but manufacturers are producing much less to get memory prices up, which is happening, and causing shortages this year.