Briefly: Reflections on some time spent with Zune

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Comments

  • Reply 41 of 115
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross


    The PS3 isn't $799, it's more like $599.



    VB is going away in the PC world as well. MS is depreciating it. Two years from now, and by by.



    Vista will support EFF, but not in the beginning. MS has stated that already.



    Like the Xbox there are 2 verions of the PS3



    There are no documented plans to support EFI



    VB will be supported for Office 2007 Pc version it will not be supported for Office for Mac 2008 version, hense your incompatibility issue.



    These are all side issues that will affect Apple. In 2006 the only job of the Zune is to get people thinking about it and talking about it, clearly they are even on Apple forums.



    People can rag on it as much as they want they will be the first to pick it up and try it out its human nature.



    On a side note im all for competition it would be nice if in the end this just produces better products all the way around. Instead of end users acting like there should be one clear winner. In history when has one clear winner ever benifited the end user?



    People bitch about MS having a monopoly yet members in the Apple world appear to take some joy thinking the ipod or any other Apple product can win something outright.



    I hope the Zune takes off it will create a better product for the end user no matter which one you chose.
  • Reply 42 of 115
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by extremeskater


    There are no documented plans to support EFI



    There are.



    http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system.../efibrief.mspx
  • Reply 43 of 115
    palegolaspalegolas Posts: 1,361member
    It'll sell.. They're following the exact same business model as Apple after all.. and they're probably gonna follow the plan through. And the player doesn't look ass bad as most other Microsoft products. As already said, it's gonna see some modest success.



    If Apple is ready, and I think they're trying spanking hard to, they will introduce a next generation iPod a couple of days before the Zune launches, to steal all the glory from the Zune launch. All Zune reviews will be focused on the recently introduced 6G iPod.
  • Reply 44 of 115
    chuckerchucker Posts: 5,089member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by extremeskater


    Like the Xbox there are 2 verions of the PS3



    The versions are $499 and $599, not $599 and $799.
  • Reply 45 of 115
    sunilramansunilraman Posts: 8,133member
    This just in: Instead of cool Apple iPod packaging, you get this postcard with every Zune. "Hello from Seattle"... Mmm... land of the... well, I've never been, but anyways here's the postcard that comes with every Zune 8)



  • Reply 46 of 115
    sunilramansunilraman Posts: 8,133member
    How fucking spastic is that? Hello from Seattle?



    1. It is not the most popular city in the USA

    2. It is not the most popular city in the world.



    It's not like "Vorsprung durch Technik" or "Swiss" watches or Louis Vuitton Pareee.



    One of the biggest companies in the world and who the FRACK are they hiring for the marketing department? Hell I need a job, hook me up...!!
  • Reply 47 of 115
    sunilramansunilraman Posts: 8,133member
    No offense to Seattle-ians (Seattleites?) but the "cool" "marketability" factor of the city is not THAT great to go up against the established cool kid, the iPod.
  • Reply 48 of 115
    sunilramansunilraman Posts: 8,133member
    This just in as well: Apple will up the ante on the engraving of iPods in response to the ingenius, almost scintillating brilliance of "Hello from Seattle":







    .......
  • Reply 49 of 115
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by addabox


    So, a couple of things are clear:

    What else? There's kind of a myth that MS "always" enters a market with a mediocre offering but has the deep pockets to keep plugging away until by version 3 or 4 its good enough to be competitive. But what are the examples of that, beyond Windows itself, IE and the XBox? That's not much of a track record, and you could also look at all the things that never really went anywhere, like MSN or WebTV/MSNTV.



    Windows, IE, X-Box AND



    Office

    IIS

    MS Money

    Flight Sim

    SQL Server

    MOM

    SMS

    Exchange

    Media Player

    Windows CE / Mobile

    ASP

    Visual Basic

    Dot Net



    I could go on. The IT market place is littered with the fallout of their predatory pricing and tactics.
  • Reply 50 of 115
    backtomacbacktomac Posts: 4,579member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Chucker


    .

    The iPod's success is not "history repeating itself", .



    I agree with you on this. I see the ipod as Apple learning from history. Back when the original Mac was introduced if Appple had only pushed for market share.. who knows. With the ipod Apple has established marketshare dominance quickly which should make it difficult for competitors to challenge them. While MS is a formidible business advissary that should not be take likely this battle is different.
  • Reply 51 of 115
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider


    Mechanics: Zune's circle navigational mechanism is only responsive to clicks and is not scrollable (because Microsoft does not hold the patent on such functionality). *"While my fingers intuitively wanted to scroll, I kept having to click up/down/right/left and found this frustrating," the correspondent said.



    This is kinda funny! It's like a Windows person who uses a Mac and says that the 'zoom' button suck because it doesn't 'maximize' to fill the entire screen! LOL



    By the way, I think the Zune really suck and the iPod rocks, so I'm not trying to side with the Zune guys.
  • Reply 52 of 115
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by wackybit


    This is kinda funny! It's like a Windows person who uses a Mac and says that the 'zoom' button suck because it doesn't 'maximize' to fill the entire screen! LOL



    They're still trying to make a 4 way D-Pad look like a scroll wheel though, which is somewhat sneaky regardless of which is more intuitive.



    'maximize' on Windows is quite easy to grasp as a concept in comparison to the Mac's version although once you've worked out what the button does on a Mac, the Windows version looks primitive.
  • Reply 53 of 115
    iq78iq78 Posts: 256member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by toosday


    "Hello from Seattle."



    Gotta give it to them: That's freakin' cute!



    I saw this thing and it's not horrible. It's no iPod, but it's definitely not horrible. I actually dig the brown (though I think it'd look much better as a brushed aluminum case instead of... whatever it's made of.)



    It's pretty polarizing, though. You either love it or hate it.







    Okay... So "... it's not horrible. It's no iPod, but it's definetely not horrible."



    Is that statement loving it, or hating it? Because to me it seems somewhere in between.
  • Reply 54 of 115
    iq78iq78 Posts: 256member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Chucker


    Where did Apple make such a mistake before? With the Macintosh? Are you implying that the Macintosh, or the Apple II, had a dominating market position like the iPod does now? Because?*they never did.



    The apple ][ most certainly dominated the market. There was no serious alternative until the PC in 1980, and I don't think it over the Apple ][ until 1983 or so. It certainly didn't over take the home and schools until the late 80's.



    And Apple did get blindsided by Microsoft when Microsoft decided to do a GUI for the PC. Windows95 was good enough to seal the deal.
  • Reply 55 of 115
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by IQ78


    Okay... So "... it's not horrible. It's no iPod, but it's definetely not horrible."



    Is that statement loving it, or hating it? Because to me it seems somewhere in between.





    It's a false choice, it doesn't have to be on the extremes.
  • Reply 56 of 115
    i never ceases to amaze me how microsoft will go into any market just because they have so much cash, and then just lose billions in that market. it's amazing.



    at some point, this is going to bite them in the ass. you just can't waste so much money and have it all work out forever.
  • Reply 57 of 115
    addaboxaddabox Posts: 12,665member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by UrbanVoyeur


    Windows, IE, X-Box AND



    Office

    IIS

    MS Money

    Flight Sim

    SQL Server

    MOM

    SMS

    Exchange

    Media Player

    Windows CE / Mobile

    ASP

    Visual Basic

    Dot Net



    I could go on. The IT market place is littered with the fallout of their predatory pricing and tactics.



    My original post was unclear. I should have said, "outside of Windows monopoly and the software leveraging which that has allowed, and the XBox...."



    Even better would be "outside the XBox, what track record does MS have pushing a consumer electronics device into the market place?"



    The XBox allowed for highly desirable proprietary content, which the Zune can't and likely won't.



    None of this means the Zune won't have some success, it just means nothing MS has done in the past makes that inevitable.
  • Reply 58 of 115
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by IQ78


    The apple ][ most certainly dominated the market. There was no serious alternative until the PC in 1980, and I don't think it over the Apple ][ until 1983 or so. It certainly didn't over take the home and schools until the late 80's.



    Not as I recall, but then I'm English and we didn't see Apple II's over here much at all. http://www.pegasus3d.com/total_share.html has a nice table of sales. Apple II days here were largely taken up by PETs, BBC Micros and Sinclairs.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by IQ78


    And Apple did get blindsided by Microsoft when Microsoft decided to do a GUI for the PC. Windows95 was good enough to seal the deal.



    The damage was already done. PC sales were ten times Mac sales even before Windows 3.0. After Windows 95 they rocketed though and Mac sales plummeted. Apple now sells more Macs than they've ever sold but their market share is still tiny because the PC has become ubiquitous in markets and niches the Mac doesn't enter.
  • Reply 59 of 115
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by addabox


    My original post was unclear. I should have said, "outside of Windows monopoly and the software leveraging which that has allowed, and the XBox...."



    Even better would be "outside the XBox, what track record does MS have pushing a consumer electronics device into the market place?"



    The XBox allowed for highly desirable proprietary content, which the Zune can't and likely won't.



    None of this means the Zune won't have some success, it just means nothing MS has done in the past makes that inevitable.



    Good points. Though part of Microsoft's strength has been its ability to leverage its dominance in one area into dominance in another - Windows mobile has pretty much squashed Palm. Who makes the hardware is now irrelevant.



    MS may not even stay the in the player market - they may pull back and just sell a player OS, software, and content. Zune may be a way of figuring out the concept, until, once the store/software is refined, they can turn it all over to a hardware manufacturer.
  • Reply 60 of 115
    ajmasajmas Posts: 597member
    Looking at the thread most people are having a laugh at Microsoft's attempt. This attitude is what burnt Apple at the end of the 80's. Apple had a marketing campaign, which went something along the line of "Windows 98 is Mac 1984". Apple was smug about its position, did little good to improve its position, and then got slaughtered by Microsoft Windows. If Apple has any sense they will take this challenge seriously and do everything to keep one step ahead. Sure Apple has done much to change its image since Steve Jobs came back on, but for a long while Apple looked very bleak.



    Remember when the iPod first came out most non-Apple users were smug about it being a feeble attempt and being overpriced. This 'overpriced', feeble attempt ended up dominating the market. Think of the Zune as a first attempt, with more to come. It is to be taken seriously, since not doing so will mean ignoring what may be yet to come!
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