Microsoft are becoming a parody of themselves...at best. At worst theyre a bunch of people that have no style or creativity or respect for any other organisation on the planet. The fact that theyre releasing a product...any product..implies that someone else has already beaten them to it. That zune thing could have been a spoof april fools joke...but they keep topping themselves every week. Next its youtube. The only thing inovative about them is that fact that they have somehow created one of the most profitable companies on the planet without actually doing anything inovative.
Just like Banks, Gas, Electricity and Water companies because they seem to be allowed to charge whatever they want. :woo:
The Zune seems very interesting feature-wise, and the only one yet that could really give the iPod a run for its money. All of the iPod's competitors have less functionality and were designed like crap, so perhaps Microsoft can revitalise the "arms-race" with this better product (to which, hopefully, Apple will answer with a yet even better iPod). But seriously; where's the logic? Microsoft doing iPods and Apple doing Media Centers!
Slightly unfair comparison. Computing is capable of more evolution than any other technology. Microsoft have created a situtation where you think that thats a fair comparison. The pricing is a seperate issue and i agree about energy pricing. Im talking about Microsoft stealing components to make windows, trying to eliminate competition with IE, copying google, copying sony, copying mac os, copying ipod, copying youtube...Microsoft obviously have no mechanism to create these things because if they did...they would have. Microsoft havent actually brought any inovation to the computing world...they just try to create a situation where they dont have to inovate. I mean...theyve got the entire world thinking its difficult to make a good operating system...they've made the world believe that continuously patching against viruses and critical security issues is normal. They've released a copy of XP with a theme and a terrible piece of software and called it a new OS...and made it manditary to use this with the 360 for media.
You don't need to convince me of how much Windows sucks; there's a reason I've got linux on my computer. But I've seen some things that challenged my opinion of Microsoft as a whole, mainly through their attitude towards the community around the Xbox and the Xbox 360. Their creative teams for the Zune has churned out some interesting stuff; far from the bland image Microsoft projects to corporate customers. Windows, the Xbox (360), and probably the Zune as well are not made by the same departements inside Microsoft, most of them operating almost completely seperately from one another. So I think many people are being a tad stubborn in their denying the Zune any merits. It is announced to be cheaper than the iPod, have more features (wireless for broadcasting/file sharing, TV Output...), have a bigger and better screen (widescreen for videos), does not look nearly as bad a the other iPod competitors. I'm not saying this is going to dominate Apple's iPod, but it IS a much more serious opponent than any the iPod ever had.
Microsoft made a system allowing people to dowload songs to compatible mp3 players...they decided to not use this in Zune, in favour of a system (suprise suprise) thats closed to zune. .wma is an aweful format. ..if (if) you want to share things between zunes, you will have to pay for it. The wireless tech kills battery life...which is why ipods dont have them. I think its rediculous. They're producing things without knowing why...if they knew what made the ipod succesfull...they would have made one. But they cant inovate...just copy other people. ...and seriously, what do you want tv output for? iTunes software is far better than anything microsoft can do. Media player and media centre are a joke. You ever done that thing were media player 'searches for media' and creates a massive list of every beep and ping your computer contains? It seems microsoft have just banged a few things together to try and compete in a market they know nothing about. They didnt even think up a new design. The only reason microsoft are afloat is because they make money regardless of what they do through xp oem etc. Why cant they spend the money on figuring out something actually inovative...instead of throwing money at stuff like this.
We have a price - Well at least for you US peeps. Not bad too! Microsoft's Zune, a rival to Apple's iPod, will cost $249.99 (£134) when it goes on sale on 14 November in the US. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5391226.stm
Never heard of the zune before but it looks really good. I wouldn't buy an ipod but I may get one of these to replace my ageing rca lyra.
It's actally manufactured by Sony, so should be fairly good quality. I hope the price is very similar over here £134.00. However, since we live in 'rip-off' Britain, I very much doubt it. So, if the price is right, and there are no bad reports from the US beta testers, (because that's what they'll be ), then I should hopefully have one in my pocket in the early new year. Waits ......
