Microsoft Launches the Zune

Doug-W writes to mention an Engadget post about Microsoft's launch of the Zune. From the article: "Not a lot of surprises in the specs department, but they've confirmed the basics we've known for a while, like WiFi, 30GB of HDD, built-in FM, a 3-inch screen and the basic music, pictures and video playback. They also finally let slip the screen res -- an unsurprising QVGA -- and some better news on the codec front: the Zune supports h.264, MP3, AAC and WMA. As for ballyhoo, wireless Zune-to-Zune sharing is where the real action is at, and it works pretty much like we've been hearing: you can share a full-length track with a friend, and they've got three times to listen to it over a three day period, after which they can flag the song for purchase on the Zune Marketplace -- unless they're an unlimited 'Zune Pass' subscriber, of course."

This ought to be good!

Alright you simply have to explain this one.

You'd rather give money to Microsoft over Apple.

All of Slashdot is pulling up a chair, make it a good one!

Re:This ought to be good!

the zune supports more file types than the ipod. 'nuff said.

Re:This ought to be good!

Bigger screen, with the same resolution, and available in shiny turd brown! WOO! I'll take two!

perfect for the brown sound

That's not the only color it's available but personally I applaud MS for releasing turd brown as an option. Now if they do a special "Ween Edition" turd brown - it'll be the perfect player to enjoy the brown sound on, especially if it has "Poop Ship Destroyer" engraved on it.

Re:This ought to be good!

just how old are you? i bet i'm not far behind.

i know a lot of people who bought the ipod solely because it's apple and apple is cool and if you say otherwise, you're (as you said), an idiot.

the zune has more features than the ipod already built into it. it's not the same thing everyone else has. it supports more formats than the ipod. it (according to a review i read last week) has a more intuitive interface than the ipod. sounds to me like the apple fanboys are just whining that microsoft did something right.

Re:This ought to be good!

I've never met anyone who thought that owning an iPod made them different, or bragged about their uniqueness because they had an iPod.

I'd rather choose [insert object here] based on how well it performs the functions I require than whether or not "everyone else has one."

It amazes me how image conscious geeks can be. A large subsection of geek culture will go to such extreme lengths just so that they can brag that they don't fit in. And then they complain because nobody understands them...

It's ridiculous.

Not enough for me

Supporting more file types is irrelevant to me. I want it to support THE FILE TYPES I USE.

I don't have any WMA media. I do have iTunes Fairplay media. It doesn't support that.

Further, all these "Features" are typical MS lies - the file sharing won't work with all media, It may have a screen that is 0.5" larger but will it play movie content? Are you sure?

It doesn't even support MICROSOFT'S VERY OWN "PLAYS FOR SURE" DRM!!!!

Re:is it enough?

Theese people [kleenex.com] knocked the snot out of Kleenax.

Re:is it enough?

> Although it sounds good, do people hate microsoft so much (thanks to windows) that it will not be
> a success compared to the more-respected apple?

I'm still waiting for a portable player that meets my, admittedly demandinging, feature checklist. Doesn't look like Zune is in the running.

1. Must be able to run Rockbox. No vendor, especially Microsoft, is going to release a perfected firmware first try or even tenth try, and will move on to the next product long before the bugs are squashed and certainly before I am ready to buy a new unit. At least with something like Rockbox I could fix a really annoying bug myself if all else failed.

2. Must be able to support a wide range of codecs I am interested in and am able to rip to. MP3 is of course a given, but FLAC is important to me, especially on a HDD based player. OGG would be nice, but wouldn't be a deal breaker. I understand why many don't do it, nobody is doing it in a DSP yet so software only playback eats CPU and battery. AAC and WMA can exist, although I won't be using either of them. Video on a 2-3 inch screen is of zero interest for me, but if it doesn't bloat the physical size or kill battery life I'm neutral on it.

3. Must have a user replacable battery. Period, full stop.

Re:is it enough?

Somebody should mod that "interesting". I've been wondering for years why there aren't any hardware players that support Flac or OGG.

Who told you that? There are plenty:

FLAC players [sourceforge.net]

Vorbis players [xiph.org]

Re:is it enough?

FLAC playback is unnecessary when you can just convert to WAV or AIFF. Amusing that it's a requirement of yours, since nothing eats the battery more than constant HD access, which your giant FLAC files will do.

Re:is it enough?

Personally, I'd wait to see how it pans out before buying. First off, what kind of battery life is this going to have? With wi-fi and everything, I can't see how it'll be very good at all.

Second, what about the accessories? Right now, my iPod can be fully controlled from my Pioneer car stereo through their interface (and it charges the iPod for you too). Think they'll offer the same for Zune players? What about all the other iPod-related devices that have cropped up like clock radios with iPod docks, voice recorder add-ons, and digital camera storage adapters?

How will...

the brown Zune look with the blue screen of death?

Reality of "wireless sharing"

Here's a hint on all these ad-hoc wireless networks. We also have another ad-hoc wireless network. We call it air, and it can transmit vibrations from one person to another! Seriously, I've had my DS for awhile, and I've never suddenly found a person to play wireless with. Unless you have bells and whistles going off to indicate another person is around (and I'm not going to sit around at a "looking for" screen), it's a solitary thing.

And slapping on the usual DRM shackles won't change this. Most likely, make it much worse and harder to stick to the general public.

The Name

Is it just me or is Zune a terrible name?

Available in black, white and... *BROWN*?

Brown? Seriously? It's meant to be a cutting-edge, fetishistic techno-gadget, and they offer it in fucking brown?

Steve Jobs: "Here's our new iPod Nano! It's available in black, white, silver and shiny green and pink!"
Steve Ballmer: "Oh yeah? Well, here's Zune! It's available in black, white and this stylish turd-brown!"
Steve Jobs: "Brown, huh? You got it in beige as well? Or tweed? How about a nice Argyle pattern?"
Steve Ballmer: "Fuck YOOOOOUUUU!" [throws chair]

Good ol' MS. Always as stylish and tasteful as ever.

Re:Available in black, white and... *BROWN*?

From this CBS article: [cbsnews.com]

Brown? Microsoft's design director for the project, Chris Stephenson, explained the shape and scheme is "to make it less cool and sleek, but actually warm and silky."

"Who in their right mind would ... create a brown technology product? Artists will. Musicians would. And Zune will," Stephenson said.

Emphasis mine, but I think he hit it on the head.
 
/actually, I could see getting a brown & wood grain iPod, maybe done to look like some classy vintage audio equipment... but not a Zune, sorry.

Re:Available in black, white and... *BROWN*?

"Who in their right mind would ... create a brown technology product? Artists will. Musicians would. And Zune will,"

'cause everyone creates brown products. I like the read the newspaper when I create mine.

Re:Available in black, white and... *BROWN*?

When I hear the word "Brown," I always think of two things: Cleveland and shit. OK, I guess that was just one thing, but you get the point.

Two things I care about with this

... and neither are mentioned, as far as I can see:

Price & battery-life

Bit of a pity that:

"The Zune-to-Zune sharing feature may not be available for all songs on your device, and works only between Zune devices within wireless range of each other. This feature allows recipients to play full-length sample tracks up to three times in three days. Recipients cannot resend music that they have received via the sharing feature." ... as well...

Simon.

Re:Two things I care about with this

> ... and neither are mentioned, as far as I can see:
> Price & battery-life

Maybe because what you see are three photos of a *prototype* device that is not even in production and nobody knows when it will be? :) So these (what you look at) are more like *goals*, not the final effect. Effect which will constitute of the look (ok we see it), price (no mention), specs like battery life (no mention), ease of use (no mention - but I expect independent review for that, it has ipodish wheel for sure - but how does it work?), service around it (think ITMS for iPods). Etc.

So these are really just few photos that say nothing.

> Bit of a pity that:
> "The Zune-to-Zune sharing feature may not be available for all
> songs on your device, and works only between Zune devices within
> wireless range of each other. This feature allows recipients to
> play full-length sample tracks up to three times in three days.
> Recipients cannot resend music that they have received via the
> sharing feature." ... as well...

Yeah. Great feature. :))) Share with crippled music...

Also I am suspicious of this wifi stuff. I know wifi is right now quite complicated to use, and it uses lots of battery power (it was not designed especially for low power consumption). Also I wonder about how those devices will autoconfig to work ad-hoc flawlessly.

The imporant question at M$

What about the Zune is so revolutionary that it makes a person not want to buy an ipod or throw away their current mp3 player for the Zune.

Re:The imporant question at M$

That, and the iPod is grossly overpriced. MS doesn't have a history of overpricing their consumer products, although Apple does. As long as it's reasonably priced, I'm getting one.

The rumored price is $300 for the 30 GB version. The 30 GB iPod is $250. So, pretty much, same pricing strategy.

Is it really a launch??

Is this really a launch? Can they be purchased today?? No? Then this isn't really a launch then is it? I can order a new Nano and it will be here in a few days to a day. Zune's probably ain't going ot show up until November.....

Killing the MP3?

Because it will decimate every other mp3 player brand besides apple, I wonder if this isn't a play to destroy the concept of owning your music entirely.

Yes, I know they claim to play an mp3, but the devil is in the details. As in they will likely make it very inconvenient to use mp3's. Kind of like how easy it is to open may formats in MSWORD, but very difficult to use anything other than .doc.

The thing I'm interested in seeing is the wireless sharing. I don't think the average mp3 player consumer -wants- sharing, but I'd be very interested in them proving me wrong.

What's even more interesting will be the first virus transferred from zune-to-zune.

It's microsoft. It had to be said.

Re:what about sharing your own stuff?

I've got $20 that says only protected, purchased WMV's (or w/e they're called) will share. It's just a brazen way to drive people to purchase from the Zune store; they have no interest in sharing everything. Of course, they'll tell you that they only allow that kind of sharing to keep from "confusing" customers with shared files that can't be purchased. Thanks for the assistance, MS.

They've already hinted at it, saying that only "certain" files can be shared.

If they only renamed it the "Wii" it could be...

If they only renamed it the "Wii" it could be on Slashdot three times a day.

Song-sharing?

That is the stupidest feature I have ever heard of. Did they do any market research that led them to believe this was something people actually *wanted*? And that it worked the way they would want it to work?

So let me get this straight... if I have a Zune... and my friend has a Zune...

I can send them a track. Presuming the units sync up, and wireless works, and the phase of the moon is correct, because wireless is still basically tin-can-and-string at times... ...and he can listen to it for three days before it self-destructs?

Lame. Useless. Unless my friend and I both decided to take a risk and go out and get one of these doohickies each, how would this situation ever come up? Even if you find another Zune owner, what are the chances he also shares you musical interests?

Re:Song-sharing?

Even if you find another Zune owner, what are the chances he also shares you musical interests?

That's simple. There's only 100 songs at any given time that you should have any interest in, and they're kept in a convenient list called the Billboard Top 100. If your music hasn't been on the Top 100, then you have no business listening to it.

After all, if people were interested in totally different types of music, the record companies would have to spend too much money marketing and producing all these different groups and artists. So it's better now that we all just listen to the same music.

Re:Song-sharing?

Obviously you are no longer in high-school, or junior high, or even elementary school here in the US. The proliferation of iPods and portable music players among those who can't actually afford them themselves (but their parents bought them one) is staggering. So is the propensity to share music in these user groups -- something the iPod makes a tad more inconvenient than flaky wireless.
While I can't personally say I'd use this feature much (since I'm long since out of school), it seems to make perfect sense for these types of groups to desire such a feature. I also could see sharing a new song occasionally with a friend so they could purchase it themselves if they wished (since song use is limited). All in all -- this seems more like a "demo song" feature intended to increase music sales (much like listening to samples of songs on the iTunes store, but you get to take them with you).
You don't design a product assuming no one will buy it ("if I find another zune owner") -- you assume it will be a smashing success because of all the great features you've implemented.
And really -- wireless in an open-air area, ad-hoc, works great -- like cell phones!;) You're using it to share a song with someone right in front of you! Your comments (generously modded "insightful") show a distinct lack thereof.

But does it support

Gapless playback?

As of yesterday, it's a must have

Box art?

If anyone is wondering what the box art will look like, here it is [google.com]