Opening Zune Sales Flaccid

An anonymous reader writes "As 'Black Friday' approaches and consumers line up for the Playstation 3 it looks like Zune has become an afterthought. Despite months of hype, opening Zune sales are only so-so. While Zune did reach the top 10 on Amazon's Top 25 list for electronic product sales on its first day, it quickly fell below the top 15 and continues to drop. Six separate iPod models now outsell it as well as SanDisk's e250 player. In-store sales are not much better."

Re:Microsoft and hardware

[Joe The Dragon]

Windows mobile is big now days.

Amazon customer reviews

[Frankie70]

Here [amazon.com].

Most of them seem to be very favourable.
First few days is really too early to judge a product sales figures.

Re:iTunes Music Store only looks like a lock in.

[xwizbt]

Right, but if you agree that you can write and re-encode, you can also use Hymn or something to remove the DRM. By which I mean that if you accept that burning and ripping your track isn't a crime, then bypassing the burn and rip process and simply stripping off the DRM is also perfectly legal. And if you're the sort of person who is bothered by the quality of the burn and rip process then you're the sort of person who's techy enough to use Hymn.

For the rest of us, burn and rip is great; the iTunes music store's DRM is exactly the right balance if you ask me.

Re:Zune's Problem IS......Balmer

[Rytr23]

Maybe I am wrong but couldn't you simply drag the mp3s on the ipod in disk mode and then copy off the files to the new pc and import into itunes? Not quite as "slick" but perfectly effective.. oh and you can't even use the zune in disk mode?!?!? WTF is that?

Re:Just another crappy MP3 player

[TheRaven64]

Yes, I know iPods use USB. But they require a dock and aren't mass storage devices out of the box.

They don't require a dock, but they do require a cable with a dock adaptor at one end (the dock connector has USB pins, among other things). Third party manufacturers also produce adaptors, and the pin-outs of the dock connector are available if you want to create your own.

They also can't be connected to other USB storage devices for file transfers.

They show up as mass storage devices on any computer that recognises their filesystem. The OS X ones are formatted as HFS+ and the Windows ones are FAT32, so only the Windows ones will work with Windows.

They also can't be connected to other USB storage devices for file transfers

This is a limitation of USB. Unlike FireWire, it is a client-server bus, so one device has to act as the host. Some digital cameras can do this, and you can plug an iPod into these. With FireWire, it was easier since every device was a peer and could talk to any other FireWire device.

Re:Zune's Problem IS......Balmer

[Baricom]

Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] says that they sold 67,641,000 iPods and 1.5 billion songs as of fourth quarter 2006. At that rate, they've sold about 22 songs per iPod.

There have been 28 different models of iPod, excluding different colors. The mean capacity of the iPod given those models is just under 18.5 gigabytes. Apple's marketing materials consider 1 gigabyte to hold 250 songs; therefore, the "average" iPod holds 4,625 songs.

Sorry, but 22 songs per iPod just doesn't strike me as a runaway success. I'm proof that the DRM is hindering sales - if it wasn't there, I'd be spending about $10 per month on iTunes content instead of $0. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Re:Not true

[HAKdragon]

And the program that you have to use to put the MP3's on your iPod? iTunes

Don't forget Winamp, Ephpod, GNUpod, and others

The one OS that you can run on your Apple box? OSX

Also Linux, BSD, and Windows*


*Requires Intel Mac

Re:Zune's Problem IS......Balmer

[vingt]

the newest iTunes update has apparently made it so that if I rip a CD and put it on my iTunes, upload to my iPod, I CAN NOT pull those songs off the iPod onto another computer... EVEN IF THAT COMPUTER IS AUTHORIZED for my iTunes account!

For a self-confessed Apple fanboi, you seem to have gone out of your way to deliberately misrepresent Apple on this one. Let's clear this up for you - Apple has added a feature! Prior to this update you couldn't pull any songs off the iPod onto another computer without third party software. Now they've added a way for you to copy the purchased music to a different computer. Ostensibly, this is to facilitate backup as well as allow playback. Let me state it again - something that Apple did not allow/facilitate before has now been added. It's progress not the regression you seem to mistakenly believe...

Re:zune sales

[Anonymous Coward]

and, in england, "the social" is welfare.

Re:Two things...

[parkov]

Maybe it's your thoughts that revolve around thoughts of sexual inadequacy. flaccid (adj.) 1. Lacking firmness, resilience, or muscle tone. See synonyms at limp. 2. Lacking vigor or energy: flaccid management.

How 'bout Ars Technica reviews?

[MojoStan]

You can't trust amazon.com reviews.

I mostly agree with you on trusting "customer reviews" from online stores, especially if they accept "reviews" from customers who haven't bought the item being reviewed. These Zune "reviews" could turn into a flame war against Apple fans who haven't actually tried the Zune and others trying to counter the effects from fake reviews. See CNET user reviews for a really obnoxious example of this.

However, Ars Technica (an Apple-friendly, but fair site, IMO) gave a pretty positive review for the Zune (7 out of 10) [arstechnica.com], even though they pointed out the early flaws of this product. If you're not familiar with Ars Technica reviews, they are the ones that published some rather infamous iPod reviews where they tested durability by putting an iPod in a washing machine, running it over with a car, and dropping it from a third-story balcony onto concrete (covered on Slashdot [slashdot.org]). BTW, they gave the newest iPod Shuffle 7/10 [arstechnica.com] and the 2nd generation Nano got 8/10 [arstechnica.com].

Re:Welcome to the social?

[Technician]

Does it support any non-DRM audio formats?

It's an MP3 player. It also supports the MS Plays for Sure format, but that is a seldom used feature.

Re:First pun!

[Karlt1]

The huge difference between the XBox introduction and the the Zune introduction was that the XBox was at least considered as good as the Playstation and never got the negative reviews that the Zune has been getting. But don't forget that the playstation 2 is still outselling the XBox and the XBox 360 according to Joystiq.com.

Re:Welcome to the social?

[The Great Pretender]

The Sandisk has the option of DRM or just using it as a drag and drop drive with no DRM. We use the later and just drag and drop. I didn't even install the Sandisk software until I decided to update the firmware and I've never used the software since then, still drag and drop. It's a simple toggle in the software of the device under USB Options. All I use is MP3 format (192kbps) on the Sandisk, but I know that WMA works and from experience I know that M4a doesn't (iTunes ripping for the nano). I understand that it should work with WMA and the WMA DRM, but never used those. Any other formats are beyond my knowledge or experience.

Sound wise they're both the same to me, I'm no audiophile and I don't think I need to be for this, it's an MP3 player that goes in my pocket. As an everyday user the software on the device is pretty much the same, I'm not going to quibble over the little things. A nice thing on the Sandisk is that a quick press of the power button takes you back to the first screen from where ever you are. The screen is bigger on the Sandisk compared to the nano we have (I don't know if they changed with the last revision). Also the Sandisk has the FM tuner which makes a huge difference down the gym when watch the TV's, the nano doesn't. The sizes are equivalent to me, I don't care about a few millimeters here or there and the Sandisk has an overall better solid feel as it's slightly heavier. However, the controls on the Sandisk are not as good as the nano, the nano definitely wins out there (except for the blue light), but I pick an album and put the thing in my pocket, so tactile control feel is not that important to me. Both require USB charging, unless you pay the cash for the external chargers. The biggest plus to the Sandisk is no software required. As long as I have the cable, in the mode I have it (no-DRM) it acts just like a USB drive with the computer.

All this is just my opinion, based on my preferences for using the two players. Other people will think differently, obviously. Oh, and I've not had any problems with lock-up on either.

FM tuner on the ipod

[Mia'cova]

There is the remote/fm tuner add-on. You get a little remote to pause/play, tinker with volume, etc. It comes with some a new set of 1st gen headphones with a shorter cord (makes sense with the remote). A radio option shows up in your menu when it's connected where you can set your presets and such. My headphones wires were getting loose from all the abuse and needed replacing so I grabbed this. So I've got the FM for the gym and a remote for easy access while snowboarding. I tried it out today for my first day on the hill and it did well enough as a remote. Down side is it's $50 which is steep but really, who cares about $50 these days :)

Just sayin the nano and video ipods do have FM. It's just sold as an add-on.