Zune Team Getting Amnesty for iPod Use 303
MsManhattan writes "The Zune development team at Microsoft is apparently offering amnesty to employees who give up their iPods in favor of using the Zune MP3 player. An MSNBC employee has posted a photo on Flickr of the company's 'iPod Amnesty Bin,' which sports an image of a bitten green apple and the words 'Bite me.' Whether it's to be taken seriously or is a joke to boost employee morale is anyone's guess, and naturally no one at Microsoft was available for comment. From what can be seen in the photo, only a few early-model iPods have been deposited."
new ad campaign ineffective, misses point (Score:5, Insightful)
I saw the new ad by Microsoft (on American Idol, at least they're finally picking a demographic):
I asked my wife to view the ad (tivo), as I suspected the "uploading one song" (tune?, track?, can't remember) on one Zune screen, and the "downloading one song" on the screen of a Zune behind the first did not convey the "sharing" notion. Sure enough, when asked, she said "of course" she understood -- it was demonstrating how a Zune could upload and download music from the computer wirelessly (something I don't even think it really is capable of).
I explained what it really demonstrated, and she thought that was kind of cool, but I told her she'd have to
Re:new ad campaign ineffective, misses point (Score:5, Informative)
Especially given microsofts constant habit of forcing uupgrades.
Apple do constant upgrades too, but my trusty old generation 3 iPod is still going strong in linux via Amarok. It works with the latest iTunes software too, but that's frankly not a very good peice of software, so I don't use it.
Re:new ad campaign ineffective, misses point (Score:5, Insightful)
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Further to this, Apple's FairPlay2 (the current implementation of it's iTunes DRM) really doesn't cause me any problems, there are multi-platform tools to remove the FairPlay2 DRM from your purchased tracks, it only gets tricky when your trying to break
Re:new ad campaign ineffective, misses point (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:new ad campaign ineffective, misses point (Score:5, Insightful)
a) It didn't really "play for sure" even on devices that were theoretically compatible and supported
b) After heavily marketing PlaysForSure, Microsoft made their very first self-branded media player incompatible with it. Not just "claimed compatibility that doesn't work" but explicitly "not compatible".
As much as Apple's DRM sucks, at least one thing can be said about it - It's compatible with every iPod ever released since Apple started using that DRM technology, and as far as anyone can tell will continue to be compatible with all future iPods. Yes, you're locked in to Apple hardware, but at least you don't have to rebuy your music every time Apple releases a new iPod, whereas Microsoft's track record with compatibility is awful, even between different versions of their own products.
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Re:new ad campaign ineffective, misses point (Score:5, Funny)
We have no problem with you wanting to get rid of us oh-so-horrible PC users, if it means that you guys stop trying to push Macs on us. Seems like not a single Apple story goes by without one of you guys smugly declaring how superior your Mac experience is. All it takes is for you guys to actually shut up, but I guess that concept is too difficult for you.
PS: You might want to get Jobs to cancel all those smug advertisements aimed at converting PC users too.
Love,
PC Users
Re:new ad campaign ineffective, misses point (Score:5, Funny)
We will not use parent's moronic post as a reason to insult all of you. We realize that a certain percentage of all people are morons. We realize that this applies to Windows users as well as to Mac users and Linux users. Even though not one single Apple story goes by without a PC user smugly declaring how idiotic Mac users and iPod owners are, we will not hold this against you since we assume that only a minority of all PC users consists of condescending Apple haters who presumably had a really hard childhood and now feel forced to take their anger out on Mac users.
PS: We would not mind if you lynched these idiots yourself, though.
Love,
Mac Users
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And don't you realise that the only reason Apple would like to offer DRM-free music is so they can use it as an excuse to increase prices and hence their profit margin. As always though, Steve Jobs will constantly blame the music industry for a situation which Apple profits from.
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Zune is from Microsoft.
IPod is from Apple. I could be wrong but don't even the first Gen iPods work with the current iTunes?
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"I need to upgrade my media player. It looks like I'm going to have to rebuy my music, this sucks. Fuck you Microsoft, at least I can be fairly comfortable that if I switch to iPod it'll be the last time I have to rebuy my music if I stick with Apple, as opposed to a clear track record of compatibility breaks even between devices from the same vendor."
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Of course you also have freaks like me who'd just buy the CDs and rip instead.
Re:new ad campaign ineffective, misses point (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually a better question is can you still put music you bought with iTunes 1 onto your new iPod. The answer I believe is yes.
Re:new ad campaign ineffective, misses point (Score:5, Funny)
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Exactly - MS's ad campaigns are battling...MS prior customers! Most people I see with a Zune tell me not to get one..they don't use the over-Pod features. Additionally, when they want to share some music.. they talk about simply giving me a thumbdrive to copy. WTF is MS thinking...Zune's DRM makes it DOA - as judged by MS's own Zune owners!
Re:I'm the only person in the world who owns a Zun (Score:3, Funny)
But if you hadn't explained it... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Does anyone ever say ewwww in a good way?
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Re:new ad campaign ineffective, misses point (Score:4, Funny)
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no, use *your* headphones. (Score:5, Insightful)
just plug your headphones into their ipod.
What's the matter, you don't have your mp3 player with you? Well then, you wouldn't be able to share with the zune either.
Re:no, use *your* headphones. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Hm...DRM?
DRM that is only there if you bought DRM music or received music wirelessly from someone else.
DRM added to stuff I legally own?
False. It doesn't add DRM to stuff that you legally own. If you receive songs from other people wirelessly it will add DRM to the songs you receive because you may not legally own them. The whole reason the DRM is there is because the RIAA would have a field day with the Zune if it wasn't. But somehow Apple gets a free pass from being forced into DRM while Microsoft doesn't.
I hope you enjoy your Microsoft check too?
It hardly requires a Microsof
Uptake ? (Score:5, Insightful)
I especially love the employee who gained brownie-points by putting something (anything!) in the ipod-bin, even if it was only an iPod *cover* [huge grin]. I wonder if Steve (that's Balmer, in case of confusion) was watching him walk on by, and he thought he had to put *something* in...
If MS can only get 0.1% of their *own* people to switch, they ain't gonna make it too big in the far more neutral marketplace...
Simon.
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Re:Uptake ? (Score:5, Funny)
Assumptions. What uptake? (Score:2)
ARGH!! (Score:2)
I'll just blame it on the fact that it's the Friday afternoon before a three-day weekend.
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Yesterday, a woman I work with asked me for help with her iPod because it prompted her to reset all the software on it, and it was the 4th time she had to do it. She asked me for a different alternative and I told
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I may hate the iPod, but I'm not going to go from Redmond to Mountain View just to throw it out.
I think you're wrong (Score:2)
I did a quick search, and I can't find anything linking the Zune to Mountain View. I did find the blog [live.com] of a Zune tester who apparently lives in Washington ("I was at the Rascal Flatts concert in Tacoma, Washington on Sunday.")
Simon.
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In other news (Score:5, Funny)
Also, Nokia is granting amnesty to all employees who trade in their Nintendo DS for an N-Gage.
Interestingly, there has been an increase in the number of Acura TLs driven by GM lower management...
Re:In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
Insightful +1
Re:In other news (Score:5, Interesting)
What's interesting (let's see if this works!) is that the individual was likely just trying to work around a design flaw in the moderation system. The Funny mod doesn't increase karma, but modding you down will decrease it, meaning that typically getting modded funny very often results in loss of karma. In fact, if someone mods you funny, then someone else mods you overrated, then not only do you lose a karma point, but the overrated mod never appears in metamoderation, so the bad moderation is never corrected (as per the FAQ, you should concentrate on positive moderation.)
Re:In other news (Score:5, Funny)
In that case, instead of "interesting" people should mod funny stuff as "underrated."
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Re:In other news (Score:5, Interesting)
Interesting...
Re:In other news (Score:5, Funny)
Re:In other news (Score:5, Informative)
>> Interesting...
>Funny how that works out.
Thank you for the Informative post.
Re:In other news (Score:5)
(also, how does slashdot always get the capchas so spot on - drunker? well not now, maybe later though?)
Tips (Score:3, Insightful)
Disclaimer: I own neither an iPod nor a Zune. I have an off brand music player.
Re:Tips (Score:5, Funny)
Very seriously. (Score:2)
act quickly (Score:5, Funny)
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If I could buy and sell turds for that price I'd be happy, let alone a Zune!
Confirmation! (Score:2)
Corporate welfare? (Score:5, Insightful)
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At Microsoft? Why, to avoid being Fucking Killed (TM) by a flying chair, of course!
I have a feeling the ipods in the bin are all (Score:3, Insightful)
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Well, except for the DV camera sitting in front of it
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Make a better Zune (Score:5, Insightful)
Heck, it should be mandatory for every single employee on the Zune team to have an iPod just so they know what the best in breed mp3 player looks like.
Microsoft unwilling to learn (Score:4, Insightful)
But instead they are too arrogant to realise their product isn't good enough.
iPods, Zunes, Archos, etc etc ad infinitum (Score:4, Insightful)
The screen died after two months. The backlight wouldn't turn on anymore.
Instead of getting a new iPod (ebay to me: gg) I recently purchased an HTC Hermes (Cingular 8525) for slightly more than the cost of a new iPod.
It's serves as my:
-Mp3 player (I have 8gb of storage and I'm telling you, when I pick the songs I really want, instead of the thousands I don't care about at all, I have PLENTY of storage)
-Digital camera for everyday use (if I want greater than 1600x1200 I use my Canon, usually 1600x1200 is plenty)
-Cell phone
-PDA running windows mobile; it synchronizes all my appointments and reminds me in advance of upcoming birthdays/holidays
-Instant Messenger and e-mail (has built-in WiFI G)
I got all that for trading the storage space for movies on a 2.5" screen and music that I am constantly hitting next to get to a better song.
Please tell me, for pure mp3 players/storage devices, where's the appeal now?
TLF
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I don't want a cell phone or a portable e-mail / IM device. I don't like the idea of being that accessible and when I'm out, I want to be disconnected from the phone / cyberworld. Furthermore, whenever I look as a curiosity at cell phone plans up here in Canada, the price and lack of service amazes me. I can't believe people are willing to pay those kin
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Hey, I'm the same way. When I don't want to be bothered I turn on flight mode with two clicks. Problem solved. It saves battery too.
I don't know how many appointments/birthdays/holidays/etc you have to remember, but I have at least a hundred per year. And that number is growing. I'm no mnemonic genius either, so I ap
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Not running WinCE? Ne'er so appropriate a name has been attached to a piece of software.
I have an iPaq and I found WinCE to be a horrible, horrible operating system. No fucking way I would want it on a phone.
If you're happy, that's great. But I found a WinCE PDA to be a crap media player.
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My experience thus far with WM:
- I can run multiple applications at once, such as Media Player, Excel Mobile, Internet Explorer, etc with no noticable slowdown until I really get out of hand. Which, honestly, is to be expected. The same goes for using a PC.
- The device has only locked up 2 times since I've had it, and both times I can't honestly attribute it to the OS. Seemed more like a hardware lock because both times it happened I pressed a sequence
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Actually, what I chose was the RAZR V3i, because I seldom use a mp3 player, but I want one. And for the car, rather than getting an iPod and a dock adapter for my stereo, I bought a JVC DVD player that plays mp3 off of a DVD-ROM (in UDF-bridge format.) It's pretty crappy, but it was a much cheaper solution (my last stereo had died so it had to be replaced anyway) and I don't need to carry another item back and forth between home and car. Just drop in a disc, and it will read rewrita
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How is your (seemingly poor) selection of songs the fault of the playback device?
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I'm extremely happy with it.
TLF
No Warranty? (Score:3, Insightful)
> The backlight wouldn't turn on anymore.
What about the warranty? Didn't Apple honor it? You should have at least had Apple fix the iPod under warranty so you could sell it on eBay. The semi-recent iPod Video models fetch a good amount of money on eBay!
Heck, I'll take your dead iPod if you don't want it.
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I still have it.. it's probably out of warranty now (dunno how long the man. warr. is). Maybe I'll send it in anyway and put the money in savings for the new GPS-enabled device I want to get next.
TLF
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TLF
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I have the normal battery, but I rarely IM on the road. The majority of my IM'ing is done where I am near either a) car jack or b) outlet so I can plug it in.
My battery life is usually a few days of normal use (I'm not on the phone a whole lot, and I don't IM a lot on battery power). The extra-sized battery is nice but it does stick out a bit. I haven't need
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If I ever lose my carrier (I won't) I can still have all the other features of the 8525.
TLF
poor devs (Score:5, Interesting)
THAT would be freaking cool.
FYI..i don't work for microsoft...i know that sounded like an ad for the zune or something...I own an iPod in fact. I'm just saying, keep in mind that the engineers I'm sure are working on this device aren't evil RIAA lawyers, they're geeks. It must just really really really suck to not be able to put all the cool features i'm sure you would want into a project that you're working on...
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How much you wanna bet.... (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't see the problem here. (Score:2)
Slashdot readers (Score:2)
They're all new (Score:2, Informative)
Dumpster Diving (Score:2)
Amnesty? (Score:2)
keeping track of competition (Score:5, Insightful)
That's right, how can you copy your competitor if you don't have any of their products on hand? Oops, did I say "copy"? I meant "compete with".. my bad..
Far from new (Score:2)
The funny thing about most such projects is to those with any marketing exposure, it comes across as the most annoying angle. If a certain product or service is cheaper/be
an attempt to increase usage? (Score:2)
LoB
The Zune Counter (Score:4, Interesting)
After the Zune was released, I decided to go counting how many people would actually buy it. My target was where my internship was: New York. This would be a fairly easy time killer; many New York commuters have some sort of MP3 player, so it shouldn't be too hard to at least get a raw estimate and ballpark a real-world value from there.
Since it's release, I only counted TWO people who had a Zune. TWO. Out of the HUNDREDS of people that I have seen while commuting every weekday to work, and out of the HUNDREDS of iPods (various generations) I have seen on those commuters, I have only seen TWO people carry a Zune. Furthermore, I have yet to really see a Zune make Page 1 of your advertisements. It's usually pretty deeply hidden, unlike its competitor.
Another interesting place to confirm this is eBay. If I had to ballpark a value for the average price of a Zune there, I would have to say it was somewhere around the upper $210-lower $220 range. Check here. [ebay.com] However, the average price of iPods is noticeably higher. Check here. [ebay.com]
In short, I think that this iDumpster, while it might surface as a joke, is just to remind the Zune developers that they have quite a bit of work to do before they even expect to see people actually flocking to this device. This is just my honest opinion.
"Amnesty" (Score:2)
On the other side of the same hallway... (Score:4, Funny)
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Ah-hah! (Score:3, Funny)
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a bigger screen than the tiny ipod one
Same resolution though. That just means you need to hold the Zune a little further away...
Yes the Zune has its own software, but thats no diffrent than itunes being seperate from quicktime.
Very different actually. Quicktime is a component of iTunes. Not the same relationship between the Zune software and WMP.
Apple is more evil than MS.
Opionion stated as fact. :-)
If you look at anything that apple sells, you could easily find the same thing made by another company at leat 1/3 less cost.
1/3 is a bit of an exageration. (The Zune is not 1/3 the cost.) Often times Apple may be a bit more expensive, but its the user experience that comes with their products that people like.
I' not trying to rain on your parade, just point out some things yo
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Both of those plug into my Ipod and control+charge it. (no a FM modulator or a headphone in does not cut it. I like the complete control as well as playlist control from the head-unit or the LCD touch panel in my wall.
NOTHING like that exists for the Zune and therefore makes it a complete turd for me.
Ipod integrates with all audio systems seamlessly because they opened it up (and added a RS232 control por
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No it doesn't work on all OS's out of the box, but there are tools for using it with linux.
Apply is trying to move away from DRM, and they are a major force. It's a good player.
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I'm using a jumpgear mp3 which uses separate thumbdrives. You can get the whole deal with 2 gig for under $50. I like being able to have multiple flashdrives for it. I like being able to walk up to any computer running anything and access my drive. I put other files on it, and it is very handy.
The drawback: I've got to put the songs I want to hear on it. No fancy
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The reason I've never been willing to use an ipod or zune is the required software issue. All it would take would be one update to cripple your device or suddenly require drm.