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What is a Zune? Seriously - I travel quite a bit and I have NEVER seen one. I almost bought one...just to see what it was like but I didn't think MS would keep this product since they don't really do anything with it.

With the billions that they have - why don't they advertise this product?

beaker

You probably just didn't notice them since they didn't have glowing white strings hanging out their owner's ears.

That's for the heads up.  I'll subscribe to the show.  Love my Zune.  I bought it with the in-car FM emitter since my 97 jetta lacks the inputs and listen to a lot of podcasts(including Windows Weekly) on the 90 minutes I spend in the car each day.

I'm a new Zune owner and an admitted MS fan . . .

I dig the device and that it's NOT one of those other white devices.  It does have some nice qualities, but lacks in other areas. . . mostly lacks in content, accessories and a user base.  

Overall it's staying in my toy box.  

The Zune's crossbar UI has some real advantages over the iPod classic's deeply nested menu structure.  I can't say that I love the "Zune Pad" though.  The touch sensitive surface reduces the accuracy of clicks, making accidental actions more easy.  Overall though, it's a good player.  But it's also a bizarre strategic failure for Microsoft.  They entered the market to "move faster than the playsforsure ecosystem would make possible"... and have moved very very slowly.  As Paul points out, the Zune still lacks audiobook or movie rental support among many many other features.

So, the question really becomes... what's the point of the Zune?  It's nice and all.. but I would argue that it is the quintessential example of Microsoft's self-destructive need to chase every successful company in every tech market and a classic manifestation of their Apple-envy.

I think they'd have been better off sticking with Playsforsure and putting their nose to the grindstone on functionality.

The Zune strategy also begs a more fundamental question. Steve Balmer claimed in his company memo that they were working with PC makers to deliver a future user experience "without compromise" in a competitive reference to what he proclaimed as a narrow but superior experience on the Mac.  How?  How can Balmer claim this is possible with the complexity of the PC when they couldn't even deliver this with portable media players?  Seriously, this is an honest question.  

If Microsoft's only choice for a unified and elegant user experience in media players was to adopt the Apple model... why should we expect the infinitely more complex PC to be any better?

OT:  The question, answered.

>>Are Macs More Expensive? Let’s Do the Math Once and For All

--

So for consumer notebooks, the official Technologizer answer to the question “Are Macs more expensive?” is as follows:

“Actually, a MacBook is in the same ballpark as a roughly similar Dell or HP, and less than a Sony. If you’re tempted by a MacBook and can afford its pricetag, go ahead and buy one–it’s a decent deal.”<<

Those were customized machines.  Garden variety priced to move machines at best buy?

>> The Best Buy bargains are all hundreds of dollars less than the MacBook, and while the MacBook beats them on some specs, all of them beat it in other important areas.

So here’s the takeaway from this particular comparison:

“A base MacBook costs a lot more than a basic garden-variety Windows notebook, and skimps in some important areas. If you’re tight on money, go with a Windows laptop and look for a sale; if you want a MacBook, spend a bit more for a better-equipped configuration.”<<

Conclusion?  

>>–”Are Macs More Expensive?” isn’t one question, it’s a series of ‘em, with an array of answers.<<

technologizer.com/.../are-macs-more-expensive-lets-do-the-math-once-and-for-all

technologizer.com/.../are-macs-more-expensive-round-two-survival-of-the-cheapest

@Ocean,

What does this have to do with the Zune?  

Yawn...this coming from a zune owner. Its a good DAP...thats that. Only thing that remote interesting that can come out this year is 3.0 and XNA games.

Video wise its as useless and crippled as the iPod and no match for my old Zen Vision M.

Totally OT:

Congratulations to Jon Shirley (former President of Microsoft) on his Alfa Romeo winning Best in Show at Pebble Beach

Congratulations to Greg Whitten (formerly of Microsoft) on his ERA winning the Tony Hulman Trophy at Pebble Beach

"The Zune strategy also begs a more fundamental question. Steve Balmer claimed in his company memo that they were working with PC makers to deliver a future user experience "without compromise" in a competitive reference to what he proclaimed as a narrow but superior experience on the Mac.  How?  How can Balmer claim this is possible with the complexity of the PC when they couldn't even deliver this with portable media players?  Seriously, this is an honest question. "

It's all about money, John. People assume that because Microsoft has access to billions of dollars in cash, it automatically means that the Zune team does too. That's wrong. The Zune team is a very small group within Microsoft with a limited amount of resources.

That said, I thought Zune Originals was a great concept but they could've gone further and partnered with NFL, MLB, etc.

What is MS' goal for the Zune anyway?

I can't think its anything less than doing to the iPod and iTunes what Excel did to Lotus 1-2-3.

I've been trying this Zune "all in" thing myself for the past few weeks, as my iPod broke after a few hard years of usage, and it's been a pretty mixed bag.  I really do like the Zune device and the interface, but the software is still fairly painful.  

I couldn't find any reliable way to bring in my ratings from iTunes, and manually rerating my 60 gigs or so of music isn't that appealing.  Also, the HEART/BROKEN HEART rating system drives me insane, as I really want more granularity.

The podcast downloads are flaky, and I really don't like the automatic podcast save settings.

As long as we're going off topic:

news.yahoo.com/.../109364

*snort*

"As long as we're going off topic:"

You finally got your excuse to troll!! Good for you.

Wow, this thread is pretty terrible.  Even Mike is going off topic.  Does this mirror the general consumer apathy toward the Zune or what?  Perhaps it mirror's the apathy in the executive ranks at Microsoft toward the device.  Why else would it be progressing so slowly to pick up features that the iPod has for so long?  Weird.

@"lotsamystuff" - Like I told drylight -

Nice trolling...but that's old news and has been rehashed dozens of times all over the place. You must have forgotten to read this part:

"The idea of a downgrade option is nothing new for enterprise licenses, since it can take several years for large organizations to plan out and deploy significant new software, under schedules that bear no resemblance to a vendor's product schedules."

And according to most of you anti-MS troll types, the vast majority of Windows PCs exist in the business setting, right...so if you remove that number, what happens to that 1 in 3 ratio?

Hey, I can feed the trolls with the best of ya'll.

--tayme

@jp - "Does this mirror the general consumer apathy toward the Zune or what?"

No, it just shows that those of us that are not platform zealots do not need to spout various nonsensical crap on the internet to make us feel like we are the winners.

--tayme

"Even Mike is going off topic.  Does this mirror the general consumer apathy toward the Zune or what?"

No. It represents a chance for me to give congratulations to two ex-Microsoft guys who did really well in the premier classic car show in the world.

As for the rest of the thread, the creation a new podcast isn't, by itself, really that worthy of comment.

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