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Microsoft officially announces Zune details
Now that Apple's locked in its plans for the latest iPods, Microsoft has made its countermove by offering up the details on the company's Zune player. First the bad news: there's no precise launch date or price yet, although Microsoft does say it'll be available "this holiday season." It'll have a 3-inch screen and a 30-GB hard disk and will come in white, black, and brown, coincidentally much like Sony's new Vaio N Series. Setting itself apart from Apple's offerings, the Zune will feature built-in Wi-Fi, allowing users to wirelessly share songs and videos… theoretically. The press release says you'll be able to share full-length "sample tracks" of "select" songs as well as homemade recordings and pictures. Sounds like there'll be some pretty serious copy protection.
Microsoft will also be debuting its own version of the iTunes music store, called the Zune Marketplace. It's unclear is you'll be able to download tracks straight to your Zune just like the MusicGremlin, but it would totally suck if you couldn't. The player will also come preloaded with some content from various music labels. And taking a cue from the exploding iPod-accessories market, Microsoft will offer optional packages for connecting the Zune to your car stereo and home system, plus a travel pack that includes "premium" earphones and a carrying bag. Is all this Microsoft goodness enough to give the iPod a run for its money? Kinda depends on how much it costs, but even though we're excited about the Wi-Fi, there's a good chance it won't be as cool as it sounds.
By zune at 1:30 PM ON 09/14/06
The cases appear to be semi-transparent. Very nice brown-green effect.
By AscendedMaster at 6:56 AM ON 09/21/06
While this potentially could be interesting, the copy protection that has already turned people off a lot of WMA content will turn this into the pariah of the portable music devices.
By zenbiscuit at 8:49 PM ON 09/21/06
Yet another vain attempt by Mircosoft to copy something Apple already has done and does better anyway and wow it only took them, what, five years. Oh, but wait this Zune player (as bad a name as iPod) still has not been released yet, kind of like Vista. Wonder if this little music/media player will freeze up, display a blue screen of death, and lose all it's data like a PC is apt to do and let us not forget about viruses!
By keono at 3:23 AM ON 10/19/06
I have one simple question. Will the Zune player crash as much as windows and x-box and x-box360? Microsoft has a very bad habbit of going with the lowest bidder, and making sub-par products. My ipod doesn't ever crash. Nor did my last one. Only reason I got a new one, was to more than quintuple my storage space on it. Tell me microsoft, with your reputation of crashing, wether it be an OS crash, or a program crash that freezes the CPU, or causes a Kernel Panic, What are you going to tempt me with to wrecklessly abandon my 30-gig ipod video? Wifi connection that I can't share my friend's new CD? Pre-loaded with sample tracks from record labels? like... elevator music? Oh, one more thing, far more than the one question I wanted to ask... What does the RIAA (is that what it's called?) have to say about ANOTHER company selling music that won't pay them one red cent per song? Or, are you going to charge MORE than I-Tunes to satisfy the recording industry? There's alot more questions unanswered in the official press release. They've created a project predistined to fail. Unless of course, they were to woo us with some NEW feature, say, a camera/camcorder feature. My cellfone has Bluetooth, my PDA has Wi-Fi, my Ipod has music. MAYBE if they combined it, and it didn't crash like a PC product tends to, I'll consider "upgrading" my ipod. Remember the Dell player? what ever happened to that?
By DUde at 11:50 PM ON 02/25/08
ZUne rocks!!!!!!!!
on your cellphone!
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