Microsoft officially launches the Zune
Microsoft's long awaited entry in the DAP (that's digital audio player) market is here, and its name is the Zune. It has WiFi, a 30GB hard drive, built-in FM receiver, 3 inch screen, and it plays audio, video, and pictures. The Zune will play back h.264 (that surprised me), MP3, AAC (another surprise, but it won't play protected AAC's from the iTunes Store), and WMA. Sorry über-geeks, no ogg support.
What does the Zune use the built in WiFi for? Why, Zune to Zune sharing of music, of course. You can give your friend a song from your Zune and they can play it 3 times over 3 days, and then they get the option of purchasing the track (if it is available on the Zune Marketplace, which is the iTunes Store for Zunes). The Zune Marketplace will have both per pay tracks and a subscription service, which should make some people happy.
The Zune will be available in brown (pictured above), black, and white. Availability and price have not yet been announced, nor has support for the Mac but I'm thinking that isn't going to be a selling point. This holiday season could be a fight between the Zune and the iPod. I know where I'm putting my money.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Navvy said 3:36PM on 9-14-2006
Sign me up for the poopy brown color!
The Zune2Zune sharing sounds kinda cool, acutally. How long until that 3day/3listen limit is hacked?
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PiTT said 3:37PM on 9-14-2006
...not a fight between Zune and iPod but a fight between Zune and iPhone ;-)
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Mark Fleser said 3:38PM on 9-14-2006
Why the h*ll would anyone want brown. Looks like sh!t (pun intended)
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GH Mason said 3:39PM on 9-14-2006
May I be the first to say... "Um, ew".
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Query said 3:44PM on 9-14-2006
Don't use the WiFi on it.. you may get a virus.
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andy said 3:48PM on 9-14-2006
microsoft would be wise to release for mac, this is one way they saturated the world with IE, standardization, if they want to replicate that they should offer mac support. thank god the world is gradually recovering from IE.
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Rob said 3:52PM on 9-14-2006
yay! Finally a DAP that will match my Hush Puppies! I can't wait. I've been waiting for this a long time.
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Jason said 3:51PM on 9-14-2006
The brown Zune has similarities to the old Mattel "Classic Baseball" handheld game, or like a crappy 70's AM radio. Brown plastic should have been left for dead with the old Atari boxes.
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Velda said 3:51PM on 9-14-2006
Brown? WTF are they thinking?
i agree with #5, met another microsoft product begging to be a vessel for spreading viruses.
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Jon said 3:56PM on 9-14-2006
I think Zune Marketplace is an awful name.
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Tyler Lemke said 3:55PM on 9-14-2006
Yea poop color, sign me up.
"A Sphincter says... what?"
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Daniel D said 4:00PM on 9-14-2006
Finally I hope this encourages apple to get of its ass and release the widescreen ipod but it looks like they already announced their ipod plans for the time being they deserve to lose every one who buys one of these because they took too long doing their thing.
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mike said 4:03PM on 9-14-2006
this is not a launch, it's an annoucement.
there is no release date, no pricing, no service pricing, no details, no live demo. the only thing microsoft has produced today was more hype and some pictures of a plastic box with screen shots overlaid on the screens in post-production.
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Jim F said 4:04PM on 9-14-2006
Mr. Brown? That sounds too much like Mr. S***.
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Guillermo said 4:16PM on 9-14-2006
If and when Apple enables WiFi sharing on the iPod, I want it to work *exactly* like it does in iTunes. Just share the whole library (or selected playlists, if the other user chooses to) as long as both devices are in range. I don't care if I can't take the songs with me afterwards.
It would also be nice to have iTunes-to-iPod sharing. That way if my entire library doesn't fit on the iPod, I can still listen to all my songs on the iPod as long as they're in range of each other.
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john said 4:19PM on 9-14-2006
i kind of like the brown...sort of an old school look
(of course i'll still be picking up the 80gb ipod in a week anyway)
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Will said 5:08PM on 9-14-2006
I am with Mike. it's not a launch it's a vaporware announcement. The one thing they forgot to steal from Apple was their marketing. Bill gates should have demo'd the thing on Stage and then said "...and it's available today" and we should all be reading a post right now of some one unboxing the damn thing.
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sipsie said 4:30PM on 9-14-2006
to continue their record of releasing products easily succeptible to viruses, microsoft drops WiFi into the zune. i'm sure the developers over at norton antivirus are already licking their chops on this one.
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nick said 7:13PM on 9-14-2006
I think apple is letting Microsoft think they are ahead. And when the time comes they will just strike with a better product.
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Joe V said 4:50PM on 9-14-2006
About 3/4 of the comments here obsess over the color. How about comparing actual *fratures* against iPod? WiFi and FM are great advantages that iPod come with, standard (assuming Zune were released today). As I understand it, Zune is running some form of Windows Mobile, which provides a lot more opportunity for software-based enhancement. With iPod, you have to hack the firmware to do that (http://ipodlinux.org/).
Slamming the Zune becuase a) it's not an iPod, and b) it's from Microsoft makes you seem really small. Hopefully, Zune is successful: it will force Apple to add more Zune-beating features to the product, and make iPod more price-competitive.
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