Microsoft's Zune challenges iPod

The player and the internet content store would be "available this holiday season in the United States", Microsoft said in a release that did not reveal the Redmond, Washington, technology titan's pricing plans.
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It would surprise me if Apple left this challenge unanswered. In the meantime Apple already has a viable product that you can buy today.
 
well if it can play + store mp3's in the original format + accessable from a pc then its better :P
ipods renaming is annoying
 
it all comes down to usability and quality of product/design. apple is still tops in that department...
 
Calico182 said:
it all comes down to usability and quality of product/design. apple is still tops in that department...
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Being able to play a variety of formats is part of usability. In that department Apple is bottoms.
 
krycor said:
well if it can play + store mp3's in the original format + accessable from a pc then its better :P
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I have no idea what that means or refers to. :confused:
 
noxibox : The iPod supports more audio and video formats than the Zune

iPod Audio : AAC, MP3, Audible, Apple Lossless, AIFF, WAV
Zune Audio : MP3, AAC and WMA

iPod Video : H.264, m4v, mp4, mov, MPEG-4
Zune Video : H.264
 
stix : Apple has a patent on the Scroll Wheel. The Zune doesn't have a scroll wheel. It has four buttons in a wheel shape. Much like your VCR/DVD player might have
 
kaspaas : Maybe for people who dont have access to digital stores, products like JNC's, Creative, etc can work. But for everyone else, they simply cannot work. 80% of all downloaded music is encrypted AAC and this can only work on an iPod. And iTunes is great. People love it (And it has become the most popular way to listen to streaming audio. Double win for Quicktime http://www.websiteoptimization.com/bw/0603/)

Zune might get some traction in countries where the iTS doesn't exist and where people are not using iTunes. For everywhere else, it is simply dead in the water.

Actually the Zune is just a rebranded version of another product that failed - The Toshiba GigaBeat. All that has changed is the addition of wifi. And Microsofts name.

What could lead to it doing well over the long term is a great Music/Movie/TV Show Store from MS. And, this is very important, allowing people to repurchase all their iTS music from MS for free. This will cost MS a tonne of money. But that is something they have in abundance
 
fergus : No, I have a US Credit Card I use. You will need a credit card from one of the countries that iTMS supports (USA, UK, Most of Europe, Japan, Aus).
Another option is getting hold of iTS giftvouchers from a friend or somewhere like Amazon.com
 
Wifi sharing is cool! It is an edge to the current iPods. I agree with Bwana though, Apple will answer this with something banging. We should however not forget that Bill Gates owns a large chunk of Apple too...
 
antowan said:
Wifi sharing is cool! It is an edge to the current iPods. I agree with Bwana though, Apple will answer this with something banging. We should however not forget that Bill Gates owns a large chunk of Apple too...
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Not that large and (if he still even owns it) it's non-voting stock.

From what I've read wifi sharing is only localised so unless there are a few Zuners around it's not going to be that useful.
 
antowan : In 2003, Microsoft bought 150,000 ($150 million) non-voting shares of Apple stock as a token gesture of encourgaging competition. If they were voting shares, that would be about 0.04%. But they're not.
(This was part of a large cross licencing between the two companies. Apple kept using IE as the main browser, MS kept producing Office for Mac, and various other things)

MS sold them at a large profit over a period of 2 years

Regarding the Zune. I dont think it will affect the iPod at all (It will most probably kill most the the iPod competitors), but with a company with as deep pockets behind it, it can only help but encourage Apple to produce even better product. Strong competition is normally a good thing
 
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WiFi?

I don't really think Microsoft seems to be utilising the Zune's Wi-Fi very well. Wow you can send files... to people with Zune's. If the iPod had the same ability it probably still wouldn't be used much (in this country) because not enough people have iPods here. In countries like the USA and the UK this could be hugely successful if the iPod had this feature because so many people have iPods.

And the thing about the bigger screen, it's only about 1.3 cm bigger and HAS THE SAME RESOLUTION and IS NOT WIDESCREEN.

Hey, maybe the Microsoft Zune will use Wi-Fi to send error messages to MS:D
 
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