Originally Posted by {ph[oe]nix}:
“MS is onto a good thing here, it sees that people like certain things about MP3 players. It's including support for HD playback on a TV, which for me, is excellent news. I like the idea of watching some shows on the train and then plugging it into a TV at home and finishing the programme on my TV.”
HD content takes up large amounts of space though, I'd rather stream or carry around content appropriate to the device I'm watching it on then when I want to watch it on TV to get it from my Apple TV or other source.
Originally Posted by {ph[oe]nix}:
“The Zune has always had some cool ideas. For example wifi sync and sharing music is a terrific idea. It doesn't work now, because no one has a Zune, but the more people who get them, the better that feature will work.”
Fair enought, and the new iPhone OS is getting sharing features, not sure about music, but it allows games so it could be a case of whatever app developers can come up with.
Originally Posted by {ph[oe]nix}:
“The design of this new Zune looks terrific. Fanboys can mumble till the cows come home about what a rip-off it all is, but ultimately it's a different device to the iPod touch and will appeal to different people.”
It's hardly massively better though, it's not something I would be willing to forego things like the app store for.
Quote:
“Zune Pass is a terrific idea. I like music when I hear it, listen to it 50 times, then never listen to it again. So for me, subscription based music makes a lot of sense. There is nothing like that on the iPod.”
I think there is a place for subscription, but I can also see the arguments against it, I don't think anyone has come up with a perfect model for how to do subscriptions on a mass basis that both the producers and public will be happy with. Would be nice as an option on Apple stuff though.
Ultimately I just don't see anything here that fundamentally makes it a better overal choice than an iPod or iPhone, especially when you consider that Apple will be launching the next version of the OS with a load of new features and will no doubt upgrade the hardware in the near future. The interface is basically just what Apple is already doing, but with some fancy graphics and menus that are a bit flashy but possibly no better to actually use. At best, I think they've maybe caught up, but Apple will be able to easily eclipse this if they needed to, and probably will anyway.