Much to the dismay of a certain PCPer, Zune is passing off this mortal coil as yet another iTunes killer that turned out not to live up to the creators hopes. As of November 15th Zune services will be retired which means no new music or streaming for owners of the MP3 player. You will still be able to play music as long as it is not DRM protected, once the licensing servers go down the protected content will no longer be accessible in yet another glaring example of how DRM hurts those who pay for content far more effectively than it prevents theft. The Register does have some good news for those dozens of people effected, Zune Music Pass subscriptions will be converted to Groove Music Pass subscriptions.
"Come November, Microsoft is killing off Zune – the very thing that was supposed to kill off the Apple iPod and iTunes. As you may be able to tell, that execution never came about."
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I use a Zune HD every day.
I use a Zune HD every day. The interface is intuitive, and I’ve used the same Zune HD since release day. My brother made fun of me and went with an iPod. He’s had 7 iPods in the same time frame, and just broke his iPhone. So he no longer mocks the Zune.
I’ve had the subscription w/10 DRM free songs a month since the old Zune. So this news depresses me.
Never knew it was this
Never knew it was this good… I really liked the sleek design of it, but MS never released it here in Australia; at least to my knowledge. :
I Thought that Zunes where
I Thought that Zunes where like unicorns, has anyone really seen a Zune, or was it just in a weird dream! So the Zune has gone the way of the Dodo, and should any marketing people ever be taken seriously. M$ sure can lay some serious rotten eggs.
To this day I have not seen a
To this day I have not seen a device like the Zune HD. I bought one on launch day, and used it until they stopped really supporting it a couple years back with the switch to Xbox music and now groove. Zune couldn’t compete on features with smartphones, but it is the best music player I’ve ever used. You could easily go over a week without charging it and the metal back made it nearly indestructible, plus the thing weighed one third of what smartphones do.
Sometimes I wonder if Microsoft hampers their marketing departments just to avoid taking over markets and creating anti-trust suits. For a few years prior to the iphone and itouch devices, the Zune was objectively better in many ways than the ipod, but they never gained the mindshare that apple did.
Maybe they could not embrace
Maybe they could not embrace and extend fast enough for Ballmer and they had to extinguish Zune rather than the competition! And NEVER attribute any technology product’s success to only marketing, especially M$’s marketing. M$ was only successful as a company by grabbing on hard to IBM’s coattails and hanging on long enough for the independent PC market to get started and then using monopolistic tactics from there on.
I use my Zune HD everyday.
I use my Zune HD everyday. 32GB, wish I had gone for the 64GB variant when they were released it. Such a great device. My understanding was that Groove/Xbox Music was the same setup underneath as Zune. Basically just a renaming in order to achieve market appeal. Such a bummer, they had a good device with poor reception.
I have never used a zune, but
I have never used a zune, but the classic iPod with the circular control (no touch screen) was significantly easier to use when driving, which is when my iPod got the most use. I could mostly do what I wanted to without looking at the device. The touch screens are terrible for such use. The next song b utton is a small area and you can easily hit something else. I don’t know why the interface is so bad. Fast forward and volume control was very easy to do with the circular touch interface on the classic iPod. Most interactions with touch devices require you to look at the screen which is significantly more dangerous while driving. I still have an old iPod classic with a 40 GB hard drive, but it is a brick by today’s standards and the battery has long since completely gone bad. About the only alternative is voice control, but I haven’t had this work particularly well.
Microsoft may have had better hardware and/or better software several times throughout the history of music playing devices, but their marketing was terrible. Apple is exceptionally good at product positioning and corporate image. Microsoft has not had much success entering new markets. They have just held onto their monopoly position in the OS market. Their drive to enter the mobile market has been mostly a disaster. Almost no one has a windows phone. Their tablets do not seem to be doing very well either. Samsung has had trouble competing with Apple for the high end smartphone market, even though they have often offered an arguably superior product. I don’t know if anyone ever produced a high-end windows phone. Most of the windows phone devices I have seen where cheap, low end devices. This isn’t a very good marketing position to be seen as the low-end budget player.
I don’t know what microsoft’s strategy going forward is. There obviously isn’t much of a market for standalone music players anymore. There could be some possibility of selling more windows phone devices by tying it in with the users Xbox accounts to allow access to the same media, marketplace, and maybe even games on the Xbox. This would require a high-end phone and a lot of marketing, not to mention the technical hurdles so I don’t know if we will ever see that. Part of the problem is corporate image, which Microsoft can’t easily change.
the zune hd was one of the
the zune hd was one of the only gd HD radio music players worth a damn
They’ll have to pry my Zune
They’ll have to pry my Zune HD 64GB outa my cold dead hands.
Joking aside, still my favorite player, the only complaint I have is a lack of physical volume buttons. Aside from that extremely annoying flaw it’s been fantastic and still kicking after 5 years of daily use.
As others have mentions the original 10 free songs a month service is sorely missed.