Zune HD Confirmed

Let's hope Apple has something great up their sleeve for WWDC, as this looks like a worthy competitor for the iPod Touch:

Microsoft confirms Zune HD coming this fall | Beyond Binary - CNET News

This is good compition in my opinion, however I think MS needs to work on their software before they start pumping out new hardware. I've had a 30GB Zune, and the software is backwards, clunky and slow, in fact it was so slow that my wife was getting mad at me for it! Needless to say, I bought her an iPod.

A friend of mine has the original 30GB Zune model, running the latest software and I must say, it's pretty cool. There's a lot of neat functionality, particularly in the music player that I wish the iPod had (at least the standard, non-touch iPods).

Let's just hope this gives Apple the incentive it needs to take a hard look at the non iPhone OS models and continue to refine the software.

I won't take away some of the stuff they had in the software, as I liked some of it as well. It might have had to do with all my music (50GB or so) being stored on a network share that made it slow, but being on a Gigabyte network, that shouldn't have been a problem.

It is nice that it has a OLED screen, and what looks to be a possible removable battery, and the ability to work with a Xbox360.

cwa107 said:

Let's just hope this gives Apple the incentive it needs to take a hard look at the non iPhone OS models and continue to refine the software.

Click to expand...

I wonder though if Apple will care given the overwhelming hegemony that they enjoy over the PMP market and the continued bad reviews that the Zune keeps getting. I don't see Apple being too concerned as long as the "magical marketing machine" at Apple continues to position the iPod as the "hip, cool PMP". That said, a little competition never hurt anyone.

Truthfully, I would rather Apple fix this Java issue first .

Microsoft seriously needs to get its software to work with OS X. It'll be a good way to get a good number of iPod users to change.

While I hope the competition hots up, it just looks like Microsoft playing catch-up, and again announcing a product too far ahead of the ship date while having nothing truly innovative to show

But let's wait and see

Sure this Zune looks alright to me. And if priced right it might catch on to a few users. But for the reason why Apple is the better option for me is not the ipod itself. The way the itunes store, the itunes app and the ipod link so well together and how easy it is to get tracks from the itunes store or cd into the ipod is what wins me over.

Will the Zune have this easy link between CD's/it's own music store and the Zune? Sure it can do a million things according to the press release. But no one buys a mp3 player for it's video capabilities. They get it for the music and the east to listen to their music on it. If MS can win that front it has a chance, if not then I see a sad death for the product.

I thought it was said the games were the most downloaded apps and that was
what spurred sales growth.

JGruber said:

It is nice that it has a OLED screen, and what looks to be a possible removable battery, and the ability to work with a Xbox360.

Click to expand...

Only useful if your 360 still works, which I'm guessing it won't...