Microsoft's "Zune"

[pixie pie]

No doubt you've heard about the rumours/confirmation of Microsoft creating their iPod killer. It'd be nice to see what you guys reckon to this.

Some news reports: Guardian saying what its got and Why Zune's gonna fail

From what I've seen it looks a lot like Microsoft are trying to go waay to overboard with things like wifi and over compatibility.. but it could push down iPod prices, which can't be a bad thing.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

Meh. just. Meh.

[FatherJack]

One thing I could never understand about the iPod was Podcasts. They are periodically updated content which you have to first download with iTunes on your computer, then upload to your iPod.

So, they're just MP3s really. I've installed iTunes, downloaded a few Japanese language ones, put them on my Sony MP3 player and listen to them in the bog at work. "Watashi wa FatherJack"

I always though that sucked. It's called Podcast - like a broadcast. You should be able to pick it up like radio direct to your device. Forget about crappy radio stations that have to fund themselves to buy licenses and frequency slots, slaves to their sponsors - this should be unregulated anarchic pirate radio at it's finest. Listen to what you want to, anywhere - all anyone needs to broadcast is an IP address - 5punk radio on the move, FTW!

Of course this new thing from MS has wi-fi - so it should be possible. Whether it will or not is in doubt. Clearly people who make money from radio and the artists themselves don't want unlicensed radio stations popping up all over the place playing their stuff for free. It's even questionable whether people who produce their own content will be able to broadcast to this new device.

Being MS, they're likely to do it by the book and not piss anyone in the music industry off, and of course the software will be Windows Media Player based. I don't know whether it's possible to receive ShoutCast with WMP on a PC, less so with a Zune.

ATM, the only way to receive internet broadcasts on the move is via a very portable laptop - there's no Winamp for Palm Bandits or Windows Mobile devices. I don't really understand why this is, or what the distinction is which allows it to happen on one set of devices and not the others.

[Stoat]

Of course this new thing from MS has wi-fi - so it should be possible.

Hopefully- this is one thing the PSP does quite well. Finding a good music podcast MP3 RSS Feed is more difficult though.
I wouldn't be surprised if DRM was a major decider for the Zune.*

*was or were? Neither look right.

[FatherJack]

PSP

At my sister's this weekend I weighed her PSP and my (non-lite) DS in my hands. Both were bricks, but the DS was roughly half the weight. Both have wi-fi capabilities, but both are much too huge and heavy to be considered as portable as most current MP3 players.

[ProfHawking]

my new phone/pda is small enough to carry around.

2gb of card space atm for mp3s,
wifi on board, & can play shoutcasts from a network fine.
I havent tried it over the gprs, but i expect that would suck.
and it can play video
and quake.


why bother get another thing to carry around??

[Woo Elephant Yeah]

Creative Zen Vision:M that is all

[Gunslinger42]

Judging from the past, anything that claims to be a "x killer" is doomed to failure.

[pixie pie]

Creative Zen Vision:M that is all

This. It really looks very win. I expect this to outperform Zune, and could give iPod a run for its money, but we can't really tell until we see the 6th generation iPod (Rumours of touch screens etc?.. could be interesting)

[fabyak]

I'm not sure how well it will go down in places where Hebrew is spoken

[FatherJack]

wifi on board, & can play shoutcasts from a network fine.

What software does it use to do that? Is it windows-based, or proprietary?