what bright spark designed the brown model?
I've never seen anything so ugly-pugly (at least not in music players 
And sharing "homemade recordings"? Jeez, let's see I've got exactly zero homemade records to share out of 20 GB of music.
Good analysis though.
Well, some people do have CD rips (my iPod is full of them). Interestingly, those will be sharing restricted in the same way that purchased music will be. Again, I would claim that's a non-starter, but I'll see what actual customers think before completely panning it.
Thanks for your thoughts!
Carl
"...since Microsoft neither announced the price nor made the product available to consumers. Microsoft also declined to mention a launch date. Yet, the lack of any actual product didn't stop Microsoft from immediately positioning Zune as a platform..."
Oh yeah, like Vista
sorry, I guess I'm dense -- "homemade recordings" are CDs ripped by users? I thought they meant music *recorded* at home! Strange terminology don't you think?
I see my comment about the brown has been echoed around the web. I still don't get it, and apparently many (most?) others don't either.
Re homemade recordings, I don't think Microsoft really believes in user-ripped content. They didn't ship an MP3 encoder with Windows XP originally because they didnt' want people doing that (hurts their WMV revenue stream), and I believe that attitude carries over today.
I'm actually OK with the brown color as a differentiator. Really good packaging creates things that people either love or hate. I view the brown color as one they took some risk on, and my guess is that it will have a small group of very devoted buyers. I'm told in person it looks much more like a nice wood finish than anything else, and that might change people's perception (although the green trim is kind of weird still).
But the real misstep is doing an announcement without product or plans for product. Kind of like asking someone out, but not being willing to disclose a date, time, or place. Makes it hard to get commitment -- and it certainly doesn't lock out other suitors.
Thanks for all the great thoughts!
Carl
Hey leave brown alone!
UPS
Actually, the DJing feature has been confirmed. It will allow users to connect to other Zune devices within wireless proximity and listen to streaming playlists. You can read the manual for the actual Zune player here: http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/
oe...tive_or_pdf=pdf. It came from www.zuneinfo.com, but I'm not sure how accurate it is. Enjoy.
Commenting by HaloScan
