Details of Next Gen Zune Surface

KMG writes "Zune Scene has got a scoop about the next generation Microsoft Zune. There will be two new models; a flash memory based and a hard drive based. Zune with HDD will be thinner and have larger storage capacity while the flash based will feature Wi-fi, video playback. So will we see another try from Microsoft to beat Apple's iPod or it will be another vain attempt from the Redmond guys."

Yes, but...

[Trivial_Zeros (1058508)]

Will it come in brown?

Re:Yes, but...

[ShadowLeo (770494)]

Will it blend?

"Zune Scene"?

[by Anonymous Coward]

Someone actually bothered to put up a fan site for it?

Re:"Zune Scene"?

[ceeam (39911)]

Gives a new meaning to "when the shit hits the fan", ain't it?

Re:"Zune Scene"?

[geeber (520231)]

way to notice. Blatant astroturfing.

I especially like how the article claims the Zune scene editor just happened to conveniently bump into a MS Zune employee on a business trip and then proceeded to pump him for information...

Yeah, right. And then monkeys flew out of his butt.

I always wondered why brown...

[Kadin2048 (468275)]

Yeah, right. And then monkeys flew out of his butt.

It would explain the color choice, though.

Re:"Zune Scene"?

[NeutronCowboy (896098)]

I'd venture to say that the astroturfing is about as blatant as that of the infamous Sony PSP Christmas site. Comparisons straight from a marketing handbook (break out one functionality into several bullet points, etc), professional quality product photos (complete with high quality photoshopping of screen quality), completely improbably insider stories (not a single product or marketing manager will divulge info on future products unless that's the plan).... the list goes on.

Really, really lame. If I want official info, I'd like it without the horrid writing.

More the Merrier

[p0tat03 (985078)]

Bring it on I say. MS has shown that they can learn from their mistakes. The difference between the Xbox and 360 being a prime example. MS has the money to burn to keep making mistakes and learning from them. If that means they *eventually* make an iPod killer, so be it. The market needs more competing products, not less.

Re:

[LandoCalrizzian (887264)]

Microsoft has yet to show that they learn from their mistakes. The keep making mistakes only to see someone else get it right then they either:
a) Buy out the competition
b) Copy the competition
c) Throw more money at the mistake and wait until next-gen to re-try A and B

Re:More the Merrier

[Luscious868 (679143)]

If that means they *eventually* make an iPod killer, so be it. The market needs more competing products, not less.

There will never be an iPod killer. What you'll see is the iPod's market share steadily eaten away by a large number of other players. The iPod was a once in a decade phenomena like the Walkman before it. There's was and still is a lot of hype surrounding the iPod and it is a great product but other players have caught up in terms of functionality and are able to compete on price. What currently still gives the iPod the edge is the integration with the iTMS.

Given the recent announcement that EMI will be offering DRM free music and Steve Job's statement that more than half of the music in the iTMS will be DRM free by the end of the year (suggesting that more deals are imminent), I'd argue that it is much more likely that people will begin buying DRM free music that they can use with the player of their choice and that will slowly but surely eat away at the iPod's market share as people chose to replace their iPods with lower cost alternatives without worrying about losing their investment in the music they've already purchased from the iTMS.

That scenario is a lot easier to envision than some company producing the next big thing and having consumers dumping their iPods in droves for it. What is there really left for a portable mp3 player to do? Current iPods let you watch videos, listen to music, play games, store photo's and contact and the list goes on. I think the iPhone may be more popular than some people think but the concept will take a while to catch on and that's if Apple can deliver on it's promises. I'd love to have my phone and iPod in a single device that also gives me easy access to the web and e-mail. The price and the fact that it's currently tied to a single wireless provider are what will hold it back. Although both of those things will probably change in the future.

If i was a betting man I'd say the 2nd or 3rd generation iPhone will be the closest thing that comes to an iPod killer provided Apple can increase the storage space, reduce the price and offer versions of the phone that can work with additional providers.

Re:More the Merrier

[shawnce (146129)]

players have caught up in terms of functionality and are able to compete on price. What currently still gives the iPod the edge is the integration with the iTMS.

The funny thing is many of the other players on the market, even when the first iPod shipped, had more (in some cases many more) end user features and/or lower pricing then the iPod. For example a couple players on the market at the time of the iPod could already play videos on screen or output to a TV/monitor. The initial thing the iPod had was FireWire (faster syncing and charging), iTunes (good GUI), and good UI (physical and graphical) with no extraneous features. With that Apple drove into the market and started to win almost immediately. When Apple opened the iPod up to Windows users it started to lose FireWire and gain minimal new features over the years.

Apple was smart to slowly and systematically bring out new capabilities without making existing functionality more complex... this drove a repurchase tread that feed unit volumes and hype which allowed the iPod and Apple to capture mindshare.

It is mindshare that makes the iPod truly successful and not any integration with iTunes Music Store.

Re:Xbox 360 is a flop

[SetupWeasel (54062)]

360 is still has, by leaps and bounds, a far larger installed base than any of the other next-gen consoles. Discounting the Wii (which services a different market entirely), the 360 is selling like hotcakes in comparison to the other major competing next-gen console.

As long as you don't include its toughest competition, the XBOX 360 is doing batshit-awesome !

Is it worth it?

[timeOday (582209)]

With enough retries, Microsoft usually gets it about right and succeeds in the end. (Deep pockets are a huge advantage). But my crystal ball says portable music will increasingly just be an expected feature of other devices, mainly cell phones. I think Apple may have milked the standalone music player fad dry by the time Microsoft gets out a good product.

Re:Is it worth it?

[Andy_R (114137)]

Does Microsoft really get things right with enough retries? It's a common misconception that Windows 3 'got it right' and took over the world, but I think that was actually down to luck, when Windows 3.1 for Workgroups cashed in on the coincidental boom in office networking. Recent versions Office and Windows don't seem to be any more 'right' than before, they still sell because they are de-facto standards rather than actually 'good'.

ZunePhone

[donstenk72 (593985)]

This is a halfarsed attempt to get some hype going in the way Apple does. Hint, hint, hint, but no clear release schedule. Zune Scene editors are very hard to spot in the wild - you are more likely to meet them at Ms campus. What a joke.

Real world features, plz

[glavenoid (636808)]

If they can get the Wi-fi to do something, you know, useful, then the Zune 2 might be a neat little device.

Great move for both iPod users and other users

[thecalster (1081075)]

Microsoft Zune may not be quite up to the iPod standard but it's getting there. One of the good things about having microsoft join the mp3 player wars is that it will make iPod come out with better updates to their ipod (the 5.5gen ipod was a little weak in the upgrade features). That and with the music copyprotecting systems getting lifted off itunes there is going to be some big changes happening with mp3 players in the future. The competition will make both of their products better.

Nice summary.

[rholliday (754515)]

So will we see another try from Microsoft to beat Apple's iPod or it will be another vain attempt from the Redmond guys.

So will we see snide comments from Apple fanboys or it will be snide comments from Apple fanboys.

Come on guys, you can do better than that! Poor grammar, incorrect punctuation, and the two options don't contradict each other. It's not even a humorous or ironic "there is one option but we're pretending there are two" setup, it's just confusing. :)

</troll>

Thinner AND more storage? Be still, my heart!

[dpbsmith (263124)]

WOW! This is IT! Thinner and larger storage capacity both? This is the breakthrough! However did those Microsoft boys do it?

I'm buying one for my granddaughter. True, she already has two iPods (don't ask), but she won't want them once she hears about this! I sure hope Microsoft can meet the demand. I wonder if any of the stores are taking pre-orders now? I wouldn't want to pay $800 to get one on eBay, but, gosh, when all of her friends have them and are squirting songs to each other, I can't let her be the one to be left out.

Actually, if she has two iPods I'd better get her two Zunes.

And just the other day, my wife was saying to me "If Microsoft ever makes a Zune that is thinner and has a larger storage capacity I'd like you to get one for me."

It really sounds almost perfect, but I wonder... do you suppose... there will be new colors, too? Maybe a triple-shot!

This certainly puts the lie to all those rumor sites that were saying the next Zune would be thicker and have less storage.

Microsoft ALWAYS gets it right, eventually.

[dpbsmith (263124)]

They always get it right by version 3.0.

They scoffed at Microsoft Bob, but look what happened with Microsoft Bob 3.0.

They laughed at PlaysForSure, but where are all the skeptics now?

They winced at WinCE, but can you name a single cell phone that doesn't use it today?

It's not really that bad

[bahwi (43111)]

It's fun for us iPod people to make fun of the Zune *squirt* but after trying it out it's not really that bad. *squirt* Let there be competition *squirt* in the market! That's the whole point. That's why it's ok to have a bunch of linux distros and a couple of BSDs *squirt* and different desktop enviroments *squirt* like KDE and Gnome. Hopefully this will push Apple to innovate even more and release even better products *squirt* like bluetooth or wifi (I'd prefer bluetooth for neighbors but I know it's not the best protocol). Innovation doesn't hurt *squirt* anyone. Oh, you've got some, uhm, on your face.

Re:Flash seems to be the way to go....

[MaestroRC (190789)]

Because umm... flash is OUTRAGEOUSLY EXPENSIVE? Hard drives let manufacturers sell these things for $3-400 with 30-80GB of storage, a 64GB flash drive is still in the $6-800 range in and of itself. Granted, prices will go down, but people want their storage now, and don't care so much about having to replace the thing every couple of years.

Re:Flash seems to be the way to go....

[soft_guy (534437)]

do you really need to tote around your ENTIRE collection in your pocke

For the last time .. YES I FUCKING DO!!!!!!

The reason is that with a larger collection, lets say 12,000 songs, who wants to spend the time to pick which 8,000 song to sync to the device?????

And when I want to hear something, I want to hear it!

So, I will not buy an MP3 player that doesn't hold my entire collection of music. I also want TV shows and movies. Eventually I plan to put every movie and TV show I own on DVD onto my computer and sync it to my iPod.

I like hard drives. I'm not a child - I can carry around an iPod without dropping it.

Re:Flash seems to be the way to go....

[Gilmoure (18428)]

I like having a choice from all my music, depending on my mood. It's not about trying to listen to all my music all at once. I also have a 1GB shuffle and it sucks when I want to listen to a song I didn't put on it. I suppose it's the same reason I have several thousand books in my house. Choice is cool!

Re:Flash seems to be the way to go....

[bberens (965711)]

Not to beat a dead horse, but that's sort of my point. You could pick 5 different genres and record 24 contiguous hours of music from each genre on an 8GB portable music device. Contrary to the belief of several posters below super high bit-rate or lossless audio is not really appropriate for portable audio. At 128kb/s it's impossible for anyone to tell the difference between that and CD quality in your car stereo with road noise and other background. The same is said for non-noise-canceling headphones in the office. I mean sure, it's your money and your drive space so do what you want with it. People are just kidding themselves though if they think it's magically superior.