Scobleizer - Latest Comments in Microsoft music player to come?

Re: Microsoft music player to come?

Mary Gilmartin — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 05:21:23 -0000

I bought an ipod shuffle saturday and returned it sunday due to all the problems I had trying to set it up. And I am not the only one burned off the ipod due to poor customer care, help documention and product.
Check out the ipod shuffle help forums on apple to get an idea of the problems.

I was really looking forward to an mp3 player. At least I still have the psp. Easy to use, easy to transfer files, easy to find help.

Re: Microsoft music player to come?

Christopher Coulter — Sun, 09 Jul 2006 15:52:31 -0000

...after failing with PlaysForSure, MSNMusic, and now Urge?

Hope (or rather failure) springs eternal at Redmond. Plus they never view failure as failure, seeing it in the Clay Christensenish lucid-dreaming way of 'failure as a success', and that the path to success is paved with many failures -- and in fact depends on it. Failure instead of a stigma, is now considered an evental path to success.

It's that type of insane thinking that will mortally wound Microsoft eventually.

Re: Microsoft music player to come?

Goebbels — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 14:17:49 -0000

I love this nonsense so much I wish it were true: add WiFi support that will not always be available when 802.11g is hopefully months away from finalization. Add MVNO support that requires additional add ons and subscriptions... add a claim that iTune files will be transfered when MS does not have all the content the iPod has... plus, I can place any purchased iTunes on any iPod; does that mean I can transfer any and all iTMS tracks from anybody's collection to WMA rather easily? Plus, hasn't this "top secret plan" been around for six months? They are going to successfully deliver every rumored feature that iPod fans have been predicting for 3 years into a product at launch after failing with PlaysForSure, MSNMusic, and now Urge? Right!!! And this one product alone will have several loss leaders built into it: iTune transfer, a nonprofitable store, and an MVNO? I can't wait...

And Scoble keeps acting like it comes down to recording which has been available for years but 99% of the people don't care about! Lovely...

Re: Microsoft music player to come?

Christopher Coulter — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 13:26:35 -0000

Since Sony can’t produce competent music software

Umm yah forget about Soundforge, Acid 6 and the new Cinescore? Sony makes some of the best music software out there. Now music player codecs and stuff like that, well ok. But Sony is a big company with many parts...

Re: Microsoft music player to come?

Alfredo Octavio — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 10:58:20 -0000

The idea that the iPod needs Wi Fi is bogus. Take any of the Wi Fi phone users. I bet they are downloading stuff in their computer and then moving it to the phone. I know I am (Nokia N80, use the audio player mostly for podcasts). Is faster and better. Besides, the Microsoft iPod will probably not be Mac or Linux compatible, so people will see it as another Microsoft Attempt to lock them into Windows. Since people do not want that anymore, it will flop.

Re: Microsoft music player to come?

Lance Robinson — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 10:24:43 -0000

There has been a Microsoft music player for years. It just has other capabilities too. :P

http://geekswithblogs.net/l...

Re: Microsoft music player to come?

solomonrex — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 10:00:55 -0000

I'm not feeling it. Apple has a huge lead, this will only tick off MS's partners and that is becoming a trend for MS.

Worse, MS has no reasonable expectation of doing well with hardware. It took a lot of outside help to create the X360, and it's hardly considered perfect hardware. The controller was %1,000 better than the original xbox, but there's no reason it should have taken them 3 revs. Face it, if J Allard and co. are MS hope, they're doomed. I'm buying an X360, but there's no way I'm giving up my ipod. And I sincerely hope to get X360 2.0 when the overheating, huge power supply and overpriced network adapter are fixed (not holding my breath). Yes, MS's online console doesn't have builtin wifi, but they're mp3 player will?!?

What MS needed to do was move Sony to WMP11, since they have had great products with sucky software and they're the only mp3 maker that has a sliver of cred next to Apple (no longer the case). Good software, good hardware both with name brand recognition would work. But since MS made the Xbox, that's not going to happen and now MS is stuck ticking more partners off by siphoning their customers away.

Since Sony can't produce competent music software and Yahoo is buddying up with MS, I predict Amazon will start competing, compounding MS's problems.

Re: Microsoft music player to come?

Christopher Coulter — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 07:18:19 -0000

Oldie but goodie...

Up to 33 SKUs, whooo. ;) Ok, I better stop now.

iPod Microsoft Style (Ver 1.2)

iPod Home - only 100 songs allowed. Same as regular iPod just with control lock (which will be hacked).

iPod Home Premium - Now with 150 songs, and 2 extra solitaire games.

iPod Professional Edition - Vague add-ons and unlimited songs. But looks corporate, brooding stock-photography Office-looking pictures on the packaging.

iPod Readers Edition - Same as regular iPod, just with a CD sampling of Audio Books, and a few included Audio Books and some Shakespearean-looking packaging.

iPod Sports Edition - Added program to monitor heartbeat and calculate miles jogged. Also has cutesy sports-themes. Lacks skinning support however.

iPod Plus! Edition - Same as regular iPod just with more eye-candy and theme makers and totally k-rad PC quality 3D screen savers (which will render your iPod comatose). Only Edition that offers themes and skinning support.

iPod Mobile Edition - An Activesync-like program to sync with Windows Mobile 2005 and Smartphones and the odd ‘Plays for Sure’ devices. Mobile as defined as not connectivity, phone or Blackberry-like functionality, rather merely sync'ing to other Mobile devices.

iPod Gamer Edition - Full solitaire Suite with Pac Man and MS Arcade Pinball.

iPod Photo Edition - Picture support. With a nice but generic photo album and sync software. Since requires firmware upgrade only the Ultimate Edition has same functionality. Firmware will be bootlegged and spread on fan sites, following with lots of calls to warranty support. No Video support.

iPod SPOT Edition - Just a bigger and more ugly version of the SPOT watch, but can play around 40 mp3’s too. No Photo or Video Editions.

iPod Ultimate Edition - Regular iPod just bigger HD, with all Plus!, Reader, Sports and Mobile and Gamer Edition add-on’s. Costs nearly twice as much, and eventually comes in differing colors. The only model with real good support levels. And the only Edition without a Software Assurance subscription that is avail. for firmware upgrades. Lacks Enterprise and Office Edition functionality. 'Ultimate' is not meant to be defined literally.

iPod Ultimate Media Center Edition - Just like regular Ultimate Edition, except has the customized Media Center interface. Also firmware upgradeable.

iPod Video Edition - Video, but not the iPod Photo Edition, includes not the Photo or Photo Album functionality. Ten new SKU's: iPod Video Home Edition, iPod Video Home Premium Edition, iPod Video Professional Edition, iPod Video Readers Edition, iPod Video Sports Edition, iPod Video Plus! Edition, iPod Video Mobile Edition, iPod Video Gamer Edition, iPod Video and Photo Edition, iPod Video Ultimate Edition. SPOT Video not avail. as not enough CPU power. Office and Enterprise not offered in Video format.

iPod Media Center Edition - The SKU with Video and Photos, comes with a customized interface. Pen support not avail. with Media Center Edition.

iPod Pen Edition - Touch-screen functionality, separate isolated SKU. Ultimate and Ultimate Media Center Edition does not include Pen Support. Pen not avail. with Photo or Video Editions. Has iNote program, for taking and inking notes. Eventually Pen and Media center will fold into the next version of iPod, but only if you have the Ultimate bundle will you be able to upgrade your firmware.

iPod Starter Edition - Flash-sticks, cartoonish-color themes. Marketed at ‘Developing’ Markets, aka, teens.

iPod N Edition - Comes without a Music Player at all, just stores your mp3's. Sort of a Flash card, with playback buttons that don't do anything at all.

iPod Office Edition - SmartPhone-like Outlook contact/calendar functionality, worse than a toothache in terms of usability. Has many versions, each requiring and upgrade to Ultimate Edition. Hold-outs, presented in Dinosaur adverts.

iPod Enterprise Edition - Wifi, but only hooks into Exchange servers. A lame attempt at push-email that won’t really work. Costs triple regular iPod and a Software Assurance subscription is required. Also only version that gets premium iPod OneCare support.

iPod LIVE Edition - Monthly fee-portable Web-based iPod, allows you to sync your regular iPod songs to an online site, for times when not carrying an iPod, yet have web access and want to listen to your playlists. Requires iPod to work, cannot sync songs direct without the iPod. Limit of 4 syncs or 40 songs per month (whichever comes first). No collaboration or sharing features.

iPod SmartPhone Edition and iPod SmartPhone Video Edition - TBA. But has a secret viral-marketing countdown website pointed at by key Microsoft bloggers.

Re: Microsoft music player to come?

Edward — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 05:21:26 -0000

There is an NT OS at the core of the XBox, albeit a stripped down and heavily modified version.

Re: Microsoft music player to come?

dmad — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 04:15:03 -0000

#38. Maybe because history says they likely won't come close to threatening the iPod. MS seems to build products for their own employees (geeks) and rarely appeals to the common consumer. The only exceptions are the keyboard, mice and Xbox. What do all those have in common? Apparently none of them run Windows. ;-) If this thing has any hint of a Windows OS as its core then you can pretty much bet it will be confusing, bloated, non-intuitive and a pain in the ass to use. Like someone said earlier, prove us wrong. But we've seen this movie before and we know how it ends.

Re: Microsoft music player to come?

Guest — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 02:02:43 -0000

I can hear it now. The MS fanboys will say that to get the most out of the new MS player you'll need Vista, WMP 11, Media Center PC and a music subscription.

Molly: How long do we have to wait? How long as the iPod been around and MS still doesn't have a competing product? They must be busy getting Vista and Office 2007 out on time. :-)

Re: Microsoft music player to come?

Molly C — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 22:18:11 -0000

@Bob Jones
"Granted, Apple’s iPod is clearly the superior product, unlike Windows compared to OS X."
--------------

Huh? How about letting Microsoft actually release their player before automatically declaring the iPod to be "clearly superior". Good Lord.

Re: Microsoft music player to come?

PodSlug (Erik Herz) — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 21:25:50 -0000

I just installed Windows Media Payer 11 and looked around for any sort of RSS support. I did not see any. I am surprised that they don't just turn the WMP into an iTunes killer and bundle it with every OS shipped.

Has anyone else see any RSS support in WMP?

Re: Microsoft music player to come?

RL — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 21:13:01 -0000

In defense, I will give you points on that MS has bragged alot about their products. In response let me just give a little bit of customer testimonial.
I did not buy most of these things for the MS brand, but researched what they did, and how they would benefit me.
I am typing on a MS keyboard, the ergonomics are great and the quality of the plastic and response is awesome. I love the fact that there are built in keyboard shortcut keys that I can assign or let them remain at defaults. All of those quirky lil office shortcut keys are clearly marked. I bought it 4 years ago, prior to the rise of Logitech.
I also use a MS mouse, it happens to have a fun lil shortcut button that allows you to have an onscreen magnifier. It has many of the same features mentioned above for the keyboard.
I am one of the few consumers that bought the home networking equipment from MS. That was when it was the same price as linksys, and prior to the price wars between the two. The router is more stable than a linksys, allows to me to create a DMZ very easily and a GUI you can almost dance to. It also has a little web filter on it. I have never used it but you can filter content by name or keyword. On the wireless adapter, it actually works with Windows 98. Find me a Linksys adapter that can do that. You can find a Cisco one that can, but they were a lot pricier than the MS or Linksys version. As a side note I wish MS would go back into the home networking hardware market.
MS watch I have never had so I can't comment on that, but then again why would I need a watch when I have a PPC. Who wears watches now?
Tablet Pc, another one I can't comment on, yet.
MS Mobile phones, I can comment plenty on. I own a MPX220 smartphone and a HP IPAQ pocket pc phone. I have NEVER had to buy a ringtone or wallpaper. I just drop a wav/midi/wma file in and there's my new ringtone. Wallpaper is easy too. Drag and drop from the PC. Email is simple, whether I use Exchange, or pop3. If I get bored, well that's what the BBC news and Internet Explorer is for when I am standing in a long line. If the Q is like any other Windows Mobile device, you can easily assign a shortcut key to the speaker phone.
I will agree with the online music/video stores, and I have only used it twice. Mainly because the DRM is irritating, but so is everybody else's including apple's. When I get more comfortable with managing the MS DRM, they may get some more of money too.
I own both the xbox, and the 360. Both are awesome, yeah they have lost money on that, but they have made money on the software. Can anyone say HALO 3? HALO 2? How about a HALO movie? Also, Live Arcade is a pretty little money maker too. Look at the sales there. I know they have gotten 50 bucks off of me.
Media Center, if you don't own one, you may not get it. I replaced my cable company's dvr box with one and got a nice little surprise. I actually get a guide that is accurate compared to my cable companie's one. Oh and I can pause and rewind live radio too. The shows I record can be placed on DVD and archived, or I can sync them up to my PPC where I have an "ipod" video experience. My music is available to me from anywhere on my network as well as my videos and pics. And, I can use the 360 to watch tv, or listen to my music files, or play an audio sideshow.
All these being said, the failure of MS is not in the product, but in the Marketing of the products and bragging too much before they sell.

Re: Microsoft music player to come?

anon — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 20:58:17 -0000

Great, more origami project-like hype from Microsoft.

Microsoft's MP3 player product will be just like the rest of the products it makes: without a coercive bundling advantage dependent on an existing monopoly distribution channel, mostly ignored, disliked and undesired by the mass market.

Re: Microsoft music player to come?

Henry Mencken — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 20:46:52 -0000

Robert, isn't kvetching about this un-attributed, unsigned rumors wallowing in the badness of anonymity? Or are there levels of greys when dealing with anonymous content?

Re: Microsoft music player to come?

jbelkin — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 20:08:53 -0000

MS already has a non-PC TV attachment - WEBTV which they've owned since 1998.

MS has shut down the home networking division.

MS watches - anyone wearing one?

MS Tablet PC's - BIll G swear they would sweep the world 3 years ago? Dkd you stand in line for hours to buy one?

MS Mobile phones - after NINE years, the reviews are still no Palm/treo/Blackberry and while their OSes are fine, no one thinks it's great. The new MS Q phone requires 3 menus and submenus to select SPEAKERPHONE.

MS has been selling and stocking WMA stores for 7 years - Apple basically outsold EVERY ONE of them combined and cumulative in less than a year.

MS has spent $8 BILLION dollars to sell 25 million XBoxes ... aka $400 spent to sell each machine - how much do the machines go for?

MS also swore that Media Pc's would sweep the nation - if you minus the minimal non DVR

Re: Microsoft music player to come?

Jason — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 19:56:59 -0000

Big question:

Will Microsoft learn from that video that suggested what would happen if Microsoft created the box for the iPod? The one where the requirements were larger than the box? And words and icons were all over the freaking thing?

Re: Microsoft music player to come?

Jason — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 19:55:04 -0000

>>> Except for the Xbox, Microsoft has had very bad luck with all it’s hardware attempts

I think their keyboards and mice are excellent. Much better than the "mighty mouse". There's always room for improvement, but I love the wireless optical desktop. The look, feel, and function are everything I need, and I feel like I have complete control over everything. Not something I've gotten with other keyboards.

Re: Microsoft music player to come?

Diego Barros — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 19:37:59 -0000

If Microsoft want to compete they had better get great integration with Windows Media Player and their music store. I don't think Urge is anywhere near as close as iTunes is as far as being tightly bound to a player, or a good enough online music store either.

I heard a rumor that the name of the iPod Killer is to be the "Microsoft Portable Music Listening Device" To be available in seven different editions. Can anyone confirm? "iPod" just doesn't have the same affect. :-)

Re: Microsoft music player to come?

realestateceo — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 18:53:11 -0000

IPOD rocks

Re: Microsoft music player to come?

davidjacobs — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 18:32:10 -0000

Except for the Xbox, Microsoft has had very bad luck with all it's hardware attempts. But this sounds pretty cool. Of course, so did the umpc, until it came out and it pretty much sucks in the current version. Nobody should ever use the term "iPod killer". That's just foolish.

Re: Microsoft music player to come?

taotakashi — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 18:26:49 -0000

Well, for me (although I own one) the ipod is just too closed. You always have hassle when connection to another computer or when you want to get something back from it, set aside issues with mixed usage in different operating system (which killed my filesystem on there once).

But that said I don't think MS will do it any better in that respect..

And.. will it look cool?

Re: Microsoft music player to come?

John Handelaar — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 18:12:16 -0000

Here's a prediction: I think the Apple design you linked to which they think is a phone is actually a TV remote. Or a video-capable iPod which can be used as a TV remote.

An 'Apple Tivo' might come with a Video iPod, and it'll need the numeric keypad to function as a remote with live TV.

Re: Microsoft music player to come?

Jason — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 17:54:21 -0000

I have to say that unless Microsoft's iPod killer appeals to the masses (and I don't mean the geeks like myself), it will utterly fail. Kinda live Urge. (Have we heard about Urge lately?)

What does the average person care about wireless connectivity? They have to dock the music / video player sometime to charge it, why not sync then?

Revolution, not evolution, will yield Microsoft its victory. But, I don't see that coming from Redmond..

Prove me wrong, Microsoft. Prove me wrong.