It didn’t take long for Microsoft to fess up to the rumors that have been floating around for months but they finally admitted that they will be releasing a music player later this year. The plan is to release several different styles of music players all under the brand of Zune. The multiple styles are probably going to be designed to compete directly with Apple’s iPod products. There will probably be a small thin model like the iPod Nano as well as a “large” screen competitor for the iPod video.
The Zune (what a weird name, but I am sure iPod was weird at first too) will have some great features including built-in wireless, portable video, and interestingly enough portable gaming. It is hard enough to watch some videos on those small screens not to mention playing games on them! Can we expect to see World of Warcraft played on these things?
While Microsoft has pushed the Windows Vista and Office 2007 releases past the holiday season I can imagine that they will make sure these things are on the shelves for Christmas!
News Source: Reuters
In my opinion, this device that will be released won’t be able to compete with the iPod. I don’t see any new breakthrough features that the iPod doesn’t have. So it has portable gaming, but who wants to play on that tiny screen (tiny in comparison to a computer screen or a TV).
And if the picture that was on Engadget [[engadget.com]] is the real Zune player (or at least one of them), then it’s not very impressive. If that was supposed to be the ‘iPod Killer’, then Microsoft should have made it look nicer, or at least they shouldn’t have copied the iPod’s wheel in the middle.
Also, if the rumors are true about a new iPod being released soon with a full front touch-screen, then Apple will be a step ahead of Microsoft just like they are now.
A touchscreen iPod could be absolutely amazing if you think about the possibilities. If Apple was smart they would turn it into an easy-to-use PDA so that people can enter in information easily as well.
I keep trying to think of something that Microsoft could put into it that would make it really stand out, but it is tough to come up with something. Now that the word is out I would expect Microsoft to start marketing it soon so that there is plenty of hype for the holiday season.
-Ryan