Bye bye, Zune you were a good friend to me.

Phase one of the Microsoft revolution (war against Apple) fails but lives on in one form or another. http://www.mcvuk.com/news/43495/Time-called-on-Zune-hardware Long live my Zune120 for as long as the battery memory remembers...

My Zune 30 is still going strong - great for watching podcasts in bed (while my wife reads her Kindle)

This week I dropped my trusty old Creative ZEN in a deep puddle. I though it worked after I opened it up and dried it out but it seems to me messed up now. I wouldn't mind being able to ding one of those smaller ones with the squircle control on it if it was cheap.

I'll probably just end up buying another ZEN or maybe a simple little Sansa. I prefer something with expandable memory and the ability to just drag and drop files onto it.

I hope its not true, we all know how bad microsoft is with naming, they wont use an independnt name they will fold it under something else and will have - Music for Windows Live 2011 with enchanced media support, or Xbox Live Music, Entertainment store for windows or something just as bad.

The Zune name is fine and device is great. The issue is lack of internationalization, lack of decent marketing, lack of app support on the device.

The device is beautiful and the terga chipset is still a great platform. The software really makes the music and social sharing of music the centerpiece which is great.

Lack of internationaolzation  The HD just launched in Canada but only thorugh the Zuneoriginals site. The Zune insider podcat hinted the music store could be coming to canada a couple of weeks ago in thier podcast but if the current rumor is credible it appears it was just to dump some stock potentially which is really dissapointing. and the rest of the world no hardware avaible at all. Great piece of hardware noone can buy.

Marketing - No real marketing campaign to speak of pretty much says it all.

Lack of apps - Its great that all 30 or so apps are free but many users want lots of app choices, not opening the app store to third partys is fail. Many people buy ipods for the apps just as much as the music.

Honestly this move makes sense to me.  This is just another evolutionary step in the tech world.  iPod (and basic MP3 player) sales are down and smartphone sales are up.  Eventually no one is going to carry a seperate device for music when everyones phone will be able to play music.  Zune will be pushed for WP7, XBox and PC/TV.  I wouldn't be suprised if they rebranded it though.  I loved my Zune back in the day (before my smartphone) but I haven't carried it in years.  I still love the software though.  Long live Zune!

3 minutes ago, JeremyJ wrote

Honestly this move makes sense to me.  This is just another evolutionary step in the tech world.  iPod (and basic MP3 player) sales are down and smartphone sales are up.  Eventually no one is going to carry a seperate device for music when everyones phone will be able to play music.  Zune will be pushed for WP7, XBox and PC/TV.  I wouldn't be suprised if they rebranded it though.  I loved my Zune back in the day (before my smartphone) but I haven't carried it in years.  I still love the software though.  Long live Zune!

Agree, but hopefully with the rebrading will also come better global coverage which is franky pretty bad.

@blowdart: I am assuming you are talking about battery life.  Not sure what you are doing with your phone but my phone battery lasts more than 8 hours with pretty constant use (it lasts about 2 days between charges).  I am guessing you have an android phone because my old phone used to have that bad of a battery too.

You are also thinking about todays tech and not the future.  Batteries are only going to get better.  I honestly don't think I could listen to music for more than 8 hours straight so I don't see how that is an important differentiator.

The smart phone "industry" is really backwards. In this high-definition, high file swapping age, flash drives peeking at 64GB (at the moment) and battery lifespans in the hours. Solution | switch off features. The time to put all your eggs in one basket wont bee happening just yet.

THat's sad, because from Gamespot, I actually see Zune being precieved as better MP3 player than iPod. It is not a whole lot of replies to the thread, but, I was surprised at majority of people say Zune plays MP3 better than iPod, not only at pricing, but, being a better MP3 player. When Zune came out, it was all hate. And finally Zune is getting into the nutrual zone where people no longer hate it, MS gave it up.  Just few more years, and make nano and touch version of the Zune Player, I am sure it will be better precieved in long term.

I agree, its one of those thing people have either never heard of it or they have never used one you show them the great UI just pulls them it. Too bad people making decisions can read threads like this one.

I say ditch the Zune brand. It's like the Vista brand: tainted. Unfairly, but still. Put it all under the much more succesful XBox brand (which is supposed to be the broad entertainmend brand anyway) and you've got a winner. Integrate it into the dashboard (Installing the Zune movies application on the Xbox 360, really? Why that clunky solution?) and you've got a winner. Windows Phone uses the XBox Live brand already, so that'll benefit from being more assiociated with XBox Live and less with Zune too.

I'll probably just end up buying another ZEN or maybe a simple little Sansa. I prefer something with expandable memory and the ability to just drag and drop files onto it.

I'll chip-in that Apple's strategy is to have a product that offers sufficient battery life and capacity such that you won't need to upgrade it. It worked for the original iPhone, which offered considerably longer battery life than other smartphones at the time, but the battery wasn't removable. And if you needed longer battery life you can get external battery cases, which are arguably easier to deal with than fiddling with changing a battery (I hated changing my Axim's battery because it would cause the date/time to get reset).

I'll agree that the 32GB max of the iPhone is small compared to the 160GB iPod Classic, and now that you can get 32GB microSD cards for £40 it shows that's a limitation, but I expect the iPhone 5 to have a 64GB option (and a 128GB option on the next iPod Touch).

If their phones had great DACs i'd be ok, but as it stands the Focus does not sound as good as the Zune HD, or 30. Dedicated devices are still needed. What a shame.

Update:
Zune is Alive and Well!

http://windowsphonethoughts.com/news/show/105730/update-zune-is-alive-and-well.html

Wonder what their plan is in the future for WP7 development...because you need the Zune software for it. Or will it just be rebranded to Windows Live Media Player or something...

Zune has been a complete marketing failure (as are most MS products).  If not for the scattered threads here on C9, I wouldn't have any idea that it even exists.  Very few people do know that it exists.  I think I have only ever seen one single ad for zune, and that was a print ad right after the initial launch.  They are never going to be able to sell the product if they don't tell customers that it exists and show them why they want one over the competition.