Reading the Microsoft portable media player tea leaves
Engadget has more on the rumored Microsoft portable media player.
The reactions in the comment area on Engadget are pretty interesting.
Looks like the readers are focusing on hard drive space. I think that’s the wrong place to look. At Gnomedex I was going around asking people how many megs they had stored on their iPod. Average answer was around 8GBs. So, having only 30 isn’t necessarily a deal killer.
Second, it’ll be interesting to see if Microsoft has a wifi exclusive for very long. If Apple lets Microsoft have that for more than a month you’ll see people saying that Apple is dying again.
I’d take a 30GB player with Wifi over a 60GB player without any day of the week. Why? Cause I hate wires. But, with Wifi I could listen to streaming audio or video again. And, Microsoft is more willing to bring me a subscription music service than Apple seems to be. I’d rather have a player that gives me a choice on that account.
As for not working with “Plays for Sure.” Well, this is cause that program had no teeth. I heard that players were released that wouldn’t play for sure and that made that program unusable.
As to “leaks” coming out? Well, Microsoft can’t control partners and non-employees, or even employees. I doubt this stuff is being leaked on purpose. I’m sure the PM’s are furious about this stuff being disclosed.
The most disappointing thing about all these rumors? That this player won’t be released until next year.
I’m not waiting. I’m getting a new iPod with my equipment money this year.
How about you?
Update, Joshua Allen, Microsoft’s first blogger (seriously, he was) says to calm down. Good points. I got hot and in a bother about Longhorn and it still hasn’t shipped.
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July 17th, 2006 at 10:52 pm
From Joshua’s blog “…and we capture more than 50% of global search market due to AdCenter’s superior integration with video gaming and set-top boxes”
Now thats a leak ;)
Unless of course I didn’t visit the right rumor site (then I didn’t get the sarcasm :) )
July 17th, 2006 at 10:57 pm
30GB with WiFI vs. 60GB? I will take the 30GB with WiFi any day. I currently have a 20GB iPod but have only 7GB of songs in it.
But the BIG question is, if Microsoft will make it easy to PodCatch in this device?
Because recently I have stopped using my iPod to listen to the same old music and began to use my W810i Walkman phone to listen to podcasts with fresh music. :-)
iTunes and an addon iTunes Agent is making it very easy for me to manage two hour podcast fix per day, during commuting, with just 512MB of memory!
July 17th, 2006 at 11:37 pm
Is audio or video the rage? I prefer video. I’m hoping we come out with a device that has a screen close to the size of my PSP, decent sized hard drive, and long battery life.
I bought my PSP the day after they came out. With the 2gig memory sticks, I can take quite a few movies on the road with me. Sure makes the flight to Hawaii easier. :)
July 18th, 2006 at 1:10 am
[...] Scobleizer - Tech Geek Blogger » Reading the Microsoft portable media player tea leaves [...]
July 18th, 2006 at 2:19 am
Why do they always focus on the wrong specs? The killer issue in these portable players with color screens and even WiFi is battery life.
Take the average life of a 30GB iPod and divide it by three, that’s what it will be like if you stream things from/to it over WiFi. Unless the silicon engineers can come up with a chipset that consumes next to nothing, I wouldn’t get all wound up about wireless media players. And with next to nothing power consumption, comes next to nothing range, which sort of beats the whole purpose of the thing…
July 18th, 2006 at 2:29 am
Moderation — given the small-army of Microsoft Evangelists paid to be anything but moderated — since when has that ever happened? But he’s right, ‘calm down’, for sure, else people will UMPC hype out. Whenever Microsoft people say “calm down”, it corporate-speak translates into “we can’t deliver”. But you need not worry, it’s eons away and it will be a flop for one reason or another, that’s Microsoft. So bother not and get an iPod or Creative, iRiver, SanDisk or Samsung already.
So letsee, 30 for same price as 60, just with the MySpaceCadet’ish social-networking sharing functionality, yet without data input features? All yet in some sort of unexplained DRM-link to the already failing URGE, all wrapped up in some sorta misc. 360 and Live Anywhere mish-mash? And incompatible with Plays for Sure devices? And now, bulky - bigger than an iPod, unwieldy with a short battery life, seemingly more expensive (for less functionality) and incompatible with prior offerings? And given that it’s being done by the supply-chain logistical nightmare Xbox’ish group, even once out, it won’t be out. But then the low product will be spun as massive demand, “sold outs”. Mark my words.
Man, in typical Microsoft fashion, buzzkill already, they just can’t catch a break, it’s so trainwrecked you actually start to feel sorry for them (then that feeling passes).
July 18th, 2006 at 2:37 am
[...] Update 1: Looks like Engadget is doing a bit more speculating about this new piece of technology. Robert Scoble also seems to think that WiFi might be present. Matt posted this entry on Saturday, July 8th, 2006 at 5:05 pm. Posted in the category Technology You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. [...]
July 18th, 2006 at 2:42 am
Drive space is important to me on a personal player. My 40 gig iPod isn’t enough. I want to carry my entire music collection with me. I have 110gb if music on my computer. I’m always thinking of tracks I want to listen to but can’t because they’re not on my iPod. I’ve had to setup some very convoluted smart playlists to cover every ground I can. I need drive space! I’m worried that my collection will always be too big for portable players though :(
July 18th, 2006 at 2:55 am
[...] Scoble on the iPod killer: …it’ll be interesting to see if Microsoft has a wifi exclusive for very long. If Apple lets Microsoft have that for more than a month you’ll see people saying that Apple is dying again. … I’d take a 30GB player with Wifi over a 60GB player without any day of the week. Why? Cause I hate wires. [...]
July 18th, 2006 at 6:40 am
There is something worse that missing a ship date. That is hitting a ship date with a half-baked product, witness UMPC.
July 18th, 2006 at 7:49 am
“No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.
This thing will never fly.”
Portable Media Players are not “everything and the kitchen sink” devices. Want to beat Apple? Start by making an 8gb device that’s the size of the nano and sell it at the same price as their 4gb device. Next create an online store that allows you to buy a wide variety of music in an unencumbered (no DRM) format and make it easy to manage and put your music on said portable device. Finally, recruit a cool band or 4 to help market your device / store.
The average consumer doesn’t care about wifi. The average consumer cares about style, size and ease of use.
July 18th, 2006 at 9:07 am
Perception is reality. Where drive space really matters is not the issue, and whether you use all the available drive space is not the issue either. If there is the perception that a competitors device will hold more than yours, you will lose. I think the majority of people that use these devices care more about how much it CAN hold (not WILL hold) than wifi. WiFi I think appeals to a smaller audience. What will win is of the device is sexier and easier to use than the iPod. Not what geeky features it has.
July 18th, 2006 at 10:11 am
Hardrive vs Flash drive for me. Portable media players WILL be dropped on the floor.
July 18th, 2006 at 10:49 am
Chris, as in Chris not -topher Coulter, I agree. 30 GBs full with about another 35 GB to go… and zero photos or video yet. Appeal to the most avid music fans that will fill it and will play with it and connect it everywhere. They are your advocates. And, since Apple does have a 5 year lead, people do want to see the advance of HD space.
“Second, it’ll be interesting to see if Microsoft has a wifi exclusive for very long. If Apple lets Microsoft have that for more than a month you’ll see people saying that Apple is dying again.”
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!!! The MusicGremlin has had a two month lead over MS already, who cares? Limited wifi connectivity only to networks without any authentication to poorly stream some music to some people without any real transfers while draining your battery twice as fast? Ha, ha, ha, ha!!!
All Apple has to do is release the nano in the same time frame with more colors and your “magic” capacity - 8-10 GBS… and MS will be spending hundreds of millions again on nothing.
Oh, and guess what: despite the rumored delays of November, TS is now reporting they may be ready next month!
“Cause I hate wires. ”
And this won’t eliminate wires at all.
“But, with Wifi I could listen to streaming audio or video again.”
Again? When were you listening to it and when did you stop? Streaming audio is still available.
“And, Microsoft is more willing to bring me a subscription music service than Apple seems to be.”
Which sub do you have now? You don’t? Why not? You want that choice but you haven’t chosen it in the last 3 years.
“As for not working with “Plays for Sure.” Well, this is cause that program had no teeth. I heard that players were released that wouldn’t play for sure and that made that program unusable.”
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!!! It takes 3 years for you to drop the marketing speak your company fed you and now you admit the strategy sucked and the technology actually didn’t work. Thanks for the integrity. We could have used a bullsh!t meter 3 years ago rather than fighting on and on, couldn’t we?
“I doubt this stuff is being leaked on purpose.”
Sure, the rumors were floating around months ago when the meetings were with partners, but things were vague. Now, in less than a week we get 6 or 7 rumors featuring every conceivable feature with a logo (why would a partner need to see a logo this far in advance?) and a picture of a prototype… Yeah, no, leaks… Sure, Karl.
July 18th, 2006 at 12:00 pm
I will wait for MSFT’s player. I don’t like apple at all they try to control everything, and they don’t like to give the end users any choice.
July 18th, 2006 at 4:25 pm
“I don’t like apple at all they try to control everything, and they don’t like to give the end users any choice.”
Right. Like try plugging an iPod into Windows… or loading industry standard file formats such as MP3, AAC or WAV. Or how about having the same interface to your media whether you’ve chosen to buy a flash-based player, a disk-based music-only player or a disk-based video player.
The “choices” the other players give you aren’t really much of a choice though, given the quality of the “plays for sure” initiative.
And don’t forget that Apple offers the easiest-to-circumvent DRM on the market. That’s the best of a bad thing, but really, if you buy downloadable music and _don’t_ make a cd backup of it, you’re kind of asking for trouble.
July 18th, 2006 at 6:23 pm
@15 That’s quite an ironic statement. Waiting for MS because Apple doesn’t give the use a choice? What choices does MS give users outside of a Windows based solution?
July 18th, 2006 at 10:12 pm
My player has 1GB of memory on an SD card.
That’s cause my player is my PPC-6700 and I can stream all the audio and video I want over the Sprint network using Orb.
So if you ask how much memory my player has, I might say 1GB. Or I might say “about a terabyte” - since that’s how much hard drive space I have at home that’s accessible to my phone at all times (unless I’m on a plane).
July 19th, 2006 at 5:55 am
And how much is your annual phone bill, Brandon?
July 19th, 2006 at 12:22 pm
[...] Original post by Robert Scoble and software by Elliott Back [...]
July 20th, 2006 at 12:30 am
Hello? Anyone who has a 30 GB or 60 GB iPod should be maximizing its use. TV shows, videos, movies, photos, podcasts, backups of your computers are all iPodible. In fact, tomorrow I will be backing up my PowerBook G4 to my iPod to do a clean install of the OS X. That is one of the many good things having 60 GB does for me.
Robert’s claim errs in at least two ways. First, he is not holding people responsibile for making poor use of the space on their iPods. Second, a new device with less capacity than the large iPod will actually be at a disadvantage.
July 20th, 2006 at 9:23 am
Podesta, don’t forget that, despite whatever Scobie says, the majority of iPods are actually nanos which currently have less than his magic number of 8 GBs. (Isn’t that funny? That’s probably the biggest way in which he errs.) Apple created the perfect spread of products: shuffle, nano/mini, iPod. Any strategy to attack the iPod cannot just aim at the large capacity by claiming it’s too large.
Your advice should be heeded though. As I said, mine’s full of music. I used to have some photos and I do keep a little space for files. But if you do have the extra space, use it for backups and other media.
July 21st, 2006 at 5:27 am
[...] Well, as Robert Scoble says in his post about the Zune that the unfortunate thing is that we’ll have to wait until 2007 to see how this plays out. I’m excited. This should make for a really interesting head-to-head battle between the Zune and the new iPod. Once both products are released and have been in the market for awhile, it would be an interesting experiment to check out this post to see if any of these factors even matter. (Of course they will!) The great thing about competition like this is that we all win — better prices and more incentive to innovate and bring forth new features. [...]