And it’s been said by someone on the Zune dev team, the Zune’s demise is a bit overstated. They are expanding the system to be more available to more windows enabled devices, (read xbox, winmo, etc).

Good LORD this is an overstated article.

There was no “mass exodus” due to a computer bug. The bug just rendered the first batch of devices useless for about 24 hours.

Ballmer’s statements to the Financial Times weren’t that the Zune devices were going away, but rather that the Zune brand will be brought to other platforms — a statement MS has been making for a LONG time now.

Uh…Zune is the 2nd best selling hard drive player on the market.

Really? Is this a rhetorical question? Mac has a monopoly on the industry..

I have a Zune and I love it. I also have 2 iPods, but they sit on the shelf because the Zune makes it easier to manage my music, I can listen to NPR, and the battery lasts longer. It would be a share if Microsoft drops the product, but I’m guessing the author of this article is stretching the facts.

i went to zune when the i-pod could not even read my files thats what you get when you try to use a mac device with xp operating system

i went to zune when the i-pod could not even read my files thats what you get when you try to use a mac device with xp operating system

i had to go to 2 different walmarts to try and find a zune one was sold out the other had only 2 the clerk says sales are starting to pick up

Ipods rule!

Personally, I have been a devoted Creative Zen user for years. I never dug the Ipod due to the mpeg4 format. Although the Zune was a addition to the market, it offers more than I want.

With my Zen, I put my most of my music library on 20GB’s with no strings attached. They have a user-friendly interface without dealing with anything else.

To this day, I still don’t understand what all of the fuss is over with Ipods. Actually, many of my friends have eventually went with Creative MP3 players after Ipods and never looked back.

But, I hope the Zune stays in the race to offer a high-profile alternative for consumers.

Ugh! The Zune is a great player! I just bought the 120 Gb 2 weeks ago after numerous ipod frustrations and it works like a dream! Microsoft can’t give up on it just yet! They should just expand the capabilities of the player and pump more into ads. The IPOD and the ZUNE can coexist, healthy competition is what business is all about right?

I recently bought a Zune for my daughter. The fm radio was one of the main reasons I went with the Zune (over an IPod or other brand). I found it very simple & user friendly to load music onto the player. Although I am very pleased with my Toshiba Gigabeat, I found the Zune to be easier to load with music and photos. I think the Zune offers unique perks that their competitors do not (such as the radio and Zune sharing). I hope Microsoft continues selling this product. I think it is better than the IPod.

Seriously, people. The Zune is just one of many of Microsoft attempts at trying to disguise a derivative, poor copy of a truly groundbreaking product and passing it off as innovation.

People should have rejected the Zune on principle alone, and they overwhelmingly did.

Compare the Zune to the iPod Touch, and you’ll soon realize that one company skates to where the puck is going while the other arrives late to where it has been.

Derivative. Unimaginative. Zune.

The device failed for the following reasons related to the reasons above.

First, it was late to the market and offered very little in the way of innovation. In fact, if anything at all the vertical business model resembling Apple’s abandoned Plays For Sure partners of Microsoft and damaged the company’s credibility in yet another market.

Second, the hardware was/is bulkier than the iPod devices and lack the sex appeal (unless you’re turned on by brown).

Finally, the iPod has re-invented itself several times in the form of the original iPod, the mini, the nano, the shuffle, and the iPhone/Touch — the latter which has now become a full-fledged multi-touch computing platform with over 10,000 applications.

BTW, I wasn’t born an Apple Fanboy. I became one. And if the products ever suck, I’ll cease to be one.

“Plus, it didn’t help that whatever devotees it had left it alienated at the turn of 2009 thanks to a mass computer bug”

Ummm…you’re basing this on what figures you’ve collected in the past ten days? Statistics please…or might as well admit obvious bias and get on with life.

I have 3 Zunes and they work great. It is as good of a MP3 player and even CNET showed that toe to toe it is as good as the IPOD. It has more features and the Zune pass rocks. I think this article is wrong as Microsoft just announced 2 million users on the Zune social website.

I LOVE my Zune, and encourage my friends to get them so they can join “the social” (Which is surprisingly pretty awesome). I looked into getting an iPod but I don’t get why anyone likes them, they seem so limited and very very basic.

typoink is right the OLD zunes didnt work temporarily, while the new zune w/ touch pads were entirely fine. I have an 80gb black zune since early this summer beatuiful ability.

heres an idea for you Microsoft. make your software for macs. i am a mac user and the only thing keeping me for buying a zune is i cant download the software without a windows emulator. its is ridiculous

after going thru 4 ipods i got myself a zune when it first came out. its been about 3 years now and i still have no problems with my zune. it never freezes, the battery is long lasting, and the screen is huge. i love apple, but i got sick of always having to buy a new ipod because they froze up and broke constantly. too bad they want to discontinue the zune, its really not that bad.

I’ve had a Zune for two years now. It’s very easy to use and very user friendly. I hope they don’t drop out of the market.

I have purchased 5 Zunes, 1 for each of my family members. We all love them and prefer them over the IPod. I think this article is jumping the gun quite a bit!

I’ve had a Zune, and a iPod. I would take the iPod over the Zune any day.

this is misleading
especially for reader who have a Zune now.

At the CES confrence this past week, I saw Microsoft has plans for Zune in 2009.

I have ten ipods, five iphones, and i’ve had them for five years. I just love owning more shit than I need and bragging about it. Here’s something for you all. Get one functional device and be happy with it no matter what your choice is. This is a stupid article and stupid debate.

I have had my 30 gig Zune since it came out and think it’s great. I have 2 other 4 gig Zune’s as well. The Zune Marketplace subscription is one of the main reasons I got the Zune in the first place! And they made it even better recently by giving you 10 songs to keep each month.

I am in the market to buy a new Zune and was waiting for an announcement at CES for a Zune Touch, or other upgraded version but sadly there has been 0 news about Zune out of CES.

Given that several other companies have announced touch versions of their MP3 players, this really does lead me to believe that it is possible that MS may not be making Zune’s any more. If they do have upgrades coming out then they are really dropping the ball by not making some announcement here.

I’m inclined to believe that next month at their Windows Mobile convention that they are going to announce Zune as a software service for mobile phones and that will be that. Sadly. I’m still holding out hope for a Zune Touch but I just don’t think it is going to happen.

The Zune device itself is superior to the iPod, but the Social is broken.

I love my Zune and will continue to encourage people to buy them.
I’ve seen plenty from Microsoft to suggest that they will continue to produce them.
They need a competitive player, and even though they may take a loss, will still continue to market Zunes.

I’ve never even seen a Zune, which proves that the iPod is totally dominant over the mP3 empire! Maybe the Zune is a better mP3, but the fact of the matter is, Apple has done a fantastic job advertising the iPod, and Zune will never be able to compete with iPod, plain and simple.

peace and love

yeah so the zune wasn’t great, but enough with the apple kool-aid already. i hear the color of the ipod was chosen to match the color of steve jobs’ semen.

Note to rollingstone,
Leave tech news to tech sites, stick to music. I hate Zunes, but there was no exodus of users. The leap year bug was fixed in days. Leave tech to wired and get back to telling us how great lil Wayne and brittanys new albums are.

Why do we even need all this fancy stuff? I like iPod minis

Zune sucks because of their super-restrictive DRM (which Apple is soon getting rid of) and the fact that you can only play a song 3 times before it expires, which is no good if you’re traveling and there’s no computer around for you to sync your Zune.

I hope that music players and phones revert back to relative simplicity in the next decade. Personally, I think that the features that are on my iPod nano are really all one needs to listen to music and podcasts and stuff.

Hey MS. Your business model is flawed. Drop subscriptions. Drop points. Just sell mp3’s for a reasonable price. Take the limits off of the sharing feature. Once you have done that, get back to me.

Forget about the ZUNE and iPod altogether. I just got the new SONY Walkman MP3 which includes FM radio. The sound beats iPOD anyday of the week, music downloads are much easier, it’s easy to use, video and pictures are great, and it’s built real well. So happy I bought it!

Forget about the ZUNE and iPod altogether. I just got the new SONY Walkman MP3 which includes FM radio. The sound beats iPOD anyday of the week, music downloads are much easier, it’s easy to use, video and pictures are great, and it’s built real well. So happy I bought it!

You mean the Zune is still around? iPods rule. Always have. Nice try Microcrap.

Shame on you Daniel Kreps, for your inaccurate representation of the facts. The Zune product is expanding, to be compatible with more of microsofts products. It is also the second highest selling portable media player. There is no mass exodus of users either.

I know this is a music magazine, but try to hold yourself to at least some standard.

The Zune was a really bad idea in the first place.

The Zune players (even my zune30) still have a few nice features over the Ipod like wireless syncing, mobile access to zune marketplace, and of course the FM radio. I would love the software on windows mobile too. This article is very biased and I’m not why.

Love my Zune! Love my Zune! Kicks iPod’s a** every which way.

Apple lovers suffer from an inferiority complex and our jealous of Microsoft’s products. I mean how classless are their ads? Get over it!

The Zune is superior than Ipod. And the Ifanbois are jealous. Rolling Stone we Zuners want…. No WE DEMAND an APOLOGY!!!!!

We have 3 Zunes after being an iPod house, and we are very happy. Each daughter has hers in her bedroom and wirelessly docked back to our main computer in the office. The big screen is a bonus for the kids watching videos on long plane/car trips. They also sound superb, and I much prefer the Zune software to iTunes. I just wish Zune would bring the Marketplace to Canada

While I don’t like iPod’s (for me it’s mostly a dislike of touch-screens and the new nano), I am disapointed in the zune. This is because I am a Canadian and mircrosoft has done F%#K all to bring zune marketplace to Canada. I’d get songs elsewhere but there aren’t really any LEGAL websites to download songs from availiable to us Canadians (’cept iTunes, and that is bloody useless to me) and I refuse to steal music using a site like Limewire (plus, all the viruses).

My 120 Zune is totally AWESOME!!! Kicks Ipod’s arse every gigin’ time.

cmsLNK hi! this is

The zune pretty much kicks ass

Krista–
youre wrong. the 3 play usage is only when you share songs with others, not when you already own them.

i owned a zen micro and currently use a zune, i do agree that it is bulkier. yet i do find it rather funny that apple’s slogan of think different applies better to the zune than any of the ipod lines.

ps. there is talk about a zune with touch capabilities

Yo, is it just me or is this guy COMPLETELY bias? The zune is Way better than ipods, the only reason this dude is saying this is cause he’s gettin payed off by apple….scandelous!

I RARELY meet Zune users and when I do, the only things they rave about which we can both agree is that it can wirelessly synch. Though they usually dock it to avoid draining the battery. The Touch is so much better when it comes to WIFI that it’s a joke to compare them. The FM, which everyone else has had since forever is nice if you need that. Sound quality, yes it’s better. Though not better than Creative and a few others. SYnching music, movies, podcasts, TV shows, rentals better???? NO! Let’s see, more or better movies… NO!, more or better TV shows? NO!, better podcasts? HELL NO! iTunes U, NNNNO!, more or better audiobooks? NO! Add rentals available through iTunes and useable on APPLE TV and the great choice of third party devices for home, car and portable. The UI is a matter of taste and I prefer the iPod as well. Add to that It feels super-plasticky. Nope. I just don’t get it and it appears the majority of folks don’t either. Oh and BTW, I live in MTL, let me say that in Canada the material available for the Zune on their marketplace just ain’t that great.