Microsoft’s Zune has much to live up to. Can it handle the heat?
With Steve Jobs already publicly announcing that the Zune will not influence Apple’s market share, the Zune has a lot of ground to make up in this peaking market. Commenting on the Zune’s ability to share music and photo files wirelessly, Job’s was quoted in Newsweek as saying, “It takes forever. By the time you’ve gone through all that, the girl’s got up and left.”
Microsoft’s Zune is scheduled to debut November 14th and has many guessing as to what features it will have. Here are some features that Microsoft has announced the Zune will have:
● Wireless Zune-to-Zune sharing. Zune lets you spontaneously share selected full-length sample tracks of your favorite songs, homemade recordings, playlists or pictures with friends wirelessly, device to device. You can listen to any song you receive up to three times in three days. And if you like a song you hear and want to buy it, you can flag it right on your device to easily find it later.
• Your own personalized Zune. Zune is easy to use and easy to love. You can choose one of three base colors, each combined with a distinctive double-shot finish created by the overlay of one color on another. The player also can easily be customized with your favorite pictures.
• Large color screen. Zune comes with a bright 3-inch LCD video screen that works in portrait or landscape mode. Your music, video and pictures never looked better.
• 30GB player. Zune stores up to 7,500 songs, 25,000 pictures or 100 hours of video. You can make playlists on the go and watch a slide show while you’re listening. Watching video in landscape mode gets the most out of the vivid display.
• Zune Pass. Downloads or a subscription? It’s your choice. A Zune Pass subscription gives you “all you can eat” access to discover and explore the Zune Marketplace.
• Built-in FM tuner. With the built-in FM tuner you can listen to local FM radio stations or tune in to programming while you’re at your local health club, for example. Advanced tuning capabilities allow you to see the name of the song currently playing on selected frequencies.
And, with an online music store, Microsoft is set to make sure that the Zune is a huge success.
http://www.articledashboard.com/Article/Microsoft-Zune-Feels-the-Pressure/106087
