News - Microsoft confirms the demise of the Zune player

[HEXUS]

It was just a matter of time, and the iPod may not be far behind.

Read more.

[shaithis]

Almost like the end of an era.....although a damn short one compared to most

It's no surprise though.

[crossy]

Such is the omnipotence of the modern smartphone that it's debatable whether there remains much of a market for stand-alone MP3 players, or cameras, satnavs and handheld gamers, for that matter. In fact, we wouldn't be surprised to see Apple dramatically scaling-down its iPod offering in favour of the iPhone at this afternoon's launch event.

For folks who have low requirements (or standards) then I'll tend to agree. However, I can still see a pretty convincing case for the stand-alone cameras, and on an decreasing scale for MP3/4 players and DS/PSP type devices. Satnav's I'd totally agree with - I got CoPilot on my smartphones and it fulfils all the functions I'd need from a separate satnav device.

Cameras are different - there it's the optics that made the difference for me, (although I'm sure someone's going to point out that the sensors on cameraphones are inferior to those in proper cameras). As far as I can see there's very few, if any, phones with optical zoom out there - so I think I'll hold onto my Lumix for a while longer.

MP3/MP4 players - I could argue that the quality of the standalone devices make them still worth considering. Especially if you're talking about the higher-end stuff - Cowon and some of the Sony's. Even my much-abused hearing can easily tell the difference between the same track played on an SE X10 phone as compared to a Sony A-series Walkman. Game devices, hmm, I think that Nintendo must be feeling very vulnerable, but I'd argue that the increased hardware spec in the PSP makes it harder to replace with a "simple" smartphone. I tried Xperia Play and wasn't that impressed!

I'm confused by that last part of the quote - I thought that the iPod's were supposed to be the "low cost" entry to the joys of iOS. In which case, it doesn't make sense to cancel them. That said, I still much prefer the old (pre-Classic) iPods to the new ones, the latter seem more feature-filled, but a heck of lot less easy to drive.

Back to the main article - I don't think I'll be alone in not missing Zune.

[shaithis]

iPods will not disapear any time soon. Apple would be mad to get rid of them when iPhones cost "how much?"

[aidanjt]

Demise? You mean it existed to begin with?

[Scott B]

MP3/MP4 players - I could argue that the quality of the standalone devices make them still worth considering. Especially if you're talking about the higher-end stuff - Cowon and some of the Sony's. Even my much-abused hearing can easily tell the difference between the same track played on an SE X10 phone as compared to a Sony A-series Walkman. Game devices, hmm, I think that Nintendo must be feeling very vulnerable, but I'd argue that the increased hardware spec in the PSP makes it harder to replace with a "simple" smartphone. I tried Xperia Play and wasn't that impressed!

I'm confused by that last part of the quote - I thought that the iPod's were supposed to be the "low cost" entry to the joys of iOS. In which case, it doesn't make sense to cancel them. That said, I still much prefer the old (pre-Classic) iPods to the new ones, the latter seem more feature-filled, but a heck of lot less easy to drive.

You sort of addressed that yourself in saying you can see value in higher-end MP3-players. Judging by the timing this could well be a joint iPhone/iPod event, so it makes sense for there to be a convergent theme.

Some rumours I've read have Apple ditching the lower-end iPods in favour of going all-in with iOS, and I wouldn't be surprised if that happened. iPod sales have been in decline for a while for the reasons covered in my piece, and Apple generally likes to jump before the market pushes it.

Just speculation though - we'll find out in a couple of hours. I'll be tuning in and writing it up.

[OilSheikh]

MS killed the Zune by having it only inside the US. If only they had expanded the sales borders.

[aidanjt]

MS killed the Zune by having it only inside the US. If only they had expanded the sales borders.

Exactly, and Microsoft does this far too often with tangible products. Limiting yourself to 5% of the potential customer base the planet has to offer is setting yourself up for failure, and frankly, brain damaged.

Hello? The other 6.7 billion of us *might* be interested.

[Whiternoise]

You can deride them for making a product that's actually on par with the iPod and then not selling it anywhere except a limited market in the US.

This is nothing like the Kin, which was a massive bag of fail, the Zune had a good reception in the US and the vast majority of people who bought it really liked it. I'm still planning on getting hold of an HD when they (hopefully) get a bit cheaper. The 64GB is still the only PMP of its kind around, next to the iPod Touch.

Smartphones will always be hamstrung by their crappy battery life. Until you can get 30 hours of music out of a smartphone as well as browsing, they're not going to replace standalone media players. Perhaps what's happened is that the majority of the general public are beginning to realise that they don't really care about having their entire music library on the go, or having good pictures - mediocrity is actually fine provided it's in one little pacage.