The new Zune update is very nice. A lot better codec support. DIVX!
Nice. Does youtube work?
Don’t think so. I’m still trying to work with the Campus IT to get the Zune’s MAC address passed the Cisco Clean Access software so I can use it with my personal wireless access point I set up in my Suite.
All I know is, when I updated the Zune software on my desktop and restarted it, something like 250 new files were found and imported. I was wondering what the hell they were till I checked the videos and noticed all my DIVX .avi movies and TV shows that were previously unsupported were the culprits.
I’m suprised Microsoft hasn’t included Silverlight support. Netflix streaming support would be a huge plus. Though the battery would die extremely fast doing so.
Its alright about the distinction about a debate; I’ll just have to resolve having an argument with you instead.
…
Would you like me to list the games that I know of on iTouch that are free and are still more enjoyable than Audiosurf? Because I will. And there will be a lot of them.
But you don’t. You just say things like “iPods are unintuitive” and when I explain why they are, in fact, very intuitive, you call my arguments bullshit and move on.
Okay, let’s have a look at those two reasons:
a) Well, why is that? I’ve never seen one in Australia, and I bet a lot of people haven’t seen them because
b) Oh come off it. I know plenty of people who own ipods that are still objective about their choice. I own an iPod Classic, and I know a ton of people who now own iPods, and they were extremely objective in their approach. As was I. I looked at all the available products that I wanted, and then decided that the iPod Classic was the best value for money. In hindsight I still don’t think I would’ve gone with the iTouch, mainly because I like my 120GB and longer battery life. But at the time, I didn’t have the Zune to consider.
If you’re criticising people because they don’t throw their iTouches on the ground and stomp on them in disgust and immediately go and buy a Zune, then I think you really need to go and think about your position. People who already own iTouches can still argue that they’re not as good as the Zune, but they’re hardly going to agree to just throw theirs away and buy a different (and almost identical) product.
But if you think that every iTouch owner is an immediate ‘macfag’ and loves everything Apple makes, then perhaps you should consider the possibility that given that they’ve used the iTouch much more extensively than you, they objectively view it as better.
And even if we accept your argument as true, perhaps you should consider that the opposite is also true; because you own a Zune you are now so hopelessly in love with Zune that you will never consider another piece of hardware ever again.
I have a lot of problems with this sentence. Firstly, there are a lot of user made apps for the iTouch. Secondly, the amount of Zunes at your school in no way effect the amount of user made games for the Zune, unless you go to school with a whole bunch of computer programmers. While its true that more users = more user made apps, its a real Catch 22; for more users to get a Zune over an iTouch, you need more apps, but to get more apps, you need more users. While I know a lot of users will buy either completely irrespectively of the amount of apps available, the whole fact that there are a select few for one vs. an innumerable amount on the other means its a very strong reason to get the iTouch.
Now, you see, you can’t make an argument like this. You can’t say “the Zune, objectively, is better than the iTouch because it has Audiosurf Tilt” and then say “oh no, but any iTouch games you list that may be better than that are just better in your mind”. The point of this thread is to objectively discuss the Zune, not work out exactly what games you like.
Gah, need to remember to finish sentences.
And you know what? This will spell the failure of the Zune. If Microsoft doesn’t advertise it and the iTouch has already reach domination of the market, then how on early with the Zune make any kind of noticeable headway?
Did I SAY that I never considered any other media players? No. I owned an iRiver H340, which was shocking. My sister owned a Samsung…thing…which was shocking. My friend owned a Creative…thing…which was slightly less shocking, but the wheel was still bad. I reached the decision to buy an iPod based on objective analysis of the market at the time, which didn’t include a Zune (because they just weren’t available), and hence I narrowed the choice down to either an iTouch or an iPod classic.
And if you had properly explained the reasons for your decision, then I would’ve listened. But instead you brought up such wonderful reasons as “oh, the iTouch’s list of apps is unintuitive” or “Audiosurf Tilt is better than ANY game on iTouch” or “iTunes is shit because its unintuitive”. If you give me actual reasons as to why the iTouch is worse, then I’ll hear them. Things like the screen? Yes, the screen is better. The ability to output in HD? Nice for some, but useless for me. But the lack of apps, the worse internet browsing (as someone here stated), and the fact that I’m so hopelessly in love with Apple that I want nothing more than to have Steve Jobs’ babies mean that I can’t bring myself to buy one.
Huh? Quality? Picture quality maybe, but actual quality of hardware? Please. You haven’t shown any reason why its better other than “iTouch is unintuitive” and when I tried to explain otherwise you dismissed my arguments as silly and wrong.
And I’m on an iTouch RIGHT NOW and I can tell you that there are user made iTouch apps. For more information see here, here and here. Took a 30 second Google search. What website were YOU on?
And I’m just going to dismiss your word-of-mouth argument out of hand. The only chance the Zune has to break into the market is if it can show itself to be a better product than Apple such that it can actually compete with the iTouch. It needs to have more apps. It needs to advertise. It needs to have better web browsing and implement some of the things on the to-do list. If it does that, then maybe, MAYBE it’ll be better than the iTouch, but I still have to get my hands on one first.
lots of Apps are user made, there is an SDK for that, which can be downloaded by everyone.
ZuneHDs are good, but I like my iPod touch more, it’s my first iPod.
many Apps on iPod Touch are very useful.
yes, I hate the fact that iPods don’t support flash because of Apple.(Adobe had already a flashplayer finished for iPod Touch, but was denied)
No, I don’t need HD output for my inexistent HDTV.
No, the iPod Homescreen is not totally messy, for 4 favourite apps you have the bar on the bottom of the screen and you have a Searchfunction to find your app.
yes, I like the design of the ZuneHD more.
… and so on
Well, about the Flash thing. W3C has been proposing HTML5 to be used as global standard (the standard that every browser but IE follows) for web browsing. HTML5 has been called to life to close the gap that things like Flash (and Silverlight and some Java players, etc). Once HTML5 goes mainstream, the need for these extra plugins will stop.
These plugins aren’t the most stable things around, and webpages crashing on any type of browser can often be related to them, so my guess would be that Apple has a lot of trust in HTML5 becoming a new standard fast, so they probably won’t bother getting these plugins in and risk possible bugs. I’m not saying this is a good idea, because Flash will still be needed for some content, but the majority of current flash content wouldn’t require the actual presence of Flash.
Now. If you turn the table towards the ZuneHD. Seeing as it’s from Microsoft, it probably has Internet Explorer. Microsoft is infamous for their total lack of support for the W3C standard. That’s mainly why IE is considered one of the worst browsers around. So if HTML5 goes mainstream, and Microsoft still assumes it knows best on how to interpret HTML, IE might get some issues with a lot of websites stepping away from Flash and going for the HTML5 way of delivering Flash-based content. I’m not saying this will happen, but it could, and it wouldn’t surprise me if it did. Unless Microsoft finally realizes that they have no business in trying to change the web on their own, rather than following global standards like any other browser.
does the ZuneHD support OpenGL ES?
So basically your point is that there isn’t an Audiosurf Tilt game on iTouch. True. There is, however, TapTap Revenge, which is free. Its basically like Guitar Hero for iTouch, and is based on the same very basic principle as Audiosurf; music rhythm. And guess what? Because the guys over at TapTap pre-prepare all of the tracks you play in-game, they’re always going to be more accurate to the music and more fun to play than games that generate rhythm patterns on the fly.
Your point about no 3D games on the iTouch is just completely fallacy, given that Audiosurf itself isn’t really a 3D game; it just makes the background look further away from the foreground - something that TapTap does equally well, and something that arcade games have been doing since the 80s.
Uhhh, no. The ZuneHD was announced in mid 2009; I got my iPod classic in late 2008. What’s more, Zunes in general aren’t marketed in Australia, let alone sold at major outlets. I didn’t even know they existed, aside from passing comments as to how bad they were, but I certainly didn’t see any sold at major retail outlets here.
From the Wikipedia article:
Actually, if you look at comparisons between the iTouch and the Zune (actual objective ones, you know, where they actually get some statistics and test the players), you’ll see that the audio is the same, the prices are the same, the battery lives are just about the same, the Zune is smaller (which is a BAD thing in terms of screen size), the Zune is a tad lighter (but at those weights the difference truly is negligible), and I seriously don’t understand how an accelerometer can be ‘faster’, given that its just measuring the rate at which the player accelerates.
And the power button? I have no answer to your own incompetence. I’ve never found it to be a problem, and nor do any of the owners of iTouches or iPhones I know. But that’s not definitive; I just don’t know what will actually give a definitive answer on this topic, other than to say I don’t see it as a big issue.
And true, you don’t have to pay to update it. But you don’t have to update it, nor is it a considerable inconvenience. You’d bloody well hope you didn’t have to pay for Zune updates, given then long list of things they have yet to implement.
Must we bring up the Zune vs. iTunes debate again? There are some things that Zune does better, but they are virtually identical in functionality and features. The best summary I found was this:
Oh and feel free to squirt to however many of your friends that you like, but there’s no way that transferring music between Zunes is every going to be as fast, convenient or efficient as just plugging your friend’s Zune into your computer and transferring the music over.
There are a lot of subscription based music services; so many that I can’t possibly begin to look them all up to compare them (especially since many, if not most, aren’t available in Australia). All I can definitively say is this; iTunes has more songs, it doesn’t force you to convert your cash to Zune points to buy songs, and you can sync your iTunes library with 5 other computers, not 3. I’m not sure about using subscription services with iTunes and Zune Media Players, but I presume that you can easily use your favourite subscription music service with your favourite music player.
Oh and please, stop calling the kettle black. You’re doing yourself no favours trying to point the finger at me as the biased idiot in this thread while constantly using phrases such as “I bet” and"IMO" as legitimate arguments, or without properly researching your points.
And no, advertising does not, in and of itself, make a product better. But as has been raised before, in order for apps to be created, you need users. In order for users to appear, you need advertising. Word-of-mouth between school kids really can’t conceivably compete against the 20 million iTouches sold as of September 2009.
Look, I’ve played Audiosurf, and I’ll admit that it was fun for a while, but it got old. It was more like a colourful and interactive way to listen to your music rather than an actual ‘game’. And, as I understand it, the Zune one is just a cut down version of that. I’m not saying its a bad game, I’m just saying that it can in no way compete against the massive games library for the iTouch.
I had a quick look at a video of Audiosurf Tilt, and you’re right; it is 3D. But the use of 3D =/= fun, so its not fair to say that Zune games are better or more fun than iTouch games based purely on their use of 3D.
And just on TapTap; if your hand hurts while playing it, you’re plainly doing it wrong.
Okay, few things. Yes, the screen is more advanced, but I personally find the iTouch screen more than adequate for everything from watching movies, browsing through songs or reading e-books.
If you read the actual specifications for the iTouch and Zune (and not perform absurdly subjective tests yourself), you’ll see that they’re just about the same, with the Zune ahead by an hour or two (Wikipedia is your friend here). The Zune may be 'close to half as light as the iTouch, but when you’re talking about weights as insubstantial as those media players, is it even relevant? I certainly wouldn’t factor it in at all. But I suppose you have to give it to the Zune.
And on charging times, the Zune can charge in 3 hours, and the iTouch can charge in about the same time, but I have yet to see an official answer on its charging time.
Oh please, learn to use iTunes. You press the BIG NO BUTTON when it asks you if you want to automatically sync your iPod, and then press the MANUALLY MANAGE MUSIC button on the iTouch options section in iTunes.
I just found out that squirted tracks only last for 3 plays or 3 days, whichever comes first, so its completely useless for substantial (or even insubstantial) music sharing.
You can’t say “oh the Zune is better than the iTouch” and then say “oh but they aren’t competing on Apps”. At the moment, the Apps library for the iTouch far outweighs that of the Zune, and as I’ve explained before, I highly doubt that you will see the same kind of App coverage on the Zune as on the iTouch. But regardless, we’re not dealing in terms of the future, we’re dealing in terms of the now. And right now, there are far far more apps on the iTouch than on the Zune.
I meant its not a considerable inconvenience in relation to how much the iTouch costs, how much money you’ll be spending in the store and the benefits you get from updating.
Try fact checking next time. The three day limit was removed years ago.
Blergh, my bad. The website I went on said 2007, not 2009.
The processor/gpu on the zune is significantly better, which makes the accelerometer react faster and the entire GUI more fluid and responsive.
I hit the lock button on my iPod all the time when I’m playing games…
lolwut? You can’t download most new apps and iTunes constantly bugs you about it. And the only thing I can think of that the Zune needs to implement is flash/a YouTube app.
No other subscription service that I know of lets you stream songs AND keep 10 for $15 a month.
Never happened to me
The plot thickens… Admittedly it only happens when I’m holding it in one orientation.