He acts like he doesn't care about the iPhone. You KNOW you want one!

I hope Zune community never become brainless sheep like the iPhone nuts. The more you hear about the damned thing, the less you want one.

Revolutionary?....and people actually buy into that.

Yeah, Cesar flew all the way to NYC to go to Apple's flagship store to get an iPhone lol.

@Hungryduck

Just cause YOU didnt get one.

Thanks for sharing Cesar!

Free music is nice and everything but we need real news here.

I am a zune suporter and very tired of iphone, apple news.  Please give us something.

These New Music Fridays are getting kinda boring. How about something like New Video Fridays!!

How about new feature fridays? -snort-

Or

New news about features fridays? -say that 5 times fast-

Or

New faulty design problems not getting fixed fridays.

Thanks Cesar!  This is my second week with my Zune and I have been able to send several of the NMF titles to my wife's Zune for her to check out.

Or how about a New "zOMG I just got an iPhone, let me hide it from Bill Gates & Co. Before they find out" Friday :D

From What I heard, the iPhone sold more on it's first hour then the Zune sold in half a year!!!

Get this- It costs 3x as much :P

I don't want to diss the Zune or anything, but I see this project as a failure in site.

http://www.pcworld.com/video/id,545-page,1-bid,0/video.html

This is what shows how quality Apple products are made.

How about paying some attention to your biggest suporters on Fridays. Please take a look at this rant on Zunerama http://zunerama.com/forum/index.php?topic=4646.15

@Tommy

Were you around when the 1st XBOX launched?  Nobody in the world thought it would catch the playstation. Nobody.

Same goes for Zune.  6 Months is just a warm up.  Now if they could only get the "Voice of Zune" hired things would get moving.  Sounds like a mental disorder, but at the same time, a good job. I'll take it.

There's some nice stuff in there - especially the Ben Benjamin track; but I'm a fan of Ghostly International Records, so I am automatically biased. (Your link sent me to Chromewaves, unless my browser is funky again). Thanks.

P.S. Thanks for finding/posting these songs every week. It's certainly not like you're obligated to!

Holy crap. I have seen the iPhone, and it is insanely cool.

Definitely raises the bar for the cellphone industry, as well as the portable media player industry. Nothing else even comes close.

I have to say, the iPhone may actually *exceed* the hype.

@peter pan's uncle:

But they didn't catch the playstation!!! Sony sells way more PS2s now than Microsoft is selling Xbox 360s!

peter pan's uncle

There's no way the zune could catch up after millions of ipod being sold each WEEK. Honestly, with Apple starting to roll up marketshare--Microsoft empire is going down slowly, but surely.

Sure Microsoft dominates the gaming market, but no one could even come close to the iPod in terms of sales in even if the Zune gained about 20% marketshare overnight.

It just isn't happening.

IMHO, the only thing that made the Xbox soar was Halo. That's about it.

The Zune on the other hand has really no selling point. Every positive about it turns into a negative.

Big Screen: Pixels look larger than size which makes videos look grainy and bad quality.

Wi-Fi Sharing: 3 days and 3 plays is simply lame. And from what I've heard, the song is counted as a "play" in one time.

If any company can do something as visionary as Microsoft "tries", Apple can.

Cesar? Did you get your iPhone in NY?

http://www.ministryoftech.com/2007/07/01/microsoft-workers-buying-iphone-for-research-purposes/

I second that, after using one, I can say the iPhone did exceed the hype. Everyone thought they would incorporate the scroll-wheel in the iPhone but they made something much better.

@confuzzled: actually lots of stuff come close and actually exceed the iphone. Look at the LG prada, the HTC Touch, and the up and coming Meizu M8. All great phones are at least equal  if not better than the iphone but with the exception of the prada, cost less.

Does anyone know when firmware 1.5 will come.

Yeah I'm sorry to admit it Cesar but I have to agree with Dan and the rant itself. =/

Cesar

 Could you please take some time and explain the reason there is no SDK for the Zune?  Understanding the challenges might help set the expectation...

 There are lots of easy requests out there, and an SDK would allow the community to knock them out and let you guys focus on the big stuff.

Agreed with Dan on this one. I'd like to see some kind of news or update on anything.

http://zunerama.com/forum/index.php?topic=4646.0

AI, we just don't know anything about 1.5 or other future releases.  The Zune team has been especially quiet these past two weeks.  Not sure, but that may be attributed all the iPhone hype and not wanting this to steel their thunder.

Its great to see the competition heat up.  If the iPhone is any indication, v2 Zune hardware should be really exciting stuff.  And with Apple positioned in the portable market (iPod), Living Room (AppleTV), mobile narket (iPhone) and internet (Safari)..I think Microsoft will be eager to accelerate their  connected entertainment vision.

In response to every1 ranting, I think I have a pretty good explaination (although it's been said before and probably wont put any of you at ease) The iphone just came out. If you paid attention to engadget at all in recent months, it's been a non-stop iphone fest. Any news by the zune team, no matter how large, would be completely overshadowed by the iphone hype. Would it have been nice for microsoft to challenge the iphones hype? probably, but it would have lost. Sometimes you just need to choose your battles and I think that's exactly what the zune team did. (At least I really, really hope so. (because that would theoretically mean we get some big news very soon)).

John Smith: Did you hear about the iPhone?

Bill Gates: Yes, I want you to get as much as you can and bring them over here for my next copy invention

John Smith: Sure thing

Bill Gates: Make sure to post a blog about how we're going to use it for research development.

John Smith: Yes sir

*John Smith hands Gates a shiny new iPhone*

Bill Gates: Hey John Smith, I like this idea. Can you go over and put this masterpiece device to our Xerox right in the Corner.

John Smith: Gates, isn't that copy?

Bill Gates: Oh we're great at that. We're going to call it the zPhone

*evil laugh* muhahahahahahaha, Apple shall fail!!

John Smith: Gates, you're a loser. I'm going to go over to Apple's department and be the next Scoble.

Mark,

Everyone's ranting and complaining is due to a far longer problem that has been around for a lot longer than just the past month's constant coverage of the iPhone. There has never been a significant feature announcement or even preview concerning the Zune on this site or any other except when others have hacked it to do what they want and even then it was on zunerama and not done by Microsoft.

@Matt: Microsoft doesn't need to copy the iphone, they could just go to the source and copy the prada like apple did :)

Cesar: sorry for posting so much but any comment on this?

http://www.zunesleeves.com

Mark, there was some discussion about Zunesleeves.com on Zunerama.  It was reported to be transferred to a Microsoft name server.  However WHOIS indicates its registered to DreamHost Web Hosting (dreamhost.com).  Sounds like a scam.

Mark said:

actually lots of stuff come close and actually exceed the iphone. Look at the LG prada, the HTC Touch, and the up and coming Meizu M8. All great phones are at least equal  if not better than the iphone but with the exception of the prada, cost less.

The "Meizu M8" is the biggest piece of vaporware in years. The thing doesn't even exist. It's just a bunch of pretty pictures and completely unrealistic specs.

In any case, until someone can tell me they've used all of these devices, comparisons are pure speculation.

All I know is, there wasn't a line to buy either the LG Prada or the HTC Touch the day they came out.

Cesar, is anyone from Zune team going to E3 ?

I figure you guys would be keeping tabs with what is going on in the portable/mobile gaming space.

Wow, I just went to take a dip at the Apple Koolaid store in SoHo and I used an iPhone.

Agreed, this thing EXCEEDS innovation and expecation. When I was browsing the web, I was like "wow". I also loved the iPod built in. It was beautiful. You could tell that Apple engineers put a lot of effort and love into making such a great device.

I also took a look at my upcoming Mac purchase ;)

Jesus guys, no one makes better products than Apple. NO ONE. NO ONE I TELL YOU!!!

@ Mark

Seriously, lol, those phones aren't as great as the iPhone simply because all the technology that's on the prada and HTC doesn't fit together with their OS.

The simplicity and innovations currently on the iPhone mark a huge spotlight for upcoming Apple products.

Wow, the iPhone reportedly sold half a million over the weekend (some reporting up to 700,000), and may even be the most successful product launch in history. Maybe this will light some fire under the Zune team's ARS.

Just like Apple's iPhone, the Zune was MS first foray into the DAP (Hardware) market, but it's taken 6 Months to hit 1 million. Apple will hit one million in a few days. What's wrong with this picture?

Many are losing patients.  

I played with the Iphone and it is amazing.  I can't see how anyone can compete with that kind of design.  Microsoft needs to change gears here and start pumping out the cool. By this time we should've had some devices that make use of technologies like WPF/Silverlight but it hasn't happend.