One more day until Zune is released. The Sunday paper advertising section had plenty of ads for Zune. The best deal seems to be at Target which will be selling the Zune and includes a $25 Target gift card. Costco will also be selling the Zune for $239.99, the same price it sells the iPod 30GB. A couple of the ads had this disclaimer about the sharing capability;
"“The Zune-to-Zune sharing feature may not be available for all songs on your device, and works only between Zune devices within wireless range of each other. This feature allows recipients to play full length sample tracks up to 3 times in 3 days. Recipients cannot re-send music they have received via the sharing feature.”
The disclaimer must be language crafted by Microsoft since it is identical in all of the ads. I believe the limits on this feature will really hamper adoption of Zune. I understand there needs to be limits, however 3 times in 3 days seems too restrictive. You should also be able to transfer unprotected material with some limits. iTunes allows for the synchronization of a library across 5 machines without restrictions. I can also synchronize multiple iPods with my iTunes library. If Zune can't match these capabilities this could kill the whole concept. The WIFI sharing feature is a killer idea however it needs to be less restrictive to be useful. Another event this week which may overshadow the whole Zune roll out is the introduction of Sony's Play Station 3 on Friday. It will be interesting to see how well Zune sells this week.
Office 2007 and Windows Vista were released to manufacturing in the last 2 weeks, we should be seeing the downloads soon on the MSDN subscriber download site. Hopefully Office 2007 this week and Windows Vista next week (update: Office 2007 is available today). Can't wait to download...I have been using Office 2007 since June and I find the new features and user interface greatly improve usability. Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager is a big improvement and I am finding new features on a weekly basis.
Phatware released Calligrapher 8.4 last week. I have been using Calligrapher for quite some time now (since version 5). The Write Pad input method works very well for me. Unfortunately I can't get the Write Pad or Write Anywhere input method to start up, it looks like I have to revert back to 8.3. Too bad; I was looking forward to trying the new recognition engine in 8.4. I am in contact with Phatware's tech support and will keep my blog updated on developments.
Items I am working on this week:
- I plan on purchasing a Zune tomorrow and will blog my experience.
- I will publish a list of the Windows Mobile software I currently use on my T-Mobile MDA.
My review of the Mobility Electronics (Think Outside) Sierra Bluetooth keyboard should appear this week on pocketnow.com.
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