Of course the Zune wont kill the iPod. If the zune could cost $50 dollars, come with absolutely zero DRM, and have a fantastic pair of lips that promises the absolute best fellatio/cunnilingus you have ever received, it still wouldn't kill the ipod.

The market saturation of apple's toy coupled with the "hip" factor make it the indefinite 800 lbs gorilla in this market. The Zune will obviously hurt sales, but to toss around the word "kill" is nothing short of slinging hyperbole.

I also don't understand why tech writers are so hung up on the "DRM factor." For people that read and write tech articles it is a huge deal, no doubt. However go out into the street and ask ten people what DRM is see what they answer. Go one step further and tell them what the acronym stands for. It would be amazing if even two of those people understood what you were trying to talk to them about.

The simple fact is people who can afford to drop hundreds of dollars to play their music are looking for the most fashionable and aesthetically pleasing device they can get their hands on, and nothing has come close to the ipod and it seems unlikely that anything will.

This simply (and unforunetly) is not the case. If either company, or even company X, did this they would capture pretty much the entire tech savvy market. No one is arguing that. Apple went one step further and decided to capture everyone using the main device that drives consumption: high fashion.

You could completely clone the ipod with your own mp3 device and even tap into the itunes music store, label your device ZERO DRM and have it cost much less and it still would not sell as much as the ipod because it would be considered a "knock off." That is simply the current way first world markets work at this point. Unfortunate to be sure, but simply a fact of life.

i have nothing intelligent to add really, so i apologize...but must add that i love my ipod nano, even though it's completely filled up with music, and i will continue to support apple products.

Perhaps not now... but a few years can really change things. Hell, a few days can really change things, in a market as fickle as the gadgetry market is.

I read recently that Microsoft are assuming they're going to lose a fair amount of cash on Zune projects in the coming years. But they're banking on making it back in the long-term. I wouldn't write them off; they've had long enough to see what Apple is doing right, what they're doing wrong, and where they're vulnerable. Plus, the bajillions of dollars at Microsoft's disposal won't hurt.

Also, wireless song sharing is fucking awesome.

Hmm, that sort of mindset was Coke's problem.
iBitches have established an whole style of design and people love em so I think without zero DRM restrictions the iPod will only lose sales, but not be destroyed.

Kahney is a professional cheerleader for Apple. Two weeks ago, he wrote pretty much the same article about how the Sansa won't be the iPod-killer, and a quick look through his story archive will reveal a long, uninterrupted string of pieces that could easily double as Apple news releases. Steve Jobs could package his morning shits in a bag and Kahney would praise it as technological innovation.

But you're right, Wheaton -- Kahney is correct in this instance, if only coincidentally. That's because the Microsoft people can't get away with ignoring DRM. Corporate ties, interests and all that.

I own two Nanos, and I'm only interested in flash-based players because I need the combination of durability and sound quality, but I believe the "iPod-killer" already exists, at least at the high end -- the Creative M-Vision. If I were in the market for a 30-gig, $250 hard drive-based player, that's what I would buy. But until Creative makes a better flash player, I'm sticking with my Nanos.

Well, duh.

I haven't heard anybody predicting death to the iPod. However, I think a very realistic scenario is that the Zune will become the only viable competitor to the iPod and will take some significant market share. The Zune comes with a bigger and better screen and Microsoft's strategy revolves around integrating the Zune with the XBOX Live community, which has an install base of many millions of people.

The analogy I used in a previous thread very similar to this is to compare where Microsoft is today in relation to the iPod to where they were in the console gaming market when the XBOX was introduced. As of today, the XBOX 360 is the dominant online console system, Sega was run out of the console business, Nintendo has become a company focus almost exclusively on the little kid market and Sony is rapidly losing market share. I can easily see Miscrsoft gaining 25 or 30 percent of the digital music player market within the next three to five years.

That's the thing though. That isn't an iPod killer. As NinjaTech said, you can have the best specifications in the world, an unbelievably low price, and money to market that bad boy... but you still won't kill the iPod in the short-term.

But yeah, long-term? Different story. I won't be surprised if Apple loses the portable-music-gadget market by 2008. And yes, I did choose that year arbitrarily, and I can't back up my opinion with any sort of facts.

I doubt that Zune will be the "iPod-killer", certainly not for this iteration. Ease of use is the key; people like the iPod because fashion aside, they can buy one, and then log easily onto the ITMS and stick music straight onto it at a fairly reasonable price.
They don't care about DRM, or the technology involved; they just care about "coolness" and how easy it is to use and put music in there without breaking the law (never mind that the law is still very vague and questionable about the matter, that hasn't stopped the RIAA yet).

I will most likely get one when released (I'm undecided between the Zune or the Creative Zen Vision:M to replace my ageing and now broken Creative Zen). From an engineering standpoint, the Zen Vision:M certainly is superior to the iPod (and I suspect that the Zune will be as well, though I need to get my hands on a unit for a little while to investigate further), but that doesn't mean that it'll kill the iPod. Not by a long shot.

Every six months some new product comes out and all the tech write-ups have headlines like "Product x is the new iPod Killer!"

And it never is. Ninja is right, nobody besides major techies give a shit about anything other than how cool they look with their iPod. The only other factor I could even imagine is the $/gb ratio.

To most consumers, nothing else matters.

Wasn't aware coke had problems. Also was not aware coke had to deal with digital rights management.

Creative.

Coke stills sells pretty well in my neighborhood.

The thing comes in brown .....



It's jinxed from the start.

Apple will not go down without a spirited fight or a business as usual attitude. Expect a features war in the new gadgets.