Microsoft Killing Off Zune, Windows Live Brands? 262
suraj.sun writes with this excerpt from The Verge:
"Microsoft appears to be killing off two of its key user-facing brands with the upcoming Consumer Preview release of Windows 8. Windows Live applications have been rolled into preinstalled apps that work as the core 'Windows Communications' applications for Windows 8, and this lack of Windows Live branding is only the tip of the iceberg. 'Microsoft Account' will replace Windows Live ID in Windows 8, and the software giant has also removed traces of Zune from its Windows Store, Music, and Video applications, although Zune Pass functionality remains."
Back to the classics (Score:2, Interesting)
I miss the minimalistic approach of Windows 7 where it came with barely anything, Windows 8 is starting to turn back into Vista but with a horrible UI.
An Ode to Zune (Score:5, Interesting)
I own 2 Zunes. I've been using them to listen to music at work nearly every day for the past 3 years. I've found them to be very high-quality pieces of hardware. I'm not a huge fan of the Zune software, but I don't think it's any worse than iTunes. Yet most of the time when I tell co-workers that I listen to music on a Zune, I have to endure ridicule for not using an Apple product. I have even heard from ex-MS colleagues that by-and-large, MS employees don't think very highly of the Zune.
What gives? Did I totally miss the boat on this and the Zune actually sucks? Am I just destined to be forever uncool by being associated with a failed MS product? I just never understood the hate, and somehow it seems to be worse now than ever. And now MS is apparently trying to distance itself from Zune as much as possible.
Keep your chin up, Zune. You still have a few fans out there.
Re:How can anyone invest themselves in MS? (Score:1, Interesting)
What are your options here?
Apple, does the same thing.
Google, does the same thing (beta...).
Oracle? You better have a *LONG* service contract and it will cost....
IBM? You better have a *LONG* service contract and it will cost....
Linux sometimes your lucky if the GUI stays the same for 6 months with some distros... You can use a LTS version but those are usually 3-4 years themselves...
Re:Finally! (Score:2, Interesting)
Doing this in light of the fact that iTunes was already free, used by millions, and was more mature and "better" than Zune is rather psychopathic. But it is Microsoft, and I expect nothing less than Evil from them.
I find iTunes UX to be quite annoying whereas I enjoy using the Zune interface. I'm not a Microsoft fan-boy, I just like having a Music UX that doesn't make me want to pull my hair out.
Parse Error (Score:5, Interesting)
and think of how boned the Zune lifetime pass owners are.
They didn't say YOUR lifetime.
Re:An Ode to Zune (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:How can anyone invest themselves in MS? (Score:4, Interesting)
KDE4 can be set up almost exactly like KDE3.
You don't like the scrolling start menu? You like the old classic KDE3 menu? Simple: right-click on the K menu icon, select option #2: "Switch to Classic Style Menu". Presto! You now have a KDE3 menu.
You don't like Dolphin? You prefer the old Konqueror for file browsing? Simple: run Konqueror. It's still there; no one's forcing you to use Dolphin. You can even set it to be the default file manager (I'm not exactly sure how offhand).
KDE is the same as it's always been: loaded to the gills with configuration options. If you don't like the defaults, you're free to change them. Spend a half-hour going through all the menu options in System Settings when you first install it, and leave it like that for years.
Re:I guess this means (Score:2, Interesting)
zune as a shipping sw brand is well alive as is large parts of the design and code.
if you get your hands on a windows phone(7) and want to load some apps or music you'll notice it very fast, at the point when you'll be downloading zune sw just to get some photos off the damn thing.
it's funny because ms makes pr effort of when they were designing windows mobile 7 they decided to start from scratch(they didn't! they just took the zune and ran with it, that pretty much explains why wp7 feels like a rather simple media player and not a proper phone os).
in that light it's not that big of a wonder they'll do a mass renaming on the sw(that's something they probably picked up from nokia, uh, and if they picked something else from there they'll also drop half the useful features while doing the mass rename on the source..). because they'd really, really like you'd to forget that it has zune roots, for some weird history rewrite reason.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)