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All posts tagged "Mac"


Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Do Most Indy-Trendy-Hipsters Use Macs?

Posted by Jason Dunn in "Zune Talk" @ 02:35 PM

http://torontoist.com/2008/06/vice_to_zune_mu.php



Google's keyword alert feature slavishly delivers to me all the Zune-based news I can handle, and the Zune Thoughts team then slavishly delivers it to you, and while slavishly reading the latest mention of the Zune over at a Web site called torontoist, this quote caught my eye:

"The best things in life, everyone knows, aren't free. The best things in life are things other people have to pay for, and you get for free. Like the 1,000 bottles of beer at the latest of Toronto's legendary VICE parties, if you were early or lucky or special enough to get into the Deleon White Gallery on Friday night. Or, say, the 300 Microsoft Zunes given to young "influencers" (bloggers, DJs, other kinds of people who normally use Macs) as part of the shiny new mp3 player's semi-viral launch. (Full disclosure: we got ours in the mail yesterday.) Microsoft doesn't like to talk about the (white) elephant in the room—the seemingly unstoppable iPod—but it's obvious their cross-Canada marketing efforts are aimed squarely at the Justin Long demographic."

That got me thinking about something that we've touched on before here, but never really got down to discussing: given that the target demographic that Microsoft's marketing has been going after, which since launch has been the independent music types, is it a serious mis-step for the Zune not to have an OS X solution? It seems pretty pointless to market to Indy-Trendy-Hipster-types if you don't have a software solution fr the platform that they're using.


Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Tip Tuesday: Zune on Mac (Software)

Posted by Adam Krebs in "Zune Software" @ 02:00 PM

It's no secret that the iPod didn't start to take off in popularity until Apple released a Windows version of its iTunes client software--many people would argue that the iPod would not be the success it is today were it not for Windows support. At the same time, the Portable Media Player battle is often seen as a microcosm of the OS Wars, with the two players reversing roles.

Currently , Apple's iTunes client runs on both Windows and Mac OSX, while Microsoft's Zune software is Windows-only. Is it worth it for Microsoft to port the Zune software to OSX, in effect "giving a glass of ice water to somebody in hell"? Sure, it would give the tech pundits one more thing to scratch off the list of preconceived issues with the Zune family, but would it actually matter? We'll leave that kind of hardcore thinking for the Philosophers, because today is Tuesday, and Tuesday is hardcore thinking-free!

Installing Zune on a Mac is just like installing on a Windows machine, except...virtual. Fret not, fellow Zuner, it's not as bad as you'd think. Sure you've got to acquire a virtual machine software (like VMWare or Parallels) or run Boot Camp and install a copy of Windows, but you can handle that, right?

After that, just install the software as you normally would, and you're in Virtual Zune paradise. Just don't forget the paper umbrellas.

The process should be similar with VMWare on Linux. Though I haven't heard any reports about this year's software, Zune-Online's Kostas Tzounopoulos showed that it could be done with gen1 software, the only caveat being that USB 1.1 was the only supported transfer method (a.k.a. slow data transfer).

And that's it for this week! Check back next week for another tip. Got any idea, thought, or suggestion? Paste it in the comments link (I'll be nice, I promise) or check out the forum.


EDIT (12-12-07): Fixed atrocious grammar and general cleanup.


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