Zune Thoughts - Daily News, Views, Rants and Raves

The folks over at ZuneScene have got their hands on some Zune training documents and graciously made it available for the internet-wide community. The manual contains a wealth of information, some more interesting than others.

Check it out if you're into that stuff. Otherwise, as Engadget says, it can be quite a difficult read.


UPDATE: Some eagle-eyed readers noticed this image, which shows a black Zune30 with the label "60 GB"...Conspiracy? Oh, most definitely.

"Well, we'd heard new Zunes were coming tomorrow (or maybe October 16th) and it looks like retailers are starting to receive display units -- everyone, say hello to the new Zunes. Barring some Photoshop trickeration, it looks like we're getting two flash models and a slimmed-down hard drive edition."



Hot on the tails of the announcement of the product announcement and new firmware leakage comes this fresh tidbit from Zunescene member RCMADIAX showing cardboard mockups that were delivered to his branch of some Big Box electronics store. Further, they're only box one of two, the second is to be delivered tomorrow...stay very tuned!

Phew. In just a couple days, the alleged "confirmation" of the Zune 2.0 has shot to the top of all the major tech blogs, and even a few of the bigger guys too.

This is both great news and terrible news. The great news is that it shows people are actually caring enough about Zune that it's moved beyond the mostly mocking and hyper-critical coverage it was getting at its inception. It also means that Microsoft has a great deal to live up to. Apple has proven itself in the hype arena, meeting and often greatly exceeding expectations. Now it's Microsoft's chance to step up. Many parallels have been drawn between the Zune and Microsoft's other big entertainment project, the Xbox. Many would agree that the original Xbox, while quite capable, was bested by the PS2 in nearly everywhere that counts. Now its successor, the Xbox 360, has set the standard for video game consoles in both device experience and entertainment value while the PS3 slowly rots.
Read more...