View Full Version : Chief Xbox officer appointed to take on Apple/iTunes
Everlost_MI
06-14-2005, 04:47 PM
The Wall Street Journal (http://online.wsj.com/) has posted an article (http://online.wsj.com/public/article/0,,SB111870290411358529-3f22bv3MVI0_2BcEW42JKwMCHOY_20060614,00.html?mod=t ff_main_tff_top) stating that Microsoft has appointed chief Xbox officer Robbie Bach to revamp their digital music strategy as well as improve their competition with Apple/iTunes.
Huh...didn't I read something a few months ago where Bill Gates said that the iPod/iTunes wouldn't last or it was a flash in the pan idea?
bobbler
06-14-2005, 05:00 PM
Huh...didn't I read something a few months ago where Bill Gates said that the iPod/iTunes wouldn't last or it was a flash in the pan idea?
I think MS is just trying to ensure that now ;)
Go competition!
I'm glad more companies are entering the iTunes-esque market -- more competition will lead to more songs being released and hopefully more competitive pricing schemes. I just hope they stay semi standard with most of the supported players out there.
Royal Fool
06-14-2005, 05:01 PM
Considering that iTunes is utter crap on Windows... good riddance, says I.
alkalinejeebus
06-14-2005, 05:17 PM
Considering that iTunes is utter crap on Windows... good riddance, says I.
Are you kidding me?
I use it all the time and it runs smooth as can be. I have never encountered a problem while using iTunes and that is more than I can say about any other MP3 software I have tried.
They are saying the same thing about Google(Fortune did a good article on MS and Google). Course if in two years Google's main domain is still just web based internet searching I'd agree.
And Linux of course, which is a very real player in the corporate world today.
Heretic Machine
06-14-2005, 05:27 PM
I still have to wonder about the legality of that AllofMP3 thing. You know, the "I live in Russia and bought all the copyrights to every song ever made and ever will be made, and so now I can sell them for however much I like without paying anyone" thing. Supposedly downloading from them is like importing something from Russia, and perfectly legal. Of course, it's also uber-cheap and you pay for bandwidth instead of songs...
*Legion*
06-14-2005, 05:33 PM
The only real problem with iTunes on Windows is high memory usage.
Any interest I might have in the MS music store will no doubt be blown up the moment I see the letters W-M-A....
Like there is any difference between WMA, iTunes or any other proprietary format. I'll stick with my MP3's.
riposte101
06-14-2005, 05:41 PM
The smartest thing for Microsoft to do is to just put a head phone jack on the 20gig detachable hard drive for the x360 and add a very cool user interface that rivals the ipod. If they sell as many x360s as they did xboxs (suspect they will sell a lot more x360s) they will have captured the market by selling 20 million + of these music devices because they come with the x360. Now sell some music in the LIVE marketplace for 99 cents a song and you've made all of your money back.
"Now sell some music in the LIVE marketplace for 99 cents a song and you've made all of your money back."
Easier said than done. Last time I check Apple lost money on iTunes (thanks to royalties), while making all their money on the iPods that iTunes sells.
Kelegacy
06-14-2005, 06:25 PM
Google is beating the shit out of them in the innovation and "better and new service" areas, and Apple definitely has a stranglehold on the pay for music market (pay for music? wha's that?). I read the Forbes article about Microsoft basically getting gangbanged by competition. I love it. It means that the little gnats can wreak havok on the bull's nuts...that tail doesnt protect all!
bapenguin
06-14-2005, 06:32 PM
Itunes is decent..but the interface is pretty poor. I especially hate how you have to burn Cds...etc. Everything should never be more than 1 or 2 clicks away....
(Re: iTunes being crap on Windows)
Are you kidding me? I use it all the time and it runs smooth as can be. I have never encountered a problem while using iTunes and that is more than I can say about any other MP3 software I have tried.
I would have to agree here: iTunes is the best damn mediaplayer windows had ever seen. It is more usable and intuitive to your average Joe than any other mediaplayer on the platform. I was a WinAmp fan for ages, but I only load that now when I'm in the mood for super-trippy visualizations. ;) And as for the Windows Media Player .. please .. it tries to do too many things, and does none of them well. I have it layed-out for playing Video, which is quite different to the setup I want for music.
Also, how many other players can play the music from any PC (or Mac!) on the same LAN. That feature farking rocks. I swear I'm gonna have to try their airport module one day, to stream to a stereo (or TV? ..which is rumoured will be the next major Airport evolution.)
Nope, apple have this particular market all sewn up. So long as the iPod continues with it's *huge* appeal I rekon they can't go wrong. They're one of the few players out there with the balls to keep the Gates machine at bay. :)
erasmus
06-14-2005, 06:58 PM
I still have to wonder about the legality of that AllofMP3 thing. You know, the "I live in Russia and bought all the copyrights to every song ever made and ever will be made, and so now I can sell them for however much I like without paying anyone" thing. Supposedly downloading from them is like importing something from Russia, and perfectly legal. Of course, it's also uber-cheap and you pay for bandwidth instead of songs...
If you still have to wonder whether or not AllOfMp3.com is legal or not, then you're basically deluding yourself. Any rational person should know that when something is too good to be true, it is. They're not licensed to sell outside of Russia, and are just not taking the necessary precautions to disallow people from buying in other areas. You're basically using a glorified pirating site if you're its customer. Please refer to Slashdot.org for much better and more eloquent legal explanations of what makes the thing 100% not for U.S. residents.
Oh, and iTunes on Windows is frigging great. It could sure use a couple improvements, but I can't imagine using any other MP3 library program at this time, save one that I could perhaps write myself, to which I'll never get around.
TrackZero
06-14-2005, 07:03 PM
Huh...didn't I read something a few months ago where Bill Gates said that the iPod/iTunes wouldn't last or it was a flash in the pan idea?
That's probably because Bill was planning to eat them. It's easy to see the future when you're the one with the power to make it.
TrackZero
06-14-2005, 07:05 PM
Itunes is decent..but the interface is pretty poor. I especially hate how you have to burn Cds...etc. Everything should never be more than 1 or 2 clicks away....
I just use windows explorer to see/sort my mp3s and run winamp. Guess I'm old-fashioned like that.
Itunes is decent..but the interface is pretty poor. I especially hate how you have to burn Cds...etc. Everything should never be more than 1 or 2 clicks away....
If I wanna burn stuff, I'll use Nero. ;) ..I figured that feature was more there for people who dunno about burning (and it's pretty good for such people.) :) Tho I did find it pretty good for splitting a random selection of singles over 3 (or 4?) CD's one time .. couldn't work out an easy way to do that thru Nero.
I didn't think it was too many clicks away tho .. I mean, the burning button is *right* *there* ..how tricky is that? Leads ya thru the process reasonably well, IMHO.
Snowmit
06-14-2005, 08:00 PM
I dunno... Why get iTunes and be stuck with a single proprietary player when I can get Y! unlimited and play a flat fee for all songs and be able to use just about every Mp3 player that isn't a iPod.
I hope that Yahoo's business model is actually making them money.
MosBen
06-14-2005, 08:22 PM
I think the idea is that dedicated mp3 players are a short term product. In ten or fifteen years the probability that we'll have ipods is pretty low. Gates thinks, and I agree with him, that cell phones are the future. As much as I love my ipod and as neat as other handheld gadgets are, people *need* cell phones. In time all of these features (high capacity media storage and play back, game playing, etc.) will be incorporated into cell phones and people simply won't need ipods anymore. Just look at the success of Ipod minis and the shuffle. How long until that can be incorporated into a cell phone as an affordable addition? A couple years maybe? Sure, micro hard drives are a ways off, but still, most people don't need or want to carry around that much music. Give 'em a gig or two and they're set, especially if it frees up a pocket.
B_Money
06-14-2005, 08:43 PM
What's a CD again? Why would I want to burn one? Next you'll tell me itunes doesn't support 8-tracks.
Kagger
06-14-2005, 09:17 PM
I never understood Ipod Mini's. 50 bucks adds 16 gigs of space...
mister_slim
06-14-2005, 09:20 PM
Sweet. This will be some sort of bullshit-production cage match: Bach vs. Jobs, and I guess Kutaragi too.
And really, I much prefer Bach as far away from Xbox as possible.
motor
06-14-2005, 09:24 PM
Does this mean Bach is no longer in charge of xbox 360? Is Bach being demoted?
B_Money
06-14-2005, 09:52 PM
I never understood Ipod Mini's. 50 bucks adds 16 gigs of space...
You have to see how tiny they are. My sister got one for christmas and she loves it. The fact that it's pink probabally helps. For a lot of people 4 gigs is enough to hold all the music they need, and it's such a small and light package.
bobbler
06-14-2005, 10:22 PM
I never understood Ipod Mini's. 50 bucks adds 16 gigs of space...
I am happy with my Mini. I got it as a gift and only have it about half full and have near 30 hours of music on it. I can't fathom the need for 10+gb of compressed music... that's too much if you ask me.
ya, bill gates is an idiot....... an idiot with the no1 software company in the world, no2 console in the world, and sitting on top of 300 billion dollars
bobbler
06-15-2005, 03:58 AM
ya, bill gates is an idiot....... an idiot with the no1 software company in the world, no2 console in the world, and sitting on top of 300 billion dollars
Well, if he thinks iPod is a bad idea, he is an idiot -- or at least ignorant (which isn't the case -- the only reason he says iPod is doomed is FUD). He conviently 'forgets' to mention how easy iPod can switch formats to Cell phones which he thinks is the future. Nothing at all will stop iPod from being integrated into a Cell phone -- I bet it will continue to cream everything else in the market for a good chunk of time. The iPod name has had time to grow and become synonymous with MP3 players. You can't buy that kind of marketing (at least not quickly). Regardless of if Gates thinks iPods are doomed, he knows that they are in a far better position for the future than the players using his MWA stuff are (hence the FUD).
On a side note, I think I heard mention of a Motorolla phone with iTunes integration already.
Commissar Rob
06-15-2005, 06:05 AM
Does this mean Bach is no longer in charge of xbox 360? Is Bach being demoted?
Good question, I haven't followed the 360 closely enough to know who the mastermind is behind it. Why move him so close to the launch? Who's got the reins now?
Buller? Anyone? Anyone?
MosBen
06-15-2005, 06:22 AM
Look, again, I love my ipod, but it only has two things that keeps it above the competition, imho: itunes, and the scroll wheel. Itunes, once all the songs are organized, is amazingly simple to use, but it's perfectly conceivable that someone, especially MS, could design and equally usable software solution. The scroll wheel is pretty fantastic and patented, and the ipod's real strength as I see it. Still, someone could conceivably come up with something as good I suppose, but that's the real tough job if they're looking to displace the ipod.
Again though, bigger capacity just isn't the future. I've got twenty gigs full on my ipod, and I really wish it was bigger, but sixty gigs? How much bigger does it need to go? I can't imagine, and I know how frequently this has been said in computing history, ever filling up a hundred gigs of music unless I started encoding at a *much* higher bit rate, though I'm already relatively high and certainly high enough that I don't notice significant quality loss. The future is functionality, and Apple's already adding that with the ipod photo, though I can't imagine I'd personally use that feature much. While it's conceivable that Apple could cozy up to a cell phone company some time, MS has been in the process of getting in good with cell phone companies for years. If they wanted to partner up with a cell phone manufacturer to produce a cell phone with a couple gigs of storage, a decent interface, and make a software solution, I think it'd be easier than it will be for Apple to try to start working with cell phone companies from scratch to integrate the ipod into a cell phone.
Gates just says this stuff to delegitimize the competition in the public's eyes. He doesn't actually believe it. Of all the things Gates may be, ignorant is certainly not one of them.
Course that strategy didn't work on Linux. Still though, the Windows Server market share is increasing, Linux market share is increasing even faster. I'd imagine Sun and Unix sales are bearing the brunt of the Linux movement at the moment.
KNOTE
06-15-2005, 09:48 AM
Unleash Frankenstein!!!
Scull
06-15-2005, 10:09 AM
I think the idea is that dedicated mp3 players are a short term product. In ten or fifteen years the probability that we'll have ipods is pretty low. Gates thinks, and I agree with him, that cell phones are the future. As much as I love my ipod and as neat as other handheld gadgets are, people *need* cell phones. In time all of these features (high capacity media storage and play back, game playing, etc.) will be incorporated into cell phones and people simply won't need ipods anymore. Just look at the success of Ipod minis and the shuffle. How long until that can be incorporated into a cell phone as an affordable addition? A couple years maybe? Sure, micro hard drives are a ways off, but still, most people don't need or want to carry around that much music. Give 'em a gig or two and they're set, especially if it frees up a pocket.
iTreoPod (http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6452_7-5840040-1.html?tag=tab) to the rescue!
MosBen
06-15-2005, 12:46 PM
I stand corrected! Beauty and functionality in one (sort of) machine!
A Lusty Alien
06-15-2005, 05:25 PM
I was really intrigued by iTunes and the iPod. I installed the iTunes software and ripped all my CDs to my hard drive. I was about to buy an iPod when I tried to create a video file using one of the songs I ripped as background music. That's when I discovered that the only software that could use the music was iTunes.
I've since deleted iTunes and used Windows Media Player to re-rip all of my CDs to MP3s. (Boy, was that a pain in the butt.)
Give me open standards any day, I'm tired of this proprietary shit.
bobbler
06-15-2005, 05:28 PM
I was really intrigued by iTunes and the iPod. I installed the iTunes software and ripped all my CDs to my hard drive. I was about to buy an iPod when I tried to create a video file using one of the songs I ripped as background music. That's when I discovered that the only software that could use the music was iTunes.
I've since deleted iTunes and used Windows Media Player to re-rip all of my CDs to MP3s. (Boy, was that a pain in the butt.)
Give me open standards any day, I'm tired of this proprietary shit.
iTunes can rip to mp3 as well as a couple other formats. You just have to change it in the options.
MosBen
06-15-2005, 06:42 PM
Yeah, seriously dude, check the settings. I use Windows Media to listen to songs that I'm not sure I want to add to the Library all the time.
mister_slim
06-15-2005, 07:24 PM
Look, again, I love my ipod, but it only has two things that keeps it above the competition, imho: itunes, and the scroll wheel. Itunes, once all the songs are organized, is amazingly simple to use, but it's perfectly conceivable that someone, especially MS, could design and equally usable software solution. The scroll wheel is pretty fantastic and patented, and the ipod's real strength as I see it. Still, someone could conceivably come up with something as good I suppose, but that's the real tough job if they're looking to displace the ipod.
Physical and interface design is Apple's strength. Apple design always seems very simple and obvious, but no one else seems to be able to do it regularly. Even Sony has been very inconsistent recently. I think a large part of Apple's strength is that they don't just say 'design something simple and elegant' but they train their employees to simply solve problems from that perspective. That way they end up with fewer iterations and start overs. Good instincts save a lot of time.
I've since deleted iTunes and used Windows Media Player to re-rip all of my CDs to MP3s. (Boy, was that a pain in the butt.)
Does WMP default to MP3? Why does anyone even use WMA then?
vBulletin® v3.8.4, Copyright ©2000-2012, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.