Zune do you love?

of requests for out of tech Stuff. Yes, it is not the Tech Conspiracy Theory podcast that's still in the works. We're getting tons of mail about that, guys. We know you're interested. We want to do a bang up job on that, so we're still working on that one. This is a different topic that we've received several requests for. It's the Microsoft Zoom Ah. Yes. Now, not that long ago. Microsoft unveiled the Zoom HD, the newest in its line

of Zoom products. But it's one of those things that it's one of those products that people have heard about, but they don't really know that much about it because I mean, it's, let's face it, the Zoo is in a market space that is dominated by one particular company, yes, one being Apple. Right, I was gonna say creative, but that's not true. No, not anymore. So we're talking about MP three players, actually personal media players, really is what

we're talking about. Yeah, that's true. They they're probably gonna have to start calling them that, I would assume, since so many of them do more than one thing these days. Right, Yeah, it's you know, you're talking about more than just music. Now you're talking about video and you know you can subscribe to television shows and movies that kind of thing. It's not just MP three's however. Uh, the Zoom HD clearly is in the same general market as the iPod Touch. Yes,

they're not. They don't stack up the same against each other. I mean you can't say that that one. You know, comparing them is not exactly apples to apples, but they are, thank you. I was gonna go with oranges to oranges, but why um, but this way, I mean, they do enough of the same things that the comparison is impossible to avoid. So let's talk a little bit about the Zoo. Now. Microsoft unveiled the first zoons back in two thousand six,

right back in November two thousand six. So this this was their their attempt to enter the personal media player uh marketplace, you know, a place that already at that point was dominated by Apple and their iPod line. And despite that, actually there were a lot of people who felt that Microsoft's entry into this market was going to make a big splash because, after all, they had the Xbox, and the Xbox, you know, is one of the biggest

players in the video game console industry. They came from nowhere to take a side zable chunk of the industry, and people said, hey, this is uh, this is Microsoft totally getting into the home entertainment market. They're gonna be, you know, producing this zoom. They're gonna be doing the Xbox. Look out everybody here they come. Yeah. That if they had been able to throw their weight behind the product the same way that they were with the the Xbox, Um,

I think we'd have a different podcast right now. We'd be talking. In fact, we might not even be calling it a podcast. Uh. See, here's the thing. Apple has dominated this market so much over the last several years. I think most people just use iPod as the generic term for an NB three player. Well, you know, Sony had to give up the Walkman thing eventually. I mean, of course they still make Walkman actually that that's true.

But you know, it's back in the days where everybody had a portable cassette player, everybody called it a Walkman, whether it was a Sony brand machine or not. That's true. And so or in the South, if you're from the South such you know, like such as myself, you would call every kind of soft drink a coke. You would go into a diner and you'd order a coke. In the waitress say which can sugar, and you'd say, I want to sprite. But you start off with the coke

and then you work your way to specifics. Same sort of thing with the iPod. I mean, a lot of people just you know NP three player iPod that's synonymous. We call them podcasts for the most part, despite the fact that you can listen to these on various devices, not just iPods. So any manufacturer, no matter how big, has a huge, uphill battle to fight against Apple to to really get into the minds of the general consumer. I don't I don't think Microsoft did enough with that

with the Zoom back when it was unveiled three years ago. Well, uh, you'd figure if anybody's gonna try to take on someone who has that sizeable a piece of the market, uh, that it would take a lot of money to do that. And if anybody could do it, do you think Microsoft could? Yeah? Maybe Microsoft or Google. Yeah. I can't imagine what a Google music player would be like. Oh, but I don't think they're not thinking about it. Well, and you could

run a MP three player on the Android system. I mean you could create a handheld media player device running Android. Someone has suggested it somewhere, you know, I don't know who that person is. Well, someone has like tablets and netbooks, possibly using the Android operating system. So yeah, it's not a big stretch of the imagination. So let's get back

to the Zoom though. So the Zoom is running its own operating system for the device, um, and it has its own environment music environment that you can use very similar and in concept anyway too iTunes. You have the Zoom Marketplace, So this is kind of your software where not only would you shop music and uh and other content like TV shows or videos or even games to some extent tiny extent um, but you would also use this to organize your music, create playlists, um and use

other features as well. M Uh, I should also go ahead and point this out before we move on, because well, we'll eventually be talking about the Zoom HD because that is the latest and greatest model on the market, and it's changing a lot of what the approach Microsoft approach had been up to this point. One of the features of early zooms Zooms before the HD was something called squirting. Really, yes, I am not joking. This is this is straight from

the bomber. I thought squirt was a kind of soft drink. It is a kind of soft drink. It's a kind of coke. Yeah, yeah, you know what kind of coke do you want? Squirt um? Actually that's really hard to find. But anyway, so we're talking about about this weird squirting thing. What is squirting? So squirting in the zoo world? I'm I'm gearing now that I'm gonna get Chris to walk

out of this podcast. And it's funny because right before the podcast he said he was going to mention it, and now he I couldn't remember what he was talking about. And now it's it's slowly dawning on me. Is it yes, So let's say about it's about sharing music exactly. That's exactly. Now zooms are WiFi enabled and you can even make a connection with another zoon owner. So let's say that you're on a bus. Someone else gets on the bus.

They have a zoom. You have a zoom, and you have this song that you've been listening to that you take is absolutely awesome, and this other person should totally hear that song, and they by the look at them, you know this person has not heard it. So you get the idea. You know what you're gonna do. You're gonna share your song with this person. You're gonna squirt that song right on over to their zoom, alright, and you can do that. You can send a song from

your zoom to someone else's zoom wirelessly. That other person can can listen to that song up to three times or hold onto it for up to three days, so it's three plays or three days. After that, the song automatically erasist itself from that person's zoom and it rhymes. It's kind of like play pay or play contracts, so similar to that. So that was the concept. The idea here was that you would be able to share your your songs with other people for a limited number of

plays or the limited number of days. Here's the problem. There are two problems really. One is that people, a lot of users thought that this was way too restrictive. And I have to give Microsoft props. It is not necessarily Microsoft's fault for those restrictions. These were the terms

that were dictated by content providers. So we're talking about music publishers really, so you know you might think like, well, that's what happens if you know, I'm trying to listen to this song and it just it, you know, for some reason, I have to posit or whatever. And then now I've got one song at one time, that one fewer time that I can listen to the song, right, So, I mean, it's the idea here is that you could conceivably listen to a song enjoyed enough that you would

go out and buy it yourself. All right, that's the concept behind here. But people thought that, well that it's just there's not you don't get enough, you don't get to play it enough. It's just not worth it. Plus the other part of this problem is just that because the Zoom did not take off the way that everyone had hoped at Microsoft that it would. It was really hard to find another Zoom owner, So just using the squirting feature became a challenge because you had to track

someone else down who had a Zoom. Well, they weren't completely impossible to find, you know. And in May two eight, which was a little I guess, a little bit close to a year and a half, I guess, within the time that Microsoft had released the zoon um it had sold two million units since its debut, and uh, you know,

it's at one point about three percent of the market. Uh. You know, in the two thousand eight holiday season, Um, according to the information I found, uh, they had sold about a hundred and eighty five million dollars worth of Zoom. Of course, in the fourth quarter of two thousand eight, Apple's revenue from iPods was three point three seven billion dollars with a B, not an m. Um. Pretty big change, pretty big difference. But yes, five million dollars. You know,

that's not chump change. But when you're looking at the big picture, it's it's a drop in the bike. And like you said, three percent of the market, Yeah, I mean that's tiny, tiny, tiny, So yeah, you're talking short two million zooms that are out there in the wild. There's you know, three times as many of that many people just in the city of Atlanta alone. So again, finding someone else who has one not the easiest thing

in the world. Somebody's gonna write and say that we are zoom heaters, and I, you know, personally speaking, I am not a zoom heater. Um. But I'm also not as fond of the Zoom as the guy who had the logo tattooed on his shoulders. Didn't he eventually get really upset at them and want to remove that tattoo. Um. I don't remember if he did. But there was somebody else who was a really vocal Zoom fan who made this big public uh deal of switching to an iPod.

I do remember someone getting a tattoo with a company logo and then later throwing a hissy fit at that company and saying that that he would change the logo. But I cannot remember as the zoom guy. Right. But and you know, you think about it, you put yourself in the somebody else's shoes, and you say, you know, this person is probably really fed up with seeing iPods everywhere and seeing all the commercials and everybody's got an iPod,

and I don't particularly care for Apple products. They might say, you know, forget it, I'm gonna get a Zoo. I'm gonna make a big deal out of getting a Zoom because it's the big competitor. Maybe we can get rid of the iPod. But well, you know, I don't think I like any product enough to get a tattoo. I think put another one. I think that the I think. I think competition is always a good thing. Um. I would love to see MP three players rise up to

challenge the iPod. If nothing else, that means getting better iPods. I mean, Apple is already motivated to improving its products, but if you put competition in there, they're motivated to do it faster and better than before. Otherwise they're just doing it on their own schedule. Now, the Zoom, I've I've played with them before. I do not own a Zoom. I do own an iPod Classic, and I old own in a very old creative zen which feels like a

lead brick. Um. I loved that zen, I just I find it finally was too old for me to really use anymore, which is why I upgraded to the iPod. UM the Zoom's a nice device. Now, I was using the old Zoo and I've only played a little bit with the Zoom HD. Um, so I don't I'm not familiar enough with all of the features to speak about them from a user perspective, but I will say that it was it was a good device. I mean, the sound quality was good, the features were pretty easy to

use the Zoom HD. It took a little more time for me to get used to. The layout was a little odd, um you could because you had to swipe left or right or up or down depending on whichever menu you were in. I'm used to vertically scrolling menus for my MP three players. I'm not used to having to, you know, like, oh wait, no, the information I needed was to the left, not below what I was looking at. Um. But but the quality of the device itself is fantastic.

I think I think they've really got a good device. I think that they've made so poor decisions based upon the the market as it stands right now. Like, for instance, one of the big ones I would say is the lack of an app store, you know, I mean you kind of have to remember that Apple approaches the iPod Touch in a different way that than Microsoft approaches the

Zoom HD. Microsoft is building up a personal media player. Okay, so they're taking they're going from the MP three player to the next step where it's the personal media player where you've got video and uh and you've got some other capabilities. Apples taking a different approach. They're taking the iPhone and they're making it dumber by taking the phone out. And then you've got the iPod Touch essentially, so you've got two different approaches. You're building up the MP three

player or you're tearing down the smartphone. You're you're you're arriving at a place that's similar. But because those approaches are slightly different, you end up with products that support different applications. So with the iPod Touch you've got a fairly large application library to choose from. Oh yeah, I mean there's some that obviously you can't run on the Touch because it was designed for the phone, right, you know, the uses the phone capabilities that the Touch just doesn't have.

But there are still tons of games and other applications. Right, Yes, I do have an iPod Touch. Yeah, I'm sure you're familiar with their app store. Oh yeah, and I um I've tried lots of different kinds of applications. Of course, anything with a have a first generation I thought touch, so anything with a GPS or a camera is pretty much not useless. But a lot of them that rely on that I can't do anything with anything particularly useful

with it. And there are a lot of other applications where that kind of functionality is built in, but it's only part of the application. Um. And then there of course, you know, personal productivity applications and games and things like that that that don't so you know, there's there's tons and tons of that stuff available, and uh, of course podcasts and the ability to download that kind of content from the video store, but it isn't a high definition

but well, and we'll get to that. But here's here's the thing that I was trying to get to is that Microsoft does not support apps the way Apple does. Different it's a different business model. They have specifically said that they do not plan to create an app store for the Zoom. For one thing, they're creating apps for Windows Mobile and the Zoom does not run on Windows Mobile. It's two different operating systems. They don't want to have

two different stores. Yeah, I mean, I can understand the need to separate that out because you don't want to confuse the consumer. You don't want to have two different stores to run. But you're competing with yourself. It means that the Zoom cannot compete with the iPod Touch when it comes to that that part of the iPod touches capabilities, it's just not on that level. It can compete when it comes to the quality of music. It can definitely compete when it comes to the quality of video. Now

the Zoom. I should also point out Zoom HD. You know HD, of course high definition, right, it does not display video and high definition right, you have to you have to connect it to an HD TV, right, and then it's at seven. It's not at a full yeah, but still seven. I mean, I've seen the the video from a Zoom HD hooked up to a high definition television.

I was floored at how gorgeous the video was. So you could purchase or rent some video content from the Zoom marketplace, download it to your Zoom, hook your Zoom up to your TV, and watch it that way. So that's kind of cool. I mean, that's a nifty feature that you can't really do with the the iPod, it's not going to be the same quality as if you

were to try that with the iPod. But there are other Apple offers, other things besides the ip that would let you do that kind of stuff, like the Apple TV. So let's talk a little bit more about the Zoo HD. It has an o LAD screen. It's very very bright. It's very glossy. Actually, some people have said that it's a little difficult to see when you take it outside. That sunlight can be very it can reflect a lot

of sunlight, so it's hard to see the screen. It's three point three inches, yeah, so a little bit smaller than the iPod Touch. I believe I think that I pod touches three point five I'm not certain off the top of my head. Just have WiFi, of course, yes, which is good because that's how you get a lot of content. Also has an FM tuner. Actually it has an HD radio tuner. That's true. It can get n HD radio does not stand Ford High Definition. It's market term.

It's so yeah, it's marketing term. Just means HD radio, but it means that you've get access to a lot more radio stations than you would if it were just a normal FM tuner. That's true, and it is. It is digital, so it is high quality. It's just not high definition. It's one of those things where again, you know, people have been asking about that kind of tuner for an iPod Touch for a while, so the Zoom is

ahead of the game there. Now, my question is is radio still relevant enough for that to be a feature that people would would like? Would people be shopping for that feature? There are some who I think would. I mean, there are a lot of people who were interested in the Serious XM application for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Um, of course you have to be a subscriber uh of Serious XM and you know, have the right package in

order to take advantage of that. But there are a lot of people who were excited that that application was coming, I suppose. So I just from a personal standpoint, um, I hardly ever listened to the radio now because I love Internet radio, and I love like personalized radio applications, things like Pandora or Last Film or whatever. I think. I think to a to a certain audience, radio is something people would look for. It's probably not the number

one thing. A differentiation between the Ipode and the Zoom from my own perspective, if I were in the market for a brand new MP three player, I think the applications outweigh the FM tuner for me, but for someone else that might not be the case. Um. You can also subscribe to something called the Zoom Pass with the Zoo m Now, this is anything you can show up at the ride and they just let you in the sideline and you don't have to wait. At the Zoom Ride.

It's almost as good as the iPod Ride, you know, the the everybody's gonna brand you and iPod fan and a zoom hater. I am an iPod fan. I am not a zoom hater. I just it's just not the device for me, you know. I mean if I mean it's a good device, it's just not for me. The Zoom passed, though, what it allows you to do this is actually I really like this idea. It's a subscription service.

It's fifteen dollars a month, and for that fifteen dollars a month, you can download uh pretty much unlimited songs. Now unlimited in the sense that you are not limited by how many you can download. It is limited in the sense that not every song in the Zoom marketplace is available for zoom Pass subscription. Now, if you were to stop those songs go away, you don't. You can't burn them to CD. You do not get to keep them. You only get to have them on your Zoom for

as long as you're a subscriber. So that is the downside. On the on the plus side, if you're a su and you don't have to be a subscriber to use the Zoom, this is just one thing you could do with the Zoom if you wanted to, Like you could use as a normal MP three player, video player, whatever. But if you wanted to and you subscribed, you would be able to download any of the approved songs in the Zoom marketplace. And these are again, are approved by

the content providers. It's not Microsoft saying this song can go on zoom Pass and this one can't. That's the record labels telling Microsoft which ones can and cannot. Okay, So, but you could download me as you like and listen to them as many times as you like as long as your subscription stays current. Once that subscription goes away, you no longer have those songs. You can always purchase those songs. Uh. And they have a thing like they

have the Zoom Points. It's Microsoft Points. It's the same system they use for Microsoft Live for their Xbox games and things like that. You can spend money to get points, and spend those points to buy things like songs or

games or whatever. I always think of Disney dollars, you know what I'm talking about, Okay, listeners If you don't know, if you were to go to some place, to to Disney World, you could trade in real currency that can buy anything anywhere, for Disney dollars, which can only buy Disney products within Disney parks and not everything within Disney parts. I might ask you can buy some store credit. Essentially,

you're buying store credit. And if you're if you have Disney dollars left over at the end of your vacation souvenirs, so you've just wasted money. It's the marketplace points form, in my view, are very similar to that. Uh everybody else is doing that though too. I mean, you've got the iTunes card. If you buy an iTunes card, you can't convert it back to cash, right, exactly can't. I mean it goes for just about any of those gift

cards that you see now. Of course, you could always just purchase songs outright or burned or you know, rip music from CDs and put onto your Zoom that way. Um, you do have to have the zoom uh software in order to activate a Zoom HD. Right, you can't just hook your Zoom HD up to your computer and use it as a like a flash drive and drag music over without installing the software. Well, Zoom software is a free download. Yeah, it's a free down. Well so is iTunes?

Now all iTunes work with Zoom. No, iTunes won't work with anything other than iPods, and the Zoom probably will not work managing I would imagine not. I've never tried to, I do. I did have the Zoom software on my computer for a while because I wanted to play with it. It was, you know, get a free download, you can mess with it. Yeah, it's like, you know, it's like any other really advanced kind of jukebox sort of program, just like iTunes, um, with lots and lots of bells

and whistles. But yeah, I don't have a Zoom, so really the usefulness is somewhat limited for me, right right? What does it features? Such as a quick play, which is you know, gives you history and favorites things like that. The smart DJ, which is uh, you know, sort of figures out what you're interested in listening to and creates

playlists from kind of like genius on the iPod. Yeah, I was, yeah, I didn't want to use the G word, but well, I mean, you know, like I said, comparisons are impossible to avoid, so we might as well just go ahead and say it. And then there's mosaic, which shows you the uh one artist connection to another artist. So it's sort of like the music geno my guess

on on Pandora. Speaking of comparisons, I mean you say, okay, well I like this band, and go, well, if you like them, you'll probably like these guys because they sort of sound similar, um, and they're they're working out the the functionality, the connection to the Xbox three sixty. So yeah, there there's some things about the Zoom that I think are really cool. There are other things that I don't like. And again a lot of the things I don't like

are not Microsoft's fault. Like I don't like that some songs you cannot purchase some songs without purchasing the entire album. Okay, Well, that same thing is true in iTunes as well. There's some some some record labels I should say album only. Yeah, they will only sell you the full album. They will not sell you song by song, or they'll tell you some of the songs, but you can only buy you know, like tracks ten through if you can get tracks three, seven,

and you know twelve and that's it. But and that drives me nuts because, um, I mean, maybe maybe eventually albums will get back to the way that they used to be, or at least that people claim they used to be, where it was an experience to listen to an album from beginning to end. But so many albums out there just feel like it's just a collection of songs, you know, it's not like there's any theme or any

kind of thread moving through it. Even the quality can vary quite a bit from one song to the next. So I love being able to purchase song by song the stuff that I like, even from bands that I really enjoy, because I'm not a collector, so I don't have to have every single song that The Kinks made. I do. But I don't have to That was a bad example better things, Um, but yeah, I mean I don't have to have every single song from a particular artist if and if I have the option to buy

it song by song, I like that. Now. Again, not Microsoft fault. This is some thing that the record labels dictate, but that affects the Zoom Pass as well. You know, some of these songs you can't get on Zoom Pass because again, the record labels want you to purchase that music, they don't want you to just rent it. Um. Overall, I would say the Zoo is a really really nice

personal media player. And if there if it were in a world where there were no iPod Touch, or if the Zoom HD had come out a couple of years ago, I think they'd be a major player in the space right now. But because of the iPod Touch, because you have this essential essentially a miniature computer that's competing against this personal media player, it's almost guaranteed to be an

also ran. Well then I think, uh, to to your point earlier, Um, part of the reason that Microsoft isn't doing better with the Zoom is because of all the features that they could put in the Zoom but belong to Windows Mobile to ices, and so the Zoom is always and I just can't. They're supposed to add in Twitter and Facebook features, So I would assume you would be able to update your status with whatever it is

you're listening or consuming on your Zoom. Yeah. Yeah, it just it just seems like Microsoft, by by imposing its own rules, has sort of limited what they can do with the zoo. Again, if this were a world where the iPod Touch did not exist, I think it would be a killer device. Yeah. But and it's got it's

got some serious, uh seriously powerful media capabilities. It's just that it's going to appeal to a different audience, and and Microsoft has split its audience, right, and there are people out there who are die hard Zoom fans, and you know what I can understand. Like, like I said, it's a great device, Um, I just I don't see it winning over any Apple fans. Like I don't think

it's any I don't think it's compelling. Not No, I mean, unless you're talking about people who want a personal media player that's slightly less expensive than the iPod Touch, because it's it's just a little less than the iPod touches. It's interesting. I'm curious to know if Apple is considering

putting HD in any of the iPods. I'm sure that as long as they can find a way of cramming it into that case without making it any bigger, because they're absolutely obsessed with keeping that that small, thin, sleek, sexy style. I'm done. Okay, well, then let's go on to a little listener mail. And this listener mail comes from Cow. Cow says, Holy, I am a not so long time listener, but I've listened to every podcast all the way back to how the Google Apple Cloud Computer

Will Work from June two thousand eight. I love your podcast and all of your sister podcasts. This is the podcast I've listened to the most episodes about the others I listened to. Don't compare stuff you should know with stuff you missed in history class with high speed stuff with about, and lastly stuff on the B side with about. This is very very precise. Moving on now, think way back,

and I mean way back. There are a lot of a's in that way back to December two thous eight, when you recorded your podcast on how M M O RPGs Work. I told you the thing way back when I was listening to it the other day, I was hit with a completely unexpected little thing, puzzled Pirates. I've played it for about a year total now, but never really thought too many people knew about it. I was

really surprised when you mentioned it. Also, since stuff you should know has stopped getting high kus, I think you guys would love one enjoy this high kup text stuff is the best, much better than Josh and Chuck. Listen army. First, the last line was only four syllables, but who cares when it comes to well listener? Who cares? Lastly, I would be interested if you did a podcast on fictional devices things like lightsabers, warp drive, et cetera. From the movies.

Your biggest seventh grade fan, cow Cal specifically requested that I use that voice, and I haven't done it in a really long time, So there you go. Cal. Chris was thankful that I hadn't done that in a really long time, and probably most of our listeners too. So please direct your email account. No, I'm kidding, I'm not going to give out Kel's AMIL address. Well, guys, if you have any listener mail you'd like to send us, and hey, you know what fictional devices sounds like fun.

We'll have to do that in the future. If you guys have any suggestions, questions, comments that kind of thing. You can email us. Our address is text uff at how stuff works dot com. Remember we've got our live show every Tuesday one o'clock UM Eastern time. You can find that at our blogs. Just go to how stuff works dot com. Look on the right side. You'll see the link to the blogs there and you can read all about m P three players at house stuff works dot com. Chris and I will talk to you again

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