abi>> Starts Mutiny at Zune Thoughts
A month or so ago I wrote about how I don’t want the Zune to be cluttered with countless and useless features. See “8 Features I do NOT Want to See on the Zune”. Jason Dunn over at Zune Thoughts responded with counter arguments, which I still don’t agree with and did get some support from readers on my site when I pointed in his article out.
Volley for serve. The back and forth continues and now Zune Thoughts has a mutiny on their hands. In the latest post in this saga by one of Jason’s other writers, David Tucker, titled “Jason, You’re Wrong!”. David agrees with all of my 8 points except the Bluetooth feature. So David, I leave you with this: If we are keeping it simple and features out that only leaves Bluetooth headphone support. The problem is IEMs are becoming more and more popular being that they are excellent in sound quality and isolation. You cannot build wireless IEMs, Etymotic tried but they suck and they still have a wire. Sennheiser’s new high end wireless phones don’t even use Bluetooth. So my point is Bluetooth as a means to transport audio to headphones is not a good solution and Bluetooth being used in any other way is a feature to clutter the Zune.
Comments
Slaughter on January 11, 2008 9:22 PM
It's as I said in the Comments in the other post: Jason tried to write a rebuttal, but ended up agreeing on half your points. He should be fired!
yes for media centric features on January 12, 2008 4:48 AM
bluetooth in pmp's will be a godsend for hearing impaired people with recent hearing aids sporting bluetooth.
Tony Jasinski on January 12, 2008 3:54 PM
I love this website, and you guys have given me some good support in the past...
But I do disagree with the concern over 'too many features'.
One of the dissappointments that I have with my Creative Zen Vision M is that it doesn't have any games (for example).
I will choose my next player based on having a full range of features....
EnzoTen (Grahm) on January 12, 2008 4:50 PM
My concern for "too many features" is not for all players. My campaign is to keep at least one of them music centric by not cluttering the player with crap- so that consumers at least have that choice.
Jason Dunn on January 16, 2008 6:40 PM
@ Slaughter:
I'm not sure if you're kidding or not, but a rebuttal isn't always a 100% disagreement - at least, not among clear-thinking individuals (I'm sure there are politicians out there that can disagree 100% with someone). My response was really designed to spur discussion, which it did - even amongst my own team members. As long as we're all talking about what we want to see, it's all good! If you're really being serious, you need to lighten up, pronto.
And since I own the site, I don't think I'm going to fire myself. ;-)
Jason Dunn
www.zunethoughts.com
Jason Dunn on January 16, 2008 6:58 PM
Oh, regarding Bluetooth support, someone in our forums pointed out an excellent reason for Bluetooth: transmitting audio to car decks. There's a Pioneer deck that has a BT chip in it, so you can use BT to send audio to your deck without needing a custom dock, a line-in jack, etc. Seems like a much better use of BT than headphones to me!
Jason Dunn
www.zunethoughts.com
Zsan on March 15, 2008 5:31 PM
The mroe features, the merrier. As long as there's options tu turn them off, and those options aren't hard to access, change, or understand.
Just a menu with:
Bluetooth: Yes/No
FM radio: Yes/No
Touch screen: Yes/No
Etc/etc/etc is not that bad, and pretty easy.