iPhone Vs. Zune Vs. music phones

Nuvo

As you might have noticed, it's 2007, which means we're in a whole new year.
A new year for technology to evolve and a new year for every big company to spit out some new fangled product that'll either make it big time or send it's developers into a downward spiral.
Two of the more notable gadgets coming out this year are Microsoft's Zune media player and Apple's long awaited iPhone smartphone.

iPhone:
Now, we all know that Apple is the all mighty god of media players so long as you don't want to play PS2 quality games and as long as you don't want to have DVD's (which would be the PSP, which I sold as it wasn't overly great), though they do get the odd bit of competition from the likes of Creative.
We also know that Apple's PDA, the Newton was about as successful as their games console, the Pippin (CBG probably has one and swears that it's better than an xbox).
Now, since the iPhone is a smartphone, it's pretty easy to see it as some form of modern day Newton, which may not be a bad thing as the whole PDA idea did get off the ground as the technology improved, and phone's which allow you to check your e-mail, stocks and other web releated stuff can be quite handy.

Apple is marketing the iPhone as an evolution of the iPod rather than as anything to do with a scarcely known product line like the Newton as it has iPod functionality and it's touch screen may be where the widescreen iPod rumours were coming from.
As an iPod, it should fare well so long as people are willing to pay for it.
Since the iPhone has WiFi support, it's entirely possible that Apple could create a version of iTunes for it (it's running OS X), which would effectively make it a self contained iPod which wouldn't need a PC or Mac unless you wanted to rip from a CD.

In terms of phone features, it has what you'd expect from a phone these days:
Ringing people (can't forget that!)
2MPX camera (Sony has a better camera, but not in their Walkman phones)
SMS
Web browser (Safari, but it works kind of like Opera on the Nintendo DS)
Media viewer \ player (the iPod element)
Bluetooth

Some less common features are:
Call merging (If you get a call from Bob while talking to Simon, you can merge calls and have a three way conversation)
802.11b WiFi (meaning that if \ once Apple makes it possible for 3rd parties to develop for the phone, there's a chance of it also having some support for servies like Skype)
Advanced touch screen (no face buttons and none of those touch sensors like my LG Chocolate and the Sony W950i have)
Google maps support with the ability to easily call places without dialling the number (you find the place on the map and press an icon on the screen and it connects you)

The iPhone design isn't what I personally had hoped for, but it's pretty close.
I had hoped for something closer to one of LG's concept phones, which had the entire face as one big touch screen, though the iPhone isn't far off.

Zune:
Microsoft, as per usual, decided that their nemesis (Apple) shouldn't be ahead of them in the media player market as they generally have less users in other markets, but this presented a problem... Microsoft didn't have anything of their own in the media player market.
Sure, they might have software on a few music phones and PDA's, but they never brought out their own PMP, so they came up with the Zune.

The Zune has a bigger screen than a normal iPod and features an interface more like older iPod designs.
Due to it's construction (all plastic casing), it's supposedly lighter than an iPod despite not being smaller.
What the Zune brings to the table is wireless networking between Zune players so that music and files can be shared, though only on a temporary basis (3 plays or 3 days, which ever comes first).
One of the factors working against this is the fact that unless you happen to know people with Zune players, this functionality is utterly useless unless you like getting songs from every hobo, loon and nerd that walks by with one.
Steve Jobs didn't seem too worried about this functionality either.

The first model Zune features a 30GB HDD, which far out strips the iPhone, which only comes in 4 and 8GB sizes, but it's less than in newer full size iPod's which come in 30 or 80GB sizes.

The main criticisms are:
No Mac support (because Steve Balmer is a moron).
Not compatible with Microsoft's PlaysForSure technology.
Can't be used as an external storage device without registry hacking.
WiFi only works between Zune players, not between the Zune and a PC or other WiFi devices (other than the 360).
Not compatible with Windows Media Player.
No way to transfer content recorded with Windows Media Center (which will also be in Vista) to the Zune.
Songs sent using the Zune to Zune features can't be sent to other people, meaning the original owner has to send it to each person, or you have to buy it and send it on to the next person.
The 3 plays thing doesn't care how far through a track you get... If you play a second, it counts it as one play, so if something happens and you stop it from playing, that play is gone regardless of how much of the song you heard.

The Zune will come in white, black & brown and each colour has a pin stripe around the side.

Others:
So what do these have to contend with?
Well, there's always the Creative Zen players and the less successful MP3 players like Sony's Walkman players and Samsung's Yepp or whatever they are called now.
On the other hand, we have music phones which have started to break out the mass storage.
Nokia has had a large capacity phone out for a while now which uses an internal HDD, but that phone is the size of a house with buttons from hell and only an idiot would actually bother buting one.
Sony, currently one of the leaders in the music phone market has it's W950i out, which is less ugly than the Nokia, has a touch screen, plenty of storage (4GB if memory serves) and touch sensors instead of keys.
The problems with it are:
You can't just walk into a shop and buy one apparently.
I tried getting hold of one on contract and they have to be ordered and cost a few hundred pounds just for the actual phone (on contract it was free, but I decided to stick with pay-as-you-go as I don't use my phone that much) so I decided not to bother.
A lot of music phones use removable memory such as Mini-SD and Memory Stick Pro DUO cards, but these don't exactly live up to the large capacities of a real PMP and they can be costly, especially when you've just forked out for a new phone.

It'll be interesting to see what Sandisk does in the future as their last attempt at a media player got some pretty good reviews and it was expandable through the use of media cards.
Sandisk is, along with Samsung, one of the biggest flash memory companies on the planet, so they can get the stuff quicker and cheaper than the likes of Apple, Microsoft and Sony, so it'll be interesting to see if they can make a name for themselves in this market.

Blah:
I can see the iPhone working so long as it's accessable.
If it costs too much, nobody will want to buy it unless it's on contract and if it's on contract, Apple shouldn't limit it to one provider (which is Cingular in America apparently) as some network providers are, quite frankly, not worth the carbon in their owners bodies.
As for the Zune, the fact that many didn't even know who made it when it hit the U.S. and the fact that it lacks the capacity and cross platform features of an iPod don't give me high hopes for it.
It's bigger than a Nano in terms of capacity, but it's also bigger in terms of size, and I may be wrong here, but people who buy Nano's buy them because they are less bulky and because they don't really need to carry 90% of the songs found on your common garden P2P network around with them.

When it comes to music phones, it's kind of a convenience thing.
There's no need to carry two devices then and there's no pausing and pulling your headphones out when you get a call as decent music phones pause the music when you get a call, though they do suffer from the lack of space.
Phones will pretty much always be something we can't live without in our modern city lives until we get wearable PC's with wireless internet connections so we can just do webcam chats on the bus, so they aren't going anywhere soon.

CannonBallGuy

I got some points to make about the iPhone but I'm too tired to find any references and stuff, this is more a note to myself than anything else. Feel free to do some googling yourself though...

The iPhone is due to be released in the USA in June/July 07, in Europe during the 4th quarter of 2007 and in Asia in 2008.
Prices are to be $499 for 4GB, $599 for 8GB and the Include/Require a 2 year contract with Cingular.
Steve Jobs has said "No 3rd party apps".

However, there is a slight hitch. Apple don't own the rights to iPhone - Cisco do. There have been lots of blog posts and news articles about this in the past week, but it seems to me that Apple and Cisco had been in discussion about it before the Keynote, but never came to an agreement.
Apple announced the iPhone without permission to use the name. Although the law says that for Cisco to keep the name, they have to use it continuously and declare so every so often.
This article suggests they haven't done this and thus don't technically own the rights: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Burnette/?p=236

Check out the iPhone introduction at http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/j47d52oo/event/

omoi

I think that Apple has done it again with iPhone and a lot of people are going to request it over other phones. However, for half a thousand dollars, it might be wishful thinking for some. But, to me, I don't have to have the convenience and the phone and iPod in one because I'd rather have a lot of space for all of my music and videos than just 4GB or so.

The Zune sounds like it's going to play second best to me, especially since it's purely Windows compatible. I was really into the share a song feature but I can see a lot of problems with that until a lot of people get Zune's.

I definitely like the idea of a wearable PC...it should be fashionable...my technology must not clash...

DeluxeNames

Hey, I'm either going to buy an iPhone or a WiFi phone. Not sure yet which. I've heard that people that have reviewed the have said: the iPhone is not any new technology but it takes the newest technology and puts it together better than anyone else has.

Anyone else planning to buy the iPhone?

Nuvo

However, there is a slight hitch. Apple don't own the rights to iPhone - Cisco do. There have been lots of blog posts and news articles about this in the past week, but it seems to me that Apple and Cisco had been in discussion about it before the Keynote, but never came to an agreement.
Apple announced the iPhone without permission to use the name. Although the law says that for Cisco to keep the name, they have to use it continuously and declare so every so often.
This article suggests they haven't done this and thus don't technically own the rights: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Burnette/?p=236

Linksys is bringing out a WiFi phone under the iPhone name if I'm not mistaken (Linksys being part of Cisco).

Prices are to be $499 for 4GB, $599 for 8GB and the Include/Require a 2 year contract with Cingular.
Steve Jobs has said "No 3rd party apps".

There's still no information on who will carry the phone over here though as Cingular don't exactly feature on our lists of network providers.
$599 sounds like a lot of money, but to us Brits, it's not actually a lot for a high end phone and seriously, if 99.99% of American TV shows are anything to go by, you guys need to get some mobile phone technology that wouldn't get you laughed and possibly spat at by any muggers or nerds over here (your phones appear to be a few years behind ours, though Asia (Japan & S. Korea) has better phones than us).

Not allowing 3rd party applications on the phone at all could be a bit of a downer for it as pretty much every phone out these days supports Java apps and \ or applications built for their OS (Windows Mobile, Embeded Linux and others).
It'd be a shame to spend large amounts of money on it only to find that the only notable features are it's storage space and branding (my dad has one of the Sony P series and if you remove the key pad, it too has a fully touch driven interface, Google Maps != GPS and 2MPX cameras are fading out now as more 3 & 3.2MPX camera phones hit the stores).

I'd be interested in getting an iPhone, but I have to admit that some of it's touted features aren't really as useful as those on other phones.
If the Google Maps thing could also do GPS location, it'd be much more useful (I'm lost, my phone will tell me where I am! I DO NOT NEED TO KNOW WHERE STARBUCKS IS IN MANCHESTER!!!).