Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello everybody,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Polette
Speaker 1: and I'm an editor here at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Sitting in crush from me as usual is senior writer
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. Hey there, So what do you want to
Speaker 1: talk about today? Today? I thought we'd talked about something.
Speaker 1: It's one of those topics that we get a lot
Speaker 1: of requests for out of tech Stuff. Yes, it is
Speaker 1: not the Tech Conspiracy Theory podcast that's still in the works.
Speaker 1: We're getting tons of mail about that, guys. We know
Speaker 1: you're interested. We want to do a bang up job
Speaker 1: on that, so we're still working on that one. This
Speaker 1: is a different topic that we've received several requests for.
Speaker 1: It's the Microsoft Zoom Ah. Yes. Now, not that long ago.
Speaker 1: Microsoft unveiled the Zoom HD, the newest in its line
Speaker 1: of Zoom products. But it's one of those things that
Speaker 1: it's one of those products that people have heard about,
Speaker 1: but they don't really know that much about it because
Speaker 1: I mean, it's, let's face it, the Zoo is in
Speaker 1: a market space that is dominated by one particular company, yes,
Speaker 1: one being Apple. Right, I was gonna say creative, but
Speaker 1: that's not true. No, not anymore. So we're talking about
Speaker 1: MP three players, actually personal media players, really is what
Speaker 1: we're talking about. Yeah, that's true. They they're probably gonna
Speaker 1: have to start calling them that, I would assume, since
Speaker 1: so many of them do more than one thing these days. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's you know, you're talking about more than just music.
Speaker 1: Now you're talking about video and you know you can
Speaker 1: subscribe to television shows and movies that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: It's not just MP three's however. Uh, the Zoom HD
Speaker 1: clearly is in the same general market as the iPod Touch. Yes,
Speaker 1: they're not. They don't stack up the same against each other.
Speaker 1: I mean you can't say that that one. You know,
Speaker 1: comparing them is not exactly apples to apples, but they are,
Speaker 1: thank you. I was gonna go with oranges to oranges,
Speaker 1: but why um, but this way, I mean, they do
Speaker 1: enough of the same things that the comparison is impossible
Speaker 1: to avoid. So let's talk a little bit about the Zoo. Now.
Speaker 1: Microsoft unveiled the first zoons back in two thousand six,
Speaker 1: right back in November two thousand six. So this this
Speaker 1: was their their attempt to enter the personal media player
Speaker 1: uh marketplace, you know, a place that already at that
Speaker 1: point was dominated by Apple and their iPod line. And
Speaker 1: despite that, actually there were a lot of people who
Speaker 1: felt that Microsoft's entry into this market was going to
Speaker 1: make a big splash because, after all, they had the Xbox,
Speaker 1: and the Xbox, you know, is one of the biggest
Speaker 1: players in the video game console industry. They came from
Speaker 1: nowhere to take a side zable chunk of the industry,
Speaker 1: and people said, hey, this is uh, this is Microsoft
Speaker 1: totally getting into the home entertainment market. They're gonna be,
Speaker 1: you know, producing this zoom. They're gonna be doing the Xbox.
Speaker 1: Look out everybody here they come. Yeah. That if they
Speaker 1: had been able to throw their weight behind the product
Speaker 1: the same way that they were with the the Xbox, Um,
Speaker 1: I think we'd have a different podcast right now. We'd
Speaker 1: be talking. In fact, we might not even be calling
Speaker 1: it a podcast. Uh. See, here's the thing. Apple has
Speaker 1: dominated this market so much over the last several years.
Speaker 1: I think most people just use iPod as the generic
Speaker 1: term for an NB three player. Well, you know, Sony
Speaker 1: had to give up the Walkman thing eventually. I mean,
Speaker 1: of course they still make Walkman actually that that's true.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's back in the days where everybody
Speaker 1: had a portable cassette player, everybody called it a Walkman,
Speaker 1: whether it was a Sony brand machine or not. That's true.
Speaker 1: And so or in the South, if you're from the
Speaker 1: South such you know, like such as myself, you would
Speaker 1: call every kind of soft drink a coke. You would
Speaker 1: go into a diner and you'd order a coke. In
Speaker 1: the waitress say which can sugar, and you'd say, I
Speaker 1: want to sprite. But you start off with the coke
Speaker 1: and then you work your way to specifics. Same sort
Speaker 1: of thing with the iPod. I mean, a lot of
Speaker 1: people just you know NP three player iPod that's synonymous.
Speaker 1: We call them podcasts for the most part, despite the
Speaker 1: fact that you can listen to these on various devices,
Speaker 1: not just iPods. So any manufacturer, no matter how big,
Speaker 1: has a huge, uphill battle to fight against Apple to
Speaker 1: to really get into the minds of the general consumer.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't think Microsoft did enough with that
Speaker 1: with the Zoom back when it was unveiled three years ago. Well, uh,
Speaker 1: you'd figure if anybody's gonna try to take on someone
Speaker 1: who has that sizeable a piece of the market, uh,
Speaker 1: that it would take a lot of money to do that.
Speaker 1: And if anybody could do it, do you think Microsoft could? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Maybe Microsoft or Google. Yeah. I can't imagine what a
Speaker 1: Google music player would be like. Oh, but I don't
Speaker 1: think they're not thinking about it. Well, and you could
Speaker 1: run a MP three player on the Android system. I
Speaker 1: mean you could create a handheld media player device running Android.
Speaker 1: Someone has suggested it somewhere, you know, I don't know
Speaker 1: who that person is. Well, someone has like tablets and netbooks,
Speaker 1: possibly using the Android operating system. So yeah, it's not
Speaker 1: a big stretch of the imagination. So let's get back
Speaker 1: to the Zoom though. So the Zoom is running its
Speaker 1: own operating system for the device, um, and it has
Speaker 1: its own environment music environment that you can use very
Speaker 1: similar and in concept anyway too iTunes. You have the
Speaker 1: Zoom Marketplace, So this is kind of your software where
Speaker 1: not only would you shop music and uh and other
Speaker 1: content like TV shows or videos or even games to
Speaker 1: some extent tiny extent um, but you would also use
Speaker 1: this to organize your music, create playlists, um and use
Speaker 1: other features as well. M Uh, I should also go
Speaker 1: ahead and point this out before we move on, because well,
Speaker 1: we'll eventually be talking about the Zoom HD because that
Speaker 1: is the latest and greatest model on the market, and
Speaker 1: it's changing a lot of what the approach Microsoft approach
Speaker 1: had been up to this point. One of the features
Speaker 1: of early zooms Zooms before the HD was something called squirting. Really, yes,
Speaker 1: I am not joking. This is this is straight from
Speaker 1: the bomber. I thought squirt was a kind of soft drink.
Speaker 1: It is a kind of soft drink. It's a kind
Speaker 1: of coke. Yeah, yeah, you know what kind of coke
Speaker 1: do you want? Squirt um? Actually that's really hard to find.
Speaker 1: But anyway, so we're talking about about this weird squirting thing.
Speaker 1: What is squirting? So squirting in the zoo world? I'm
Speaker 1: I'm gearing now that I'm gonna get Chris to walk
Speaker 1: out of this podcast. And it's funny because right before
Speaker 1: the podcast he said he was going to mention it,
Speaker 1: and now he I couldn't remember what he was talking about.
Speaker 1: And now it's it's slowly dawning on me. Is it yes,
Speaker 1: So let's say about it's about sharing music exactly. That's exactly.
Speaker 1: Now zooms are WiFi enabled and you can even make
Speaker 1: a connection with another zoon owner. So let's say that
Speaker 1: you're on a bus. Someone else gets on the bus.
Speaker 1: They have a zoom. You have a zoom, and you
Speaker 1: have this song that you've been listening to that you
Speaker 1: take is absolutely awesome, and this other person should totally
Speaker 1: hear that song, and they by the look at them,
Speaker 1: you know this person has not heard it. So you
Speaker 1: get the idea. You know what you're gonna do. You're
Speaker 1: gonna share your song with this person. You're gonna squirt
Speaker 1: that song right on over to their zoom, alright, and
Speaker 1: you can do that. You can send a song from
Speaker 1: your zoom to someone else's zoom wirelessly. That other person
Speaker 1: can can listen to that song up to three times
Speaker 1: or hold onto it for up to three days, so
Speaker 1: it's three plays or three days. After that, the song
Speaker 1: automatically erasist itself from that person's zoom and it rhymes.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like play pay or play contracts, so
Speaker 1: similar to that. So that was the concept. The idea
Speaker 1: here was that you would be able to share your
Speaker 1: your songs with other people for a limited number of
Speaker 1: plays or the limited number of days. Here's the problem.
Speaker 1: There are two problems really. One is that people, a
Speaker 1: lot of users thought that this was way too restrictive.
Speaker 1: And I have to give Microsoft props. It is not
Speaker 1: necessarily Microsoft's fault for those restrictions. These were the terms
Speaker 1: that were dictated by content providers. So we're talking about
Speaker 1: music publishers really, so you know you might think like, well,
Speaker 1: that's what happens if you know, I'm trying to listen
Speaker 1: to this song and it just it, you know, for
Speaker 1: some reason, I have to posit or whatever. And then
Speaker 1: now I've got one song at one time, that one
Speaker 1: fewer time that I can listen to the song, right, So,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's the idea here is that you could
Speaker 1: conceivably listen to a song enjoyed enough that you would
Speaker 1: go out and buy it yourself. All right, that's the
Speaker 1: concept behind here. But people thought that, well that it's
Speaker 1: just there's not you don't get enough, you don't get
Speaker 1: to play it enough. It's just not worth it. Plus
Speaker 1: the other part of this problem is just that because
Speaker 1: the Zoom did not take off the way that everyone
Speaker 1: had hoped at Microsoft that it would. It was really
Speaker 1: hard to find another Zoom owner, So just using the
Speaker 1: squirting feature became a challenge because you had to track
Speaker 1: someone else down who had a Zoom. Well, they weren't
Speaker 1: completely impossible to find, you know. And in May two eight,
Speaker 1: which was a little I guess, a little bit close
Speaker 1: to a year and a half, I guess, within the
Speaker 1: time that Microsoft had released the zoon um it had
Speaker 1: sold two million units since its debut, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it's at one point about three percent of the market. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, in the two thousand eight holiday season, Um,
Speaker 1: according to the information I found, uh, they had sold
Speaker 1: about a hundred and eighty five million dollars worth of Zoom.
Speaker 1: Of course, in the fourth quarter of two thousand eight,
Speaker 1: Apple's revenue from iPods was three point three seven billion
Speaker 1: dollars with a B, not an m. Um. Pretty big change,
Speaker 1: pretty big difference. But yes, five million dollars. You know,
Speaker 1: that's not chump change. But when you're looking at the
Speaker 1: big picture, it's it's a drop in the bike. And
Speaker 1: like you said, three percent of the market, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean that's tiny, tiny, tiny, So yeah, you're talking short
Speaker 1: two million zooms that are out there in the wild.
Speaker 1: There's you know, three times as many of that many
Speaker 1: people just in the city of Atlanta alone. So again,
Speaker 1: finding someone else who has one not the easiest thing
Speaker 1: in the world. Somebody's gonna write and say that we
Speaker 1: are zoom heaters, and I, you know, personally speaking, I
Speaker 1: am not a zoom heater. Um. But I'm also not
Speaker 1: as fond of the Zoom as the guy who had
Speaker 1: the logo tattooed on his shoulders. Didn't he eventually get
Speaker 1: really upset at them and want to remove that tattoo. Um.
Speaker 1: I don't remember if he did. But there was somebody
Speaker 1: else who was a really vocal Zoom fan who made
Speaker 1: this big public uh deal of switching to an iPod.
Speaker 1: I do remember someone getting a tattoo with a company
Speaker 1: logo and then later throwing a hissy fit at that
Speaker 1: company and saying that that he would change the logo.
Speaker 1: But I cannot remember as the zoom guy. Right. But
Speaker 1: and you know, you think about it, you put yourself
Speaker 1: in the somebody else's shoes, and you say, you know,
Speaker 1: this person is probably really fed up with seeing iPods
Speaker 1: everywhere and seeing all the commercials and everybody's got an iPod,
Speaker 1: and I don't particularly care for Apple products. They might say,
Speaker 1: you know, forget it, I'm gonna get a Zoo. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna make a big deal out of getting a Zoom
Speaker 1: because it's the big competitor. Maybe we can get rid
Speaker 1: of the iPod. But well, you know, I don't think
Speaker 1: I like any product enough to get a tattoo. I
Speaker 1: think put another one. I think that the I think.
Speaker 1: I think competition is always a good thing. Um. I
Speaker 1: would love to see MP three players rise up to
Speaker 1: challenge the iPod. If nothing else, that means getting better iPods.
Speaker 1: I mean, Apple is already motivated to improving its products,
Speaker 1: but if you put competition in there, they're motivated to
Speaker 1: do it faster and better than before. Otherwise they're just
Speaker 1: doing it on their own schedule. Now, the Zoom, I've
Speaker 1: I've played with them before. I do not own a Zoom.
Speaker 1: I do own an iPod Classic, and I old own
Speaker 1: in a very old creative zen which feels like a
Speaker 1: lead brick. Um. I loved that zen, I just I
Speaker 1: find it finally was too old for me to really
Speaker 1: use anymore, which is why I upgraded to the iPod.
Speaker 1: UM the Zoom's a nice device. Now, I was using
Speaker 1: the old Zoo and I've only played a little bit
Speaker 1: with the Zoom HD. Um, so I don't I'm not
Speaker 1: familiar enough with all of the features to speak about
Speaker 1: them from a user perspective, but I will say that
Speaker 1: it was it was a good device. I mean, the
Speaker 1: sound quality was good, the features were pretty easy to
Speaker 1: use the Zoom HD. It took a little more time
Speaker 1: for me to get used to. The layout was a
Speaker 1: little odd, um you could because you had to swipe
Speaker 1: left or right or up or down depending on whichever
Speaker 1: menu you were in. I'm used to vertically scrolling menus
Speaker 1: for my MP three players. I'm not used to having to,
Speaker 1: you know, like, oh wait, no, the information I needed
Speaker 1: was to the left, not below what I was looking at. Um.
Speaker 1: But but the quality of the device itself is fantastic.
Speaker 1: I think I think they've really got a good device.
Speaker 1: I think that they've made so poor decisions based upon
Speaker 1: the the market as it stands right now. Like, for instance,
Speaker 1: one of the big ones I would say is the
Speaker 1: lack of an app store, you know, I mean you
Speaker 1: kind of have to remember that Apple approaches the iPod
Speaker 1: Touch in a different way that than Microsoft approaches the
Speaker 1: Zoom HD. Microsoft is building up a personal media player. Okay,
Speaker 1: so they're taking they're going from the MP three player
Speaker 1: to the next step where it's the personal media player
Speaker 1: where you've got video and uh and you've got some
Speaker 1: other capabilities. Apples taking a different approach. They're taking the
Speaker 1: iPhone and they're making it dumber by taking the phone out.
Speaker 1: And then you've got the iPod Touch essentially, so you've
Speaker 1: got two different approaches. You're building up the MP three
Speaker 1: player or you're tearing down the smartphone. You're you're you're
Speaker 1: arriving at a place that's similar. But because those approaches
Speaker 1: are slightly different, you end up with products that support
Speaker 1: different applications. So with the iPod Touch you've got a
Speaker 1: fairly large application library to choose from. Oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean there's some that obviously you can't run on the
Speaker 1: Touch because it was designed for the phone, right, you know,
Speaker 1: the uses the phone capabilities that the Touch just doesn't have.
Speaker 1: But there are still tons of games and other applications. Right, Yes,
Speaker 1: I do have an iPod Touch. Yeah, I'm sure you're
Speaker 1: familiar with their app store. Oh yeah, and I um
Speaker 1: I've tried lots of different kinds of applications. Of course,
Speaker 1: anything with a have a first generation I thought touch,
Speaker 1: so anything with a GPS or a camera is pretty
Speaker 1: much not useless. But a lot of them that rely
Speaker 1: on that I can't do anything with anything particularly useful
Speaker 1: with it. And there are a lot of other applications
Speaker 1: where that kind of functionality is built in, but it's
Speaker 1: only part of the application. Um. And then there of course,
Speaker 1: you know, personal productivity applications and games and things like
Speaker 1: that that that don't so you know, there's there's tons
Speaker 1: and tons of that stuff available, and uh, of course
Speaker 1: podcasts and the ability to download that kind of content
Speaker 1: from the video store, but it isn't a high definition
Speaker 1: but well, and we'll get to that. But here's here's
Speaker 1: the thing that I was trying to get to is
Speaker 1: that Microsoft does not support apps the way Apple does.
Speaker 1: Different it's a different business model. They have specifically said
Speaker 1: that they do not plan to create an app store
Speaker 1: for the Zoom. For one thing, they're creating apps for
Speaker 1: Windows Mobile and the Zoom does not run on Windows Mobile.
Speaker 1: It's two different operating systems. They don't want to have
Speaker 1: two different stores. Yeah, I mean, I can understand the
Speaker 1: need to separate that out because you don't want to
Speaker 1: confuse the consumer. You don't want to have two different
Speaker 1: stores to run. But you're competing with yourself. It means
Speaker 1: that the Zoom cannot compete with the iPod Touch when
Speaker 1: it comes to that that part of the iPod touches capabilities,
Speaker 1: it's just not on that level. It can compete when
Speaker 1: it comes to the quality of music. It can definitely
Speaker 1: compete when it comes to the quality of video. Now
Speaker 1: the Zoom. I should also point out Zoom HD. You
Speaker 1: know HD, of course high definition, right, it does not
Speaker 1: display video and high definition right, you have to you
Speaker 1: have to connect it to an HD TV, right, and
Speaker 1: then it's at seven. It's not at a full yeah,
Speaker 1: but still seven. I mean, I've seen the the video
Speaker 1: from a Zoom HD hooked up to a high definition television.
Speaker 1: I was floored at how gorgeous the video was. So
Speaker 1: you could purchase or rent some video content from the
Speaker 1: Zoom marketplace, download it to your Zoom, hook your Zoom
Speaker 1: up to your TV, and watch it that way. So
Speaker 1: that's kind of cool. I mean, that's a nifty feature
Speaker 1: that you can't really do with the the iPod, it's
Speaker 1: not going to be the same quality as if you
Speaker 1: were to try that with the iPod. But there are
Speaker 1: other Apple offers, other things besides the ip that would
Speaker 1: let you do that kind of stuff, like the Apple TV.
Speaker 1: So let's talk a little bit more about the Zoo HD.
Speaker 1: It has an o LAD screen. It's very very bright.
Speaker 1: It's very glossy. Actually, some people have said that it's
Speaker 1: a little difficult to see when you take it outside.
Speaker 1: That sunlight can be very it can reflect a lot
Speaker 1: of sunlight, so it's hard to see the screen. It's
Speaker 1: three point three inches, yeah, so a little bit smaller
Speaker 1: than the iPod Touch. I believe I think that I
Speaker 1: pod touches three point five I'm not certain off the
Speaker 1: top of my head. Just have WiFi, of course, yes,
Speaker 1: which is good because that's how you get a lot
Speaker 1: of content. Also has an FM tuner. Actually it has
Speaker 1: an HD radio tuner. That's true. It can get n
Speaker 1: HD radio does not stand Ford High Definition. It's market term.
Speaker 1: It's so yeah, it's marketing term. Just means HD radio,
Speaker 1: but it means that you've get access to a lot
Speaker 1: more radio stations than you would if it were just
Speaker 1: a normal FM tuner. That's true, and it is. It
Speaker 1: is digital, so it is high quality. It's just not
Speaker 1: high definition. It's one of those things where again, you know,
Speaker 1: people have been asking about that kind of tuner for
Speaker 1: an iPod Touch for a while, so the Zoom is
Speaker 1: ahead of the game there. Now, my question is is
Speaker 1: radio still relevant enough for that to be a feature
Speaker 1: that people would would like? Would people be shopping for
Speaker 1: that feature? There are some who I think would. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people who were interested in
Speaker 1: the Serious XM application for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Um,
Speaker 1: of course you have to be a subscriber uh of
Speaker 1: Serious XM and you know, have the right package in
Speaker 1: order to take advantage of that. But there are a
Speaker 1: lot of people who were excited that that application was coming,
Speaker 1: I suppose. So I just from a personal standpoint, um,
Speaker 1: I hardly ever listened to the radio now because I
Speaker 1: love Internet radio, and I love like personalized radio applications,
Speaker 1: things like Pandora or Last Film or whatever. I think.
Speaker 1: I think to a to a certain audience, radio is
Speaker 1: something people would look for. It's probably not the number
Speaker 1: one thing. A differentiation between the Ipode and the Zoom
Speaker 1: from my own perspective, if I were in the market
Speaker 1: for a brand new MP three player, I think the
Speaker 1: applications outweigh the FM tuner for me, but for someone
Speaker 1: else that might not be the case. Um. You can
Speaker 1: also subscribe to something called the Zoom Pass with the
Speaker 1: Zoo m Now, this is anything you can show up
Speaker 1: at the ride and they just let you in the
Speaker 1: sideline and you don't have to wait. At the Zoom Ride.
Speaker 1: It's almost as good as the iPod Ride, you know,
Speaker 1: the the everybody's gonna brand you and iPod fan and
Speaker 1: a zoom hater. I am an iPod fan. I am
Speaker 1: not a zoom hater. I just it's just not the
Speaker 1: device for me, you know. I mean if I mean
Speaker 1: it's a good device, it's just not for me. The
Speaker 1: Zoom passed, though, what it allows you to do this
Speaker 1: is actually I really like this idea. It's a subscription service.
Speaker 1: It's fifteen dollars a month, and for that fifteen dollars
Speaker 1: a month, you can download uh pretty much unlimited songs.
Speaker 1: Now unlimited in the sense that you are not limited
Speaker 1: by how many you can download. It is limited in
Speaker 1: the sense that not every song in the Zoom marketplace
Speaker 1: is available for zoom Pass subscription. Now, if you were
Speaker 1: to stop those songs go away, you don't. You can't
Speaker 1: burn them to CD. You do not get to keep them.
Speaker 1: You only get to have them on your Zoom for
Speaker 1: as long as you're a subscriber. So that is the downside.
Speaker 1: On the on the plus side, if you're a su
Speaker 1: and you don't have to be a subscriber to use
Speaker 1: the Zoom, this is just one thing you could do
Speaker 1: with the Zoom if you wanted to, Like you could
Speaker 1: use as a normal MP three player, video player, whatever.
Speaker 1: But if you wanted to and you subscribed, you would
Speaker 1: be able to download any of the approved songs in
Speaker 1: the Zoom marketplace. And these are again, are approved by
Speaker 1: the content providers. It's not Microsoft saying this song can
Speaker 1: go on zoom Pass and this one can't. That's the
Speaker 1: record labels telling Microsoft which ones can and cannot. Okay, So,
Speaker 1: but you could download me as you like and listen
Speaker 1: to them as many times as you like as long
Speaker 1: as your subscription stays current. Once that subscription goes away,
Speaker 1: you no longer have those songs. You can always purchase
Speaker 1: those songs. Uh. And they have a thing like they
Speaker 1: have the Zoom Points. It's Microsoft Points. It's the same
Speaker 1: system they use for Microsoft Live for their Xbox games
Speaker 1: and things like that. You can spend money to get points,
Speaker 1: and spend those points to buy things like songs or
Speaker 1: games or whatever. I always think of Disney dollars, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm talking about, Okay, listeners If you don't know,
Speaker 1: if you were to go to some place, to to
Speaker 1: Disney World, you could trade in real currency that can
Speaker 1: buy anything anywhere, for Disney dollars, which can only buy
Speaker 1: Disney products within Disney parks and not everything within Disney parts.
Speaker 1: I might ask you can buy some store credit. Essentially,
Speaker 1: you're buying store credit. And if you're if you have
Speaker 1: Disney dollars left over at the end of your vacation souvenirs,
Speaker 1: so you've just wasted money. It's the marketplace points form,
Speaker 1: in my view, are very similar to that. Uh everybody
Speaker 1: else is doing that though too. I mean, you've got
Speaker 1: the iTunes card. If you buy an iTunes card, you
Speaker 1: can't convert it back to cash, right, exactly can't. I
Speaker 1: mean it goes for just about any of those gift
Speaker 1: cards that you see now. Of course, you could always
Speaker 1: just purchase songs outright or burned or you know, rip
Speaker 1: music from CDs and put onto your Zoom that way. Um,
Speaker 1: you do have to have the zoom uh software in
Speaker 1: order to activate a Zoom HD. Right, you can't just
Speaker 1: hook your Zoom HD up to your computer and use
Speaker 1: it as a like a flash drive and drag music
Speaker 1: over without installing the software. Well, Zoom software is a
Speaker 1: free download. Yeah, it's a free down. Well so is iTunes?
Speaker 1: Now all iTunes work with Zoom. No, iTunes won't work
Speaker 1: with anything other than iPods, and the Zoom probably will
Speaker 1: not work managing I would imagine not. I've never tried to,
Speaker 1: I do. I did have the Zoom software on my
Speaker 1: computer for a while because I wanted to play with it.
Speaker 1: It was, you know, get a free download, you can
Speaker 1: mess with it. Yeah, it's like, you know, it's like
Speaker 1: any other really advanced kind of jukebox sort of program,
Speaker 1: just like iTunes, um, with lots and lots of bells
Speaker 1: and whistles. But yeah, I don't have a Zoom, so
Speaker 1: really the usefulness is somewhat limited for me, right right?
Speaker 1: What does it features? Such as a quick play, which
Speaker 1: is you know, gives you history and favorites things like that.
Speaker 1: The smart DJ, which is uh, you know, sort of
Speaker 1: figures out what you're interested in listening to and creates
Speaker 1: playlists from kind of like genius on the iPod. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was, yeah, I didn't want to use the G word,
Speaker 1: but well, I mean, you know, like I said, comparisons
Speaker 1: are impossible to avoid, so we might as well just
Speaker 1: go ahead and say it. And then there's mosaic, which
Speaker 1: shows you the uh one artist connection to another artist.
Speaker 1: So it's sort of like the music geno my guess
Speaker 1: on on Pandora. Speaking of comparisons, I mean you say, okay,
Speaker 1: well I like this band, and go, well, if you
Speaker 1: like them, you'll probably like these guys because they sort
Speaker 1: of sound similar, um, and they're they're working out the
Speaker 1: the functionality, the connection to the Xbox three sixty. So yeah,
Speaker 1: there there's some things about the Zoom that I think
Speaker 1: are really cool. There are other things that I don't like.
Speaker 1: And again a lot of the things I don't like
Speaker 1: are not Microsoft's fault. Like I don't like that some
Speaker 1: songs you cannot purchase some songs without purchasing the entire album. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: that same thing is true in iTunes as well. There's
Speaker 1: some some some record labels I should say album only. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they will only sell you the full album. They will
Speaker 1: not sell you song by song, or they'll tell you
Speaker 1: some of the songs, but you can only buy you know,
Speaker 1: like tracks ten through if you can get tracks three, seven,
Speaker 1: and you know twelve and that's it. But and that
Speaker 1: drives me nuts because, um, I mean, maybe maybe eventually
Speaker 1: albums will get back to the way that they used
Speaker 1: to be, or at least that people claim they used
Speaker 1: to be, where it was an experience to listen to
Speaker 1: an album from beginning to end. But so many albums
Speaker 1: out there just feel like it's just a collection of songs,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not like there's any theme or any
Speaker 1: kind of thread moving through it. Even the quality can
Speaker 1: vary quite a bit from one song to the next.
Speaker 1: So I love being able to purchase song by song
Speaker 1: the stuff that I like, even from bands that I
Speaker 1: really enjoy, because I'm not a collector, so I don't
Speaker 1: have to have every single song that The Kinks made.
Speaker 1: I do. But I don't have to That was a
Speaker 1: bad example better things, Um, but yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: don't have to have every single song from a particular
Speaker 1: artist if and if I have the option to buy
Speaker 1: it song by song, I like that. Now. Again, not
Speaker 1: Microsoft fault. This is some thing that the record labels dictate,
Speaker 1: but that affects the Zoom Pass as well. You know,
Speaker 1: some of these songs you can't get on Zoom Pass
Speaker 1: because again, the record labels want you to purchase that music,
Speaker 1: they don't want you to just rent it. Um. Overall,
Speaker 1: I would say the Zoo is a really really nice
Speaker 1: personal media player. And if there if it were in
Speaker 1: a world where there were no iPod Touch, or if
Speaker 1: the Zoom HD had come out a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: I think they'd be a major player in the space
Speaker 1: right now. But because of the iPod Touch, because you
Speaker 1: have this essential essentially a miniature computer that's competing against
Speaker 1: this personal media player, it's almost guaranteed to be an
Speaker 1: also ran. Well then I think, uh, to to your
Speaker 1: point earlier, Um, part of the reason that Microsoft isn't
Speaker 1: doing better with the Zoom is because of all the
Speaker 1: features that they could put in the Zoom but belong
Speaker 1: to Windows Mobile to ices, and so the Zoom is
Speaker 1: always and I just can't. They're supposed to add in
Speaker 1: Twitter and Facebook features, So I would assume you would
Speaker 1: be able to update your status with whatever it is
Speaker 1: you're listening or consuming on your Zoom. Yeah. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: just it just seems like Microsoft, by by imposing its
Speaker 1: own rules, has sort of limited what they can do
Speaker 1: with the zoo. Again, if this were a world where
Speaker 1: the iPod Touch did not exist, I think it would
Speaker 1: be a killer device. Yeah. But and it's got it's
Speaker 1: got some serious, uh seriously powerful media capabilities. It's just
Speaker 1: that it's going to appeal to a different audience, and
Speaker 1: and Microsoft has split its audience, right, and there are
Speaker 1: people out there who are die hard Zoom fans, and
Speaker 1: you know what I can understand. Like, like I said,
Speaker 1: it's a great device, Um, I just I don't see
Speaker 1: it winning over any Apple fans. Like I don't think
Speaker 1: it's any I don't think it's compelling. Not No, I mean,
Speaker 1: unless you're talking about people who want a personal media
Speaker 1: player that's slightly less expensive than the iPod Touch, because
Speaker 1: it's it's just a little less than the iPod touches.
Speaker 1: It's interesting. I'm curious to know if Apple is considering
Speaker 1: putting HD in any of the iPods. I'm sure that
Speaker 1: as long as they can find a way of cramming
Speaker 1: it into that case without making it any bigger, because
Speaker 1: they're absolutely obsessed with keeping that that small, thin, sleek,
Speaker 1: sexy style. I'm done. Okay, well, then let's go on
Speaker 1: to a little listener mail. And this listener mail comes
Speaker 1: from Cow. Cow says, Holy, I am a not so
Speaker 1: long time listener, but I've listened to every podcast all
Speaker 1: the way back to how the Google Apple Cloud Computer
Speaker 1: Will Work from June two thousand eight. I love your
Speaker 1: podcast and all of your sister podcasts. This is the
Speaker 1: podcast I've listened to the most episodes about the others
Speaker 1: I listened to. Don't compare stuff you should know with
Speaker 1: stuff you missed in history class with high speed stuff
Speaker 1: with about, and lastly stuff on the B side with about.
Speaker 1: This is very very precise. Moving on now, think way back,
Speaker 1: and I mean way back. There are a lot of
Speaker 1: a's in that way back to December two thous eight,
Speaker 1: when you recorded your podcast on how M M O
Speaker 1: RPGs Work. I told you the thing way back when
Speaker 1: I was listening to it the other day, I was
Speaker 1: hit with a completely unexpected little thing, puzzled Pirates. I've
Speaker 1: played it for about a year total now, but never
Speaker 1: really thought too many people knew about it. I was
Speaker 1: really surprised when you mentioned it. Also, since stuff you
Speaker 1: should know has stopped getting high kus, I think you
Speaker 1: guys would love one enjoy this high kup text stuff
Speaker 1: is the best, much better than Josh and Chuck. Listen army. First,
Speaker 1: the last line was only four syllables, but who cares
Speaker 1: when it comes to well listener? Who cares? Lastly, I
Speaker 1: would be interested if you did a podcast on fictional
Speaker 1: devices things like lightsabers, warp drive, et cetera. From the movies.
Speaker 1: Your biggest seventh grade fan, cow Cal specifically requested that
Speaker 1: I use that voice, and I haven't done it in
Speaker 1: a really long time, So there you go. Cal. Chris
Speaker 1: was thankful that I hadn't done that in a really
Speaker 1: long time, and probably most of our listeners too. So
Speaker 1: please direct your email account. No, I'm kidding, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to give out Kel's AMIL address. Well, guys, if
Speaker 1: you have any listener mail you'd like to send us,
Speaker 1: and hey, you know what fictional devices sounds like fun.
Speaker 1: We'll have to do that in the future. If you
Speaker 1: guys have any suggestions, questions, comments that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: You can email us. Our address is text uff at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. Remember we've got our live
Speaker 1: show every Tuesday one o'clock UM Eastern time. You can
Speaker 1: find that at our blogs. Just go to how stuff
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Speaker 1: all about m P three players at house stuff works
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