WEBVTT - The Sad Tale of Microsoft Zune 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:12.360 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:15.720 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Javin Strickland. 0:00:15.720 --> 0:00:18.520 I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and how the 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:23.080 tech are you see, y'all. I'm currently on vacation at 0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:27.320 the moment. I should be somewhere in the Caribbean, and 0:00:27.360 --> 0:00:30.000 that means that I'm not able to record a new 0:00:30.040 --> 0:00:32.199 episode for you today, So I thought I would bring 0:00:32.520 --> 0:00:36.480 an episode from last year, May twenty fourth, twenty twenty three, 0:00:36.560 --> 0:00:40.320 to be exact. This episode is titled The Sad Tale 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:45.880 of Microsoft Zoon. I mentioned the Zoon in a recent 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:48.320 episode of tech Stuff, and it got me to thinking 0:00:48.400 --> 0:01:01.760 back about this particular device. Hope you enjoy well. I 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:06.000 had got a story to tell. Once upon a time, 0:01:06.520 --> 0:01:12.039 two companies like indignity, Apple and Microsoft were locked in 0:01:12.080 --> 0:01:16.319 a battle for the home computer market. Apple had started 0:01:16.319 --> 0:01:20.200 off with a few computer models named after the company itself, 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:22.280 you know, the Apple and the Apple two, and then 0:01:22.680 --> 0:01:25.800 Apple two E and so on and so forth. Microsoft 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:29.800 when a different route. Microsoft gained rights to various pieces 0:01:29.800 --> 0:01:34.280 of software. It developed some but it essentially bought or 0:01:35.160 --> 0:01:39.520 from a certain point of view, maybe not stole, but 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:46.200 definitely hoodwinked some developers and ended up licensing out operating 0:01:46.240 --> 0:01:49.520 system software and things like that. So two very different approaches. 0:01:50.040 --> 0:01:53.840 So by the mid nineteen eighties, the struggle between Apple 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:58.360 and Microsoft had intensified. Apple introduced the Macintosh computer with 0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:02.639 a graphical user interface or GUI GUY in other words, 0:02:03.160 --> 0:02:08.880 Microsoft introduced Windows its own guy operating system, and while 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:13.440 Microsoft wasn't making the hardware, the term Windows PC became 0:02:13.520 --> 0:02:17.320 shorthand it was almost as if Microsoft had been making 0:02:17.360 --> 0:02:20.480 the PCs itself. It wasn't, It was just making the 0:02:20.520 --> 0:02:23.560 operating system on top of the PC. But then the 0:02:23.600 --> 0:02:28.080 operating system was in many ways more important than whomever 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:31.200 made the machine itself, because the operating system would determine 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:34.160 what kind of software you could run on the machine. 0:02:34.440 --> 0:02:38.120 After all. Now, during the eighties and through the nineties, 0:02:38.919 --> 0:02:42.359 Apple was on the ropes for a lot of different reasons, 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:45.400 which I've covered in other episodes of Tech Stuff. At 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:48.880 one point, Apple co founders See Jobs left the company, 0:02:49.280 --> 0:02:52.200 with some versions of the story saying he was essentially fired. 0:02:52.560 --> 0:02:56.880 Other versions say he was just strongly encouraged to leave. 0:02:57.720 --> 0:03:00.840 Apple hit some really really rough one and at one 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:03.280 point it was in danger of going out of business. 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:07.760 Then Apple actually brought Steve Jobs back kind of to 0:03:07.840 --> 0:03:11.639 act as a type of advisor. But it wasn't too 0:03:11.680 --> 0:03:14.560 long before Jobs regained control of the company he had 0:03:14.639 --> 0:03:18.080 co founded. That's also a very dramatic story. After that, 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:21.720 Apple made a series of moves that would really turn 0:03:21.840 --> 0:03:24.040 things around for the company and set it on its 0:03:24.120 --> 0:03:28.320 path to become a trillion dollar company. Now, the interesting 0:03:28.360 --> 0:03:33.600 thing is, while Windows would retain a dominant hold on 0:03:34.000 --> 0:03:38.839 the business and home computer operating system markets, Apple would 0:03:38.920 --> 0:03:43.480 find new ways to become the company associated with entire technologies, 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:47.920 and Apple wasn't inventing these technologies. Instead, the company was 0:03:48.280 --> 0:03:52.280 designing appealing products and then marketing the heck out of them. 0:03:52.760 --> 0:03:56.800 And one product that really helped turn Apple around was 0:03:56.880 --> 0:04:02.040 the iPod, Apple's digital music play so a standalone device 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:05.800 on which you would store and play music. Now, again, 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:08.640 Apple did not invent the MP three player. It was 0:04:08.640 --> 0:04:11.360 not the first company to make one. They just made 0:04:11.360 --> 0:04:15.040 one that looked really nice, it worked well, it had 0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:20.000 some really cool features, and it it really benefited from 0:04:20.080 --> 0:04:23.800 the power of Steve Jobs's presentation at various marketing events, 0:04:24.400 --> 0:04:27.440 and Apple was able to forge some alliance with various 0:04:27.520 --> 0:04:30.440 music labels over the next couple of years, and that 0:04:30.560 --> 0:04:34.600 helped create new opportunities, including the launch of the iTunes 0:04:34.720 --> 0:04:37.880 Store in two thousand and three. So iTunes had been 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:42.279 around before that, but iTunes first started out as software 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:45.279 you would have on your computer and you would use 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:48.760 iTunes to organize your music library, but you couldn't actually 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:53.000 buy music from iTunes at first. Instead, you would buy 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:56.680 a CD, a compact disc, put that in the optical 0:04:56.760 --> 0:05:00.160 drive of your Mac computer, and you would rip music 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:04.960 from the CD and store it digitally within iTunes. That 0:05:04.960 --> 0:05:08.960 would be your organization software essentially, and that's how you 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:11.680 would transfer music over to your iPod too. You would 0:05:11.680 --> 0:05:14.200 physically connect your iPod to your Mac and then you 0:05:14.240 --> 0:05:17.360 would port music over from your library on your Mac 0:05:17.480 --> 0:05:22.360 computer to your iPod. Now, with two years of negotiation, 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:25.240 Steve Jobs was actually able to convince music labels to 0:05:25.440 --> 0:05:29.760 offer up digital tracks for individual purchase within iTunes itself, 0:05:29.800 --> 0:05:32.440 and that was the creation of the iTunes store, where 0:05:32.480 --> 0:05:36.600 instead of using it as just your means of organizing 0:05:36.600 --> 0:05:39.679 your music, it also became the way you could purchase 0:05:39.760 --> 0:05:42.880 new music. That would really push Apple to new heights. 0:05:43.960 --> 0:05:49.760 Microsoft was way behind on the MP three players space. 0:05:49.839 --> 0:05:54.000 They did not jump into that market early on, and 0:05:54.760 --> 0:06:00.920 Apple was able to essentially define that market. Microsoft eventually 0:06:00.960 --> 0:06:04.120 recognized that there was money to be made in the 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:08.720 digital media player space, and the iPod had been out 0:06:08.760 --> 0:06:13.520 for several years, like five years, and then Microsoft decided 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:16.160 they were going to try and create their own digital 0:06:16.240 --> 0:06:20.560 music player. Maybe this one could have some really innovative 0:06:20.560 --> 0:06:23.680 features that would set it apart. Designers could actually take 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:27.480 the opportunity to learn about what worked with the iPod 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:31.600 and what didn't work, or what people wish the iPod 0:06:31.640 --> 0:06:34.839 could do. They could take that information and use that 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:39.159 to design a superior digital media player. They could have 0:06:39.240 --> 0:06:43.480 done that. They didn't succeed in doing that. They tried 0:06:43.520 --> 0:06:45.719 in some ways, but really it was a massive failure, 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:50.640 and it's a shame because Apple's incredible success put aside. 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:54.400 There were people who had notes, not musical notes, but 0:06:54.520 --> 0:06:58.240 like critical notes for the iPod. For example, for folks 0:06:58.279 --> 0:07:02.880 like myself, I did not own a mac computer. Now, initially, 0:07:03.120 --> 0:07:05.720 if you want an iPod, it would only work with 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:08.880 Mac computers. You had to have a Macintosh in order 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:12.600 to synchronize with an iPod. It did not work with 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:16.440 Windows based machines. Later generations of the iPod and later 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:20.400 generations of iTunes would change that, but initially you just 0:07:20.440 --> 0:07:24.760 couldn't do it. And if you did want to use 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:27.440 a Windows based machine with an iPod that was compatible, 0:07:28.040 --> 0:07:31.360 you had to download iTunes. You had to install iTunes 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:37.880 onto your Windows machine, and the Windows version of iTunes stunk, 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:43.240 or at least in my opinion, it stunk. iTunes could 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:46.160 do some stuff that was legitimately useful. You know, it 0:07:46.200 --> 0:07:49.120 could detect when new tracks were added to your library 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:53.520 and then transfer just those new tracks to your iPod 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:56.280 when you next connected your iPod to your computer, But 0:07:56.360 --> 0:08:00.560 at least on PC's iTunes was very slow. It was clunky, 0:08:00.680 --> 0:08:04.440 It took up a ton of space on your computer, 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:08.559 and it required a lot of your computer's assets to run, 0:08:08.960 --> 0:08:12.280 so everything else slowed to a crawl. It seemed like 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:14.680 it was working great on Mac computers whenever I saw 0:08:14.680 --> 0:08:17.600 people in interface with it, but my own experience was 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:21.800 totally different. I hated iTunes on Windows. I thought of 0:08:21.840 --> 0:08:27.080 it as bloatwear or worse, and you couldn't interface with 0:08:27.120 --> 0:08:33.040 the iPod using any other kind of digital media organizational software. 0:08:33.160 --> 0:08:37.439 It had to be iTunes. So this meant that Microsoft 0:08:37.440 --> 0:08:40.280 actually had an opportunity to perhaps design a player and 0:08:40.280 --> 0:08:44.720 a software package that would work more smoothly for people 0:08:44.760 --> 0:08:48.240 who were Windows owners rather than Mac owners. That was 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:51.080 a real opportunity for them. But even with a really 0:08:51.080 --> 0:08:55.319 good product, Microsoft still would have faced a truly tough challenge. 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:59.199 Apple had really defined the MP three player landscape for 0:08:59.320 --> 0:09:04.560 five years. At that point. They had introduced an iPod 0:09:04.679 --> 0:09:11.240 capable of showing video. It had really great reviews. They had, 0:09:11.280 --> 0:09:13.120 you know, models that could hold up to like eighty 0:09:13.200 --> 0:09:19.040 gigs of material. It could be a storage product, so 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:21.400 you could actually store files on your iPod, not just 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:23.839 media files, but other types as well. There are a 0:09:23.840 --> 0:09:28.199 lot of reasons why the iPod was seen as a 0:09:28.240 --> 0:09:31.240 great product. I mean, heck, the iPod is why we 0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:36.080 call podcasts podcasts like we call it podcasts because Apple 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:41.120 created this product that defined an entire generation of technology, 0:09:41.480 --> 0:09:44.679 so that brand was really entrenched in the minds of consumers. 0:09:44.679 --> 0:09:48.480 So even with a spectacular product, Microsoft was going to 0:09:48.520 --> 0:09:53.320 face uphill battle. But it wasn't a spectacular product, so 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:56.600 the battle was even harder. The very first Microsoft Zoon 0:09:57.600 --> 0:10:01.319 was originally just called the Zoon, but later on Microsoft 0:10:01.400 --> 0:10:04.240 called it the Zoon thirty, and the thirty in this 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:07.520 case references the amount of storage available on the device. 0:10:07.559 --> 0:10:11.320 It had a thirty gigabyte hard drive. A company called 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:16.760 Freescale made the processor that ran in the Zoom thirty. 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:20.840 It also made the processor for another digital player called 0:10:20.840 --> 0:10:26.000 the Tashiba gigabeat S. In fact, the Zoon resembled the 0:10:26.040 --> 0:10:30.959 Tashiba gigabeat S in many many ways, like it almost 0:10:31.080 --> 0:10:34.520 was as if the Zoon was essentially a Gigabeit s 0:10:34.600 --> 0:10:37.480 from Tashiba that had gone through a little bit of 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:41.840 a redesign that changed the dimensions of the player and 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:45.920 maybe some some aesthetics, but otherwise it looked like it 0:10:46.000 --> 0:10:48.640 was very similar to the Gigabeats. And that's because that's 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:53.880 what it happened. Microsoft didn't really build the Zoon. Tashiba did. 0:10:54.320 --> 0:10:57.840 Microsoft made some changes to the design, but they were 0:10:58.120 --> 0:11:02.600 mostly cosmetic in nature. So Freescale used to be a 0:11:02.640 --> 0:11:06.800 division within Motorola until two thousand and four, when Motorola 0:11:06.920 --> 0:11:10.520 divested the division and it became Freescale. In twenty fifteen, 0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:14.599 Freescale would become absorbed into a company called NXP Semiconductors. 0:11:15.120 --> 0:11:18.080 So the Zoom came out in a brief span of 0:11:18.120 --> 0:11:23.119 time where Freescale was its own company, and unfortunately, someone 0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:27.760 made a booboo with the drivers for the Freescale processors 0:11:28.000 --> 0:11:30.720 that went into both the Zoom thirty and the gigabeit s. 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:34.240 It was a booboo that wouldn't become noticeable for a 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:39.040 couple of years, which is foreshadowing. We'll talk about it 0:11:39.280 --> 0:11:42.680 when we get there. Okay, before we go any further, 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:57.480 let's take a quick break. Okay, we're back. So when 0:11:57.520 --> 0:12:00.960 the Zoon thirty launched initial you could get it in 0:12:01.120 --> 0:12:04.040 one of three colors. There was like a pearl white, 0:12:04.520 --> 0:12:10.760 there was black, and there was brown. I have no 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:14.880 idea what made Microsoft think that brown would be a 0:12:15.000 --> 0:12:18.800 sought after color for an MP three player. I don't 0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:21.240 know how they didn't anticipate that this was going to 0:12:21.280 --> 0:12:25.640 create a whole bunch of jokes about the nature of 0:12:25.679 --> 0:12:28.479 that MP three player. It's like they were setting themselves 0:12:28.679 --> 0:12:33.840 up to be hazed. Surely someone at Microsoft at some 0:12:33.880 --> 0:12:36.040 point said, guys, this might not be a good idea, 0:12:36.160 --> 0:12:39.560 and yet they went with it. So the original Zooon 0:12:40.000 --> 0:12:42.400 had a three inch screen and a four x three 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:46.160 aspect ratio, so taller than it was wide. This was 0:12:46.200 --> 0:12:48.319 a much larger screen than what you could find on 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:51.400 the iPod at the time. That was really impressive, right, 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:54.760 Like it was a bigger device than the iPod. It 0:12:54.840 --> 0:12:59.160 was definitely thicker too, like it was a chonky boy 0:12:59.520 --> 0:13:02.760 as they might say, and it was going to be 0:13:02.800 --> 0:13:06.199 a hefty piece of plastic that you were going to 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:08.720 hold in your pocket if you're going to walk around 0:13:08.720 --> 0:13:11.600 with one of these things. But the screen was very large, 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:15.960 which was impressive. The UI was pretty nice too, at 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:18.920 least on a surface level. It did turn out that 0:13:19.040 --> 0:13:23.040 the resolution of that larger screen was actually the exact 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:29.280 same resolution as the smaller iPod screen, which means that 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:34.400 images shown on the iPod would appear sharper than those 0:13:34.440 --> 0:13:36.360 that you would see on the Zoon because you had 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:40.040 the exact same resolution, but the Zoon had a larger screen, 0:13:40.559 --> 0:13:43.400 so same resolution, but an in large screen means that 0:13:43.480 --> 0:13:47.040 the images on that screen are blurrier. It could play video, 0:13:47.559 --> 0:13:50.599 but it was kind of immaterial because you couldn't just 0:13:50.679 --> 0:13:53.480 use video from any source, and the Zoon marketplace didn't 0:13:53.520 --> 0:13:57.360 have video on it, so you couldn't purchase video to 0:13:57.360 --> 0:14:00.480 play on it. It could technically support it, but there 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:02.960 wasn't really any way to get video onto it, at 0:14:03.000 --> 0:14:06.880 least initially. It ran a custom version of Microsoft's Portable 0:14:07.000 --> 0:14:12.840 Media Center software. The user interface, the actual controls, well, 0:14:12.920 --> 0:14:16.400 it had a circular dpad like it didn't look like 0:14:16.440 --> 0:14:19.360 a dpad. It looked like a click wheel like if 0:14:19.400 --> 0:14:22.120 you think of the old iPods, they had a mechanical 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:25.720 wheel where you would put your thumb on this wheel 0:14:25.800 --> 0:14:28.360 and you would spin the wheel in order to navigate 0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:31.120 through the menus. That's what this thing looked like. It had. 0:14:31.160 --> 0:14:33.560 It looked like a very similar control mechanism, but no, 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:36.880 it was just a dpad in the form of a circle, 0:14:36.960 --> 0:14:40.280 and then in the center of the circle was a 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:43.600 button that you could use to select stuff. So like 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:46.840 a dpad on a game controller, you would push up, down, left, 0:14:46.920 --> 0:14:49.720 or right to navigate through menus and then use that 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:53.840 center button to make a selection. So kind of a 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:57.280 bummer because it looked like the control was meant to 0:14:57.800 --> 0:15:00.680 be more tactile and touch based, and it's not. It 0:15:00.720 --> 0:15:03.400 was just a dpad. The Zoom did have a couple 0:15:03.480 --> 0:15:06.360 of neat features. However, it had Wi Fi capability. The 0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:13.040 Zoon thirty had WiFi sort of, so you could use 0:15:13.280 --> 0:15:18.760 the zoon's Wi Fi to connect with another Zoon that 0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:22.480 was in the same local space that you were in, 0:15:22.520 --> 0:15:25.000 like the same room or whatever, and then the two 0:15:25.080 --> 0:15:29.760 Zoon owners could share songs and even photos between the 0:15:29.760 --> 0:15:31.880 two different Zoon devices. So if you had a photo 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:34.440 on your device, which by the way, there's no camera 0:15:34.480 --> 0:15:36.520 on the Zoon, so you had to have loaded this 0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:40.600 photo on from your computer. Or maybe you have a 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:43.040 music track you really liked and you wanted to share 0:15:43.080 --> 0:15:45.120 it with your buddy who also happens to have a Zoon. 0:15:45.440 --> 0:15:48.720 You could use this method and send that music file 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:51.840 over to your buddy. But uh, if you wanted to 0:15:51.880 --> 0:15:55.000 purchase a song and put it on your Zooon, you 0:15:55.000 --> 0:15:57.200 couldn't do it wirelessly. You still had to do the 0:15:57.240 --> 0:16:01.800 old tethered connection. You'd purchase the song through the zooon 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:05.640 marketplace on your computer. You would tether your Zoom to 0:16:05.720 --> 0:16:08.520 the computer and then transfer the music that way. Now, 0:16:08.760 --> 0:16:12.600 let's say you did somehow find the other person in 0:16:12.640 --> 0:16:15.440 your town who also owned a Zoom, and the two 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:18.160 of you decided that you wanted to exchange a song. 0:16:19.040 --> 0:16:21.200 You could do that if you were close enough to them, 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:23.560 you could send them a track, but they would have 0:16:23.960 --> 0:16:28.440 just three days to access that track, and they can 0:16:28.600 --> 0:16:31.040 play it a maximum of three times, and then it 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:34.880 would just delete itself off their device, so after three 0:16:34.960 --> 0:16:39.280 days or after three plays, that song would disappear. They 0:16:39.360 --> 0:16:42.080 called this feature, and I can't believe it to this 0:16:42.200 --> 0:16:44.520 day that they did this. This is like the Brown 0:16:44.720 --> 0:16:49.840 Zoom decision. They called this feature squirting, so you would 0:16:49.920 --> 0:16:53.600 squirt a music track to another Zoom user. And I 0:16:53.800 --> 0:16:57.200 know it sounds like I'm making a joke, I am not. 0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:03.600 An actual company created a Brown MP three player that 0:17:03.760 --> 0:17:08.120 could squirt music at other MP three players, and yes, 0:17:09.000 --> 0:17:12.960 everybody made fun of this. For ages. You couldn't listen 0:17:13.000 --> 0:17:16.680 to a tech podcast, you couldn't read an article without 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:21.680 some commentary on the topic of squirting. This was the 0:17:21.720 --> 0:17:25.800 extent of the Zoom thirties Wi Fi capabilities. Was just 0:17:26.200 --> 0:17:30.119 sending these files a short distance to another Zoon. That 0:17:30.280 --> 0:17:35.160 was it. And like Apple, Microsoft went with a proprietary 0:17:35.280 --> 0:17:38.040 cable when it came to connecting to the zooon to 0:17:38.320 --> 0:17:41.320 charge it or to transfer files to it. The zoon 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:44.600 did have one other thing that I thought was pretty cool. 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:47.560 It had an FM radio built into it, and I 0:17:47.600 --> 0:17:50.320 thought that was kind of neat. So like Microsoft was 0:17:50.359 --> 0:17:54.080 trying to position this as it's a music device, not 0:17:54.280 --> 0:17:58.280 just for digital files but also to access radio. But 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:02.400 Microsoft didn't really learn learn a whole lot about what 0:18:02.520 --> 0:18:05.119 people disliked about the iPod because they made several of 0:18:05.200 --> 0:18:08.280 the same choices. So one of the big drawbacks of 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:11.600 the original Zoon was that they would only work with 0:18:11.640 --> 0:18:15.440 files that had a certain kind of DRM attached to them. 0:18:15.680 --> 0:18:20.119 DRM stands for Digital Rights Management, and the whole purpose 0:18:20.160 --> 0:18:22.960 of DRM is to prevent people from being able to 0:18:23.000 --> 0:18:26.760 pirate stuff, to steal things, or to download stuff without permission. 0:18:27.160 --> 0:18:32.000 But even DRM that Microsoft itself had designed before the 0:18:32.119 --> 0:18:35.639 Zoon came out wouldn't work on the Zoon itself. It 0:18:35.680 --> 0:18:41.600 wasn't backwards compatible with Microsoft's own DRM history, and that's 0:18:41.600 --> 0:18:45.639 because Microsoft introduced a new kind of DRM around the 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:48.440 same time that they launched the Zoon, and the Zoon 0:18:48.440 --> 0:18:53.159 would only be compatible with that version forward. And that 0:18:53.280 --> 0:18:55.640 meant that if you happened to already have a bunch 0:18:55.720 --> 0:18:59.800 of music tracks that had the earlier version of Microsoft's 0:18:59.840 --> 0:19:02.680 d on them, they would not work with your Zoom. 0:19:02.960 --> 0:19:06.240 So this was very discouraging. Right if you already had 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:09.480 a sizeable digital library and you were just excited about 0:19:09.480 --> 0:19:11.760 getting a player where you could put the library on 0:19:11.800 --> 0:19:14.639 the player, it would be very upsetting to find out, oh, 0:19:14.680 --> 0:19:18.080 you can't because that has the wrong DRM on it. 0:19:18.160 --> 0:19:23.680 Like in the history of technology, DRM I think has 0:19:23.800 --> 0:19:27.560 long proven to be more of a frustration for legitimate 0:19:27.680 --> 0:19:31.080 users than it has been a deterrent for piracy pirates 0:19:31.080 --> 0:19:35.080 figure out ways around DRM, which means DRM ultimately just 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:40.080 becomes a frustrating experience for people who legitimately purchased the item. 0:19:40.440 --> 0:19:44.800 So DRM is bad, is what I'm saying. Like it 0:19:44.800 --> 0:19:47.119 doesn't do what it's supposed to do, and then it 0:19:47.240 --> 0:19:50.360 does do stuff it's not supposed to do. That's the 0:19:50.400 --> 0:19:55.560 definition of a bad product. Anyway. Microsoft also did something 0:19:56.040 --> 0:20:01.560 supremely stupid in my opinion, that it had previously done 0:20:01.640 --> 0:20:06.000 with its Xbox marketplace, which is, instead of having Zoom 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:11.560 users buy tracks with you know, real money, you first 0:20:11.600 --> 0:20:15.760 had to go through this process of purchasing Microsoft points 0:20:15.880 --> 0:20:19.679 and then using the Microsoft points to get tracks, so 0:20:19.720 --> 0:20:22.120 you would redeem points for tracks. So there was this 0:20:22.920 --> 0:20:26.600 middle step that was really frustrating. Part of this was 0:20:26.640 --> 0:20:30.479 to obfuscate how expensive a track was, right because they 0:20:30.520 --> 0:20:32.720 didn't have a dollar amount associated with it, just a 0:20:32.800 --> 0:20:34.439 number of points, and you would have to do the 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:37.160 math in your head to figure out, okay, well, how 0:20:37.200 --> 0:20:40.760 many points is equivalent to a dollar? Right? But you 0:20:40.840 --> 0:20:43.119 never could buy them in increments of a dollar. It 0:20:43.160 --> 0:20:45.760 would always be like five dollars or more. So that 0:20:45.840 --> 0:20:47.520 also meant that if all you wanted to do was 0:20:47.560 --> 0:20:49.919 buy one track, you actually had to spend five bucks 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:52.800 to do it, not a dollar, but five dollars just 0:20:52.840 --> 0:20:55.359 to get the points, and then you would end up 0:20:55.359 --> 0:20:58.439 with this bank of Microsoft points just sitting in your 0:20:58.480 --> 0:21:02.680 account doing nothing. So this Microsoft was not the only 0:21:02.880 --> 0:21:05.520 company to ever do this. I mean Disney did this 0:21:05.880 --> 0:21:09.240 at their parks. They had something called Disney dollars, and 0:21:09.280 --> 0:21:12.959 they were encouraging people to spend their real money to 0:21:13.040 --> 0:21:16.640 buy theme park currency where you couldn't use that currency 0:21:16.800 --> 0:21:20.679 anywhere else but inside those theme parks. Knowing that at 0:21:20.760 --> 0:21:22.240 least some of your money was just going to be 0:21:22.320 --> 0:21:24.920 wasted on this currency, you wouldn't be able to redeem 0:21:25.080 --> 0:21:27.680 all of it, so you would actually spend more money 0:21:27.680 --> 0:21:30.800 at the parks, but you wouldn't get value out of 0:21:30.800 --> 0:21:32.920 all the money you spent because some of it would 0:21:32.920 --> 0:21:35.320 just be caught up in this fake currency and you 0:21:35.359 --> 0:21:38.200 don't have enough of it to do anything useful. Microsoft 0:21:38.240 --> 0:21:42.040 points were the same way. Ultimately, Microsoft would back off 0:21:42.080 --> 0:21:45.320 of the system on the Xbox marketplace, but they were 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:48.760 still going strong with it when the Zooon launched. Okay, 0:21:48.760 --> 0:21:50.800 we're going to take another quick break. I've got some 0:21:50.800 --> 0:21:53.280 more things to say about the Zoon before we wrap up. 0:22:02.960 --> 0:22:07.159 All right, we're back. I'm not done slagging off on 0:22:07.200 --> 0:22:11.240 the Zoon yet. Unlike the original iPod, the Zoon could 0:22:11.280 --> 0:22:15.160 not be used as a storage device for other files. Right, 0:22:15.240 --> 0:22:16.879 Like I had mentioned that that was one of the 0:22:16.880 --> 0:22:18.840 things you could use an iPod for. You could store 0:22:18.880 --> 0:22:20.840 files on it, you could use it like an external 0:22:20.880 --> 0:22:23.360 hard drive. You could not do that with the Zoon. 0:22:24.240 --> 0:22:28.800 It also didn't support lossless file formats like wave files 0:22:29.680 --> 0:22:33.640 or wave files if you preferred WAV. Lossless means that 0:22:33.760 --> 0:22:38.800 when you create that digital file, you haven't lost any 0:22:38.920 --> 0:22:42.320 of the information contained within that file. So when you 0:22:42.400 --> 0:22:46.840 convert music into a digital file, a lossless form factor 0:22:46.880 --> 0:22:52.240 means everything that was in that recording is there. Loossy 0:22:52.359 --> 0:22:56.160 means that the process of making that file will actually 0:22:56.240 --> 0:23:00.920 eliminate some information. Ideally it's information that wouldn't affect your 0:23:01.119 --> 0:23:06.160 experience listening to the audio file, but the quality typically 0:23:06.240 --> 0:23:10.600 takes a hit, whereas lossless year getting the highest quality 0:23:10.680 --> 0:23:14.680 possible based upon whatever recording procedure was used. So reviews 0:23:14.720 --> 0:23:17.960 said that Zoon's playback quality was good despite the lack 0:23:18.000 --> 0:23:21.639 of support for lossless audio, but it also said like 0:23:21.800 --> 0:23:25.080 album art, despite being shown on a larger screen than 0:23:25.119 --> 0:23:27.959 the iPod, didn't look very good. And again it's because 0:23:28.520 --> 0:23:33.119 of those resolution issues. So Microsoft pushes out the first 0:23:33.200 --> 0:23:36.280 Zoom in two thousand and six. That's unfortunate wording. I 0:23:36.359 --> 0:23:39.680 probably should have said something else. Anyway, that year, two 0:23:39.680 --> 0:23:43.680 thousand and six, Apple sold nearly thirty nine and a 0:23:43.800 --> 0:23:49.480 half million iPods. Now that was impressive because up until 0:23:49.560 --> 0:23:54.880 two thousand and six, collectively, across every single generation of iPod, 0:23:54.960 --> 0:23:58.560 Apple had sold around forty million units, and in two 0:23:58.600 --> 0:24:02.159 thousand and six they saw nearly as many just in 0:24:02.160 --> 0:24:04.960 that one year. So, in other words, like in one year, 0:24:05.000 --> 0:24:07.720 they doubled the number of iPods they had sold throughout 0:24:07.720 --> 0:24:12.280 the history of the product, So Apple really was in 0:24:12.359 --> 0:24:16.320 the dominant position for the digital media player space. So 0:24:16.359 --> 0:24:19.119 how did the Zoom do well the first couple of weeks? 0:24:19.119 --> 0:24:23.679 It did okay. Initially sales were slow, but CNN reported 0:24:23.760 --> 0:24:25.440 at the end of the second week that had moved 0:24:25.440 --> 0:24:28.880 into the number two spot for digital media players. That 0:24:29.119 --> 0:24:31.200 does kind of ignore the fact that the number one 0:24:31.320 --> 0:24:34.680 spot was light years ahead of it, Like it wasn't 0:24:34.720 --> 0:24:38.760 even close, and being one and two doesn't mean so 0:24:38.880 --> 0:24:42.720 much if number one is like fifty miles ahead of 0:24:42.760 --> 0:24:46.879 you in a foot race. Microsoft, in a rush to 0:24:46.920 --> 0:24:49.120 try and make up for five years of lost time, 0:24:49.200 --> 0:24:53.680 had launched a bit of a flop. It was received 0:24:53.720 --> 0:24:56.720 fairly well critically. The critics didn't hate it. They did 0:24:56.720 --> 0:25:00.280 point out some of the downsides and the ways that 0:25:00.359 --> 0:25:03.960 the Zoon failed to live up to the standard of 0:25:04.000 --> 0:25:05.800 the iPod, as well as some of the things that 0:25:05.840 --> 0:25:09.959 were really interesting that Microsoft had done. But there were 0:25:10.000 --> 0:25:13.600 a lot of things to criticize. So Microsoft gets back 0:25:13.640 --> 0:25:16.320 to work and gets to work on the second generation 0:25:16.440 --> 0:25:20.760 of the Zoon. This generation would actually ditch that circular 0:25:20.920 --> 0:25:26.280 dpad and instead use a touch sensitive little surface. It 0:25:26.320 --> 0:25:29.760 was a quasi square and I say Quasi because it 0:25:29.800 --> 0:25:34.600 had rounded corners. It didn't have actual angular corners, but 0:25:34.920 --> 0:25:38.280 it was a surface where you could use touch commands 0:25:38.320 --> 0:25:41.800