WEBVTT - The Sad Tale of Microsoft Zune 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:12.479 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.480 --> 0:00:16.200 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:20.400 I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio. And how the tech 0:00:20.560 --> 0:00:25.360 are you? Well, I've got a story to tell. Once 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:31.160 upon a time, two companies like indignity, Apple and Microsoft 0:00:31.520 --> 0:00:35.559 were locked in a battle for the home computer market. 0:00:35.640 --> 0:00:39.400 Apple had started off with a few computer models named 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:41.479 after the company itself, you know, the Apple and the 0:00:41.479 --> 0:00:44.279 Apple two, and then Apple two E and so on 0:00:44.320 --> 0:00:48.800 and so forth. Microsoft when a different route. Microsoft gained 0:00:48.880 --> 0:00:52.080 rights to various pieces of software. It developed some, but 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:56.720 it essentially bought or from a certain point of view, 0:00:57.600 --> 0:01:04.200 maybe not stole, but it definitely hoodwinked some developers and 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:08.120 ended up licensing out operating system software and things like that. 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:12.240 So two very different approaches. So by the mid nineteen eighties, 0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:16.920 the struggle between Apple and Microsoft had intensified. Apple introduced 0:01:16.959 --> 0:01:22.240 the Macintosh computer with a graphical user interface or GUI GUY. 0:01:22.360 --> 0:01:28.080 In other words, Microsoft introduced Windows, its own Guy operating system, 0:01:28.760 --> 0:01:32.440 and while Microsoft wasn't making the hardware, the term Windows 0:01:32.520 --> 0:01:37.080 PC became shorthand it was almost as if Microsoft had 0:01:37.160 --> 0:01:40.440 been making the PCs itself. It wasn't it was just 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:42.880 making the operating system on top of the PC. But 0:01:42.959 --> 0:01:46.600 then the operating system was in many ways more important 0:01:47.160 --> 0:01:50.880 than whomever made the machine itself, because the operating system 0:01:50.880 --> 0:01:53.960 would determine what kind of software you could run on 0:01:53.960 --> 0:01:57.760 the machine after all. Now, during the eighties and through 0:01:57.800 --> 0:02:01.920 the nineties, Apple was on the ropes for a lot 0:02:01.960 --> 0:02:04.560 of different reasons, which I've covered in other episodes of 0:02:04.600 --> 0:02:08.200 Tech Stuff. At one point, Apple co founder Steve Jobs 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:11.240 left the company, with some versions of the story saying 0:02:11.240 --> 0:02:14.840 he was essentially fired. Other versions say he was just 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:20.280 strongly encouraged to leave. Apple hit some really really rough 0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:22.720 waters and at one point it was in danger of 0:02:22.760 --> 0:02:26.920 going out of business. Then Apple actually brought Steve Jobs 0:02:26.960 --> 0:02:30.080 back kind of to act as a type of advisor. 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:34.040 But it wasn't too long before Jobs regained control of 0:02:34.080 --> 0:02:36.520 the company he had co founded. That's also a very 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:40.200 dramatic story. After that, Apple made a series of moves 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:43.680 that would really turn things around for the company and 0:02:43.720 --> 0:02:48.120 set it on its path to become a trillion dollar company. Now, 0:02:48.160 --> 0:02:52.760 the interesting thing is, while Windows would retain a dominant 0:02:52.760 --> 0:02:57.480 hold on the business and home computer operating system markets. 0:02:58.240 --> 0:03:01.760 Apple would find new ways to become the company associated 0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:07.520 with entire technologies, and Apple wasn't inventing these technologies. Instead, 0:03:07.560 --> 0:03:11.800 the company was designing appealing products and then marketing the 0:03:11.840 --> 0:03:15.240 heck out of them. And one product that really helped 0:03:15.320 --> 0:03:20.520 turn Apple around was the iPod, Apple's digital music player, 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:24.320 so a standalone device on which you would store and 0:03:24.480 --> 0:03:28.040 play music. Now, again, Apple did not invent the MP 0:03:28.160 --> 0:03:30.560 three player. It was not the first company to make one. 0:03:31.040 --> 0:03:34.680 They just made one that looked really nice, It worked well, 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:39.880 it had some really cool features, and it really benefited 0:03:40.200 --> 0:03:44.160 from the power of Steve Jobs's presentation at various marketing events, 0:03:44.760 --> 0:03:47.800 and Apple was able to forge some alliance with various 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:50.800 music labels over the next couple of years, and that 0:03:50.920 --> 0:03:54.960 helped create new opportunities, including the launch of the iTunes 0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:58.240 store in two thousand and three. So iTunes had been 0:03:58.280 --> 0:04:02.640 around before that, but iTunes first started out as software 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:05.640 you would have on your computer and you would use 0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:09.080 iTunes to organize your music library, but you couldn't actually 0:04:09.320 --> 0:04:13.360 buy music from iTunes at first. Instead, you would buy 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:17.039 a CD, a compact disc, put that in the optical 0:04:17.120 --> 0:04:20.520 drive of your Mac computer. And you would rip music 0:04:20.960 --> 0:04:25.320 from the CD and store it digitally within iTunes. That 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:29.320 would be your organization software essentially, and that's how you 0:04:29.320 --> 0:04:32.040 would transfer music over to your iPod too. You would 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:34.560 physically connect your iPod to your Mac and then you 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:37.760 would port music over from your library on your Mac 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:42.719 computer to your iPod. Now, with two years of negotiation, 0:04:42.880 --> 0:04:45.599 Steve Jobs was actually able to convince music labels to 0:04:45.800 --> 0:04:50.120 offer up digital tracks for individual purchase within iTunes itself, 0:04:50.160 --> 0:04:52.800 and that was the creation of the iTunes store, where 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:56.960 instead of using it as just your means of organizing 0:04:56.960 --> 0:04:59.960 your music, it also became the way you could purchase 0:05:00.160 --> 0:05:03.520 new music. That would really push Apple to new heights. 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:10.120 Microsoft was way behind on the MP three player space. 0:05:10.200 --> 0:05:14.360 They did not jump into that market early on, and 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:21.280 Apple was able to essentially define that market. Microsoft eventually 0:05:21.320 --> 0:05:24.479 recognized that there was money to be made in the 0:05:24.560 --> 0:05:29.080 digital media player space, and the iPod had been out 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:33.880 for several years, like five years, and then Microsoft decided 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:36.520 they were going to try and create their own digital 0:05:36.600 --> 0:05:40.919 music player. Maybe this one could have some really innovative 0:05:40.920 --> 0:05:44.040 features that would set it apart. Designers could actually take 0:05:44.080 --> 0:05:47.839 the opportunity to learn about what worked with the iPod 0:05:47.960 --> 0:05:51.960 and what didn't work, or what people wish the iPod 0:05:52.000 --> 0:05:55.200 could do. They could take that information and use that 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:59.520 to design a superior digital media player. They could have 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:03.840 done that. They didn't succeed in doing that. They tried 0:06:03.880 --> 0:06:06.080 in some ways, but really it was a massive failure, 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:11.000 and it's a shame because Apple's incredible success put aside. 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:14.800 There were people who had notes, not musical notes, but 0:06:14.880 --> 0:06:18.600 like critical notes for the iPod. For example, for folks 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:23.240 like myself, I did not own a mac computer. Now, initially, 0:06:23.480 --> 0:06:26.039 if you wanted an iPod, it would only work with 0:06:26.120 --> 0:06:29.200 Mac computers. You had to have a Macintosh in order 0:06:29.560 --> 0:06:32.960 to synchronize with an iPod. It did not work with 0:06:33.000 --> 0:06:36.800 Windows based machines. Later generations of the iPod and later 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:40.760 generations of iTunes would change that, but initially you just 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:45.120 couldn't do it. And if you did want to use 0:06:45.160 --> 0:06:47.800 a Windows based machine with an iPod that was compatible, 0:06:48.400 --> 0:06:51.719 you had to download iTunes. You had to install iTunes 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:59.080 onto your Windows machine, and the Windows version of iTunes stunk, or, 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:03.680 at least in my opinionion it stunk. iTunes could do 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:06.760 some stuff that was legitimately useful. You know, it could 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:10.040 detect when new tracks were added to your library, and 0:07:10.080 --> 0:07:14.160 then transferred just those new tracks to your iPod when 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:16.800 you next connected your iPod to your computer. But at 0:07:16.880 --> 0:07:20.960 least on PC's, iTunes was very slow. It was clunky, 0:07:21.040 --> 0:07:24.800 It took up a ton of space on your computer, 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:28.920 and it required a lot of your computer's assets to run, 0:07:29.320 --> 0:07:32.640 so everything else slowed to a crawl. It seemed like 0:07:32.720 --> 0:07:35.040 it was working great on Mac computers whenever I saw 0:07:35.040 --> 0:07:37.800 people in our interface with it, but my own experience 0:07:37.880 --> 0:07:42.080 was totally different. I hated iTunes on Windows. I thought 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:47.320 of it as bloatwear or worse. And you couldn't interface 0:07:47.360 --> 0:07:51.160 with the iPod using any other kind of digital media 0:07:52.120 --> 0:07:57.040 organizational software. It had to be iTunes. So this meant 0:07:57.080 --> 0:08:00.200 that Microsoft actually had an opportunity to perhaps design a 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:04.600 player and a software package that would work more smoothly 0:08:04.720 --> 0:08:07.720 for people who were Windows owners rather than Mac owners. 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:11.000 That was a real opportunity for them. But even with 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:14.480 a really good product, Microsoft still would have faced a 0:08:14.520 --> 0:08:18.280 truly tough challenge. Apple had really defined the MP three 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:21.640 player landscape for five years. At that point, they had 0:08:21.720 --> 0:08:30.239 introduced an iPod capable of showing video. It had really 0:08:30.240 --> 0:08:33.000 great reviews. They had models that could hold up to 0:08:33.040 --> 0:08:39.160 like eighty gigs of material. It could be a storage product, 0:08:39.320 --> 0:08:41.560 so you could actually store files on your iPod, not 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:44.160 just media files, but other types as well. There are 0:08:44.160 --> 0:08:48.480 a lot of reasons why the iPod was seen as 0:08:48.520 --> 0:08:51.400 a great product. I mean, heck, the iPod is why 0:08:51.480 --> 0:08:56.079 we call podcasts podcasts like we call it podcasts because 0:08:56.120 --> 0:09:01.480 Apple created this product that defined an entire generation of technology, 0:09:01.840 --> 0:09:05.040 so that brand was really entrenched in the minds of consumers. 0:09:05.040 --> 0:09:08.839 So even with a spectacular product, Microsoft was going to 0:09:08.880 --> 0:09:13.679 face uphill battle. But it wasn't a spectacular product, so 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:16.960 the battle was even harder. The very first Microsoft Zoon 0:09:17.960 --> 0:09:21.679 was originally just called the Zoon, but later on Microsoft 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:24.600 called it the Zoon thirty, and the thirty in this 0:09:24.760 --> 0:09:27.880 case references the amount of storage available on the device. 0:09:27.920 --> 0:09:31.680 It had a thirty gigabyte hard drive. A company called 0:09:32.000 --> 0:09:37.120 Freescale made the processor that ran in the Zoom thirty. 0:09:37.360 --> 0:09:41.200 It also made the processor for another digital player called 0:09:41.200 --> 0:09:46.360 the Tashiba Gigabeat S. In fact, the Zoon resembled the 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:51.319 Tashiba Gigabeat S in many many ways, like it almost 0:09:51.440 --> 0:09:54.880 was as if the Zoon was essentially a Gigabeit s 0:09:54.960 --> 0:09:57.840 from Tashiba that had gone through a little bit of 0:09:57.880 --> 0:10:02.200 a redesign that changed the dimensions of the player and 0:10:02.440 --> 0:10:06.320 maybe some some aesthetics, but otherwise it looked like it 0:10:06.360 --> 0:10:08.800 was very similar to the Gigabeat s. And that's because 0:10:08.800 --> 0:10:13.160 that's what it happened. Microsoft didn't really build the Zoon 0:10:13.400 --> 0:10:16.720 to Shiba did. Microsoft made some changes to the design, 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:22.640 but they were mostly cosmetic in nature. So Freescale used 0:10:22.640 --> 0:10:26.240 to be a division within Motorola until two thousand and 0:10:26.280 --> 0:10:29.800 four when Motorola divested the division and it became Freescale. 0:10:29.880 --> 0:10:33.240 In twenty fifteen, Freescale would become absorbed into a company 0:10:33.280 --> 0:10:37.640 called NXP Semiconductors. So the Zoom came out in a 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:41.000 brief span of time where Freescale was its own company, 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:46.600 And unfortunately, someone made a booboo with the drivers for 0:10:46.679 --> 0:10:49.960 the Freescale processors that went into both the Zoom thirty 0:10:50.040 --> 0:10:53.200 and the Gigabeat s. It was a booboo that wouldn't 0:10:53.240 --> 0:10:58.080 become noticeable for a couple of years, which is foreshadowing. 0:10:58.360 --> 0:11:02.160 We'll talk about it when we get there. Okay, before 0:11:02.160 --> 0:11:15.760 we go any further. Let's take a quick break. Okay, 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:20.600 we're back. So when the Zoon thirty launched, initially you 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:23.240 could get it in one of three colors. There was 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:27.680 like a pearl white, there was black, and there was brown. 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:34.120 I have no idea what made Microsoft think that brown 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:37.880 would be a sought after color for an MP three player. 0:11:38.760 --> 0:11:41.240 I don't know how they didn't anticipate that this was 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:45.280 going to create a whole bunch of jokes about the 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:47.760 nature of that MP three player. It's like they were 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:53.960 setting themselves up to be hazed. Surely someone at Microsoft 0:11:54.000 --> 0:11:55.760 at some point said, guys, this might not be a 0:11:55.800 --> 0:11:59.040 good idea, and yet they went with it. So the 0:11:59.120 --> 0:12:02.160 original Zoon had a three inch screen and a four 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:05.560 x three aspect ratio, so taller than it was wide. 0:12:06.240 --> 0:12:08.200 This was a much larger screen than what you could 0:12:08.320 --> 0:12:11.760 find on the iPod at the time. That was really impressive, right, 0:12:11.920 --> 0:12:15.160 Like it was a bigger device than the iPod. It 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:19.520 was definitely thicker too, Like it was a chonky boy, 0:12:19.920 --> 0:12:23.280 as they might say, And it was gonna be a 0:12:23.320 --> 0:12:26.960 hefty piece of plastic that you were gonna hold in 0:12:27.000 --> 0:12:29.280 your pocket if you're going to walk around with one 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:32.320 of these things. But the screen was very large, which 0:12:32.400 --> 0:12:36.640 was impressive. The UI was pretty nice too, at least 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:40.240 on a surface level. It did turn out that the 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:43.680 resolution of that larger screen was actually the exact same 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:50.240 resolution as the smaller iPod screen, which means that images 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:54.880 shown on the iPod would appear sharper than those that 0:12:54.960 --> 0:12:56.800 you would see on the Zoon because you had the 0:12:56.840 --> 0:13:00.440 exact same resolution, but the Zoon had a larger screen, 0:13:00.920 --> 0:13:03.760 so same resolution, but an in large screen means that 0:13:03.840 --> 0:13:07.400 the images on that screen are blurrier. It could play video, 0:13:07.920 --> 0:13:11.000 but it was kind of immaterial because you couldn't just 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:13.840 use video from any source, and the Zoom marketplace didn't 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:17.720 have video on it, so you couldn't purchase video to 0:13:17.720 --> 0:13:20.800 play on it. It could technically support it, but there 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:23.320 wasn't really any way to get video onto it, at 0:13:23.360 --> 0:13:27.240 least initially. It ran a custom version of Microsoft's Portable 0:13:27.360 --> 0:13:33.200 Media Center software. The user interface, the actual controls, well, 0:13:33.280 --> 0:13:36.800 it had a circular dpad like It didn't look like 0:13:36.800 --> 0:13:39.719 a dpad. It looked like a click wheel like if 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:42.480 you think of the old iPods, they had a mechanical 0:13:42.559 --> 0:13:46.079 wheel where you would put your thumb on this wheel, 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:48.720 and you would spin the wheel in order to navigate 0:13:48.760 --> 0:13:51.480 through the menus. That's what this thing looked like. It had. 0:13:51.520 --> 0:13:53.920 It looked like a very similar control mechanism, but no, 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:57.240 it was just a dpad in the form of a circle, 0:13:57.320 --> 0:14:00.640 and then in the center of the circle was a 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:03.960 button that you could use to select stuff. So, like 0:14:04.000 --> 0:14:07.200 a dpad on a game controller, you would push up, down, left, 0:14:07.280 --> 0:14:10.080 or right to navigate through menus and then use that 0:14:10.120 --> 0:14:14.120 center button to make a selection. So, uh, kind of 0:14:14.120 --> 0:14:17.559 a bummer because it looked like the control was meant 0:14:17.600 --> 0:14:20.880 to be more tactile and touch based, and it's not. 0:14:20.960 --> 0:14:23.560 It was just a dpad. The Zoom did have a 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:26.560 couple of neat features, however, it had Wi Fi capability. 0:14:26.680 --> 0:14:32.320 The Zoon thirty had Wi Fi sort of, so you 0:14:32.360 --> 0:14:37.680 could use the Zoon's Wi Fi to connect with another 0:14:38.160 --> 0:14:42.480 Zoon that was in the same local space that you 0:14:42.520 --> 0:14:45.000 were in, like the same room or whatever, and then 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:49.640 the two Zoon owners could share songs and even photos 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:51.880 between the two different Zoon devices. So if you had 0:14:51.880 --> 0:14:54.280 a photo on your device, which by the way, there's 0:14:54.320 --> 0:14:56.280 no camera on the Zoon, so you had to have 0:14:56.360 --> 0:15:00.400 loaded this photo on from your computer. Or maybe you 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:03.120 have a music track you really liked and you wanted 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:05.080 to share it with your buddy who also happens to 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:08.040 have a Zoon. You could use this method and send 0:15:08.080 --> 0:15:11.840 that music file over to your buddy. But if you 0:15:11.880 --> 0:15:14.600 wanted to purchase a song and put it on your Zoom, 0:15:15.280 --> 0:15:17.440 you couldn't do it wirelessly. You still had to do 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:21.760 the old tethered connection. You'd purchase the song through the 0:15:21.920 --> 0:15:25.800 Zoom marketplace on your computer. You would tether your Zoom 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:28.040 to the computer and then transfer the music that way. 0:15:28.600 --> 0:15:32.800 Now let's say you did somehow find the other person 0:15:32.840 --> 0:15:35.600 in your town who also owned a Zoom, and the 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:38.520 two of you decided that you wanted to exchange a song. 0:15:39.400 --> 0:15:41.560 You could do that. If you were close enough to them, 0:15:41.600 --> 0:15:43.920 you could send them a track, but they would have 0:15:44.320 --> 0:15:48.800 just three days to access that track, and they can 0:15:48.960 --> 0:15:51.360 play it a maximum of three times and then it 0:15:51.400 --> 0:15:55.240 would just delete itself off their device, So after three 0:15:55.320 --> 0:15:59.640 days or after three plays, that song would disappear. They 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:02.480 called this feature, and I can't believe it to this 0:16:02.560 --> 0:16:04.880 day that they did this. This is like the Brown 0:16:05.080 --> 0:16:10.200 Zoon decision. They called this feature squirting. So you would 0:16:10.280 --> 0:16:13.960 squirt a music track to another Zoom user. And I 0:16:14.160 --> 0:16:17.560 know it sounds like I'm making a joke, I am not. 0:16:18.440 --> 0:16:23.960 An actual company created a brown MP three player that 0:16:24.120 --> 0:16:28.480 could squirt music at other MP three players, and yes, 0:16:29.360 --> 0:16:33.320 everybody made fun of this. For ages, you couldn't listen 0:16:33.360 --> 0:16:37.040 to a tech podcast, you couldn't read an article without 0:16:37.080 --> 0:16:42.040 some commentary on the topic of squirting. This was the 0:16:42.080 --> 0:16:46.160 extent of the Zoom thirties Wi Fi capabilities. Was just 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:50.480 sending these files a short distance to another Zoon. That 0:16:50.640 --> 0:16:55.520 was it. And like Apple, Microsoft went with a proprietary 0:16:55.640 --> 0:16:58.400 cable when it came to connecting to the zooon to 0:16:58.680 --> 0:17:02.640 charge it or to transfer to the Zoon did have 0:17:02.680 --> 0:17:05.199 one other thing that I thought was pretty cool. It 0:17:05.240 --> 0:17:08.160 had an FM radio built into it, and I thought 0:17:08.240 --> 0:17:10.960 that was kind of neat. So like Microsoft was trying 0:17:10.960 --> 0:17:14.760 to position this as it's a music device, not just 0:17:14.840 --> 0:17:19.359 for digital files but also to access radio. But Microsoft 0:17:19.400 --> 0:17:23.600 didn't really learn a whole lot about what people disliked 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:27.000 about the iPod because they made several of the same choices. 0:17:27.359 --> 0:17:29.480 So one of the big drawbacks of the original Zoon 0:17:30.240 --> 0:17:32.840 was that it would only work with files that had 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:37.080 a certain kind of DRM attached to them. DRM stands 0:17:37.119 --> 0:17:41.120 for Digital Rights Management, and the whole purpose of DRM 0:17:41.680 --> 0:17:44.199 is to prevent people from being able to pirate stuff, 0:17:44.280 --> 0:17:47.600 to steal things, or to download stuff without permission. But 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:52.720 even DRM that Microsoft itself had designed before the Zoon 0:17:52.840 --> 0:17:56.320 came out wouldn't work on the Zoon itself. It wasn't 0:17:56.320 --> 0:18:02.320 backwards compatible with Microsoft's own DRM history, and that's because 0:18:02.359 --> 0:18:06.240 Microsoft introduced a new kind of DRM around the same 0:18:06.320 --> 0:18:09.080 time that they launched the Zoom, and the Zoom would 0:18:09.119 --> 0:18:13.840 only be compatible with that version forward. And that meant 0:18:13.880 --> 0:18:16.119 that if you happened to already have a bunch of 0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:20.639 music tracks that had the earlier version of Microsoft's DRM 0:18:20.720 --> 0:18:23.439 on them, they would not work with your Zoom. So 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:26.840 this was very discouraging, right if you already had a 0:18:26.880 --> 0:18:30.119 sizeable digital library and you were just excited about getting 0:18:30.119 --> 0:18:32.600 a player where you could put the library on the player, 0:18:33.320 --> 0:18:35.520 it would be very upsetting to find out, Oh, you can't, 0:18:35.920 --> 0:18:39.879 because that has the wrong DRM on it. Like in 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:44.919 the history of technology, DRM I think has long proven 0:18:45.080 --> 0:18:48.600 to be more of a frustration for legitimate users than 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:51.920 it has been a deterrent for piracy pirates. Figure out 0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:56.199 ways around DRM, which means DRM ultimately just becomes a 0:18:56.200 --> 0:19:00.879 frustrating experience for people who legitimately purchased the item. So 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:05.480 DRM is bad, is what I'm saying. Like it doesn't 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:07.840 do what it's supposed to do, and then it does 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:11.240 do stuff it's not supposed to do. That's the definition 0:19:11.320 --> 0:19:17.560 of a bad product. Anyway. Microsoft also did something supremely 0:19:17.800 --> 0:19:22.119 stupid in my opinion, that it had previously done with 0:19:22.160 --> 0:19:26.960 its Xbox Marketplace, which is, instead of having Zoom users 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:32.120 buy tracks with you know, real money, you first had 0:19:32.119 --> 0:19:36.320 to go through this process of purchasing Microsoft points and 0:19:36.359 --> 0:19:40.119 then using the Microsoft points to get tracks so you 0:19:40.119 --> 0:19:43.639 would redeem points for tracks. So there was this middle 0:19:43.760 --> 0:19:47.160 step that was really frustrating. Part of this was to 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:51.120 obfuscate how expensive a track was, right because they didn't 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:53.360 have a dollar amount associated with it, just a number 0:19:53.440 --> 0:19:55.040 of points, and you would have to do the math 0:19:55.080 --> 0:19:57.800 in your head to figure out, okay, well, how many 0:19:57.840 --> 0:20:01.400 points is equivalent to a dollar, right, But you never 0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:03.720 could buy them in increments of a dollar. It would 0:20:03.720 --> 0:20:06.440 always be like five dollars or more. So that also 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:08.120 meant that if all you wanted to do was buy 0:20:08.160 --> 0:20:10.399 one track, you actually had to spend five bucks to 0:20:10.400 --> 0:20:13.280 do it, not a dollar, but five dollars just to 0:20:13.280 --> 0:20:15.800 get the points, and then you would end up with 0:20:15.880 --> 0:20:19.320 this bank of Microsoft points just sitting in your account 0:20:19.359 --> 0:20:23.600 doing nothing. So this Microsoft was not the only company 0:20:23.640 --> 0:20:26.400 to ever do this. I mean Disney did this at 0:20:26.400 --> 0:20:29.800 their parks. They had something called Disney dollars, and they 0:20:29.800 --> 0:20:33.680 were encouraging people to spend their real money to buy 0:20:34.240 --> 0:20:37.640 theme park currency, where you couldn't use that currency anywhere 0:20:37.640 --> 0:20:41.280 else but inside those theme parks. Knowing that at least 0:20:41.320 --> 0:20:43.080 some of your money was just going to be wasted 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:45.640 on this currency. You wouldn't be able to redeem all 0:20:45.640 --> 0:20:48.119 of it, so you would actually spend more money at 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:51.280 the parks, but you wouldn't get value out of all 0:20:51.320 --> 0:20:53.359 the money you spent because some of it would just 0:20:53.400 --> 0:20:55.920 be caught up in this fake currency and you don't 0:20:55.920 --> 0:20:58.840 have enough of it to do anything useful. Microsoft Points 0:20:58.840 --> 0:21:02.560 were the same way. Ultimately, Microsoft would back off of 0:21:02.600 --> 0:21:05.960 the system on the Xbox marketplace, but they were still 0:21:05.960 --> 0:21:09.320 going strong with it when the Zoon launched. Okay, we're 0:21:09.320 --> 0:21:11.360 going to take another quick break. I've got some more 0:21:11.400 --> 0:21:13.640 things to say about the Zoo before we wrap up. 0:21:23.320 --> 0:21:27.520 All right, we're back. I'm not done slagging off on 0:21:27.560 --> 0:21:31.600 the Zoon yet. Unlike the original iPod, the Zoon could 0:21:31.640 --> 0:21:35.520 not be used as a storage device for other files. Right. 0:21:35.600 --> 0:21:37.240 Like I had mentioned that that was one of the 0:21:37.240 --> 0:21:39.200 things you could use an iPod for. You could store 0:21:39.240 --> 0:21:41.200 files on it, you could use it like an external 0:21:41.240 --> 0:21:43.760 hard drive. You could not do that with the Zooon. 0:21:44.600 --> 0:21:49.200 It also didn't support lossless file formats like wave files 0:21:50.040 --> 0:21:54.000 or wave files if you preferred WAV. Lossless means that 0:21:54.119 --> 0:21:59.200 when you create that digital file, you haven't lost any 0:21:59.240 --> 0:22:02.679 of the information contained within that file. So when you 0:22:02.760 --> 0:22:07.200 convert music into a digital file, a lossless form factor 0:22:07.240 --> 0:22:12.600 means everything that was in that recording is there. Blossy 0:22:12.720 --> 0:22:16.520 means that the process of making that file will actually 0:22:16.600 --> 0:22:21.280 eliminate some information. Ideally, it's information that wouldn't affect your 0:22:21.480 --> 0:22:26.520 experience listening to the audio file, but the quality typically 0:22:26.600 --> 0:22:30.960 takes a hit, whereas lossless, y're getting the highest quality 0:22:31.040 --> 0:22:35.040 possible based upon whatever recording procedure was used. So reviews 0:22:35.080 --> 0:22:38.320 said that Zoon's playback quality was good despite the lack 0:22:38.359 --> 0:22:42.000 of support for lossless audio, but it also said like 0:22:42.160 --> 0:22:45.480 album art despite being shown on a larger screen than 0:22:45.480 --> 0:22:48.320 the iPod didn't look very good. And again it's because 0:22:48.880 --> 0:22:53.480 of those resolution issues. So Microsoft pushes out the first 0:22:53.560 --> 0:22:56.639 Zoon in two thousand and six. That's unfortunate wording. I 0:22:56.720 --> 0:22:59.840 probably should have said something else. Anyway, that year to 0:23:00.000 --> 0:23:04.000 two thousand and six, Apple sold nearly thirty nine and 0:23:04.040 --> 0:23:09.160 a half million iPods. Now that was impressive because up 0:23:09.400 --> 0:23:14.680 until two thousand and six, collectively, across every single generation 0:23:14.760 --> 0:23:18.600 of iPod, Apple had sold around forty million units, and 0:23:18.680 --> 0:23:21.840 in two thousand and six they sold nearly as many 0:23:22.280 --> 0:23:24.240 just in that one year. So in other words, like 0:23:24.680 --> 0:23:27.240 in one year, they doubled the number of iPods they 0:23:27.280 --> 0:23:31.320 had sold throughout the history of the product. So Apple 0:23:31.440 --> 0:23:35.520 really was in the dominant position for the digital media 0:23:35.560 --> 0:23:38.520 player space. So how did the Zoom do well the 0:23:38.520 --> 0:23:42.399 first couple of weeks? It did okay. Initially sales were slow, 0:23:42.960 --> 0:23:45.200 but CNN reported at the end of the second week 0:23:45.200 --> 0:23:47.719 that had moved into the number two spot for digital 0:23:47.760 --> 0:23:50.919 media players. That does kind of ignore the fact that 0:23:50.960 --> 0:23:53.959 the number one spot was light years ahead of it, 0:23:54.440 --> 0:23:58.080 Like it wasn't even close, And being one and two 0:23:58.440 --> 0:24:01.840 doesn't mean so much. If if number one is like 0:24:01.960 --> 0:24:06.440 fifty miles ahead of you in a foot race. Microsoft, 0:24:06.520 --> 0:24:08.520 in a rush to try and make up for five 0:24:08.600 --> 0:24:11.760 years of lost time, had launched a bit of a flop. 0:24:11.920 --> 0:24:16.720 It was received fairly well critically. The critics didn't hate it. 0:24:16.760 --> 0:24:20.000 They did point out some of the downsides and the 0:24:20.040 --> 0:24:23.800 ways that the Zoon failed to live up to the 0:24:23.800 --> 0:24:25.800 standard of the iPod, as well as some of the 0:24:25.840 --> 0:24:29.119 things that were really interesting that Microsoft had done. But 0:24:30.080 --> 0:24:33.520 there were a lot of things to criticize. So Microsoft 0:24:33.560 --> 0:24:35.840 gets back to work and gets to work on the 0:24:35.840 --> 0:24:39.959 second generation of the Zoon. This generation would actually ditch 0:24:40.240 --> 0:24:46.080 that circular dpad and instead use a touch sensitive little surface. 0:24:46.560 --> 0:24:49.440 It was a quasi square, and I say quasi because 0:24:50.040 --> 0:24:54.400 it had rounded corners. It didn't have actual angular corners, 0:24:54.920 --> 0:24:58.040 but it was a surface where you could use touch 0:24:58.119 --> 0:25:02.200 commands to navigate through the UI, so different from a dpad. 0:25:02.359 --> 0:25:04.840 It also had some features that I think were pretty neat. 0:25:05.800 --> 0:25:07.959 Like say that you were listening to your FM radio 0:25:08.000 --> 0:25:10.760 on your Zoom and let's say a new song comes 0:25:10.760 --> 0:25:13.720 on and you really dig it, You've never heard it before, 0:25:14.240 --> 0:25:16.600 you really dig this song. You could actually flag the 0:25:16.800 --> 0:25:19.440 song on your Zoom and then when you connected to 0:25:19.440 --> 0:25:22.240 your Zoom to your computer, you could find that song 0:25:22.320 --> 0:25:24.960 in the Zoom marketplace and then purchase it. It made 0:25:25.320 --> 0:25:29.160