One thing that annoys the hell out of me with that new Vista windowing is that they tend hide the 'file/edit/view' menu, now I have spend countless of minutes of each day just to hunt down the few single actions I want make. Totally ripped my shirt with the Vista explorer before I found out how to reveal the menu. It's just been there on every windowed operating system I've ever used so without it, I have no place to start looking for the actions.

I think it looks pretty cool, although it will probably take some time getting used to due to a lot of people being used to iTunes. I love my iMac, but I haven't had the best luck with my iPod (I'm on my 3rd replacement). I'll be very interested in Zune when they release more information concerning transfering music form iTunes to the ZMP and what is going to happen to all my album artwork.

Pretty much the only thing stopping me from getting one of these the day it comes out is the stupid iPhone rumors...phone and [good] mp3 player...can't beat it in one package.

Keane, Muse, The Arcade Fire, Basement Jaxx, Editors (all appearing on that interface) are hardly C-list bands.

Just sayin.

I would patent 'Zuniverse' if it hasn't been done all ready.

A good move for M$ would be to allow some sort of trade in your ipod and you can get a big rebate. not even fesiable but it would be cool. and a good move

After seeing how cool looking this program is compared to itunes...I want it...but it wont work with ipods, so I must get a zune now.

This whole Zune craze is actually pretty exciting, but I must say I'm extremely disappointed to learn that they're not incorporating the Zune software for your PC into Windows Media Player 11. iTunes is sexy for wrapping everything you need into one player. Why should I need two?

I've been really unhappy with WMP 11 beta, though. Although I love my Creative Zen Vision: M as a stand-alone player (in many ways I think it's better than an iPod, especially with its dedicated programmable button and sleek, intuitive software interface), the PC software that comes with it is absolute crap. I won't mince words. I was hoping that WMP 11 beta would solve some of my issues (since it syncs with the Zen as well), but it didn't: for example, I still can't get my Zen to recognize the fact that I have album art associated with ALL of my music. It only uploads it ocassionally, seemingly at random. Also, it doesn't support VBR MP3s, and has to convert them... I had about 4 albums' worth of VBR MP3s, and I literally let WMP 11 beta run for two. whole. days. before it was finished converting it all. Can you say slow? I can.

In any case, I'm hoping that players like the Zune don't have these problems, because they're frankly infuriating. I'll be fine with my Zen for a while, but if by Generation 2 of the Zune it doesn't shape up, I'm going to finally buy an iPod.

First of all, you never worked for a music start up, you dont like indie and never have. This is a total farce, and you are an alien who will son perish. Wait, how do you spell parish? pairish? Awe crap.

This whole Zoon thing is a bad idea. Wii still sounds like a bad name but Nintendo is going to pull it off anyways. The zoon will flop, its pretty heavy from what I've heard and only does Ad-hoc, how longs the battery on this thing? The music store looks like a total copy of Itunes with a little WMP/11 URGE mixed into it. As soon as thing thing comes out it will be forgotten a few months later by the the touchscreen Ipod which will kill this product because it will need a complete redesign in order to compete with the truly next-gen ipods.

jfrost2, Half of that coolness is gone when you put two scrollbars there (one to the playlist list on left and second to the right), and they will be there in real world situation. The color theme is nice tho, following more the webdesign trends than application design traditions.

Yeah, but hey, in my opinion, it is cooler than itunes layout. I wish WMP11 had that shiny look.

whats wrong with 30 seconds to mars?

long live kapitalizm11!!1115

you khaf iped, you khaf zoon!15 Zoon you'll khaf more thank you can shake your schmekelwekel at.

Arashi, there's this new thing called the alt key. It finds it for you.

Did anyone else notice the interface looks a lot like WMP11? Seems to me that they just rebranded it and did some internal interface tweaks (which would be easy enough, as the rendering engine is MSIE).

As for the indie thing, I like the labels they're picking up. But I agree with everyone here -- MS needs to establish how this relates to WMP and its own music services. Hopefully they'll do that by launch. Otherwise it's likely they're just muddying the waters with another failed music initiative, and the smart people running this project have let us down. (I'm hoping that's not the case, because I like competition ... and smart people.)

C-list bands? You act like being indie automatically makes them bad. The Arcade Fire, Band of Horses and The Thermals are excellent bands, who cares what label they are on. I, for one, will be glad if the Zune store continues to focus on smaller bands that deserve it... the crappy mass market radio bands get enough exposure as it is.

Does the Zune also handle podcasts?

Why do they still want to imitate the look of mac apps? All that shiny stuff and glassy buttons makes me sick. They should fire the complete creative department of MS.

Yeah, I noticed that, thats why I said it would be cooler as the wmp11 interface/theme.

I think the interface looks nice and clean. Of course, we will only know the wonderful benefits when we install the monster on our boxes... Oh, Christmas will be fun once again for this aging techie!

As long as they don't lock me out from using WMP11, I don't mind too much. I don't plan on buying music over Zune Marketplace, anyway if I get a Zune. And I suspect by WMP12 they'll be rolled together. Two separate programs is going to be too much of a mess.

The interface looks nice.

Again I'm stunned at the absolute 95% rip off of iTunes. (Down to the reflected images) Can't MS just come up with something original ever? Why didn't they use the xbox interface look?

J.T I used to be a rio/creative fan - and they had good stuff about 4-5 years ago - The zen-w looks interesting (especially the screen size/orientation/ratio) - but not enough for me to go back to Creative. Take the plunge, I know, you don't want to follow the crowd, you don't want to be one of those self satisfied poseurs with a white cable dangling about themselves, but sometimes the crowd knows best.

To me the software/store that supports the ipod is more important than the actual ipod. Because the ipod is just mp3 player, but the software is where all the important stuff happens. I hope for zune buyers that MS doesn't have just "indie" bands to offer because brother I like my Coldplay and Outkast.

Hold on, Zune uses bespoke music management software? Won't this piss of Microsoft's Plays For Sure partners, as well as the Windows Media Player team? It just strikes me as an unusually factional approach for Microsoft.

Excluding PFS partners, as MS will be doing, is really like greasing up your own massive buttplug and ramming it home in a painfully successfully-unsuccessful way.

MiStake, MiStake, MiStake.