Never thought this day would come, and nor in the last few years did I think there would be any chance of doing so, because no other PMP maker seemed to hold playcounts / track-state syncing in any particular regard. After Microsoft decided it was important too, for a long time I was staring from across the Atlantic at the potential of Zune. And now it's fully here, I gave Windows Phone 7 with Zune a spin and have decided it's sufficiently worthwhile to dive fully into it - so have also picked up two Zune HD's as well.
I've just restored the iPod Touch and Classic and have packed them away to await a fate of giveaway or sale. The iPhone is going to stick around for a little longer, but I've blown away the iTunes library on the Mac it was synced with and transferred it - minus music and videos - to a media-less Windows iTunes install that is also hosting the iPad. The eventual plan is to only keep the iPad purely to keep my hand in iOS.
So the new setup - which is still a little in flux - is that I have a larger HP workstation temporarily at home running j.River Media Center, MCE and Zune (with Zune Pass) which is talking to a WHS - and is currently handling the handset sync as well. This will be replaced with a more easily accomodated and rightsized media-centric small workstation that'll work alongside the Mac Pro that I still need at home for OS X. The home Windows laptops are running jRMC / Zune / MCE and are also hooked up to the WHS - as well as a Boot Camped Macbook Air, which has been pressed into service as a movable kitchen PC until I decide on a Windows notebook which is more suitable.
The remaining Macs running OS X at home will be left out of the media consumption loop entirely, and while there will still necessarily be an OS X presence at home, the idea once again is to minimise that as much as possible.
The key difference by doing this is that everything I do on one machine is then carried over to everything else and vice versa. And of course that I'm using better software to manage and play back my media. And the reason why I was using OS X exclusively to run iTunes is pretty simple - syncing using iTunes on OS X is definitely a better experience than using iTunes in Windows - particularly as regards the extensibility of ITunes' limitations using Applescripts. But as anyone who has seen scripts running on iTunes can likely attest, calling OS X iTunes flexible because of the Applescript capability is like hanging two tons of steel plates on a Trabant and calling it a tank. And to make this change, it was pretty clear that I had to dump iTunes entirely.
True, it's not all roses in Zune-land. WP7 is still unfinished, key apps are missing for me (which in my case will be made up by the iOS now, and Android / Symbian handsets in the medium term with the hope that WP7 catches up in terms of the key apps I need) and the Zune HD's won't sync apps outside of the US (not a huge deal as it is really media-only use, but it would have been nice to be able to get the apps too). And I still have some issues in MCE that I need to address.
But what I get out of it in terms of the unshackling of my media from the constraints of having to work around iTunes while still retaining some of the key benefits of the way iTunes works is a huge deal - and now that I have my Podcasts squared away in Zune, the transition to a much more flexible networked media setup is now almost fully realised. There are some rough edges in the way I have my software arranged / set up but that will also pass.
After ~5 years of wrestling with OS X-as-primary / cross-platform media experience, moving exclusively to a (ironically perhaps, given the Apple hoopla) superior OS for media consumption in the form of Windows and better software which plays nicely with others already feels like a breath of fresh air...
...fresh air that I have considerably better control over.
Yay? To be continued...
Discussion about
#wp7 #zune Boxing up iOS devices for disposal...!
I DO! ha, yeah, I thought it was cheesy in 2006, cheesy in 2011, but Zune has gotten really good through the years. Now I wait for a good WP7 phone on TMo.
I've been pretty close to grabbing a Zune HD/Zune pass myself as a dedicated media player and dropping my iPhone/Napster. Glad to head you're liking your experience. One thing that I don't like is that Zune pass isn't everywhere. I don't know why Microsoft doesn't just put it on non-Microsoft devices or have them open up an API for Zune for other developers to use. I think that would lead to a larger rate of adoption. I also refuse to install iTunes on any of my computers because of how craptacular it is and I used to, also, have a mac mini just for iTunes, but have since sold it and installed inside of XPMode, which is just a VM of Windows XP, so as to not subject my system to the terribleness that is iTunes.
I wish verizon would get a WP7 so I could have another option. Much like you I do not like iTunes on windows and don't want to rely on iTunes to manage my phone. What would you say the biggest advantage is with WP7 over Android?
In regards to your media access via the Zune-pass/j.River combo have you considered checking out Subsonic? They have an app for the WP7 and it looks to be able to do everything that j.River does.
In regards to your media access via the Zune-pass/j.River combo have you considered checking out Subsonic? They have an app for the WP7 and it looks to be able to do everything that j.River does.
An interesting way to take it. j.River is more sophisticated in terms of library management and also playback capabilities - the latter of which is of interest to me - but it doesn't have a WP7 streaming client (although since I listen mostly on the subway, streaming is useless) so might be worth looking into for curiosity's sake if nothing else.
And once again - the beauty of going Windows is that almost all of these tools can be run on different computers along with other tools on a shared library and they usually get on just fine.
One of the key advantages to me with WP7 over Android is that you get playcounts and track state sync, and you're not limited to doubletwist to do that but a superior client in the form of Zune. That, and the media experience is of course integrated into the OS resulting in a better experience overall in my book.
Also Zune Pass is excellent - better than Spotify, which I'm cancelling as of this month. And the Zune HD itself is surprisingly cool. Like many other people no doubt, imagewise what comes into my head when you say 'Zune' is the tat guy. Yet actually, the Zune playback experience is way cooler than iOS IMO. It was a real surprise (oh all right, given the number of drooling Applezombies in the tech press I'm not surprised) that we had this in 2009 and it wasn't made a bigger deal of - in use this is light years beyond what Apple was/is doing.
Of course, this could be 'new toy fever' talking - although to be honest, a quick look at my Had list will probably indicate that if I was the sort of guy who got New Toy Fever, I'd probably have expired from over-exertion. But hey, I've paid Zune Pass for the next year, so ask me in a quarter or two.
And yes - if there's a Zune HD2 localised properly for Europe, I will jump on it this time.
And once again - the beauty of going Windows is that almost all of these tools can be run on different computers along with other tools on a shared library and they usually get on just fine.
One of the key advantages to me with WP7 over Android is that you get playcounts and track state sync, and you're not limited to doubletwist to do that but a superior client in the form of Zune. That, and the media experience is of course integrated into the OS resulting in a better experience overall in my book.
Also Zune Pass is excellent - better than Spotify, which I'm cancelling as of this month. And the Zune HD itself is surprisingly cool. Like many other people no doubt, imagewise what comes into my head when you say 'Zune' is the tat guy. Yet actually, the Zune playback experience is way cooler than iOS IMO. It was a real surprise (oh all right, given the number of drooling Applezombies in the tech press I'm not surprised) that we had this in 2009 and it wasn't made a bigger deal of - in use this is light years beyond what Apple was/is doing.
Of course, this could be 'new toy fever' talking - although to be honest, a quick look at my Had list will probably indicate that if I was the sort of guy who got New Toy Fever, I'd probably have expired from over-exertion. But hey, I've paid Zune Pass for the next year, so ask me in a quarter or two.
And yes - if there's a Zune HD2 localised properly for Europe, I will jump on it this time.
Nope. Zune doesn't offer a lossless format apart from WMA (You could always dig out DBPowerAmp and do a mass transcode of course, if you MUST have lossless on the move). I consider it pointless for portable use in any case and have a master FLAC library which I generate lossys from - although increasingly I'm using subscription services almost exclusively for 'everyday' listening.
Two words: live tiles.
To me, the biggest advantage of WP7 over Android (and for iOS) is the notification system. WP7 makes it dead simple to see when I have new calls, texts, Outook e-mails or Gmails.
Other things I like better on WP7... the integration with Facebook (besides Contacts, it also imports yor Facebook albums automatically). It also makes it dead simple to combine the same contact from multiple sources (Facebook + Outlook + Microsoft Live, etc.)
In my book, the WP7 interface is much more efficient than Froyo and iOS.
To me, the biggest advantage of WP7 over Android (and for iOS) is the notification system. WP7 makes it dead simple to see when I have new calls, texts, Outook e-mails or Gmails.
Other things I like better on WP7... the integration with Facebook (besides Contacts, it also imports yor Facebook albums automatically). It also makes it dead simple to combine the same contact from multiple sources (Facebook + Outlook + Microsoft Live, etc.)
In my book, the WP7 interface is much more efficient than Froyo and iOS.
Jeez, you look so happy in your avy... Every time I think "**** Dell" from now, your face will come up in my head and I'll feel guilty.
