Why does the Zune HD have the message “For our Princess” inside of the case?

129 points by edroche 6 years ago | 42 comments
  • _zskd 6 years ago
    I went with the Zune / have avoided apple products for years because I find their advertising smarmy. So, I went with Zune and received ENDLESS RIDICULE.

    BUT! Zune was great. I had the zune app with spotify-style music subscription before spotify was a thing.

    The Zune software was really pretty and nice, and you could plug your zune into your computer and it would act as an external hard drive without fighting with it.

    • peruvian 6 years ago
      Everyone always rallies around the Zune HD like it was unfairly treated by the market. I had one and no, it was overall not a good move by Microsoft.

      The Zune HD was a decent music player, don't get me wrong. Well designed, easy to plug and play, good battery, etc. But it released at the same price point as the iPod Touch (iTouch as some called it) and looked like and was advertised as a competitor. Even had the same general design.

      Yet MS did not have the foresight to make the Zune app friendly. Zune HD had app "support" (e.g. calculator app that took 5+ seconds to load, barren app store if it even had one). iPod Touch exploded (everyone in my high school got one for Christmas in 2008/2009!) because of the apps. For Apple, the music was a solved problem and not something worth talking about in length. Being able to have a music player that had Wi-Fi and could play games was a genius idea back when no one had smartphones or most people didn't want to spend the money on one. MS just felt like it was catching up and it showed all the way through the Windows Phones.

      As I mentioned, both the original Zune and Zune HD lines are good devices but were hampered by MS' slow execution and lack of vision of what people wanted.

      Can't comment on the actual Zune subscription service. Never used that.

      • hakfoo 6 years ago
        The iPod Touch was basically taking an iPhone of the same vintage and cutting out the cellular modem. So a lively app ecosystem was ready to fall out of the box.

        MS had nothing comparable to build the Zunes from. Windows CE/Mobile was a technically valid potential base, but it wouldn't easily convert to a sexy consumer-friendly system.

      • elboru 6 years ago
        I really never understood the hate, I had the first version and it was amazing, the UI looked a lot better and futuristic than iPod’s (at least for my taste), it fell solid and well done, it had video output which replaced my dvd at the time.
        • joezydeco 6 years ago
          Maybe because it was engineered by Toshiba?
        • giancarlostoro 6 years ago
          A bunch of kids at my school had them I eventually got an iPod Nano cause it was an affordable option. After getting used to it I eventually convinced my parents to get me an iPod Classic. Years later I found out just how much cooler the Zune was.
          • B1FF_PSUVM 6 years ago
            I suspect that WindowsPhone 8.1, the nicest phone software ever, was descended from that design effort.

            I'd very much like to see a story or an interview with the designer(s), who deserve recognition for that work. If such a piece exists, a link would be appreciated.

            • com2kid 6 years ago
              > I suspect that WindowsPhone 8.1, the nicest phone software ever, was descended from that design effort.

              Windows Phone 7 was a direct decedent. WP 8.1 was an iteration on that design language.

              • B1FF_PSUVM 6 years ago
                Right, I had a WindowsPhone 6.5 device from HTC, and it was rather meh on nice hardware. But it could boot an Android from XDA on SD card with little fuss, and that was an improvement ;-)

                Now I'm just hoping the incumbents copy enough of the good design to make the loss bearable.

              • 6 years ago
              • paulie_a 6 years ago
                I never understood the love for the iPod, it was pretty mediocre. It did have iTunes integration which had the ability to purchase music and sync, but it had and still has a shitty interface.

                Edit: I get that we have to worship Steve jobs, but the iPod wasn't revolutionary. Others before and after did it better.

                • biotech 6 years ago
                  Not sure I understand the disagreement here; I think you're right on. I had an mp3 player before the iPod came out; it's not like iPod was the first mp3 player. The iPod had a nice external "look" and great marketing, but functionally it was much more difficult to use than other mp3 players that were available at that time. I was told iTunes worked better on the mac, but my experience using it on the PC was nothing short of painful. Other mp3 players had the capability of of using simple drag-and-drop functionality to move your mp3's over to the player, without the need to learn a new program and without forcing a different idea of music library management on the user.
                  • kungtotte 6 years ago
                    The only thing I can remember it having was the smart playlist feature, where you could construct playlists using criteria like "Has at least 3 stars" and "Not played in five days" etc.

                    Though that was more of an iTunes feature, that I wouldn't mind seeing in Spotify!

                    It let you make auto-updating lists to keep your library fresh, and not rely on the shuffle feature.

                    • 6 years ago
                    • matthewmacleod 6 years ago
                      “No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.”

                      The market clearly values some attributes of devices differently from you. That’s fine, and it’s good that there are a variety of different decices out there to fulfill different needs. But “mediocre” or “shitty” are really not useful words in this context.

                      • paulie_a 6 years ago
                        They absolutely are apt descriptions as an opinion. Clearly the iPod was wildly popular, I was questioning why and described my viewpoint of an "ok" device with plenty of competitors. That also had better interfaces.
                      • village-idiot 6 years ago
                        The iPod got the first mover advantage when it comes to large MP3 players.
                        • rz2k 6 years ago
                          I had a Creative Nomad before the first iPod came out, which also had about 4GB of storage.

                          1. The Creative Nomad had a slow-refresh screen with mushy buttons, vs a wheel on smooth ball-bearings and a quickly refreshing screen and intuitive hierarchy to navigate

                          2. The iPod took about a second per song to transfer music with Firewire, compared to the ridiculously slow USB on the Creative Nomad

                          3. The Creative Zomad was a little larger than a Discman, and fit in a very large pocket. The iPod fit into jean pockets

                      • nathanvanfleet 6 years ago
                        You definitely ended up on the right side of history on that one
                        • dominotw 6 years ago
                          me too man. I don't remember why zune was such a butt of the jokes back then, I think it had something to do with brick like form.
                        • vedtopkar 6 years ago
                          The Zune HD was really a great device. Hadn't heard about this dedication, but it's incredibly touching.
                          • blondin 6 years ago
                            zune was the most underestimated mp3 player ever. it just never got the fame it deserved.
                            • prolikewh0a 6 years ago
                              Agreed. I still use my original Zune every day. It's off the grid now, the Zune software still works but can't connect to any MS servers, has an FM radio. They can be picked up very cheap.

                              I have a Zune 120 and Zune HD as well but I don't find them either as good, especially on FM radio.

                              • xenihn 6 years ago
                                Which model do you have? I think I'm going to grab one.
                                • prolikewh0a 6 years ago
                                  I have each generation they made. I personally like the 1st gen Zune 30 since I listen to a lot of KEXP and it has the best performing radio, but I'd suggest looking at the models and figuring out what you need. None of them are bad in my opinion.
                              • FigBug 6 years ago
                                The Zune was too late. It was launched 6 months before the iPhone was announced. The MP3 player market peaked shortly after as iPhone and Android took off. It's hard to launch a new product into a shrinking market.
                              • orf 6 years ago
                                This is really sweet. I wonder what the cost was to do this for every unit, and at what point in the production lifecycle her death occured?
                                • dlgeek 6 years ago
                                  From the pictures a few links through, it was silkscreened on along with some other information that was going to be there anyway. I imagine if it was before that silkscreen was made, it didn't cost anything extra.
                              • dawnerd 6 years ago
                                Was just talking about the Zune the other day. I really with Microsoft would release a new one or a phone or something. I’d love to just have a dedicated music player when traveling so I don’t use up my phones battery.
                                • URSpider94 6 years ago
                                  Music playback from local storage uses a minuscule amount of battery - if you listen all day, you’re going to lose only an hour or so of standby on a modern phone.

                                  You’d be better off spending the same money to buy a battery pack to recharge your phone when it runs low.

                                  • dawnerd 6 years ago
                                    True and I have two huge battery banks but I still don’t like using my phone. Keeping my huge music library eats into my video and photo storage. And it’s not like Apple lets me stick a micro sd card in.

                                    Maybe I should just bite the bullet and switch.

                                    • larkeith 6 years ago
                                      Uses, or should use? On an Android device (S5) I've found the battery usage from music playing not-insignificant - perhaps it prevents the phone from fully entering standby, or something? At a very rough estimate, I'd say it uses 20% as much power to play music as active usage requires, though this is very much anecdata.

                                      Either way, I'll second the recommendation to get an external battery pack - a high-quality one will give more audio playback time than a media player, with much more utility and convenience.

                                      • izacus 6 years ago
                                        Most modern phones (not sure for S5 which is pretty old these days, but Nexus 5 was the first to introduce it) have a separate DSP for music playback.

                                        The app must use Androids playback API though.

                                    • thirdsun 6 years ago
                                      You really have countless options these days. DAP / digital audio players experience a kind of renaissance, particularly among audiophile users.

                                      I'd recommend to look at options by Sony, Fiio, Astell & Kern, Onkyo, Cowon, iBasso or Pioneer. Find additional information at the Head-Fi forums: https://www.head-fi.org/forums/portable-source-gear.15/

                                    • protomyth 6 years ago
                                      I wonder how many electronics ship with this type of thing. The Macintosh is fairly famous[1], and the Amiga had signatures and a dog print[2].

                                      1) http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story...

                                      2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_1000

                                      • accrual 6 years ago
                                        The Nintendo Switch Pro Controller also includes a small hidden message just above the right analog stick, "THX 2 ALL GAME FANS". [0]

                                        [0] http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2017/03/have_you_seen_the_h...

                                        • 6 years ago