Hasta La Gadget!

The blogs are buzzing over some tweets from a Twitter account run by the Office 2010 team, noting what looks like the outright announcement of a Zune phone. Something doesn’t feel right.

First, the tweets:

June 2009 will be an important month for Zune lovers.

Naturally, this got some other Twitterers a little excited. The followup:

New product launch, that’s all I’m allowed to say. Hold off from buying an iPhone/Pre. 🙂

Well, that’s a pretty clear statement: Don’t buy any of these popular phones, because we’re releasing a product soon. Wow?

Granting that this is a Microsoft-run Twitter and that the announcement is well-informed, here’s what it probably means: Microsoft could be offering up a combination of a Zune phone reference design and combination Windows Mobile/Zune software to device manufacturers, come June. But until these errant Tweets are addressed by someone who we know can speak authoritatively for MS (not some low-level marketing minion), this is about as convincing as any of the other countless Zunephone/Pink “reports” we’ve heard to date—that is to say, mildly.

Mainly, it’s the source of these rumors that bothers me. The info comes from a Twitter account that claims to be connected to Office 2010 The Movie, a Microsoft advertising page promoting the next version of MS Office. Thing is, I can’t find a link to this Twitter page anywhere on office2010themovie.com, nor can I find mentions of @officethemovie by any other notable Microsoft Twitter accounts. It is linked! Hmm.

There’s plenty more to be suspicious of. The Twitter account is brand-new, and their limited tweets regarding Office have been strange:

Office 2010 will include Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks integrated right into Word. That’s just a hint of what’s to come!

Social networking in Word? Not to mention that half of these Tweets were posted through Tweetie, a Mac client.

Beyond these superficial oddities, there’s a conceptual problem. Why would MS allow a Zune phone announcement to leak through a low-profile, unconnected Twitter account, especially when such an announcement runs directly counter to the company line?

UPDATE: This Twitter account is link to from the OfficetheMovie website, but at best that makes the Twitter account the official mouthpiece of a part of the marketing team for a Microsoft product with little-to-no relation to the Zune project, not an infallible voice of the Zune division, much less the company as a whole. It’ll be interesting to see how this is dealt with when Redmond wakes up. [Neowin]

We’ve been wondering when we’d see the next Laptop Hunters ad from Microsoft, but it looks like the company’s throwing a change-up: its latest 30-second spot features Wes Moss, Certified Financial Planner, explaining that iTunes “costs a lot” while Zune Pass “costs a little.” The argument, of course, is that at a buck a song (or more), filling up your iPod costs way more than the $15 / month cost of the Zune subscription service, but we’ve got a feeling that Wes just won’t convince as many people as Lauren and Giampaulo — while we certainly think Zune Pass is a great deal, especially with the 10 free tracks a month now included, most people have plenty of music from all kinds of sources already, and an additional monthly bill in the current economy doesn’t seem all too appealing. Plus, well, this argument has never really worked for services like Yahoo and Rhapsody in the past, so we’re not sure it’s going to work now. But that’s just us — we’re sure you’ve got your own opinions, so check out the vid after the break and sound off.

P.S. If Wes looks familiar it’s because he was a contestant on Donald Trump’s The Apprentice. He was fired.

[Via Ars Technica; thanks Travis and Michael S.]

Continue reading Microsoft’s latest ad: iTunes and the iPod are crazy expensive

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Microsoft’s latest ad: iTunes and the iPod are crazy expensive originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 11 May 2009 18:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While avoiding the juicier questions surrounding the mystery of Project Pink and its potential ties to Verizon for maximizing Pink’s launch, a Microsoft spokesperson has issued new comments that reiterate the stance Redmond has held from time immemorial: there’s no Zunephone, and furthermore, there won’t be any Microsoft-branded phones.

Of course, the devil could lie in the precise wording, and the exact quote was as follows: “Microsoft is not going into the phone hardware business. Microsoft is not building a Zune-specific phone.” Just because there’s not a “Zune-specific phone” doesn’t mean you can’t steal some Zune tech for the phone business, and we have every reason to believe that Microsoft would want to be building Zune-esque features into Windows Mobile — you can start to see tiny slivers of that in 6.5 with the home screen design, for example — so we’re still pretty confident that Pink (or another project) will ultimately marry portions of the technology and branding. In other words: Zunephone, no; Zune on Windows Mobile, though? Yeah, sure, why not?

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds, Portable Audio

Microsoft reiterates what we knew: no first-party handset, no Zunephone originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Apr 2009 03:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While we broke the news of the ZuneHD to the world as we did the original, we have no way to verify the authenticity of this new image originating at Windows Mobile Power User and now trotting itself around the Intersphere fueled by the adrenaline of fanboy fantasies. We’ve been skeptically going over it pixel-by-pixel (what is that on the back? A camera, a screw-hole?) as this is the notorious period that always follows a product leak when dubious PhotoShops and fanart begins flooding our tips box. Fortunately, Zunited’s sources have stepped up with an assertion that the pic is in fact an authentic ZuneHD. So let’s turn an eye to the specs, the glorious, almost absurdly high-end specs that accompany the picture. Zunited’s sources won’t touch these and we’re keeping them at arm’s length for now under the it’s too-good-to-be-true heading. Click through to see what we mean.

[Via Zunited]

Continue reading Another ZuneHD render surfaces, fanboy specs too?

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Another ZuneHD render surfaces, fanboy specs too? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 15 Apr 2009 06:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yeah, something is definitely up in Zuneland. Not only did images of the Zune HD leak out late last week, today AdWeek says that Microsoft’s auditioning three major ad agencies for the launch of a new mobile service called “Pink” — which is the project codename for Zune software on mobile phones. No, this doesn’t mean any of those Tegra-powered Zunephone rumors are coming true — it’s far more likely that Microsoft is finally gearing up to re-launch Zune as the preferred media software and service for Windows Mobile, a plan Steve Ballmer’s been hinting at for ages now. Remember, Microsoft has to keep its large stable of Windows Mobile hardware manufacturers happy, and launching a hyped new phone of its own with a Zune-based OS would basically be perceived as stabbing a billion-dollar business in the back — not something you want to do when most of your partners are also deep in the Android game. On the other hand, you don’t audition three huge ad agencies just to launch a Zune app on busted ol’ WinMo, so there could be something big cooking — if you forced us to throw caution to the wind and just guess, what we’d want to see is that $500m Danger acquisition pay off in the form of a reskinned consumer-oriented edition of Windows Mobile that integrates Zune services, running not only on a touchscreen Zune HD, but a variety of phones from third-party partners. Wishful thinking? You bet — probably even crazy thinking — but it would certainly shake things up, and that’s never a bad thing. We’ll see how it plays out — care to share your dream Zune strategy in the meantime?

[Via CNET]

Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Audio, Portable Video

Zune rumors heat up, MS getting ready to launch Zune software on phones? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 14 Apr 2009 18:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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