The Digital Home

(Credit: wmpoweruser.com)

The Zune HD is one of the most interesting, possibly fake, products in the portable player market. Almost every week there's a different rumor swirling about the device. And yet, we still have no idea if it will ever hit store shelves. But if the latest rumors are true, the Zune HD will be the best portable music player on the market.

According to a report at Windows Mobile Power User, the Zune HD will sport a multitouch OLED screen, playback of HD media from the Zune Marketplace, TV-out with a mini-HDMI port, HD radio, and wireless sync. It will come in 16GB or 32GB flavors, offer a browser that supports multitouch, and support 3D Xbox games. Though the report makes no mention of price, it claims the device will be made available in September. And just look at that picture--it's gorgeous.

I know this all sounds fantastical. I'll be the first to admit that we need to be wary of all rumors. But for the purposes of this column, let's assume for a moment that this really is the Zune HD. Judging by those specs, wouldn't you want one?

I certainly would.

Microsoft dropped the price of the Zune and I can't help but wonder if anyone really cares. I don't.

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Steve Wozniak said it best in his exclusive interview with the Daily Telegraph earlier this week: "The iPod has sort of lived a long life at No. 1," he said. "Things like, that if you look back to transistor radios and Walkmans, they kind of die out after awhile.

"It's kind of like everyone has got one or two or three. You get to a point when they are on display everywhere, they get real cheap, and they are not selling as much."

Finally, someone on the "inside" at Apple has made some sense about the iPod and its future. Although it may be difficult for Apple zealots and even CEO Steve Jobs to understand, the iPod is not going to be one of the most important devices forever, and if we consider the impact the Walkman had on the industry, the iPod should be moving to the execution chamber in the next 5 to 10 years.

Nowhere is that more apparent than in the Apple Store itself. How many times must Jobs find his way to the stage only to show off an iPod with barely upgraded specs and a so-called fresh design that we've seen already? Granted, the iPod Touch is unique in its own right, but the iPod Nano and Shuffle have been the joke of the iPod world for years now. The design changes look more like Apple felt it needed to do something to get people to keep buying them, so they went from long and thin to short and fat and back to long and thin again. And don't even get me started on the iPod Classic.

But it's tough to make the argument that iPods will die when sales are up. According to the company's latest quarterly filing, iPod revenue is up 7 percent since last year and unit sales have jumped 12 percent.

Of course, that doesn't stop me from wanting the iPod to die off as soon as possible.

The MP3 player market is one where logic is thrown out the window and as long as the player is manufactured by Apple, it'll perform quite well. Although there have been a number of solid alternatives, none have gained ground. And by the look of things, the Zune is up next on the chopping block.

According to GameStop, it will stop selling the Zune in its stores due to insufficient demand from customers. And although it may not matter to, oh, 99 percent of you, the fact that GameStop is ditching the Zune tells you that Microsoft's media player is on its way out.

"We have decided to exit the Zune category because it just did not have the appeal we had anticipated," said a GameStop spokesperson. "It (also) did not fit with our product mix."

GameStop's decision to remove the Zune from its store shelves reflects an increasingly prominent notion among retailers that suggests that only the iPod is a viable product regardless of the fact that Microsoft has sold more than 2 million Zunes and its other competitors have fought valiantly.

So what's the deal? Is it really true that iPods are the only MP3 players that matter? You better believe it.