Another Reason You Might As Well Get an iPod...

So this is pretty funny, but what do you expect from a Microsoft product?

Midnight mystery crash: Microsoft Zunes stop working worldwide

BY MIKE WENDLAND • FREE PRESS TECHNOLOGY COLUMNIST • December 31, 2008

Owners of Microsoft's 30GB Zune music players are reporting widespread failures today after some still-undisclosed glitz caused them to lock up at midnight Pacific time. Users said the units spontaneously rebooted and then froze during the startup process.

Microsoft hasn't admitted to a problem yet or responded to requests for information but reports are worldwide and filling popular Zune discussion boards. Some were using their players when it occurred, like a user named Chuck who posted on a Zune fan site called onlydarksets (www.onlydarksets.wordpress.com):

"My wife and I both have zune 30mg … and were both listening to music at about midnight when both, almost like a script, stopped playing the music, returned to the zune logo screen with solid white bar, and froze. Both batteries died in about 2 hours … recharged one over the rest of the night, but all I got was the same frozen screen."

Same thing with a user named Tina, who posted: "I just got a zune yesterday and I was playing some music and all of a sudden I went to a different song and it just froze and I’ve tried reseting it and I’m currently waiting for the battery to die, but I don’t think its even on because the music menu is faded."

Others woke up this morning to find their Zunes useless. The issue appears to especially affect the 30 GB Zune models, although there are some reports of other models also locking up.

Microsoft had similar lockup issues with the Zune earlier this year and posted fixes for it on its support Web site, though users say none of those previous suggestions seem to work on the current issue.