Clock

[Lucifer]

Originally Posted by Omnidragon

Not all people have a watch and yes ppl will have a phone but my zune is in an easier to reach pocket than my phone caus i like to change my music alot so it would be easier for the zune to have the clock and a phone has never needed to have a clock but it has one. the only reason it has one is caus a dev thought oh wouldnt it be nice to have a clock so it got one.
The fact is that nearly all devices are fully of useless features the zune included but people then grow to expect these useless things on all devices. personally people dead set against the zune getting a clock are r3tarded they don't have to use the clock it wont effect them in any way

I appreciate that you didn't side against what I had to say earlier in this thread, but don't assume everyone has a cell if you can say that not everyone has a watch. I for example live my life without either, and mainly because I don't like some of the ideas having a cellphone includes, but about a watch... I just haven't worn one in years, most watches aren't comfortable when they're loose on my wrist and when they're tight they tend to cut off circulation- so I stopped wearing watches, and still wouldn't mind another reason to look at my zune's screen.

[DaDillsta]

Yes, umis does have a good point but we have all seen that there will probably never be a clock. May it be due to the power off point or something else but its just probably not going to happen. If they were going to do a clock they would have done it by now?

[Epoc]

Though I am a big supporter of a clock, I could live without it. It would help at certain points, because my school doesn't have clocks all over the place and cell phones can get you in trouble, due to texting, which can be annoying, but when I do use my zune, I would kind-of like to just gaze down at my zune. Also , not all people have cellphones and/or watches. And what IS wrong with a new feature? people are complaining about file support, but isn't that what converters are for? sure, it takes a little bit more time, but so does taking out your cellphone AFTER you have just taken out your zune.
Another thing: does the zune keep track of time? when a file is sent through wifi, the file itself is encoded with the time, not the zune. Which comes to the point that if a file could be placed into the zune that would count down time backwards(forwards basically) and have the ability to show it, that would be tha solution. This should be easy for microsoft to do, or if the firmware could be hacked.
My main point i this: Don't look a gifthorse in the mouth. Accept changing features in a device, even if you don't need the feature, or want to use it.

[stkr]

Originally Posted by Epoc

Though I am a big supporter of a clock, I could live without it. It would help at certain points, because my school doesn't have clocks all over the place and cell phones can get you in trouble, due to texting, which can be annoying, but when I do use my zune, I would kind-of like to just gaze down at my zune. Also , not all people have cellphones and/or watches. And what IS wrong with a new feature? people are complaining about file support, but isn't that what converters are for? sure, it takes a little bit more time, but so does taking out your cellphone AFTER you have just taken out your zune.
Another thing: does the zune keep track of time? when a file is sent through wifi, the file itself is encoded with the time, not the zune. Which comes to the point that if a file could be placed into the zune that would count down time backwards(forwards basically) and have the ability to show it, that would be tha solution. This should be easy for microsoft to do, or if the firmware could be hacked.
My main point i this: Don't look a gifthorse in the mouth. Accept changing features in a device, even if you don't need the feature, or want to use it.

The device definitely has the capability to keep up with time. No one has any reasonable proof that it can't support a clock other than the fact it doesn't have one. The only trace I've seen is the fact that it displays what time pictures were added to the device. This doesn't have to be the device itself, though.

[bigtex292]

Originally Posted by stkr

I can't believe this thread has this many posts. The clock is a necessary feature that many people would use. Obviously it's not necessary for everyone. Anyone arguing against it just wants to be different.

i agree

[Lucifer]

agreed entirely, I mean its not like I need the zune to have a clock, but if the clock just suddenly appeared on my zune after a firmware update or something, that'd be so awesome, and many people would use it, even if they started off with just grumbling at seeing it for the first few days... imagine back in the day, when those of us would get our MP3s from whatever part of the internet we could get them... then take the time and effort and money to burn the mp3s (converted) onto an audio CD just so that they play on our CD players... how many of us Zune users actually pull out our CD players any more???? features and technology improve through time, and we don't need to get upset about it, its just another way to make life more simple for us, and make companies' wallets thicker, that's just life in our societies as they are. I won't die if Zune never has a clock showing on it, but if it did - I see no reason for anyone to be angry.

[Omnidragon]

Originally Posted by umisguy

I appreciate that you didn't side against what I had to say earlier in this thread, but don't assume everyone has a cell if you can say that not everyone has a watch. I for example live my life without either, and mainly because I don't like some of the ideas having a cellphone includes, but about a watch... I just haven't worn one in years, most watches aren't comfortable when they're loose on my wrist and when they're tight they tend to cut off circulation- so I stopped wearing watches, and still wouldn't mind another reason to look at my zune's screen.

Oh im all for a clock on the zune I was just pointing out that most ppl have a phone and if ppl say just use your phone for the time its just a different device that you have to take out of your pocket.

[PityOnU]

way to turn this from a request thread to a debate thread


might as well move it to the debate forum

[laos101]

Err, last time i checked Clocks can be software based. There doesnt need to be hardware to check time

[stkr]

Originally Posted by laos101

Err, last time i checked Clocks can be software based. There doesnt need to be hardware to check time

The "argument" is that since the hardware shuts down that the software or firmware will not be able to function. When, or if, the hardware shuts down, is encoded in the firmware, though.

[kcarden]

Originally Posted by stkr

The "argument" is that since the hardware shuts down that the software or firmware will not be able to function. When, or if, the hardware shuts down, is encoded in the firmware, though.

well then what about the gameboy???
wasn't it able to keep time when pokemon gold or silver or whatever came out?

[Darth Camel]

Originally Posted by kcarden

well then what about the gameboy???
wasn't it able to keep time when pokemon gold or silver or whatever came out?

That's most likely because the game itself probably had a battery that allowed it to keep time.

[zachnehrenberg]

A clock is possible on the Zune. With the XNA 3.0 coming out, people will be able to make games for the Zune, and also applications (As said in the XNA thread by the developers). All of your XNA games and applications will be able to go past the security on the Zune. This means that you should also be able to open up the Zune to put on hacked firmware. The beta will come out this spring, which means it will have glitches, and glitches are good for hacking.

[Omnidragon]

A clock game will not work as it can only process while it is running plus it wouldnt be all that usefull if we kept having to go to games and boot it up

[Lucifer]

That's true. my thoughts, since I'm not perfectly clear how far the system itself powers off when it goes to "standby mode" or whatever, but unless the battery dies entirely, it should have enough power in that main zune battery to keep an RTC in the zune operating... and since the zune is technically a Windows CE device, I'd be pretty willing to bet that it has an RTC built into it, so my guess is that so long as your zune's battery doesn't run dead, it will have the time on it, and even likely has the time set properly each time it syncs with the host PC. (correct me if I'm wrong)

[zachnehrenberg]

Yes, games do not run all the time, but they can take advantage of the interal clock that the Zune has. Also, with the device finally being opend up (sort of), you can put on firmware hacksfor a game.

[Omnidragon]

Originally Posted by zachnehrenberg

Yes, games do not run all the time, but they can take advantage of the interal clock that the Zune has. Also, with the device finally being opend up (sort of), you can put on firmware hacksfor a game.

No they will not have access to the internal clock.
You do not have any direct access to the Zune device itself XNA takes care of all of that on a much lower level that we have access to. yes you can make a simple kind of clock by abusing delta time (a method of using the time between frame renders to make things move correctly and not move really slow) to count how long the game has been running but there is no access to a really clock as we only have access to the Sprite batch and rendertarget API's and nothing else

[CarbonOS]

Why don't we cut up a watch and try to cram it into the back panel of the zune or something? Have like, a rectangle cut out of the plastic for the LCD display go in flush.

Then again, I don't know how much free space there is inside the casing.

[zunemonger]

pretty sure its possible to make a clock considering there must be some form of internal clock working bacuse of the time limit on the sent songs

[CarbonOS]

Originally Posted by zunemonger

pretty sure its possible to make a clock considering there must be some form of internal clock working bacuse of the time limit on the sent songs

This was mentioned a few pages back. ; )