“I do not recommend you try Amazon Unbox, and here’s why,” Tom Merritt blogs for CNET. “Even after it downloaded fully, it wouldn’t play. I tried several times in both the Amazon player and the regular Windows Media Player, to no avail. After less than two minutes, though, I found that if I dragged the progress indicator in the Amazon player a little, it would start playing.”
“I left work after that and rebooted my laptop at home. That’s when the real trouble began. I noticed that the Amazon player had launched itself. Annoying. I looked in the program for a preference to stop it from launching itself, and there was none. Typical. So I went to msconfig and unchecked Amazon Unbox so that it would definitely not launch itself at start-up. When I rebooted, it was no longer there. However, my firewall warned me that a Windows service (ADVWindowsClientService.exe) was trying to connect to the Net. I clicked More Info in the firewall alert and found it was Amazon Unbox. Downright offensive. It still was launching a Net-connection process that even msconfig apparently couldn’t stop. Forget it. That’s not the behavior of good software. I went to uninstall it,” Merritt explains.
“After the Install Shield launched and I chose uninstall, I got a login screen for my Amazon account. I just wanted to uninstall it. I shouldn’t have to log in to my account to do that. So I canceled the login, and the uninstall failed. I tried that three times, and it failed each time. Finally I gave up and logged in and the uninstall finished,” Merritt writes.
Merritt writes, “So, in summary, to be allowed the privilege of purchasing a video that I can’t burn to DVD and can’t watch on my iPod, I have to allow a program to hijack my start-up and force me to login to uninstall it? No way. Sorry, Amazon. I love a lot of what you do, but I will absolutely not recommend this service.”
Full article here.
Unsurprisingly, the reviews aren’t as pretty as the press release.
Related articles:
Analyst: ‘Amazon Unbox – Well that didn’t work at all’ – September 09, 2006
Analysts: Amazon’s ‘Unbox’ to be ‘Unsuccessful’ vs. Apple – September 08, 2006
Cringely: Apple, Amazon, and what Steve Jobs has up his sleeve for next Tuesday – September 08, 2006
Amazon.com launches ‘Amazon Unbox’ DVD-quality video download service with TV shows and movies – September 07, 2006
What these jokers fail to understand is that people may actually want to view films once downloaded!!!!
These fuckwits with their DRM nonsense just don’t get it. Make it easy and affordable for people to access content then they are much less likely to pirate it. Make a legal service so limiting and unwieldy you’ll drive people to piracy because its a damn site easier download off P2P. Not to mention its probably been ripped and encoded by someone who knows what they are doing.
Apple must be pissing themselves at this disaster that is Unbox.
The twats that went along with this show be UNemployable…..
It isn’t Apple 1-0 Amazon; Apple didn’t do anything.
Rather, it’s Apple 0-(-1) Amazon. Now Apple needs to do something on Tuesday…
I think that this is a good preview of what people will experience with Zune.
Meatofmoose
Don’t forget “Unnecessary”
Welcome to the “Sucks For Sure” planet, Jeff Bozos!
MW: planning. Yeah, right….
Or, more correctly:
At the bottom of the first, it’s Amazon 0, and Apple coming up to bat.
Of course everyone is expecting Apple to score big time in their half of the inning!
(That’s baseball talk, for our worldwide friends who don’t recognize trhe terms.)
meatofmoose
Deep in the Amazon
Golf claps for the two of you. Miniature American flags for the others.
What scares the bejeezus out of me is that it sounds like something gets installed that automatically tries to connect to the Net.
How many hackers downloaded the Unbox Player on Friday and are spending the weekend redesigning it to use as a new exploit?
If I want to rent a DVD, I’ll stick with Netflix (still got three movies to watch this weekend).
Is there any reason why Apple wont get into console gaming?
UnBox reminded me of XBox, thus spurring the question.
Anybody notice how both these last reviewers tested Unbox by downloading episodes of Star Trek? Talk about geeks!
This was not rushed out the door…….this is as good as it gets partnering with Microsoft.
this blog post of toms, does not do his frustation justice.
listen to his podcast, cNets buzcast 9/8
he was pissed, you here it in his voice.
this blog post of toms, does not do his frustation justice.
listen to his podcast, cNets buzcast 9/8
he was pissed, you here it in his voice.
Sounds to me like UnBox needs to be ReBoxed and sent back as defective.
Unbox my heart… say you’ll love me again…
I wish that either Amazon launched their service a week ago or Apple’s announcement wasn’t coming until 9/19. I’d like to read about this all over the place for a week instead of Apple inadvertently smothering Amazon’s negative publicity by Tuesday. Let the world see the disaster that is Unbox and then save the day.
This is symptomatic of a larger issue in the business of software development, in that too often now incomplete and inadequate products are rushed to the market. The irony is, in rushing this product to market, the target audience will immediately identify the brand as crap, and will never use it again, even if successful attempts are made to improve the product. Had Amazon held off, they may well have made money off of a nice, competitive product that people would have used… but instead their eagerness has utterly destroyed the brand in this arena, and future profitability in this market will be a longshot. What amazes me is the big brains behind Unbox were paid big bucks to make decisions that defy general business fundamentals. Absolutely amazing.
P.S. Along the lines of marketing, what was the thinking behind the name “Unbox”? It makes no sense to the target audience, and generally negative references (like use of the prefix “un”) should be avoided. 7-Up’s “uncola” campaign (which used ‘un’ to brilliantly insult their competition) is one of the few exceptions that come to mind. Putting “un” in front of “box” though, makes no sense at all and just confuses the brand.
Get in bed with Microsoft and the media companies and do as they say, and you’re brand will get slimed.
It’s what happens when you do business with the wrong types of people. Especially on their terms.
It’s why I am glad Apple put up a fight and wasn’t afraid to go to market without most of the studios.
They’ll get greedy once they see how much money Disney and the independents are making and jump in sooner or later.
Absolutely freakin’ hilarious!!!
No wonder Amazon warned me about this service when I tried to use it with my Mac! LOL!
That would be some of the vaunted (by M$ trolls/fanboys) & superior ‘Trustworthy Computing’ from Micro$oftopoly. Makes me want to throw a chair.
Subject normal. Shafted by Microshaft.
They should have called it “Boob Tube”
I smell a rat. Sounds to me like it’s just another ploy by the MPAA and RIAA to create even more control over how people use media files and to boost their profits. Now, I’m not saying that ITMS is perfect in this regard, but it certainly is a lot more tame. I think in the future, you’re going to see a lot of artists jumping ship from the RIAA and creating more independent labels. Look at LeAnn Rimes. She got sick of B.S.
Perfect illustration of why I love the Mac and hate Windows.
How dare a piece of third-party software refuse to allow me to turn off auto-start? Or to place conditions if I want to uninstall? This is my computer! You are a guest! I make the rules here! If I want you gone, you are gone!
God!! I still cannot believe PC owners put up with this shit! Are they really okay with spending $1000 on a decent computer set-up, only to be ordered around by the software they install?!