I’ve been sort of surprised by the extent to which the tech press has gotten all excited over the Microsoft Zune. Now granted, I’m no big fan of Mr. Bill and company, but part of me has been hoping the Zune will be a success and bring some pressure to bear on Apple (the consumer being the winner in a competitive market, and all that jazz). And this (MS enjoying a significant marketshare) is likely to be the case, regardless of the quality of their product. But it’s that quality (or apparent lack thereof) I’m sort of surprised by. What I’ve seen and heard about the Zune has not said “iPod Killer” to me. The price is one of the few things that’s struck me as threatening. The slightly larger screen is nice, too. Otherwise, well… I’ll let these snip-snips from recent articles critical of the Zune do the talkin’:
[from Wired News:] “…although the Zune looks good on paper, it’s not going to kill the iPod because of three things:
1. It’s not cool and never will be.
2. The Zune will be locked down tighter than the queen’s knickers.
3. Wi-Fi song sharing will not catch on in public.
Read the rest of the piece here.
[from Engadget, via Slashdot:] “You can search for and find other Zunes nearby. You can send songs / albums for the 3 x 3 trial. Songs past the three days / listens are deleted at next sync, but catalogued on your PC for record-keeping should you want to purchase them later. No word on whether Microsoft is going to keep track of which files are traded. You can send and receive image files for ‘unlimited viewing.’ (Oh, so copyrighted images aren’t worth DRMing?) You can’t: Connect to the internet, Download songs directly from the Zune store via WiFi, Sync to your computer via WiFi.”
Read the rest of the piece here.