The Browser Den

There now follows an article on the Zune, a bit off-topic for this site but I felt like writing it…

Microsoft’s Zune will soon be released in the US. But those outside of the US will have to  wait a bit longer to find out when it’s available to them. Like a lot of people I predict that this will be a flop, there doesn’t seem to be anything going for it over the iPod.

The problem with the Zune is the few advantages it offers over the iPod are insignificant compared to its shortcomings. The advantages over the iPod can be summarised as follows:

• WiFi based photo and song sharing - this is ruined by the fact you can only share music for three days or three plays whichever comes first. They need to make more use of the WiFi feature if they want to turn this into a selling point.
• FM radio - but in the UK, like many countries, we’re in the process of phasing out FM radio in favour of DAB. Unfortuantely, digital radio doesn’t seem to be standardised across countries, but offering DAB instead of FM would make this more attractive in the UK.
• Larger screen - the screen is larger although it is exactly the same resolution as the iPod. This may make it more popular with people who watch TV or movies on their players, but I think most people want a good music player foremost and video is either not going to be used or is just a nice occaisional extra. I see many people using iPods on the way to work but only ever noticed one person watch video on it. Perhaps the larger Zune screen will make watching things on the way to work more popular but I still believe this will only represent a small share of the market.
• Anti-theft technology - the brown player will ensure that no one wants to steal it

Zune has the following disadvantages:

• Larger than the iPod. Zune is larger in all dimensions to the iPod, it also weighs more.
• A wheel is not a wheel. For some reason the Zune has what appears to be a scrollwheel but is really four directional buttons hidden under the wheel. It makes the interface look more confusing.
• Can’t play Plays for Sure DRM’d music. Microsoft’s first attempt at capturing the iPod market share was designed to make it easy to play any music downloaded from a compatible music store on any compatible device. To quote MS exec J Allard “Zune says there is no choice“. Being able to offer those who wanted a choice of stores to buy from, while still keeping the Zune marketplace for those who wanted the integrated experience would have given them a slight advantage of Apple. I don’t think anyone buys an iPod because it limits them to the iTunes store, those that know of the limitation are either very happy with the store or are not purchasing their music online. I can’t imagine anyone complaining if Apple opened up the iPod to competing stores.
• Platform support, core platforms supported by the iPod are Mac and Windows. Support for Linux exists unofficially through third party applications such as gtkpod. The Zune will only officially support Windows, we’ll see how well others will add support for their preferred platform.
• One size fits all - a 30GB device doesn’t provide much flexibility. People with massive music collections may want an 80GB device, people with smaller collections or just want something easier to carry may want something the size of an iPod nano or shuffle. Some people may want both an 80GB device to hold their entire collection on long journeys and a shuffle or nano to store a few playlists when jogging.
• Confusing pricing, instead of using real currency to buy music you have to purchase points. It’s more fun that way

So for most people there’s really no benefit over an iPod, the price is currently on par (comparing the 30GB iPod to the Zune) and you get a lot more flexibility. Microsoft needs to give people a real reason to switch, at the moment the only reason could be for those who don’t like Apple.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 14th, 2006 at 6:08 am and is filed under Misc, Windows. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.