Why Zune Won’t Replace Your iPod Anytime Soon
11.09.06 - 11:34am
“Welcome to the social” will be the slogan of the new Zune commercials soon to be beaming into living rooms everywhere. The Zune which will go on sale later this month for $250, with the same capacity of the 30-gigabyte iPod, and will be desperately trying to replace iPods everywhere. Zune’s main selling point is the WiFi sharing built in that will allow users to share music with other Zune user’s. According to a recent survey conducted by ABI 58% of existing iPod Owners and 59% of those who owned other brands said they would be “somewhat likely” or “extremely likely” to choose the new microsoft Zune player over iPods and other brands. They seem to think their new WiFi sharing will be enough to compensate for their many flaws in the Zune.
The flaws: Let’s start with the fake wheel that looks like iPod’s but doesn’t turn and isn’t touch sensitive. Instead, it’s just four buttons hidden under the compass points of a plastic ring. (Why put a wheel at all, do they really think users will see the wheel and mistake it for an iPod?) The buttons accelerates as you scroll through songs, but is not nearly as efficient as the iPod. Moving on the Zune does have a taller screen so you can see more of your playlists without scrolling, but if you play a photo or video the screen image rotates so you have to turn the player 90 degrees. Reception on the FM radio reciever is fairly weak, headphones must be plugged in to serve as an antenna, and you can’t make recordings. Naturally, you also miss out on the 3,000 iPod accessories: speaker systems, microphones, cases, home and auto adapters, remote controls and so on. And while 80% of 2007 cars will have an iPod connector option Zune will have exactly zero.
So why will 58% of iPod users switch? The wiFi sharing of course! Well let’s just talk about that. The WiFi sharing allows you to send a song or photo to any other Zune user. This could be cool, fun and wonderful, however, the restrictions are a bit henious. While photos are a free for all, any sent song can be played only 3 times and must be played within 3 days. We loved what the New York Times had to say about the file sharing capabilites of Zune…
Microsoft’s literature suggests that if you have a struggling rock band, you could “put your demo recordings on your Zune†and “when you’re out in public, you can send the songs to your friends.†What it doesn’t say is: “And then three days later, just when buzz about your band is beginning to build, your songs disappear from everyone’s Zunes, making you look like an idiot.â€
And since you can’t send the same song to the same friend that big recording agent has one shot and three days only to hear it (let’s hope he’s not busy). The song, if played for a minute, counts as one play. (lets also hope he’s not interupted.)
The Zune does have some advantages over the iPod. Album artwork automatically fills the entire screen during playback. Any song or photo can be “flagged for future reference on your PC. You can play whats on your Zune through your entertainment system, by plugging it into your Xbox 360. With it’s rubberized plastic coating it wont get fingerprinty or scratched and its equivilant in sound to the iPod. However, despite the results of the much debated ABI survey it seems hard to contemplate 58% of iPod users will turn in their new iPod shuffles, give up the iPod’s accessories and vast music library (3.5 million songs versus Microsofts 2.1 million) simply to send a song to friends that they can only play 3 times.
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