David Emery OnlineZune Doom
15 September 2006
Today, Microsoft officially launched Zune – it’s brand spanking new iPod clone (I was going to say competitor, but…).
Quite, frankly; it sucks.
The disk space is low (30gb), the screen is the same size and rez as the iPod, it plays the same formats as the iPod and the major two features it has that the iPod doesn’t have – built in radio (which is extra on the iPod) and wireless sharing – are features that simply don’t interest me at all.
Going back to the wireless songs sharing – what it allows you to do is share a song with a fellow Zune owner, and they can listen to it for a whole 3 times, over a huge 3 days.
Wow.
Isn’t that great.
I fail to see why anybody would ever do this, in the current climate where you can easily get access to almost every song for free, anywhere. You might as well just hit the bands MySpace and listen to the song there – you get as much utility from the crappy flash player as you do from the Zune. It comes back to one of the main tenants of the iTunes Store’s success – the FairPlay DRM for most users is completely un-intrusive – they never even know it’s there. When you start putting arcane “you can do this, but only for a certain amount of time, and only for a few plays” rules on people’s music, they are going to start getting pissed off, plain and simple.
They’ve also managed to make a huge usability blunder. In their efforts to make the Zune look as close to an iPod as possible, they slapped what looks like an iPod style click wheel on the front. However, it’s not. It’s just a 4 way navigational arrow-pad.
Seriously.
Every single person that has a go on a Zune will have used an iPod at some point, and have preconceived ideas on how the interface (which looks very similar to the iPod’s) will work, and almost all of them are going to get really confused when it doesn’t.
However, I think that Microsoft may have an ace up their sleeve. It’s the thing that could make or break the Zune, and they’re the only ones that can do it. I am, of course, talking about the price, which they haven’t announced yet. I think that they’re almost certainly going to massively undercut the equivalent iPod – which currently costs £190 – as it’s the only way they have a chance.
Possibly a price point around £130 would make a lot of sense, and would leave Apple in a tricky position. If they don’t go cheap, I don’t think they have a chance – the Zune just doesn’t look as good a package as the iPod.