Microsoft’s “Zune has too many compromises and missing features to be as good a choice as the iPod for most users. The hardware feels rushed and incomplete. It is 60% larger and 17% heavier than the comparable iPod. It has much worse battery life for music than the iPod or than Microsoft claims — at least two hours less than the iPod’s, in my tests. Despite the larger screen, many album covers look worse than they do on the iPod. And you can’t share music libraries between computers like you can with iTunes,” Walter S. Mossberg reports for The Wall Street Journal.
MacDailyNews Note: The Zune’s screen is physically larger, but it’s the same resolution as Apple’s iPod screen at 320×240. So, you get larger pixels and a more pixelated image with the Zune.
Mossberg reports, “Zune’s online store offers far fewer songs, just over two million, compared with 3.5 million for the iTunes store. In fact, as of this writing, songs from one of the big labels, Universal, were missing from Zune Marketplace, though Microsoft says it is confident it will have all the major labels when it launches Zune on Tuesday. Also, despite the player’s capability, Zune Marketplace offers none of the TV shows, movies or music videos that iTunes does, and has no audiobooks or podcasts.”
MacDailyNews Note: Obviously, Microsoft was desperate, so they made a really bad deal with Universal. Please see: Microsoft to pay Universal for every Zune sold – November 09, 2006
Mossberg reports, “Even worse, to buy even a single 99-cent song from the Zune store, you have to purchase blocks of “points” from Microsoft, in increments of at least $5. You can’t just click and have the 99 cents deducted from a credit card, as you can with iTunes. You must first add points to your account, then buy songs with these points. So, even if you are buying only one song, you have to allow Microsoft, one of the world’s richest companies, to hold on to at least $4.01 of your money until you buy another. And the point system is deceptive. Songs are priced at 79 points, which some people might think means 79 cents. But 79 points actually cost 99 cents.”
“Zune has only around 100 accessories at launch, versus 3,000 or more for the iPod,” Mossberg reports. “Placing the Zune next to the 30-gigabyte iPod provides a strong contrast. The iPod is thin, sleek and elegant looking. The Zune looks big and blocky, sort of like a prototype for a gadget, rather than a finished product. It is longer, thicker and heavier than even the 80-gigabyte iPod, which has more than twice its capacity.”
“The word ‘Microsoft’ never appears anywhere on the Zune…,” Mossberg reports. “The wireless music-sharing feature on the Zune is heavily compromised, in a way that is bound to annoy the very audience it is targeting. Each song sent to your Zune from another Zune can be played only three times and is available for playing for only three days. After that, it dies and can’t be played again unless you buy it. Even if you play the song only halfway through, or for one minute, that counts as one of your three allowed plays. In fact, in my tests, a song I sent to my assistant’s Zune expired after only two plays, one of which lasted just a few seconds. Microsoft attributed that to a bug that it said would be fixed.”
“The Zune’s other big plus, the big screen, is similarly compromised. While it is three inches versus 2.5 inches for the iPod’s screen, it uses the same resolution. That combination can make images coarser and grainier,” Mossberg reports. “And for a product that’s all about ‘the Social,’ Zune is curiously lacking a very popular iTunes feature — the ability to view and to listen to another user’s music library over a local network.”
Full review with much more here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Island Girl” for the heads up.]
Now the real reviews begin. By that we mean, not the “reviews” from bloggers flown to Microsoft HQ to be wined and dined, all expenses paid, but actual product reviews from people who do it for a living. All of the astroturfing, all of the fake “pro-Zune” comments on iPod sites, all of the typically sleazy Microsoft fakery and disrespect for the potential customer, will all be for naught. Now that impartial people can report, it’s not going to be pretty for Zune, folks.
Related articles:
NY Times’ Pogue: Zune should come in green to match Microsoft’s iPod envy – November 09, 2006
Microsoft to pay Universal for every Zune sold – November 09, 2006
Analysts: Microsoft Zune may end up being a flop – November 08, 2006
Are 58% of iPod owners really thinking of a Zune switch? – November 08, 2006
Survey: 58% of iPod owners planning another MP3 player purchase will consider Microsoft’s Zune – November 01, 2006
Zune is from Microsoft, but Microsoft doesn’t want anybody to know about it – November 07, 2006
Microsoft Zune to be US-only, no firm plans to launch anywhere else globally – November 03, 2006
Five Microsoft Zune TV commercials – November 02, 2006
JupiterResearch: Apple’s iPod will dominate for foreseeable future; Microsoft’s Zune insignificant – October 25, 2006
Ellen DeGeneres Show gives away Microsoft Zunes, studio audience goes berserk – October 23, 2006
More Microsoft Zune myths explored – October 20, 2006
Five more Microsoft Zune myths – October 18, 2006
Microsoft Zune intensifies chaos in Apple iPod+iTunes also-ran market – October 16, 2006
Newsweek Q&A: Apple CEO Steve Jobs discusses iPod’s impact, Microsoft’s Zune, and more – October 15, 2006
Microsoft’s Ballmer: Zune device not money loser, wishes Apple’s 30GB iPod was $299 instead of $249 – October 11, 2006
Microsoft’s consumer electronics track record: long string of failures – October 11, 2006
MP3.com founder: ‘Zune will be an expensive failure for Microsoft because consumers aren’t stupid’ – October 06, 2006
Microsoft fails to secure key Zune domains – October 04, 2006
Microsoft rigs Zune with tricky pricing and proprietary money schemes – October 03, 2006
Why Microsoft’s Zune won’t kill Apple’s iPod – October 03, 2006
10 Apple iPod vs. Microsoft Zune myths – October 02, 2006
Analyst: Zune could lead to ‘civil war’ between Microsoft and Windows Media partners – September 29, 2006
Thurrott on Microsoft’s Zune: ‘The makings of a disaster, what the heck are these people thinking?’ – September 29, 2006
Analyst: Microsoft Zune’s as good as dead on arrival – September 28, 2006
Microsoft sets 30GB Zune price at $249.99 – September 28, 2006
How Microsoft’s Zune can kill Apple’s iPod – September 21, 2006
Microsoft’s Zune insanity – September 21, 2006
The Microsoft Zune 1.0 dud – September 20, 2006
Microsoft’s underwhelming Zune a ‘viral DRM’ device – September 18, 2006
SanDisk teams with RealNetworks against new common foe: Microsoft Zune – September 18, 2006
Creative does Apple’s dirty work by immediately attacking Microsoft’s Zune – September 17, 2006
Motley Fool’s Jayson: Microsoft’s ‘just plain ugly’ Zune a meager offering, not an iPod killer – September 15, 2006
What’s in a name? ‘Zune’ a French-Canadian euphemism for penis or vagina – September 15, 2006
Crave at CNET: ‘Microsoft Zune, all the excitement that brown can bring’ – September 15, 2006
Microsoft’s Zune underwhelms – September 15, 2006
Enderle: Microsoft Zune ‘a design mistake’ – September 15, 2006
Microsoft hypocrisy exposed with Zune: What ever happened to ‘choice?’ – September 14, 2006
Analyst: Microsoft Zune with fake scroll wheel ‘hardly an Apple iPod killer’ – September 14, 2006
Analyst: Microsoft Zune won’t spoil Apple’s biggest iPod Christmas ever – September 14, 2006
Microsoft unveils Zune 30GB player, Zune Marketplace; declines to disclose prices – September 14, 2006
Analyst: Microsoft’s Zune an ‘underwhelming’ repackaged Toshiba Gigabeat; no threat to Apple iPod – August 30, 2006
Microsoft confirms brick-like Zune to be made by Toshiba – August 25, 2006
Microsoft Zune is chunky brick made by Toshiba – August 25, 2006
Microsoft to sell single Zune model this fall, rumors of Wi-Fi capability were greatly exaggerated – August 10, 2006
Microsoft to spend hundreds of millions, several years on Zune trying to catch Apple iPod+iTunes – July 27, 2006
Zune: Apple cannot lose. Microsoft cannot win. – July 26, 2006
Pierre
$495 buys 500 songs.
Uncle Walt says, “The company is abandoning its favored business model, where it builds software platforms and then lets other companies make a wide variety of products that use that platform.”
this is factually incorrect. Microsoft’s favored business model is to buy technology from another company, slap some changes to it haphazardly, call it their own “revolutionary invention” and use its huge reserves of cash to cram it down everyone’s throats.
Hey, “Realist” . . .
“It’s a couple [OF] paragraphs below.” If you’re going to be captious here, be prepared for reciprocity.
“[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Island Girl” for the heads up.]”
Is this the same Island Girl I see fairly often in the Mac news groups?
Macaday,
‘yclept’ is the past participle of ‘clepe’ which is an old English word which means to call, to name.
Archaic or humorous describes its usage; i.e. it’s only used humorously nowadays.
…to the social*!
*with approved DEVICE only.
“And you can’t share music libraries between computers like you can with iTunes,”
Three words. What, the, and fuck, sum up my reaction to that.
“So, even if you are buying only one song, you have to allow Microsoft, one of the world’s richest companies, to hold on to at least $4.01 of your money until you buy another. And the point system is deceptive. Songs are priced at 79 points, which some people might think means 79 cents. But 79 points actually cost 99 cents.”
If I hadn’t already said “what the fuck?”, I would say that here. Anyone expecting anything other than a byzantine software/store setup from Microsoft are sadly, predictably, mistaken. Worse, there are those that will embrace this as “good enough” and bitch about people that dare “whine” about the crumbs that Microsoft was kind enough to drop for them. Just because those crumbs cost $249 + tax and however many points it takes to buy a song that is some cost (I suspect the actual answer is anything other than 99 cents because, well, Microsoft always has some sort of fine print).
Even if you want to be contrarian or you just do not like iPod, this does not seem to be a very attractive alternative. Zune has, at every turn, looked like a piece of shit, both literally and figuratively. I like the Xbox360, but apparently the MS bean counters, style experts, and marketing people were kept at bay on that device, because everything about the Zune system screams squirt!. By squirt, I mean violent diarrhea.
Microshaft is anethema to those that “think different.” They are nefarious miscreants that should be treated like the dregs of society.
Zune Dead Pool
I’m going to go with 18 months from launch. I think it will sort of peter out and disappear just like Origami/tablet PCs did, with most folks never having heard of it. People like us that love to dis on it will know, but the average Joe, within 2 years, will never know that MS even put out an iPod competitor.
Let’s watch.
-c
MW: ‘court’ (verdicts in Europe won’t help either)
Of course they won’t know Microsoft put it out. Microsoft isn’t even putting its name on the device, whether to try and keep the “plop” and “swoosh” as the Zune is excreted and flushed from dragging its existing name down, or maybe to try and give Zune a small fighting chance by distancing it from Microsoft’s own shoddy track record.
MDW: couldn’t. Microsoft’s Zune will probably the the little engine that couldn’t.
I’m sad that the Zune is destined to be a bomb. I had hoped that MS could impress me with… something. My feelings towards Zune are as gray as the rain clouds over Redmond this morning.
I find it absolutely hilarious that MS doesn’t put their name on the Zune (and same with XBox, right?).
Can anyone provide even one “positive” reason that holds water why they would do that??
I understand all the “negative” reasons (doesn’t want customers associating it with stodgy old MS, etc.), but are there any legit “positive” reasons? I can’t come up any.
The great thing about Mossbeg’s piece is that it can’t be blown off as just another Apple fanboy opinion like Pogue’s simply because Pogue is reputation is that of a pro-Mac guy.
No offense intended to David Pogue.
MS could be very successful with Zune simply by expanding marketshare rather than attempting to take marketshare from iTMS/iPod. The last numbers I read indicate online music sales are still less than 10% of total music sales. Lots of room for expanding the online music sales marketplace.
All MS has to do is sell Zunes to all those who don’t currently buy music online and/or have a mp3 player. Which I suspect is most people.
The thing is, will most people go for it?
I think not, but who knows. Remember the Pet Rock?
FWIW, I am not pro-Zune, nor pro-iPod. I have no use for an mp3 player and that is not likely to change at any time in the future.
If they intend to tie the Zune in with the XBox, why the different marketing? Have you seen even one scrap of marketing that implies the two products are from the same people?
New Zune tag line
Zune, Many Happy RETURNS
Mossberg is pretty level-headed in my book. Funny though, some of them MS fanboys on the Forbes piece by Ewalt (kinda forgot the name) think he’s owned by AAPL. Talk about a thread of lunacy, that one’s it.
“The great thing about Mossbeg’s piece is that it can’t be blown off as just another Apple fanboy opinion “
You can’t be serious. Mossberg is so Pro Apple that Steve could ship the iProduct
http://www.aboyandhiscomputer.com/show.php?ItemID=2204
and Mossburg would love it.