Zune

I needed a place to store all my favorite stories about the new Microsoft Zune. So here it is. Bookmark this page if you wish. I’ll be adding more as they come out.

In no particular order, but new entries will be added at the bottom.

• Installing Zune sucked Engadget
• Can’t install Zune www.flx-tech.net
• Zune Installation screen raises eyebrows (to say the least) faruk.newsvine.com
• Why Microsoft is paying Universal DaringFireball
• Microsoft is paying Universal (2) Paul Thurrott
• “These devices [portable music players] are just repositories for stolen music, and they all know it,” UMG chairman/CEO Doug Morris says. “So it’s time to get paid for it.” In other news, banks will now get a percentage of all car sales, because everyone knows that the key to robbing banks is a getaway car.
• Trying Out the Zune: IPod It’s Not David Pogue, NYTimes
• Magic 8-Ball Answers Your Questions Regarding Microsoft’s ‘Zune’ DaringFireball
• The problem is, the Zune is Brown (Anil Dash)
• Zune Marketplace’s Absurd Pricing Scheme (AppleMatters)
• Zune Orphans Microsoft’s MSN Music customers. Also widely reported: Zune will not be compatible with Microsoft’s own PlaysForSure Program
• CNN/Fortune: iPod vs Zune “the iPod and iTunes system is superior to anything else on the market. It appears that Microsoft rushed Zune to the stores to meet the holiday shopping season, when a bit more seasoning would have made it a better product.”

CNN video review of Zune 15mb Windows Media file showing just what Microsoft is up against. Here’s the same thing via YouTube: Here’s my unofficial transcript: Andrew Ross Sorkin: (start: 00:32) “It does a couple of things that are a little bit cooler than the iPod, but a few things that probably aren’t… The cool things… It has a radio in it, if that means anything to you, but the real cool thing is that it has Wifi. So if you have a Zune and I have a Zune, we can trade music. So that’s… that’s sorta cool…But it’s heavier” Miles: “But you have to find another Zune user” ARS: “Right, so this is only going to work for Microsoft if they have a real critical mass.” Soledad: “And you can email with it, right?” ARS: “No email, no it’s just trading songs.” Miles: “Can you pull songs off of a network if you have them on a server somewhere?” (1:05) ARS: “No, it’s just Zune to Zune. So if I’m in a Starbucks and you’re in a Starbucks and we see each other — and not only that, I can see what you have, but then I have to go over and say ‘Hey Miles can you meab me your song?” (Female anchor laughs) And then I can play it 3 times and then if I want to buy it I can buy it” Miles: “Oh. Wow (disappointed)… lots of fine print there…” Soledad: “It costs the same?” [she just assumes you know she means “As an iPod?”] ARS: “Costs the same, has the same amount of memory and everything else, but here’s the part that’s no so cool. If you have bought songs on iTunes, on Apple, doesn’t play here… Even worse, if you bought songs on Napster or some of the former Microsoft compliant devices [the now even more ironically named “PlaysForSure”] also doesn’t work here.” Soledad: (Makes face) “Really….” ARS: “So you have to start your library over again, unless you have them all on CD” Miles: “Wow.” (as in: “Wow, look at that pile of vomit next to the cat) Soledad: “So who do they think is going to buy this? Because a lot of people have an iPod already, it doesn’t seem to offer a lot of different that would make me say ‘Ooh, get rid of my iPod and buy the Zune.’” ARS: (portrait of a man grasping at straws) “Well, I, I, I think there is something to be said for this social networking feature, and I think there is a little bit of a backlash, you know, against Apple in a sense. Apple is the new monopoly, Apple is the new Microsoft, if you will—” Miles: (interrupts, scoffing) “No it’s not” ARS: (continues without responding) “— and I think there’s a little undercurrent of some folks who may say ‘You know what I’m not going to play that, I’m going to try this new thing…” Soledad: “May I show you my new shuffle?” (holds it up for the audience to see, much like one might hold up a picture of a new grandchild) ARS: “Now that’s, that’s the thing that’s a lot sexier than this…” Soledad: (camera is now close up on the postage stamp sized iPod shuffle, and her large smile is the backdrop) “Hello! Look at this, it weighs nothing, it literally is the size of a book of matches and it weighs that. Seventy-something bucks. So why would I buy that heavy — although I get a lot more songs—” ARS: “And you get the video, and you get the video. You know, I’m sure that in the end Microsoft, I’m sure, will come out with something, I don’t know if it will be that pretty (camera now close up on her clipping shuffle to her suit jacket)… isn’t that neat, oh my God” (much like one might respond to a picture of one’s really adorably cute grandchild) Miles: “The pretty factor is…” (overtalk) Soledad: “If I don’t want to listen in, I can just” (motions as if she were putting in her iPod headphones) Miles: “Why don’t they [Microsoft] get some decent design people to make things look better?” ARS: (exasperated sigh) “I…. I…” Miles: “It’s clunky, it’s clunky…” ARS: “No comment” (fade to black, end scene) Final kudos to the marketing folks at Apple. The $79 iPod Shuffle has been referred to as “Seventy-something dollars”