Posted on 11/26/2006 5:11:08 PM PST by quidnunc
Yes, Microsoft's new Zune digital music player is just plain dreadful. I've spent a week setting this thing up and using it, and the overall experience is about as pleasant as having an airbag deploy in your face.
"Avoid," is my general message. The Zune is a square wheel, a product that's so absurd and so obviously immune to success that it evokes something akin to a sense of pity.
The setup process stands among the very worst experiences I've ever had with digital music players. The installer app failed, and an hour into the ordeal, I found myself asking my office goldfish, "Has it really come to this? Am I really about to manually create and install a .dll file?"
But there it was, right on the Zune's tech support page. Is this really what parents want to be doing at 4 a.m. on Christmas morning?
That might not be Zune's fault. After about a year of operation, it's almost as if a Windows machine develops some sort of antibodies that prevent it from recognizing new hardware. But what's Microsoft's excuse for everything else?
Only the Zune software can sync music, video and pictures onto the device; Zune is incompatible with Windows Media Player, the familiar hub of the Windows desktop media experience.
The Zune app doesn't even have as many features as WMP. And why (for the love of God) doesn't it support podcasts? That's pure insanity.
It's incompatible with Microsoft's own PlaysForSure standard, too.
You'll have to buy all-new content from the new Zune Marketplace.
Oh, and the Zune Marketplace doesn't even take real money, proving that on the Zune Planet there's no operation so simple that it can't be turned into a confusing ordeal. The Marketplace only accepts Zune Points, with an individual track typically costing the equivalent of the iTunes-standard 99 cents.
By forcing users to buy blocks of Zune Points (with a $5 minimum), the Marketplace only has to pay one credit-card processing fee.
Zune Points will also make it easier for the Zune Marketplace to institute variable pricing. The music industry wants it desperately. The industry has been pressuring Apple to abandon its flat 99 cent pricing and start charging more for "hot" tracks.
-snip-
FYI
But,but......The Zune was going to AAPL's A$$ I thought ???</>sarc
This may have ThreadJester potential...
yes yes yes it may :)
I've not yet seen the Zune, but I can't imagine it being as miserable as this drama queen wants his readers to believe.
I notice on these Zune threads that the usual Windows sheeples (read that sycophants) are strangely absent. Leads one to believe that this latest Microsoft piece of trash is even too much for them to make excuses for.
I'm looking into a Cowon iAudio device, although not for Christmas. They handle a heck of a lot more formats, and they don't tag your music with DRM.
Nope, haven't seen, er, that guy on the thread Swordmaker posted--he's been quiet for almost a week.
Swordmaker--courtesy ping
I'm well aware. But the issue here is that the PC-based software AND the hardware fail to deliver. Microsoft may have gotten the Zune's interface right, but at the cost of mediocrity in other categories.
The lack of wireless syncing and inability to use the Zune as a remote storage drive are really baffling.
That is not a nice interface. More to the point, I cannot believe someone is actually endorsing a Creative product. Even their sound cards sell generally because no one knows of any alternative.
How long have you been using Windoze®?
I've never had any problems with it. It boots up, plays downloads...not one problem.
Consider the lunacy of making the much ballyhooed "Plays For Sure" initiative incompatible with the Zune for example. Many people built entire music libraries around "Plays For Sure" and they are now left out in the cold. And Microsoft expects they will download their entire music collection all over again on the Zune music store? What were they thinking?
You've got to be kidding with that ZEN interface. You think that's good? Obviously you've never seen the elegant interface of iTunes.
That's never stopped Bill Gates in the past from leading the industry in some of the worst programming techniques imaginable, not to mention his dearth of computer science in his operating system transactions.
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