November 9, 2006
State of the Art
Trying Out the Zune: IPod It’s Not
By DAVID POGUE
Microsoft is probably the greenest company in all of high tech. Not green in the environmental sense — green with envy.

Microsoft is so jealous of the iPod’s success that TUESDAY it will unveil a new music system — pocket player, jukebox software and online music store — that’s an unabashed copy of Apple’s. It’s called Zune.

The amazing part is that it’s Microsoft’s second attempt to kill the iPod. The first was PlaysForSure — a gigantic multiyear operation involving dozens of manufacturers and online music stores. Microsoft went with its trusted Windows strategy: If you code it, the hardware makers will come (and pay licensing fees).

And sure enough, companies like Dell, Samsung and Creative made the players; companies like Yahoo, Rhapsody, Napster and MTV built the music stores.

But PlaysForSure bombed. All of them put together stole only market-share crumbs from Apple. The interaction among player, software and store was balky and complex — something of a drawback when the system is called PlaysForSure.

“Yahoo might change the address of its D.R.M. server, and we can’t control that,” said Scott Erickson, a Zune product manager. (Never mind what a D.R.M. server is; the point is that Microsoft blames its partners for the technical glitches.)

Is Microsoft admitting, then, that PlaysForSure was a dud? All Mr. Erickson will say is, “PlaysForSure works for some people, but it’s not as easy as the Zune.”

So now Microsoft is starting over. Never mind all the poor slobs who bought big PlaysForSure music collections. Never mind the PlaysForSure companies who now find themselves competing with their former leader. Their reward for buying into Microsoft’s original vision? A great big “So long, suckas!”

It was bad enough when there were two incompatible copy-protection standards: iTunes and PlaysForSure. Now there will be three.

(Although Microsoft is shutting its own PlaysForSure music store next week, it insists that the PlaysForSure program itself will live on.)

Microsoft’s proprietary closed system abandons one potential audience: those who would have chosen an iPod competitor just to show their resentment for Apple’s proprietary closed system.

To make matters worse, you can’t use Windows Media Player to load the Zune with music; you have to install a similar but less powerful Windows program just for the Zune. It’s a ridiculous duplication of effort by Microsoft, and a double learning curve for you.

So how is the Zune? It had better be pretty incredible to justify all of this hassle.

As it turns out, the player is excellent. It can’t touch the iPod’s looks or coolness, but it’s certainly more practical. It’s coated in slightly rubberized plastic, available in white, black or brown — yes, brown. It won’t turn heads, but it won’t get fingerprinty and scratched, either. It sounds just as good as the iPod.

The Zune matches the price ($250) and capacity of the 30-gigabyte iPod. But it’s noticeably thicker (0.6 inch vs. 0.4), taller (4.4 inches vs. 4.1) and heavier (5.6 ounces vs. 4.. Battery life is the same for music playback (14 hours), slightly better for video (4 hours vs. 3.5). The three-inch screen has the same 320-by-240-pixel resolution, but it’s larger (3 inches vs. 2.5), so movies and slide shows feel more expansive.

What looks like an iPod scroll wheel, THOUGH, is a fakeout. It doesn’t turn, and it’s not touch-sensitive. Instead, it’s just four buttons hidden under the compass points of a plastic ring.

Scrolling accelerates as you press the top or bottom button, but the iPod’s wheel is much more efficient. On the other hand, the Zune’s left and right buttons jump between menus (for example, Album, Artist, Genre) with less backtracking. The software design is beautiful, simple and graced by brief, classy ANIMATIONS.

The Zune’s screen is taller than it is wide — unlike the iPod’s — so you can see more of your lists without scrolling. But it’s all wrong for photos and videos. So when videos or photos play, the screen image rotates, meaning you have to turn the player 90 degrees. And just as on the iPod, portrait-oriented photos are now shrunken, crammed the wrong way on the horizontal screen.

The Zune has a built-in FM radio receiver, and even shows the name of the current song, if the station broadcasts it. Reception is fairly weak, the headphones must be plugged in to serve as an antenna, and you can’t make recordings.

The big, whomping Zune news, though, is wireless sharing. The Zune has a built-in Wi-Fi antenna. (Turning it on costs you one hour of battery life.)

During the playback of any photo or song, you can view a list of Zunes within 30 feet. Sending a song takes about 15 seconds, a photo 2 seconds; you can’t send videos at all.

Your lucky recipient can accept or decline your offering — and, if you have really terrible taste, can block your Zune permanently.

It all works well enough, but it’s just so weird that Zunes can connect only to each other. Who’d build a Wi-Fi device that can’t connect to a wireless network — to sync with your PC, for example? Nor to an Internet hot spot, to download music directly?
[highlight]LInk to full article[/highlight]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/09/technology/09pogue.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=technology&pagewanted=printHere's an interesting THOUGHT:

Microsoft's already making a move to make the device unusable as a mass storage device (and only implementing "Media Transfer Protocol", which means you'll need Windows Media Player to transfer songs onto your Zune, or some hacked together client that supports the same protocol. The only problem is, with as much DRM is already on Zune, it would make no sense for them not to encrypt the protocol too, since it could be used to strip songs from the Zune and all). This would cut the device off from Linux and from Macs, until a hack got around it.

It also would make the Zune unusable for backing up your computer, which one of the convenient features of the iPod as it STANDS (both my iBook and my Lifebook can be backed up on my iPod and I've still got plenty of room for music and movies that I'll never actually watch on a screen smaller than my palm).

Here's another:

Do you know what DRM is? It is software attached to media files that limits your rights to copy and use the file; giving you a time limit of a year (or two if they're feeling generous), usually no permission to copy the file at all, and limiting the ways it can be used. If you had a Zune, you could only play music downloaded from Zune (Or iTunes or Napster) which you can keep for a year apiece. If you send it to a friend, they can have it for three days before it dies and they have to buy it themselves for a year. OH, and did I mention that Microsoft can revoke your license rights without any lawful reason, causing you to buy all of your music all over again? And if your Zune breaks, you may (Only because the Zune service is incomplete) have to repurchase your entire music library?First off i would like to say anything is better then an iPod.
Secondly from what GX1 said im under the impression that on the Zune you can only play music that you have paied for, and after a year the song dies on you? Is this true?!


ChrisMore info:

http://practical-tech.com/entertainment/microsofts-zune-drm-madness

http://www.medialoper.com/hot-topics/music/zunes-big-innovation-viral-drm/

Just added this to the list of things i won't buy...A big "no" from me as well.Yup, thats a definetly a big NO on my list. In Canada downloading music is legal (im pretty sure )yes its really legal to download music up here.