Musings from The Software Underground

With the eminent release of Microsoft's Zune, a lot of the reviews are coming in, and like the early reactions, all of them are a big "enh."

First up is David Pogue of the New York Times. He starts out by saying, after many details about how Microsoft is abandoning their first attempt and former partners by ditching "PlaysForSure" (which of course, didn't):

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."

Things kind of go downhill from there however. The "dranconian" copy protection of the wirelessly shared files, the lack of features which he says "could stretch to Steve Ballmer’s house and back 10 times" and the "dog-slow" store which among other things lists things that aren't even sold, like albums from the Beatles. Finally he sums it all up:

Competition is good and all. But what, exactly, is the point of the Zune? It seems like an awful lot of duplication — in a bigger, heavier form with fewer features — just to indulge Microsoft’s “we want some o’ that” envy. Wireless sharing is the one big new idea — and if the public seems to respond, Apple could always add that to the iPod.

Then again, this is all standard Microsoft procedure. Version 1.0 of Microsoft Anything is stripped-down and derivative, but it’s followed by several years of slow but relentless refinement and marketing. Already, Microsoft says that new Zune features, models and accessories are in the pipeline.

For now, though, this game is for watching, not playing. It may be quite a while before brown is the new white.

Read more: Trying Out the Zune: iPod It’s Not

Next is Walt Mossberg writing for the Wall Street Journal. While he does have some nice things to say about Zune at first, "a larger screen, the ability to exchange songs with other Zunes wirelessly and a built-in FM radio" and "the Zune player and software have a very good user interface, different from, but in some cases easier to use than, the iPod's," it's not pretty after that.

But, this first 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.

He also mentions Microsoft's "points" system for buying things:

...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.

I don't know about you, but this is ridiculous, especially in comparison to Apple's method, which is, um 99 cents a track, no trickery or gimmicks. Please. Finally he mentions the battery life, which is a good deal less than the iPod's, under what he deems normal usage: "12 hours and 18 minutes of music playback, versus 14 hours and 44 minutes from an iPod under the same usage pattern."

Read more: Microsoft's Zune Challenges iPod

Finally USA Today's Edward Baige has the following to say about it:

Zune shows promise. But I'd like to see more offerings in the store, and less stringent wireless restrictions. And Microsoft should rethink the silly points system. For now, I'm sticking with iPod.

Read more: Microsoft hoped to whistle a happy Zune, but it's no iPod

But, really, my favorite review is from David M. Ewalt at Forbes:

There's plenty more to complain about. Microsoft's copy protection schemes are too restrictive. The Zune is about 60% bigger and 17% heavier than a iPod. It comes in brown. All considered, we could be looking at the biggest consumer electronics flop in recent history here. This is like 'Microsoft Bob,' only more embarrassing

Read more: Zune Stinks

Ouch.

So Microsoft needed to hit the ball out of the park to really challenge Apple, and what do they do? Single to left. Oh well, at least they can still use their monopoly money to "compete." As mentioned by Stephan, Microsoft has decided to, at the very least, make things more difficult for Apple by potentially making things more expensive for them in the future.