You thought John’s rant in PC Magazine was tough. This review makes his sound like praise.
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?”
You’ll find that the Zune Planet orbits the music industry’s Bizarro World, where users aren’t allowed to do anything that isn’t in the industry’s direct interests.
[...]
Typical, selfish user: How does your convenience help make money for Universal?
If, for some strange reason these reviews don’t keep you from buying the future doorstop, there’s a way to bypass Zune’s WiFi sharing DRM.
20,
The beauty is that you are free to buy the device of your choice, as is everyone else. Isn’t the free market wonderful?
The only reason Microsoft is successful is because they are a monopoly. The Zune was introduced outside of their monopoly so it will fail. Maybe if they spend Xbox money to promote it would succeed. It may take 20 years but here starts the downward trip for Microsoft.
I gave up on my brand new PocketPC because the file transfer software (activesync) would never work right. Why should I buy another item that uses proprietary technology?
Its simple:
CD->Rip->Mp3->Generic Player->Done
I even get my CDs free from the local library. You think any of today’s youth knows what that is?
#3
I do back up my iPOD content on an external drive. Also, I have successfully transferred all my content to completely new Windows PC’s build w/o any issue. Really, I have no issue with the iPOD/iTunes – it works flawless every time and it give me all the flexibility I need or want..
I can play/share purchased content with up to 5 authorized PC’s – that’s plenty for me. I can burn CD’s and stream all I want. If I ever need to transcode content content, I guess I can do an analog capture but I have never found the need.
regards
Zune is playing nice with regulations….restricting its usage is obviously intended.
You do realize that 1 week after launch the wonderful developer community(worldwide) has already released patches to overcome those annoyances…hehe…
you also realize by now that most MS smartphones are potential zune phones, and no you do not need to buy a new phone, just wait for the software updates…
I do not own a potable, but if I was to buy one, the Zune would be at the bottom of my list. I was at a store on the day after and no one had even touched them. Their advertisements of the Zune have been moronic at best, as well.
The ideal player would be easy to use, run on easily replaceable or rechargeable batteries, and wouldn’t use proprietary front-end software and you could just cut, copy, and paste the media in through the OS shell. It would also support the installation of media codecs. (such as FLAC or DIVX)
Also, no DRM would exist on this device.
Why do iPod owners constantly bitch about the Zune’s DRM? The iPod is just as DRM-O-Licious itself.
Also, am I the only person who noticed this guy works for Macworld? He’s got a vested interest in slamming the Zune.
For those of us who aren’t going to pay for DRM-laden music anyway, the issue is completely friggin’ moot. And my video looks really tasty.
Ill stick to my XM radio, and pay the 12 bucks a month. All the content is streamed to me. Also I have people like Bob Dylan and Tom Petty doing my playlists for me. A way better situation than amatures such as myself putting together the playlist.
And If I want to keep the song, I just hit record on sound recorder. None of this apple craptastic shit of plugging things in, or making coffee coasters(which will eventially go to the likes of RIAA as a blank media tax).
I don’t get it, satelite radio is superior in every conceivable way to mp3 players, or for pay file sharing services, yet people are willing to do all this crap just so they dont have to pay for radio, makes no sense to me at all….
#15 – A sacrifice? Do you suppose the Zune was released to take the heat and inevitable bashing of Windows Vista and or Office 2007?
Comment by Dude — 11/27/2006 @ 10:22 am
No… Because that sounds to much like the kind of Scooby Doo scheme you expect from bad fiction… Not what a real company would do. Besides, Microsoft has been bashed into a 95% desktop marketshare, so I don’t imagine they need to hire former Bond villians for their marketing department.
#22 – The only reason Microsoft is successful is because they are a monopoly.
The only reason Microsoft is a monopoly is because they are successful.
#21 – The beauty is that you are free to buy the device of your choice, as is everyone else. Isn’t the free market wonderful?
Comment by Smartalix — 11/27/2006 @ 2:09 pm
Not really. The free market would work better if consumers were free-thinking. Because consumers are often lemmings, inferior dominates superior and our options are severly limited.
I read this review and don’t have a lot of faith in it. The guy writing it was just too angry. The article was filled with negative, subjective adjectives like “humiliating”. Shrill, angry reviews are best ignored.