Microsoft has announced their iPod rival, it is called Zune. The new digital audio player (DAP) is rumored to sport WiFi, a fast processor for gaming, and a satellite radio receiver. While all of this sounds great on paper it has been proven in the past that digital audio players that do lots of different things do not do one of those things very well.
What has made Zune’s biggest competiter, the iPod, such a major success is that it is first and foremost a music player. Sure the iPod recently added video support, but if you look closely at how this iPod is marketed it read “iPod with Video” not “Video iPod” and while the distinction might be small it makes a world of difference in the long run. To understand the difference you must first understand that the iPod never set out to be more than an digital audio player. And at this it succeeds very well. It plays Mp3s, M4a, M4p, and unproceted WMA files perfectly. You can easily navigate to find the song you want and the integration with iTunes is top notch. While some power users will argue there are missing features that they deem important (gapless playback, OGG format support, etc), for the beginner who just wants to load thier music and go, it’s perfect and pretty much hassle free. Sure, there are extra features like contacts, notes, and a few games. But these are very simple to use and they, by design, are not meant to be replacements for a PDA or gaming device. The iPod plays music, that’s it, that is it’s sole purpose. Now when Apple introduced the iPod with Video, they were very strategic in the content they offered. First off they offered television shows, music videos, and video Podcasts. This was to prove that given the right content people could watch video on an iPod and they made it easy to download content via iTunes.
The iTunes is a major part of why the iPod works so well. iTunes is simple to use and requires very little human interaction to sync your music. The iTunes Music Store has the largest selection of digital media for purchase while buying from the store and getting the content on your iPod is as easy as hitting the “Buy Song” button. Windows Media Player, in my opinion, is a horrible music organizer. While iTunes is definately not without its faults, Windows Media Player is not overly intuitive as far as interactivity goes. And it’s media organizing feature is not nearly as easy to navigate as iTunes. If Microsoft plans on using Media Player as it’s syncing tie in for the Zune digital audio player it’s got a lot of work to do to make the software better.
The next issue is the rumored gaming and satellite radio features for the Zune player. While the satellite tuner is definately at this point nothing more than a rumor the possibility is high since Sirius has already announced plans to release a completely portable tuner by year’s end. The problem with these features is that they add more functionality to the device that is compeletly unnessecary and also distract from the device’s orginal intent of being a music player. A perfect example of this is the Sony Playstation Portable. While the Playstation Portable is an excellent gaming device, it also played music, stored photos, and allowed the user to view videos. With the demise of the UMD format, Sony has put the nail in the coffin of the PSP being anything other than a gaming device. Instead Sony should have concentrated on the gaming aspect by focusing on releasing excellent gaming content first and then worry about the secondary functions. Instead it took the PSP over one year to have a decent library of playable games and at one point there were more UMD movies on the Wal-Mart shelves than games. This idea of a one device to rule them all is continually proven ineffective and these devices end up on eBay quicker than then the single functioned device that handles it’s assigned task with great effectiveness.
So will Microsoft’s Zune media player win the bout against Apple’s iPod? Well, we won’t really know until the device is release around Christmas this year. Hopefully Microsoft releases with enough time to market it for the Christmas season so we can compare the Zune’s post-Christmas numbers against the iPod’s. Only time is going to tell how well the Zune media player will do.
[Technorati Tag: Technology]
[Technorati Tag: Zune]
[Technorati Tag: iPod]
[Technorati Tag: Microsoft]
[Technorati Tag: Apple]
Michael Koby 
Why Microsoft's Zune Could Fail
Microsoft has announced their iPod rival, it is called Zune. The new digital audio player (DAP) is rumored to sport WiFi, a fast processor for gaming, and a satellite radio receiver. While all of this sounds great on paper it has been proven in the past that digital audio players that do lots of different things do not do one of those things very well.
What has made Zune’s biggest competiter, the iPod, such a major success is that it is first and foremost a music player. Sure the iPod recently added video support, but if you look closely at how this iPod is marketed it read “iPod with Video” not “Video iPod” and while the distinction might be small it makes a world of difference in the long run. To understand the difference you must first understand that the iPod never set out to be more than an digital audio player. And at this it succeeds very well. It plays Mp3s, M4a, M4p, and unproceted WMA files perfectly. You can easily navigate to find the song you want and the integration with iTunes is top notch. While some power users will argue there are missing features that they deem important (gapless playback, OGG format support, etc), for the beginner who just wants to load thier music and go, it’s perfect and pretty much hassle free. Sure, there are extra features like contacts, notes, and a few games. But these are very simple to use and they, by design, are not meant to be replacements for a PDA or gaming device. The iPod plays music, that’s it, that is it’s sole purpose. Now when Apple introduced the iPod with Video, they were very strategic in the content they offered. First off they offered television shows, music videos, and video Podcasts. This was to prove that given the right content people could watch video on an iPod and they made it easy to download content via iTunes.
The iTunes is a major part of why the iPod works so well. iTunes is simple to use and requires very little human interaction to sync your music. The iTunes Music Store has the largest selection of digital media for purchase while buying from the store and getting the content on your iPod is as easy as hitting the “Buy Song” button. Windows Media Player, in my opinion, is a horrible music organizer. While iTunes is definately not without its faults, Windows Media Player is not overly intuitive as far as interactivity goes. And it’s media organizing feature is not nearly as easy to navigate as iTunes. If Microsoft plans on using Media Player as it’s syncing tie in for the Zune digital audio player it’s got a lot of work to do to make the software better.
The next issue is the rumored gaming and satellite radio features for the Zune player. While the satellite tuner is definately at this point nothing more than a rumor the possibility is high since Sirius has already announced plans to release a completely portable tuner by year’s end. The problem with these features is that they add more functionality to the device that is compeletly unnessecary and also distract from the device’s orginal intent of being a music player. A perfect example of this is the Sony Playstation Portable. While the Playstation Portable is an excellent gaming device, it also played music, stored photos, and allowed the user to view videos. With the demise of the UMD format, Sony has put the nail in the coffin of the PSP being anything other than a gaming device. Instead Sony should have concentrated on the gaming aspect by focusing on releasing excellent gaming content first and then worry about the secondary functions. Instead it took the PSP over one year to have a decent library of playable games and at one point there were more UMD movies on the Wal-Mart shelves than games. This idea of a one device to rule them all is continually proven ineffective and these devices end up on eBay quicker than then the single functioned device that handles it’s assigned task with great effectiveness.
So will Microsoft’s Zune media player win the bout against Apple’s iPod? Well, we won’t really know until the device is release around Christmas this year. Hopefully Microsoft releases with enough time to market it for the Christmas season so we can compare the Zune’s post-Christmas numbers against the iPod’s. Only time is going to tell how well the Zune media player will do.
[Technorati Tag: Technology]
[Technorati Tag: Zune]
[Technorati Tag: iPod]
[Technorati Tag: Microsoft]
[Technorati Tag: Apple]
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