iTunes WiFi store: the last nail in my Zune’s coffin
You can’t say I didn’t give my Zune a fair shake. I bought it not long after launch, last November. Honestly, it’s a nice player but in reality, all music players…play music. I bought it for what I call the "differentiators": the features that other players don’t have. Two come to mind: the relatively larger 320 x 240 screen and the integrated WiFi. It’s been nearly a year and what’s happened: other devices have even larger screens with higher resolution. The iPhone screen is nearly twice the size and offers 480 x 320 resolution, for example. And the WiFi in the Zune? All I can say is: I had hoped by now it would be usable for music purchases, but no such luck.
Late last night, I hit up the iTunes store on my iPhone and bought an album. I can’t remember the last time I bought an iTunes album, but the experience last night was seamless, simple and quick. Demo tracks played instantly and when I finally decided on an album (James Blunt’s "All the Lost Souls"), it was a few quick taps and that was it. The songs transferred over my WiFi network in 10 to 15 seconds each. As a consumer, my patience for hoped Zune updates is long past. I gave it plenty of time, but I’m pulling the plug. Off to eBay goes one Black Zune. Hey, it does have WiFi; should I put that in the eBay item description or not?
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I have to admit, Zune lost me at “squirting” (and recently again with “squircle”), but the lack of software upgrades did surprise me. After all, Microsoft is primarily a software maker. By rights, they should have beaten Apple to an in-player download store.
What, my Zune has WiFi?? Geeze, I may have more interested and excited if I’d known it had WiFi. Got it as a gift so my product knowledge was limited to packaging and installer splash screens. (Has anyone ever traded songs via the social netowrking thing a bob?) Oh, well, off the shelf and onto auction block.
I hit up Starbucks here in Seattle with my freshly updated iPhone and found that the promised free tmobile access to the WiFi iTunes Music Store is already up and running.
But the Starbucks button is still not enabled so my iPhone had no idea what was playing on the speakers.
I fired up Safari to test the limits of the free access and found myself looking at a Starbucks Entertainment page. It had a nice graphic offering to tell me all about the coming iTunes integration. I tapped it and got a plugin advisory.
Yep, Starbucks used Flash. Very silly since iPhones don’t do Flash… oh well, partnerships are tough. :-)
I think comparing your current gen music player’s features to your last gen music players features is a bit unfair at best. I mean it did take Apple 10 months after the Zune came out with wifi to release a device with wifi with a reason to have it.
With that said the Zune 2 has to be right around the corner. My theory is that early in this year Microsoft realized that they dropped the ball with the Zune (I think they rushed it to market and don’t have enough programmers on the team). Instead of releasing incremental feature updates throughout the year to improve Zune1, they decided they would release all the new features in conjunction with a 2nd gen device so that they actually had a lot to wow consumers and win back some positive press. I think they’re going to release whatever software updates Zune 2 has on Zune 1 as well since they need to support the loyal people who gave the first gen device a shot.
After playing with an iPod touch for 2 weeks (and consequently returning it) I still feel the Zune has a place. Apple doesn’t offer a music player with a reasonably quantity of storage with a large screen. I never liked watching video on the classic (the screen is just too small) and the touch/phone at best have 16gb of storage which isn’t enough for all my music + some video.
In all honesty I’m excited about the 2nd gen Zune. A lot is conjecture on my part of what I would expect them to do, in combination with a few intriguing patents.
There have been no reliable leaks so far. The rumor that coined the squircle is bs. They used the oct 16th release date that was guessed on iwantapinkzune… except iwapz was just making up a random date (that coincided with the transformers release) so that pretty much trashed any credibility to the squircle conversation.
On the positive side there have been a few cool patents talking about possible new features for the zune. They play up the subscription service, which is honestly one of Zune’s strong points (iirc you can share the subscription with 3 computers and 3 zunes making it quite affordable).
The first patent talked about shared playlists. Basically allowing you to subscribe to playlists created by other people and have your zune automatically get whatever is on it when they update it. This sounds like a great way to find new music as when you find someone with similar tastes you can follow along with what they suggest easily. It would basically let people create their own radio stations, and I think it’s a cool concept.
The other patent is for song suggestions. Now I haven’t really been impressed with NetFlix’s suggestions for example (when I tell them matrix 1 was 5 stars but 2 was 1 stars it really messes up their system), but if it does work it could be pretty cool. IIRC it would check what your listening to recently (not just what’s on your device) and make suggestions that it drops on your device based on that.
I believe it was also rumored that the Zune would update either of those features anytime it hit a wifi hotspot. Meaning new music on the go.
Without them adding a keyboard I really can’t see them adding full store features on the device.
I think you should hold out, the Zune 2 has to be coming soon and I still think it was an pretty good device for it’s first attempt.
There just aren’t enough fanboys for it yet, so all you read on the nets is hate :/
I don’t disagree. However, only 8GB (or 16 on the non-phone version) is a deal breaker, especially if you intend to watch any sort of video.
If Apple had released an HD based iPod touch, that may have gotten me back to the iPod game.
Also, since everything I’ve seen says WiFi iTunes, I’m assuming over the at&t network is a no-go? With high speed networks (oh wait it’s only EDGE),you can d/l OTA with Sprint and Verizon.
Hmm… I thought you don’t like IPhone. I am happy you have purchased this wonderful product. What have changed your mind from criticizing to actually using it?
In any regards, don’t you think IPHONE is getting better everyday especially with Itune in it….?
Hmm… I thought you don’t like IPhone. I am happy you have purchased this wonderful product. What have changed your mind from criticizing to actually using it?
In any regards, don’t you think IPHONE is getting better everyday especially with Itune in it….?
@ Jonathan: If your comments on Zune 2 are accurate, then Zunescene is flat-out fabricating false data with their insider interview and confirmation of the Zune 2.0 designs. What makes you right and them wrong?
I’m thinking the same with Yahoo Unlimited for my Sansa Connect. It’s great being able to download straight from the player but there haven’t been any updates. They promised bug fixes and search months ago, but it hasn’t happened. Probably has to do with the device created by Zing and they were recently bought out by Dell. So we’ll see. I’m on the fence. Maybe downgrade Yahoo unlimited, go with iTunes/Amazon MP3′s, or try another subscription service for kicks.
@Willy: Nothing makes me write and them wrong. And I guess since they have a website and I don’t they’re more reliable…
but honestly they’re release date is completely suspect, and when it’s a matter of trusting an entire message or not at all, I think finding any wholes in the info makes the entire message questionable. And as I said as far as I have seen Iwantapinkzune started the oct 16 date rumor as a joke and other sites just picked it up and ran. That’s my main reasoning for not believing their rumor. I also find it hard to believe that they would launch without a brown, which I understand is one of the better standing models, as well as unique and recognizable.
Lastly squircle is just a stupid name and I would expect better from Microsoft, but then that’s not much here nor there.
I’m just saying I don’t really believe their rumor and it really seems like a mix of duh information (matching ipod nano and classic features, who doesn’t see that coming) along with some fluff.
My comments are just my opinions from what I’ve been reading, I try to avoid just buying into hype positive or negative, and I’d really like to see the Zune succeed. I see a lot of potential in the device. But only time will tell.
@Kevin: I was discussing your post with a friend and my first reaction was that you should hold your Zune1 until the new version comes out incase they release updates for it, but he suggested you should sell you’re now before the prices drop more and just pickup a Zune2 if it ends up being cool. If it has 80gb like the iPod it will have a lot going for it.