Microsoft Bashing

Confirmed: The Zune is a turd

A few weeks ago I wrote that the Zune was going to be a crappy player that won't be the iPod killer M$ hopes it to be. Now that the Zune is actually out, it turns out to be true. Engadget writes about the horrendous Zune install process -- software crashes, obscure install steps, too many things to fill out and it ends with:

Icing on the cake: restart after uninstall. No, sorry, the icing on the cake is the crash our computer took after we hit this, causing our RAID 5 array to crap out and spend a few hours rebuilding.

Holy crap! That's not the kind of recommendation that is going to make me go and buy a Zune. Oh wait, I couldn't use it anyway since I don't use Windows. Right.

M$ still doesn't understand that the user experience of the iPod is what really hooks people. Opening an iPod box for the first time is really fun -- the sleek packaging, the presentation of the iPod in the box. Its unparalleled! You plug it in and iTunes launches and asks you if you want to load music onto the iPod. No complicated install process. No signing up for random online services. Plug it in and it just works!

I convinced another non-techie friend to switch to Mac after a recent Windows virus infection. She loved setting up her MacBook, but was a little scared of setting up the iPod Nano -- she thought it would be beyond her abilities to do so. I encouraged her to plug it in and just dive in. She came back the next day with a huge grin on her face: "You're right it just worked! Its sooo cool!".

And that, is exactly what M$ doesn't get.

(or they do, but are too greedy/incompetent to make it happen)

Technorati Tags: drm, file-sharing, microsoft

Posted by Mayhem at November 14, 2006 02:00 PM