Disclaimer: I am what most people would call an Apple Fanboy. I work for a company that sells mostly Apple products. I follow all of the rumors. I openly berate Microsoft at any chance I get. Take the following article as you will.
With the Microsoft Zune launching a few days ago, there has been a big buzz in the press about it. I've seen multiple articles fly through the Digg ranks, DaringFireball, and also making several appearances on The Unofficial Apple Weblog. It is in my opinion however, that no matter how much good (or even bad) press the Zune gets, it will still flop. Yes, several thousand hardcore fans may buy it, but who really counts as a prime audience? The average consumer.
The average consumer (henceforth referred to as 'AC') is the most lucrative audience of all. They have the deepest pockets, like to follow trends, and, to be honest, are not the brightest of all stereotypes. It takes them time to learn new toys, gadgets, and concepts. Sharing music? Great feature, I would love to have it on my iPod. But how many ACs will understand conceptually that you can share a song for 3 replays or up to three days, but then you must purchase it from the clunky (TUAW Review) store to play it again? I have customers at the store that can't figure out how to work the scroll wheel. Or select a song. Or understand what the hold button does. This is far beyond their reach. What good is a feature if they don't understand how to use it?
The iPod is the epitome of simplicity in both design and features. When you look at an iPod all you see is a screen, wheel, and five recognizable buttons. Then, when you turn it on you see another set of simple menus. Music, Photos, Videos and a few setting options are all that's available. Beautiful simplicity. The Zune? Over 26 steps just to get the darn thing installed. And it doesn't even work with Vista. Um...what? This next generation music device doesn't work with Microsoft's next generation operating system? I know several people who have Leopard installed and all their iPods work with it. Why is it so hard to make a Zune work with Vista?
In this day and age, interaction between users is becoming more and more popular. The Zune attempts to do this by introducing a feature that allows you to 'beam' songs to another user nearby. Cool idea, wrong product. 'Social' products, which the Zune claims to be, only work if the market is already saturated with said product. Imagine if the popular social news site, Digg.com only had a hundred or so members. The site would not survive for more than a few weeks. It lives off user submissions for interesting news stories. The same applies for the Zune. The Zune needs many users for the song transfer feature to work well. Otherwise you'll go days without seeing another Zune user and the feature will become useless and more or less a novelty.
While the Zune may appeal to a more hardcore crowd, your AC will hardly benefit from most of it's cooler features. I feel Microsoft took a step in the wrong direction with this one and the iPod will still continue to rule the roost for a while to come.
