NYT on the Zune
Posted on November 13, 2006
Filed Under /dev/null/ | 72 views |
In “Microsoft Counting on a Twist to Make Zune Shine in Shadow of iPod” the New York Times weighs in on the Microsoft Zune with an article almost entirely devoted to it’s ability to share music with other Zune owners:
But the Zune can do something that no other player, including the iPod from Apple, can claim: it can locate other Zune players and wirelessly exchange content — music and pictures, for starters — with a few touches of a big shiny button.
…
Songs take about 15 seconds to transfer, but transferred songs can be played only three times in three days before they disappear, Mr. Erickson said. Digital photographs, however, can be transferred in a couple of seconds and do not expire. Pictures can also be passed along in a daisy chain of Zunes, he said.
I love this feature as a concept, it reminds me of something we use in the office everyday as three of us have Mac laptops: iTune’s ability to stream to a common source via AirTunes. But the Zune’s music implementation is purposely flawed, crippled at three plays, riddled with DRM that assumes criminal intent. That’s really quite irritating.
‘Course then I thought about it further and remembered that this thing was brought to market by the same people who created Windows, software well known for its robustness and unhackabilityness.
My guess as to when the Zune becomes an active Windows viral infection vector? December 28, 2006.
Update: I should mention that the iPod/iTunes also has restrictive DRM, levied against any track bought via the iTunes Music Store. And it has been hacked apart each and every time its been updated, the latest and most creative technique being FairPlay, which uses Apple’s own iMovie to strip the DRM.
However, unlike the other players Apple has never deigned to tell a user how they could play their own media:
Unlike Sony and Microsoft, Apple has never thwarted users ability to play regular MP3 music. Prior to WMP 10, Microsoft applied DRM by default to songs users ripped from their own CDs. Sony only recently decided to allow its users to play back MP3 files on its latest products.
Big difference. Caveat emptor.
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