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David Pogue Takes On the Zune
necro81 writes "The NYTimes' widely read technology columnist, David Pogue, has devoted his weekly product review to Microsoft's Zune. He does an even-handed job of describing what Zune has over the iPod, as well as some product-related letdowns." From the article: "Competition is good and all. But what, exactly, is the point of the Zune? It seems like an awful lot of duplication — in a bigger, heavier form with fewer features — just to indulge Microsoft's 'we want some o' that' envy. Wireless sharing is the one big new idea — and if the public seems to respond, Apple could always add that to the iPod."
I didn't seem to find anything new in the column, its like the author took every witty comment that people have made here in the last few Zune articles and combined them all together into a NYT column. To the person above said about the bias of the article; obviously Pogue represents the /. apple loving crowd (for which I am a pod carrying member) and his attitide is readily apparant.
It would have been better if he made a shit-brown joke instead of closing with the question of if 'brown is the new white'.
People who think Apple is some wonderful entity that can't be touched in any way shape or form aren't going to buy a Zune player. The bloody Zune isn't even targeted towards Mac users to begin with. The Zune itself isn't compatable with Mac OS. So it's completely reasonable to expect mac users to shun it, even scorn it (hence the article) The very idea that somebody else let alone the fundimentally evil Micro$oft should want to break into a market that Apple's had a monopoly on is unthinkable.
Apple's clearly afraid of the Zune player. They damn well should be.
So I did RTFA and its a bloody troll. It starts of insulting M$, dismisses it as an unbashed copy of the iPod (despite the fact that the headline is iPod is not), dismisses PlaysForSure which bombed yet says there is an issue for all those poor people who bought music from PFS and whines about how the poor user will have to learn yet another complicated piece of software just to put music on the Zune. Then he gets to the review.
Its an excellent player he says - oh except for the colors (black and white just like the iPod but lets please complain about brown and it being rubberized so you wont leave your oily prints over it like the ipod). Oh and its not cool. Because every Tom, Dick and fucking Harry with their white headphones are. And damn those ipod ads are sexy... Matches the ipod on battery life, price point, capacity, got a bigger screen (lets make nothing of this and whine that it is larger and awww poor baby its a whole ounce heavier - too much for you delicate darlings ofcourse)
Oh and it doesn't have a scroll wheel... and people complain about Windows users being used to the interface and not being able to deal with a switch. Or dearie me its got a larger screen and so you have to turn it a whole ninety degrees to watch a video - yes ladies and gentleman a whole Pi/2 radians. The horror. Its got in built FM Radio (but you have to plug in the headphones - wait every frickin player with an FM radio requires this - duh you don't want to stick an ugly dedicated antenna on it)
Yes the thing has its flaws and the big one is not being able to use it as a harddisk (tops a couple of months before MS or someone writes a little bit of code to enable that) and the stupid wireless limitations (the ipods wirless limitation is simple - it doesnt have it - but our dear wonderful apple could certainly add that to the ipod) and the Zune store presently sucks donkey balls (please tell me that all the music on your ipod is from iTMS... and that they will never add features to a website).
No lets whine about the lack of an alarm, and a world clock, and a stop watch... things that a quick and given that its MS, eventual firmware upgrade, will fix (or rockbox will have a nice zune port) and wait ofcourse MS has already said there are new zune features and accesories in the pipeline. Just RTFA for the language and tone and compare it with anything modded troll or flamebait here. Heck the GNAA could take a leaf out of Pogue's book.
Not one mention about anyones complaints about iPods (and please use google all you witty mac fanboys who will claim there arent none)
The Zune is certainly not the iPod. Neither are perfect. Software is upgradeable. David Pogue is a troll. Plain. Simple.
(disclaimer : I hate MS, I hate apple, I own a cowon and I wont buy a zune)
Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.