There’s a fucking ocean of terrible press and dire reviews for the Zune out there but this one pulls no punches.

To be honest it’s tough to quote the best (worst) bits of the review, I could easily just cut and paste the whole thing!

Quotes…

“Microsoft’s new Zune digital music player is just plain dreadful … the overall experience is about as pleasant as having an airbag deploy in your face.”

“Zune is incompatible with Windows Media Player”

“the Zune Marketplace doesn’t even take real money, proving that on the Zune Planet there’s no operation so simple that it can’t be turned into a confusing ordeal”

“These devices are just repositories for stolen music, and they all know it,” said Doug Morris, CEO of Universal Music Group. “So it’s time to get paid for it.”
Note: this is to justify the ‘tax’ that you pay as part of the price of a Zune which goes directly to Universal

“Even if the track is inherently free (like a podcast) the Zune wraps it in a DRM scheme that causes the track to self-destruct after three days or three plays, whichever comes first.”

“The Zune is a complete, humiliating failure.”

“Throw in the Zune’s tail-wagging relationship with music publishers, and it almost becomes important that you encourage people not to buy one.”

“Companies such as Toshiba and Sandisk … compete effectively with the iPod by asking themselves, ‘What are the things that users want and Apple refuses to provide?’ ”
“Microsoft’s colossal blunder was to knock the user out of that question and put the music industry in its place.”

... end quotes

Oh my … I guess I’d better jump on board the so called ‘ipod backlash’ and go buy a zune then, after all there’s nothing I like better than to bugger the future of music and line the pockets of billionaires with my money just to spite Apple. Good move!

What on earth are Microsoft up to?

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