Microsoft's Zune Challenges iPod Player Could Lure Converts, But It Makes Compromises And Is Missing Some Features
Next week, Microsoft Corp. will launch the most serious challenge ever mounted to Apple Computer's iPod and iTunes juggernaut in digital music. The software giant is introducing a portable player called the Zune, an online music store called Zune Marketplace and a new music software program called Zune that links the two. It plans to put plenty of marketing muscle behind Zune, and promises to expand and refine this new product line in coming years.
This isn't Microsoft's first effort to stop the iPod, but it's the first for which the software giant is adopting Apple's own business and design model -- where one company makes and controls the hardware, software and online component, and tightly integrates them. The Zune is produced by Microsoft's Xbox group, which builds game consoles on that same end-to-end principle.
Microsoft's Zune comes in black, white or brown.
In its first incarnation, the Zune comes in only one version, a big, chunky $249 model that can hold 30 gigabytes of music, videos and photos. I've been testing the Zune for the past couple of weeks and comparing it with the most similar of Apple's six iPod models -- the smaller of the two full-size iPods, which also holds 30 gigabytes and also costs $249.
Zune has several nice features the iPod lacks: a larger screen, the ability to exchange songs with other Zunes wirelessly and a built-in FM radio. It solves the worst problem that plagued earlier Microsoft-based music players -- frequent failures to synchronize properly music and videos between the players and personal computers. Synchronization on the Zune is smooth and sure.
Also, the Zune player and software have a very good user interface, different from, but in some cases easier to use than, the iPod's. While it lacks the famous iPod scroll wheel, instead using a common four-way navigation pad, I found song lists easy to navigate on the Zune. It has only a few buttons and is quite intuitive to use. To my ears, it sounded as good as the iPod.
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Walt Mossberg says Zune, the upcoming MP3 player from Microsoft, has some attractive features but overall doesn't outshine Apple's iPod.But, this first Zune has too many compromises and missing features to be as good a choice as the iPod for most users. The hardware feels rushed and incomplete. It is 60% larger and 17% heavier than the comparable iPod. It has much worse battery life for music than the iPod or than Microsoft claims -- at least two hours less than the iPod's, in my tests. Despite the larger screen, many album covers look worse than they do on the iPod. And you can't share music libraries between computers like you can with iTunes.
Zune's online store offers far fewer songs, just over two million, compared with 3.5 million for the iTunes store. In fact, as of this writing, songs from one of the big labels, Universal, were missing from Zune Marketplace, though Microsoft says it is confident it will have all the major labels when it launches Zune on Tuesday. Also, despite the player's capability, Zune Marketplace offers none of the TV shows, movies or music videos that iTunes does, and has no audiobooks or podcasts.
Even worse, to buy even a single 99-cent song from the Zune store, you have to purchase blocks of "points" from Microsoft, in increments of at least $5. You can't just click and have the 99 cents deducted from a credit card, as you can with iTunes. You must first add points to your account, then buy songs with these points. So, even if you are buying only one song, you have to allow Microsoft, one of the world's richest companies, to hold on to at least $4.01 of your money until you buy another. And the point system is deceptive. Songs are priced at 79 points, which some people might think means 79 cents. But 79 points actually cost 99 cents.
Unlike iTunes, Zune offers subscription plans, where you can get an unlimited numbers of songs for $15 a month. However, Microsoft is de-emphasizing this option and mostly positioning Zune Marketplace as a source of individually purchased songs and albums.
Some consumers may well choose Zune for its big screen, which looks great with photos and videos, for its wireless song swapping, or for its FM-radio capability, which requires a $50 accessory on the iPod. Others may favor Zune because they are as tired of Apple's dominance in music as some folks are of Microsoft's dominance in computers.
But Zune has only around 100 accessories at launch, versus 3,000 or more for the iPod. If you have any iPod-specific accessories, they won't work on the Zune. Also, none of the songs you may have purchased from Apple will play on the Zune, unless you undertake a laborious conversion process. Apple is rumored to be working on an all-new iPod with a screen as large or larger than the Zune's.
Zune marks an unusual turn for Microsoft. The company is abandoning its favored business model, where it builds software platforms and then lets other companies make a wide variety of products that use that platform. Instead, Microsoft is building and totally controlling the whole chain associated with the product: the hardware, the software and the online music store. Songs sold on Zune Marketplace are intended to play only on the Zune, and Zune players won't be able to play copy-protected songs bought elsewhere, even at other online stores that use Microsoft music formats.
Microsoft was driven to this approach because its platform model, so successful with personal computers, has failed miserably in the music category. Apple has simply rolled over all the hardware companies and online stores that were built around Microsoft's previous music system, called "PlaysForSure."
Zune comes in three colors: black and white, like the comparable iPod, and brown, a daring color for a consumer-electronics device, but one that has become popular in the fashion world. Each model also has a second color on a translucent band around its edge; the brown one is trimmed in green.
Placing the Zune next to the 30-gigabyte iPod provides a strong contrast. The iPod is thin, sleek and elegant looking. The Zune looks big and blocky, sort of like a prototype for a gadget, rather than a finished product. It is longer, thicker and heavier than even the 80-gigabyte iPod, which has more than twice its capacity.
Zune was adapted from a much-praised but slight-selling music player, the Toshiba Gigabeat, in order to get it to market more quickly.
The word "Microsoft" never appears anywhere on the Zune, only the new Zune logo and a cheeky, "Hello from Seattle" in tiny type at the bottom of the back of the device. The Zune's tag line, evident immediately when you open the box, is "Welcome to the Social," a phrase meant to stress the device's wireless song-sharing feature, and to reach out to the Zune's target market, young music lovers who build social relationships around favorite songs and artists.
But the wireless music-sharing feature on the Zune is heavily compromised, in a way that is bound to annoy the very audience it is targeting. Each song sent to your Zune from another Zune can be played only three times and is available for playing for only three days. After that, it dies and can't be played again unless you buy it. Even if you play the song only halfway through, or for one minute, that counts as one of your three allowed plays. In fact, in my tests, a song I sent to my assistant's Zune expired after only two plays, one of which lasted just a few seconds. Microsoft attributed that to a bug that it said would be fixed.
The Zune's other big plus, the big screen, is similarly compromised. While it is three inches versus 2.5 inches for the iPod's screen, it uses the same resolution. That combination can make images coarser and grainier. In my tests, on photos and videos, this didn't matter much, and the Zune did a good job, even automatically switching into horizontal screen mode. But images of album covers often looked fuzzy, grainy and even distorted on the Zune when compared with how they looked on the iPod.
And for a product that's all about "the Social," Zune is curiously lacking a very popular iTunes feature -- the ability to view and to listen to another user's music library over a local network. This iTunes feature works in homes, office, college dorms, hotels, and other places, and it functions in mixed groups of Windows and Macintosh computers. But with the new Zune software, you can share your library only with Xbox game consoles, not other computers.
On the plus side, I really liked the interface on the Zune. In some modes, it allows you to do things with fewer clicks than the iPod does. For instance, if you are browsing through music, you don't have to go back a step to switch from, say, a list of artists to a list of albums. Those choices are arrayed at the top of the screen and can be selected with a sideways push of the navigation pad.
Also, the entire interface is more colorful and visually satisfying than the iPod's. Lists of albums are accompanied by thumbnails of their covers. Menus zoom in and out, and some are translucent. You can also select your own photo as the wallpaper or background for the device. But, unlike on the iPod, you can't customize the main menu or go to "Now Playing," or shuffle all songs with one click.
The Zune software also has a handsome look and feel. And it allows you to "guest synchronize" a Zune on another computer, something iTunes doesn't allow. You can load songs from someone else's library onto your Zune without wiping out your own library, though you can't then transfer those songs back to your own PC.
But battery life on the Zune was very disappointing. Microsoft claims 14 hours of music playback on a single charge with the wireless feature turned off -- the same as the comparable iPod -- and 13 hours with wireless turned on. But Microsoft bases these claims on strict and unnatural usage conditions, such as never increasing the default volume, playing only one album over and over, and keeping the backlight on for just one second.
I tested the Zune in more normal conditions, shuffling through hundreds of songs, adjusting the volume where needed, skipping or repeating songs occasionally and using a 30-second backlight. In my test, I got just 12 hours and 18 minutes of music playback, versus 14 hours and 44 minutes from an iPod under the same usage pattern. With the wireless turned on, battery life on the Zune was worse -- just 10 hours and 12 minutes, even though I didn't send or receive any songs.
Overall, the iPod and iTunes are still the champs. Still, I expect the Zune to attract some converts and to get better with time. And this kind of competition from a big company with deep pockets and lots of talent is good for consumers in the long run.
微软携Zune挑战苹果iPod
下周，微软(Microsoft Corp.)将向苹果电脑(Apple Computer)发起一轮最为强大的攻势：微软将以便携式音乐播放器Zune、网上音乐商店Zune Marketplace及连接二者的音乐软件Zune向苹果风靡全球的iPod和iTunes叫板。微软计划为Zune投入大量营销力量，并承诺在未来几年内扩大和完善这一系列产品。
这并非微软第一次阻击iPod，但却是微软首次采用苹果的业务及设计模式。在这种模式下，一家公司包揽硬件、软件及网络内容提供，并将它们紧密地整合在一起。Zune将由微软旗下的Xbox提供，该子公司生产的游戏机也同样采用一站式原则。
初次登场的Zune只有一种款式，外形略大，造型厚实。这款Zune售价249美元，容量30G。近几周我对Zune进行了测试，并与苹果六款iPod中性能最接近的一款进行了比较──两款全尺寸iPod中的一款，售价同为249美元，容量也是30G。
Zune具备一些iPod没有的优点：显示屏更大，可与其他Zune播放器无线传输歌曲，还有内置的FM收音机。它解决了微软以往播放器的一个最大问题──在播放器与电脑间的音乐和视频操作不同步。Zune的同步操作非常顺畅。
而且，Zune播放器及Zune软件的用户界面更好，某些情况下比iPod操作更简单。不过它没有iPod那样的转盘，而是采用了四向导航键，我发现在Zune的歌单中找歌很容易。Zune播放器只有几个按钮，操作简单。在我听来，Zune的声音效果也不比iPod差。
但这款Zune有太多的折衷，缺乏特点，而很多消费者喜欢iPod正是看中了它的个性化。Zune的硬件设计感觉有些匆忙，还不够完善。它的外形比同类iPod大60%，还要重17%。电池续航能力不及iPod，比微软承诺的续航时间也要短──根据我的测试，至少比iPod短2个小时。而且你不能像利用iTune那样在电脑间分享音乐库。
Zune网上音乐商店的歌曲也少很多，只有200万首，而iTune商店有多达350万首歌曲。事实上，截至写稿时，着名唱片公司Universal还没有在Zune Marketplace出现，不过微软表示有信心在下周二Zune推出时让用户看到所有的着名唱片公司。另外，尽管Zune播放器功能齐全，但Zune Marketplace却还不能提供电视节目、电影或音乐视频等，而这一点iTune早就做到了。Zune也没有播客(podcast)。
更糟糕的是，即便想从Zune商店买一首99美分的歌曲，也还要从微软买至少5美元的“点数”。你不能像使用iTune那样敲敲键盘就从信用卡上扣除99美分。你必须先把“点数”输入帐户中，然后再购买歌曲。因此即使你只买一首歌，你也不得不让微软──世界上最富有的公司之一──掌握你剩余的4.01美元直到你买下一首歌为止。而且这个点数系统很有欺骗性。有些歌曲标价79点，有人可能会认为是79美分。然而事实上79点要花掉99美分。
与iTune不同，Zune提供了一个订阅计划，你可以包月无限量听歌，每月15美元。不过微软并未重点推广这一服务，而是将Zune Marketplace定位于购买单首歌曲或单个专辑的地方。
Zune的大显示屏、歌曲无线互换和FM广播可能都会成为吸引消费者的亮点，看照片或者观看视频短片时，有这么宽大的显示屏简直是太棒了。另外，有一些微软的忠实用户可能早就看不惯苹果独霸音乐市场了，一旦Zune亮相，他们必然全力支持。
不过Zune目前只有100余种配件，而iPod配件则有3,000多种。如果你有苹果的专属配件，它们在Zune上是无法使用的。此外，你从苹果购买的任何歌曲都无法用Zune播放，除非你愿意费劲心力地把它们转换过来。据传言，苹果正在研究一款全新iPod，其显示屏可能与Zune不相上下，甚至比它更大。
Zune的推出标志着微软的一次异乎寻常的转变。该公司正在逐渐放弃惯用的业务模式，即建立软件平台，然后让其他公司去生产各种应用该平台的产品。现在，微软开始尝试构建并全权控制一整套产品链：硬件、软件和网络音乐店。Zune Marketplace出售的歌曲将仅供Zune使用，Zune用户也无法播放从其他地方买到的受版权保护的歌曲，甚至在其他使用微软音乐格式的网站上购买也行不通。
在个人电脑领域一度给微软带来伟大业绩的平台模式如今却在音乐领域栽了不小的跟头，这让微软不得不改弦更张。苹果电脑已经让所有围绕微软过去的音乐系统PlaysForSure运营的硬件公司和网络商店侧目。
Zune共有三种颜色可以选择：白色、黑色（这和iPod一样）以及棕色。棕色在消费类电子产品中是比较大胆的用色，不过在时尚界这种颜色已很流行。每个颜色的机型边缘都用了半透明材料，且是另一种不同的颜色，棕色机型搭配的是绿色。
把Zune放在一个30G容量的iPod旁边，两者形成了鲜明的对比。iPod很薄、外表圆润，而且看上去很雅致。Zune看上去则很大、很敦实，看上去更象是设计原型，不像是成品。它甚至比80G的iPod更长、更厚并且更重，但后者的容量是它的两倍还多呢。
Zune是在颇受好评、但销量一般的东芝(Toshiba) Gigabeat的基础上改造而成的，这样作的目的是为了让它能够更快地上市销售。
Zune的机身上没有任何“微软”的字样，只有全新的Zune标识，以及机身背面最下面的一行小字“来自西雅图的问候”(Hello from Seattle)。当你打开Zune的包装盒时，最明显的就是它的口号“欢迎加入社交聚会”(Welcome to the Social)，这个口号是为了突出Zune的无线音乐共享功能，并吸引它的目标消费群体──年轻的音乐爱好者，他们通过彼此最热爱的歌曲及艺术家来搭建自己的社交网络。
但是，Zune的无线音乐共享功能实际上大打折扣，这必定会令其目标用户非常不满。Zune之间共享的每首歌曲只能在三天的时间内听三次。之后，用户只有购买这些歌曲才能再次播放。歌曲只播放一半、甚至只播放了一分钟也被算作一次。事实上，在我的测试中，我给助手的Zune发送的一首歌曲在播放两次后就“到期”了，而且其中一次只播放了几秒。微软将这个问题归咎于程序中的一个小bug，并表示会尽快修复。
Zune的另一大优点──大显示屏──同样也不够完善。尽管它有3英寸的显示屏，但是它的分辨率却和iPod 2.5英寸显示屏的一样。这种组合导致在Zune上显示的图像看起来画面质量比较差。在我用照片及视频对显示屏进行测试时，上面这个问题倒并不突出，Zune的表现还不错，甚至自动转到横向屏幕模式。但是与iPod相比，Zune对唱片封面图像的显示看上去有点失真、有很多条纹，有的图像甚至有点变形。
作为一款以“社交”功能为核心的产品，Zune缺乏iTunes备受欢迎的一个功能──通过本地网络浏览另一个用户的音乐库或从中选取乐曲播放。iTunes的这个功能在家里、办公室、校园宿舍、旅馆以及其他地方都可以使用，而且它在Windows系统和Macintosh电脑组合里也能畅行无阻。但是使用Zune的新款软件，你只能和Xbox游戏机共享你的音乐库，而无法与其他电脑进行这一操作。
说到Zune的优点，我特别喜欢Zune的界面。在某些模式下，它进行某些操作所需的点击数要少于iPod。比如，如果你想浏览所有的音乐，你不必为了从艺术家列表转至唱片列表而返回上一步操作。这些选项就被排列在屏幕的顶端，你可以将导航盘向一侧推动来选中这个选项。
另外，它的整个界面比iPod的更加多彩，给用户带来更多的视觉满足感。唱片列表旁边还有唱片封面的缩略图。菜单可以放大及缩小，一些还是半透明的。你还可以选用自己的图片作为Zune的墙纸或者背景。但是，与iPod不同的是，你无法在Zune上定制主菜单或者直接进入“现在正在播放”(Now Playing)选项，或者通过一次点击移动所有歌曲。
Zune的软件看上去也感觉不错。它能够使你在另一台电脑上“同步更新”你的Zune。你还能够把其他人的音乐库下载到你的Zune中，而且不必清除你自己的音乐库，不过这些音乐不能被转移到你的电脑中。
但是Zune的电池持续时间非常令人失望。微软称，一次充电后，Zune在关闭无线功能的情况下播放音乐的时间长达14小时，与同类iPod相同；在无线功能启动的情况下可以播放13个小时。但是微软的这一数据是基于严格且非正常的使用情况下得出的，比如绝不调高默认音量、反复播放一首歌曲，而且将背景灯时长设定为1秒等。
我对Zune在比较正常的使用状态下进行了测试：在数千首歌曲中进行切换，必要时调高音量，偶尔跳过或反复播放一首歌曲，将背景灯时长设定为30秒。在我的测试中，电池支持的音乐播放时间仅为12小时18分，而iPod在相同的使用模式下音乐播放时间长达14小时44分。在无线功能启动的时候，Zune的电池表现甚至更差──仅为10小时12分，在测试过程中我根本就没有通过无线功能传送歌曲。
总体来看，iPod以及iTunes还是技高一筹。不过，我认为，随着时间的推移，Zune能够吸引一部分人放弃iPod，并且它也会变得更出色。另外，从长期来看，这些资金充裕且拥有大量人才的大公司之间的竞争对消费者是有好处的。
Walter S. Mossberg
