b r a v e c r e a t u r e s

Hot of the heals of my recent post regarding the sad unexpected tragic departure of the product manager responsable for the weird dumb ugly music player offering from Microsoft - the Zune is a titter through the rumor sites suggesting that Microsoft if continuing to desperately pursue the iPod by planning to launch a Zune Phone by the end of this year.

Good luck Goldilocks is what I say to that.

Given the woeful effort to date from Microsoft on Windows Mobile Phones and the Zune itself, combining the two would seem like a recipe for a camel, i.e. a racehorse designed by a committee that does everything, but actually fulfilling no-ones needs.

The iPhone Jobsian aura that flashed out world wide from its epicentre at the Moscone Center on January, filling the blogosphee with more news and comment about the iPhone than about the State of the Union address (apparently), is finally subsiding and people are getting their perspective back at last†. And as we do, in the distance you can hear the sound of the pocket protector brigade in Seattle puffing and panting as they try and catch up with mountain bike fit Jobs and his team in Cupertino.

Personally I suspect that a Zune phone will be as appealing as losing ones virginity in a cement mixer to and angry swarm of bees

But I could be wrong. Bees are apparently quite sensitive lovers.

†Yes the iPhone is shiny, and YES I want one too, but 5 hours battery life? HEE-LOOOO!!

Things have been a little busy here lately, what with one thing and another, so I (clearly) haven't been writing.

My trusty N80 has a few partial blog entries in it but nothing is complete.

The concern my absence has caused has been palpable here at Brave Creatures where the phone has rung and a letter flooded in.

A concerned neighbour even popped past, although that was to ask me since the Eurovision Song Contest is now sadly past for the year, to stop playing Anna Sahlene. Or at the very least to stop singing along.

So now I am back writing - "fearlessly journaling unchampioned minutiae" is our catch cry‡ here at Brave Creatures and we don't want to disappoint our faithful reader(s?), or at least no more than normal.

So tonight its all about media players in the news. 

In a deal that smacks of about-time-ness and which will have teeth gnashing up at Kiamo Ko Castle, the Seattle lair of the evil empire, the relentless march of the iPod continues for the as the seemingly ubiquitous, byo entertainment device.

The story is that Apple is teaming up with Air France, Continental, Delta, Emirates, KLM and United to provide a hookup  between your iPod and their in-flight entertainment systems. These airlines are going to offer passengers an in-seat connection which will power and charge iPods during flight and allow the videos to be viewed on the seat back displays.

Woohoo!

For me the next step is kiosks that let you purchase video or music at the airport and sync it to you ipod without using your computer as an intermediate.

Now lets jut compare that little piece of marketing genius from Apple to their, well, "competitors" is a strong word in this case, lets just say "alternative".

Poor Microsoft, and the sadly names "Zune " - the self proclaimed iPod killer. They are managing to underwhelm whole continents of people - without even being released. Most of Europe appears to be getting in ahead of the Christmas rush, and  have started ignoring the Zune now before demand gets too high.

If you haven't heard anything about it yet, in short Zune is MS's new music player and online music service. Its big, its boxy, it not backwards compatible with MS's old music services, it comes in ugly brown, it has nearly pointless WiFi in it and the music store wont be available outside the US until late 2007 - which is basically forever in marketing terms.

The WiFi feature is particularly dumb, it smacks of Seattle bound geeks who have no social skills trying to design a sales channel and attempting to disguise it as a social networking tool. Like a giraffe in high heels - its fun about once, and then it wears completely thin.

And probably has PETA chasing you with a cease and desist order.

Another of its features-not-faults is that it doesn't work with Windows Vista or Windows Media Player 11.

Just pause to absorb that for a second.

It doesnt work with Microsofts own latest generation operating system and media player/management tool. But then why would it, they are only from the same company and are intended to be the hub of Microsofts new media strategy. You have to use the specific Zune software to sync with it - because we needed ANOTHER media management tool.

Oh, and the Zune is incompatible with Microsoft's own PlaysForSure digital rights management standard too.

And it doesn't support podcasts. 

Finally lets just talk about how you "purchase" music - if you ever make it that far. Just to prove that nothing can't be made unnecessarily complicated, the Zune "Marketplace†" doesn't use money. Well not directly.

First you need to buy Microsoft points, the very same ones I haven't managed to spend yet on XBox live yet. The Marketplace only accepts these Points, with an individual track typically costing the equivalent of the iTunes-standard 99 cents.

By forcing users to buy blocks of Points (with a $5 minimum), the Marketplace only has to pay one credit-card processing fee. Nice for them, but clouding the cost from us, since a point isnt worth exactly a dollar.

Points will also persumably make it easier for the Zune Marketplace to institute variable pricing. The music industry wants it desperately. The industry has been pressuring Apple to abandon its flat 99 cent pricing and start charging more for "hot" tracks, but apparently Job is standing firm against the high pitched whining of the media execs.

All up the Zune appears to have been exclusively designed by a committee of marketers from the record companies - and so underwhelming a product that even reviewers cant keep focused on it for more than a few seconds. 

‡ that or either - "what is she wearing" or "you can never have too many hats, gloves or shoes. We're still trying to decide.

†perhaps "Bizaar" would be a better term here than "Marketplace".