Scoble's Post

http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/2006/10/26/my-thoughts-about-zune-vs-ipod/

Scoble's points are mostly good ones. Some specific thoughts:

• A lot of the points make me say "yeah, but wait a bit." It's not that we don't get Podcasting (Robert knows I'm among the loudest voices about Podcasting at Microsoft), it's that podcasting wasn't done in time. I don't expect anyone to buy based on my promises, but it's important to separate things we don't have at launch from comments about Zune's long term prospects.
• Like everyone, he liked the brown better once he saw it in person. Yay!
• From my previous post - updateability is key.
• Conversationality created by white headphones. I don't agree here. In 2002, when white headphones said something about you - you were an early adopter cool geek guy with an iPod. Now all white headphones say is that you've got a body temperature over 96 degrees.
• His point about the edge case - early adopter geeks like me - is a good one. We very solidly focussed on mainstream use cases this release (e.g., 99% of ipods get used for music, only 15% for podcasts, video and everything else is less). I think his scenarios (Rocketboom, ZeFrank, Videoblogs, etc...) are good ones, but only if you make those experiences more mainstream rather than focussing early adopters. Many other mp3 player manufacturers (e.g., Archos, Audiotron) have gotten sucked into this early adopter trap in the past and ended up with a loyal, fervent - but niche - user base.
• Free me from DRM? Huh? Zune works great if you're 100% into DRM-free mp3, aac, mpeg-4, or h.264 content. Go be free.
• Robert likes subscriptions; I agree the potential there is huge. The key will be building out the experiences around subscription music until they're irresistable.
• *sigh*. The round dpad. I think Robert is 100% right here. iPod users think the round thing will be a scrollwheel like the iPod. They "get it" after about 5 seconds on a Zune, and then don't look back. The iPod was like this at first for most people - they didn't expect the scrollwheel and struggled for 5 seconds, then figured it out. He's right that the team did a great job a making the dpad usability great, and even giving it some advantages over the scrollwheel.
• Robert remembers someone showing off the "little things" that ipod got right - the color coordinated iPod icons, the fact the device pauses when you unplug the headphones. Nice touches. Trust me, we're doing the right stuff here - I was the presenter in that meeting.