Music stuff

Via BoingBoing, here's an interesting review of Microsoft's Zune player from the Chicago Sun-Times.

Y es, Microsoft's new Zune digital music player is just plain dreadful. I've spent a week setting this thing up and using it, and the overall experience is about as pleasant as having an airbag deploy in your face.

Ouch.

I've heard a lot of bad things about the Zune - it'll wrap every file up in some sort of DRM, regardless of what the file is, the interface is clunky and awkward, the actual player is ugly. Sounds like that's all true, the then Zune is certainly not going to be on my wish list anytime ever. It's not compatible with Windows Media Player? That's mind-bogglingly idiotic.

Apple makes an MP3 player. While I dislike the inherent trendiness of the iPod, even I admit it's ingenious. It's visually appealing, the controls are completely intuitive and simple to use, and it manages to, for the most part, keep both the music industry and the consumers happy in terms of DRM. It works nicely with the desktop software, which also has an appealing interface. It does what you want it to do and nothing more.

Microsoft finally decides to hop on the bandwagon. They, apparently, create something that comes bundled with bloated software, terrible controls, numerous technical problems, horrible licensing agreements, and just barely attempts to do what people want it to (take music from your computer, play music). It also does some stuff you explicitly don't want it to (smother the life out of your Creative Commons-licensed data).

Is anyone surprised?