iPhone Earbuds: Important Information

Let’s face it, the earbuds Apple ships with iPods and iPhones are kind of crappy. I don’t personally have a problem with them fitting in my ears like many seem to, but they inevitably give out on me after about six months. A couple weeks ago - right on schedule - the earbuds I got when I first bought my iPhone back at the end of June decided to take a rest. The left earbud stopped working entirely, and the overall volume was down dramatically. On top of that, the mic (which really is one of the best things about the iPhone) seemed to be having issues.

As I’ve done when my iPod earbuds have crapped out in the past, I started looking around for a replacement pair, and just as I was about to settle for the $29 Apple variety (mostly because of the mic, which in other models I’ve seen has been implemented poorly. Apple also seems to be the only company that knows how long to make the cord.), I had a brilliant thought:

What if these are covered under warranty?

Well, it turns out they are. A quick call to Apple and a replacement pair was on its way - overnight shipping, mind you - no questions asked, no hassle, and a perfectly pleasant customer service representative apologizing for the “long” wait (3 minutes on hold! Horror!).

They came yesterday, and I popped the old pair back in the postage-paid package, which I will drop off at DHL later today.

Good stuff. Make sure you take advantage of this before your warranty is up.

MacBook Air Brand Naming

One of my biggest criticisms about the MacBook Air brand naming (as a hypothetical based on rumors - not as a name in and of itself) hinged on the fact that it is bad form to include the word “air” as a non-proper-noun in the slogan, “There’s something in the air.” Apple did this on the banners that adorned Moscone Center, as can be seen here at AppleInsider.

But, somehow proving my point, during Steve Jobs’ keynote (which I just finished watching this morning in podcast form), the slide containing this very quote showed the word “Air” properly capitalized, which is much more appropriate (though still just as nonsensical, if you ask me) from a branding standpoint.

So why would it change? Perhaps a slip up in the initial banner printing that was fixed for the digital keynote. Perhaps the banners were prepared months earlier, before the MacBook Air name had been decided upon, but the concept of wireless and mobile connectivity a sure focus. Perhaps they just thought that capitalizing it would give things away. Who knows? The point is that they fixed it, and my faith in the Apple marketing team is restored.

As a side note, I actually think the name itself is just fine. Better than the new “Skinny” branding used at Starbucks, at least.

iPhone Web Clip Icons

The great Antonio Carusone from AisleOne has published a sweet collection of some iPhone/iPod Touch web clip icons perfect for decorating your now-customizable home screen (1.1.3 update) with nice-looking icons, rather than the miniature versions of the web page, which all tend to look pretty similar. Download the zip file, upload it to a directory, and then use these instructions to set a custom icon for sites for which you don’t have server access.

If you don’t have access to a web server to upload the icons, you can use the ones I have uploaded. Just click here to view a collection of all the icons and the links you’ll want to type in when you set the location (as described on the above link). I’ll be adding some of my own over the next few days/weeks, so check back every now and again to see what’s new.

Ultimately, I’m sure a lot of folks will end up making custom icons for their own sites - eliminating the necessity of this process - especially given how easy it is (Step 1: upload a 60x60 pixel PNG file named “apple-touch-icon.png” to the root directory for your site. Step 2: There is no step 2), but for now, this’ll go a long way toward making things more navigable on your iPhone. Besides, a bit of customizing never hurt anybody.

Apple Takes Over NYTimes Home Page

Awesome Apple ad tonight on the home page of the New York Times site (not sure if this is new). It occupied substantial real-estate under the masthead and down the right side of the page. Starring Justin Long and John Hodgman from the loved/loathed Mac vs. PC commercials, the ad plays with the very architecture and layout of the site. Hodgman climbs up a ladder to append the word “not” at the end of a quote from the Wall Street Journal (“Leopard is better and faster than Vista”).

Totally cool. Completely takes over the site, but does so in such a clever, whimsical manner that keeps it from being annoying. Great way for the Times to put their space to use (and make a nice bit of cash) during a slow news hour on slow news day (Just look at the headlines of the top stories if you doubt this.).

Update: Bob Caswell points out this ad is on the Wall Street Journal, too. Anywhere else?

Random Thoughts About Macworld

Organized by the order in which they popped into my head:

• The MacBook Air looks really awesome. And holy crap it is thin. Fits in a freakin’ envelope? Are you kidding me? Wow. Unlike some others, it doesn’t bother me that the computer is “missing” certain stuff like extra USB or Firewire ports, an optical drive, upgradeable memory and hard drive. Nor am I put off by the inability to change the battery (just like on an iPod or iPhone). Some people are trying to compare this to a MacBook Pro in terms of features and speed and power, and I think this is unfair. The MacBook Air is quite obviously not supposed to be a replacement for the MBP, otherwise they’d stop selling it. The moral here - as it was with iPhone - is that you need to look at it as a device in and of itself. If the features and capabilities don’t match your desired workflow (and fall within your price range) - for many it won’t - then don’t buy it. There is a computer somewhere that will. Get that one.
• I am so encouraged by Apple’s huge push toward wireless connectivity and downloads and the integration and mobility offered by this connectivity. This is the future, and it’s wonderful for Apple to say “Physical media? Meh.” just like they once did with floppy disks.
• Time Capsule, the Airport Extreme slash network backup device that works seamlessly with Leopard’s Time Machine is going to be a lifesaver for families and do even more to promote positive backup behavior than Time Machine did alone. Good stuff.
• Movie Rentals in iTunes - extremely awesome. That they managed to get all the major studios on board is huge. The only problem is that this increases the likelihood that I’ll spend way too much money impulsively renting things like Robo-cop (which is available, by the way). I know I could save money by getting a Netflix subscription and booting my MacBook Pro in Windows to watch the now-unlimited streaming movies, but a huge draw for me is the ability to move the video from device to device and take it on the go. I’ve watched dozens of movies and even more TV shows and video podcasts on the go with my iPhone, and I love the ability to sync back to my laptop, and continue watching where I left off on my gorgeous Apple Cinema Display. Can’t do that with Netflix (unless I rip a physical DVD - which is technically unlawful and more of a hassle than it’s worth for me - with iTunes it’s automatic.)
• New AppleTV stuff looks great, too. Certainly makes the device more usable, and I suspect will go a long way toward increasing sales of both the device and video content.
• The iPhone upgrade is nice. Nothing earth-shattering, but it’s becoming evident how big a deal the SDK will be when it’s released next month. As great as it is already, iPhone is going to get a whole lot more awesome. My only gripe with the update: I actually quite liked the icon for the iTunes Wi-fi store aligned to the right. Immediately after the update, it was on the left, and now all the icons automatically fill in from left to right as you add/remove them from the home screen. Minor. Minor.

Finally, here is a video of me eating my shorts as promised:


What did you think about yesterday’s announcements?

What Not To Expect At Macworld 2008

Last year, I wrote up a short list of products that we should not expect to be announced at Macworld, and I was 100% correct. In the spirit of my Nostradamus-like abilities, I’m going to refresh my list for this year’s keynote (9 a.m. PST, today).

Slightly shorter list this year, because the rumors are so insane that it’s really hard to tell just what will be announced, with predictions ranging from an ultraportable MacBook to a tablet to a new iPhone to Apple TV 2.0 to movie rentals in the iTunes Store to new Apple Cinema Displays.

I’ve narrowed it down to two products that will not be announced at Macworld 2008:

iStone



This one is a product that been in development since the early days of Woz-man and Jobs-man and all the other ancestral engineers and developers of Apple that made the company what it is today. iStone is designed to deliver a superb, user-controlled listening experience that is totally wireless and requires no syncing. Simply bang it on things, and you get to hear what you want when you want it. Bang harder to raise the volume. Bang softer to lower it. Designed with social networking in mind, you can use iStone to keep in touch with your friends and family. Sharing music with them is never more than an iStone’s throw away.

Why You Won’t See It At Macworld
Despite eons of user testing and iteration, this is a product that maybe just barely missed its time. That’s what you get for skating so far ahead of the puck, I suppose. Look for this sometime last millennium.

MacBook Flow



The world’s first underwater notebook, MacBook Flow runs the innovative new OSX Leopard Seal operating system to deliver a premium entertainment and productivity experience when you’re in the Deep Blue. Seamless integration with the 100-mile reach of the AirPort Awesome Base Station means you’ll have a great time “surfing” even when you’re hours away from dry land. Totally waterproof, and constructed out of Titanic-grade metal alloys with optional sharkproof chain mail casing for your travels off the coast of Australia.

Why You Won’t See It At Macworld
Shipping delays and high component costs from overseas manufacturers. OSX Leopard delayed by iPhone Shuffle software development. They’re just having a hard time getting the random-dial algorithm perfect.

P.S. Last year I predicted you wouldn’t see an Apple iPatch. Well, I was half right. It isn’t an Apple product, but nonetheless, there is an iPatch, and Guy Wheeler from theiPatch.com reminded me of it in a timely email this morning. Check it out. It doesn’t do what you might think.

MacBook Air? Spare Me.

Macworld begins tomorrow, and the blogosphere is buzzing about the potential contents of Steve Jobs’ keynote, which last year gave us the announcement of iPhone - arguably one of the biggest unveilings in tech in all of 2007.

The big buzz this year is about a product being called MacBook Air, which is allegedly a small, ultraportable laptop, perhaps with WiMax capability and other cool stuff. Support for this rumor has come from all the typical places: spyshots (likely Photoshopped), logs from Adium (likely fake), and, especially, photographs of some of the banners now adorning San Francisco’s Moscone Center that read “2008. There’s something in the air.”

Now, I don’t have any inside information, but I can tell you that the chances this computer (if it exists) will be called MacBook Air are really slim.

My justification for this assertion: the very slogan that people claim supports the name actually totally eliminates it as a possibility, unless Apple’s graphic design people fell asleep and didn’t realize that they were putting the name of a product inside a banner designed to act as a teaser for the product announcements. There is no way this would fly. For branding purposes, this is a total no-no. You can’t use a non-proper-noun (air) to suggest a proper noun (Air). Just wrong. What kind of teaser is that?

Could you imagine such idiocy for any other product? It’s just unbelievably stupid - even if set beautifully in Myriad Pro Light (Myriad being my second-favorite typeface after Helvetica).


Hmm...I wonder what Apple is announcing this year. Maybe something called MacBook iPhone? The banner seems to support this hypothesis, see, because it says iPhone.

We’ll see tomorrow at noon EST. If there is indeed a MacBook Air, I’ll eat my shorts.

And then I’ll buy one.

C.E.S. Laments

In case you haven’t heard, the Consumer Electronics Show is going down right now in Las Vegas, Nevada. And I couldn’t be less interested.

It’s not because I don’t care about gadgets and HDTVs and all the fancy-schmancy doohickies that are being unveiled. It’s not because Apple isn’t there - really, it’s not. It isn’t even that I’m burned out from the holidays and have too much work to catch up on (which I am, and I do).

The reason is that there’s too much going on for any of it to be important. This is why the announcement of iPhone at last year’s MacWorld (which ran the same week as C.E.S.) overshadowed the entire conference. Zillions of new gadgets and best-ever versions of the same old TVs and mobile phones and media players (now with GPS!) compete for attention, and blogs like Engadget and Gizmodo publish post after post with little more than lists of features, and a couple passing comments on the look of the device being “reviewed.” Even for someone like me, who has a handle on RSS reading, these dozens and dozens of posts cancel each other out. How can you tell what is actually cool, actually worthwhile, actually has a life beyond the 15 seconds of fame and hype that they paid scantily-clad booth babes to create for them?

You can’t - at least not for awhile.

I’ve turned off my Gizmodo and Engadget feeds for the time being. I can’t imagine I will miss anything. Call me next week when they’ve figured out what actually matters.

Matt Ritchel of Bits blog (NYTimes) writes this gem:

Mr. Shapiro said that last year the C.E.A. did a comparison of the media coverage accrued by the iPhone and the entirety of the coverage given to C.E.S. Guess what? All the other gazillion products and companies got more coverage than iPhone and Apple. Take that, Steve Jobs.

No kidding?! You mean the sum of the coverage of an entire industry somehow managed to be larger than the press coverage for a single company and the announcement of a single product?

This kind of thinking (which, to clarify, is not Ritchel’s), is just deadly.

Leaving aside the general absurdity of the statement comparing the publicity for one product to that of thousands, the larger point is this: It’s not how much, but how good.

How many of those thousands of products were on any Best of 2007 lists? How many were sold on Amazon? How many of them can you recall?

Why would it be any different this year?

Google Unveils New iPhone Interface

Last night I read on TechCrunch that Google had just rolled out an updated version of its applications for iPhone, designed by Joe Hewitt (of the amazing Facebook app for iPhone - one of the few things I’m liking about the site right now), and even though I was inches away from bed, I took a couple minutes to check it out.

It’s fantastic.

There’s really little else to say about it. You get quick access to all of the important stuff - Search, GMail, Reader, Calendar (though for some reason mine is in German!), and the ever-present “More,” which in this case includes Docs, Goog-411, SMS, News, Photos, Blogger, and Notebook. Everything I checked out looks awesome and works beautifully. GMail runs like a dream, and the new(ish) Google Reader interface rocks, too.

With this update, color-coded labels in GMail, group chat and AIM integration, and blah blah blah blah, Google is putting out some major amounts of awesomeness this week. What’s next?

Unfinished Business

Titles of posts I started but never finished:

• Web Apps vs. Desktop Apps And Who Cares If You’re On a Freakin’ Plane!
This was a long one. A response to an article on 37Signals that got a lot of folks riled up. After a lot of writing, I decided I couldn’t finish it. This was before iPhone was released, and I ended up writing a couple related posts later on. One about the early focus on web apps on iPhone, and then one about the forthcoming SDK release.


• Why Does Advertising Exist?
Written around the time of the Future of Online Advertising conference back in June, this post attempted to argue that the future of advertisements was disappearance. I never finished the post, and then a couple weeks ago a bunch of A-listers were blabbing on as though they invented the idea. Too bad I didn’t publish it, otherwise I’d maybe be famous.


• How Do You Want To Die?
This one was set to talk about the taboo surrounding talk of death - specifically, talking about one’s own death.


• Knowing When To Let Go Of An Idea
Probably would have been awesome. But, before finishing it, I took my own advice.


• Ubiquitous Connectivity: How iPod Touch Changes Everything
The idea here was Wi-fi access without the attached strings of a cellular data plan, and how it would have an impact on advertising, ecommerce, social networking, and other stuff. Didn’t make the cut. And now we have the Amazon Kindle, which does exactly this, though over EVDO, which, at the moment, is far more ubiquitous than free Wi-fi. So really, the Kindle changes everything.


• Website Myths: If You Build It They Will Come
I’ll write this one someday, I swear. It’s about watching the analytics on many of my client’s sites, and seeing a steep downwardly-moving traffic trend that correlates precisely with the frequency of updates and the amount of love and attention they devote to their respective sites. Building a website is not like building a storefront. People won’t just walk by, see something cool in the window, and step inside.


• Facebook Photos Suck
True back in February when I first started this. True today.


• Why I Probably Won’t Buy A Kindle (But Will Love It If You Buy It For Me!)
Too much Kindle in one week kept me from finishing this one.

BREAKING: Microsoft Rips Off Companies Other Than Apple!

This was the easiest Photoshop job ever.

Microsoft’s slogan for the new Zune 2 is “You Make It You.” The second part of that, which was removed at some point in the committee-run design process, was “We Make It Like Somebody Else.”

This time around, the fabled Redmond Photocopiers (great video by David Pogue here, by the way) turned their lasers on South Korean wireless handset-maker LG Electronics and its popular(?) “Chocolate” mobile phone. If we’re being generous (really generous), we’ll say that Microsoft did this on purpose so that fashion-forward (that term seems so inappropriate here) gadgeteers can purchase a music player that matches their cellphone (that, uh, already plays music). I guess it was too hard for Microsoft to copy the curves of iPhone, even though pretty much everyone else is doing it (check Gizmodo or Engadget for frequent cases of this phenomenon).

Gosh, can no one design their own gadget these days?

Just one more reason not to buy a Zune this Christmas (or EVER).

Special thanks to my one true human love for pointing this out to me last week, and to Microsoft for being exceedingly easy to mock.

Google Phone?

Today at 11a.m. Eastern, Google is supposed to be making an announcement related to its (much-rumored) mobile strategy. According to everyone in the know, it will involve something of a partnership with a long list of major players in the mobile carrier and handset markets.

What is this mystery phone?

How does this affect Apple?

And will I have to choose between my two favorite companies?

More here, after the announcement.

Great Artists Steal, Right?

Too funny. Engadget brings us this classic case of marketing “me-too.” Sony’s ad for the new CyberShot DSC-T2 camera looks, uh, just a little bit familiar...

What’s next? Maybe this:

Google Music Coming Soon? Ever?

What if Google started to index MP3 files (and display them prominently when you search for an artist or album)?

How would that work?
Who would lose out?
Who would win?

How might adding music (to the existing YouTube, Orkut, and forthcoming secret stuff) boost Google’s social networking cred?

How would this fit in to Google’s long-term focus on mobile computing?

What if you could click one link to preview, and click another to purchase and download (automatically) from Amazon/Apple/EMusic/????

What else?

Is this even a possibility?

How To Organize Your Music: Part 3

Here’s a quick addition to the How To Organize Your Music series. It’s a bit of a departure from the method the past posts have taken, but stay with me.

What if the best way to organize your music is to not organize it at all?

In many ways, search is becoming the new organization. It’s becoming less and less important to know where something is than to be able to access it when you want it. This is how Google works, and this seems to be the direction Apple is heading with Spotlight, which in Leopard will add the great feature of being able to search across a network. Simply type a couple letters and the results come flying into place. iTunes has Spotlight functionality built in, too, so it’s easy to find what you want when you want it.

This is obviously an entirely different philosophy than the one put forth by previous articles in this series, which focused on corralling, controlling, and compartmentalizing your music library. But there’s certainly a benefit to this model as well. It’s less time-consuming, for one, not using smart playlists and ratings and genres lets you focus on constructing playlists of songs, not of the more general sounds. Give it a try - focus on enjoying music, not on devising a system which will hopefully allow you to enjoy music in the future. There is only now. Getting Things Done (GTD) might work great for some parts of life, but when the framework stands in the way of your ability to enjoy and appreciate things, it defeats the purpose.

Resist the tendency to analyze and quantify. Let the computer do the work for you.

And just sit back and enjoy the tunes. After all, that’s the point, right?


More in How To Organize Your Music

• How Much Music Is Enough?
• How To Organize Your Music - Part 1: Rate Everything
  
• How To Organize Your Music - Part 2: Genre
  

Third Party Apps On iPhone: February

Wow. This is from Apple’s “Hot News” page:

Third Party Applications on the iPhone

Let me just say it: We want native third party applications on the iPhone, and we plan to have an SDK in developers’ hands in February. We are excited about creating a vibrant third party developer community around the iPhone and enabling hundreds of new applications for our users. With our revolutionary multi-touch interface, powerful hardware and advanced software architecture, we believe we have created the best mobile platform ever for developers.

It will take until February to release an SDK because we’re trying to do two diametrically opposed things at once—provide an advanced and open platform to developers while at the same time protect iPhone users from viruses, malware, privacy attacks, etc. This is no easy task. Some claim that viruses and malware are not a problem on mobile phones—this is simply not true. There have been serious viruses on other mobile phones already, including some that silently spread from phone to phone over the cell network. As our phones become more powerful, these malicious programs will become more dangerous. And since the iPhone is the most advanced phone ever, it will be a highly visible target.

Some companies are already taking action. Nokia, for example, is not allowing any applications to be loaded onto some of their newest phones unless they have a digital signature that can be traced back to a known developer. While this makes such a phone less than “totally open,” we believe it is a step in the right direction. We are working on an advanced system which will offer developers broad access to natively program the iPhone’s amazing software platform while at the same time protecting users from malicious programs.

We think a few months of patience now will be rewarded by many years of great third party applications running on safe and reliable iPhones.

Steve

P.S.: The SDK will also allow developers to create applications for iPod touch. [Oct 17, 2007]

I still say that web apps was a brilliant idea...but this announcement is even better.

Saw it on MacRumors first.

OSX Leopard To Ship October 26

Apple’s latest and greatest flavor of the OSX operating system - 10.5 or “Leopard” - will be shipping October 26. This date confirms most of the rumors flying around the last couple weeks. Pricing is the typical $129 for a single-user version and $199 for a family pack.

It’s looking to be a really solid upgrade to the already-pretty-great “Tiger,” offering over 300(!) great new features like “Quick Look,” “Spaces,” a much-improved Finder, and the feature to end all features, “Time Machine.”

Pre-order Leopard here.

Why Does The Apple Store Close So Damn Much?

Interesting story this morning on 9to5Mac that poses the question: “Apple Store Outtages - Reality Distortion or Substandard Ecommerce?”

When the Apple Online Store goes down, and visitors are met with the now-iconic yellow Post-It note, and bloggers all over start frothing at the mouth at the prospect of being first to break news about the newest product addition or price change or layout tweak so they set their browser to auto-refresh every 2.5 seconds - is it on purpose, or is it because Apple has a crappy backend system?

I’m inclined to think it’s more the former than the latter. Once upon a time, it was tougher to bring out sweeping updates to an ecommerce site like Apple’s. Nowadays, though, you’d have to be doing things pretty exceedingly wrong to require a complete takedown just to update a couple little things. What I think is happening here is simply an case of Apple understanding it’s place in the business world, and knowing what it means to be Apple. Unlike Dell or Amazon, for example, who add new merchandise to their stores all the time, when Apple introduces a new product it is an event. Closing the store is a way of increasing the weight of the introduction - it’s in the re-opening of the doors that the magic of the new look, the new featured products, really hits home. Apple knows better than anyone how to cultivate buzz, and making people wait in line to get in is a great way to increase the special-ness of the experience.

But how to explain the store going down for incidental changes? Consistency, I think. And because they know that they’re in the public eye, and that hundreds of knee-jerk gotta-get-some-pageviews bloggers will publish a post simply to say the store is down. And then they’ll put up another post to say “nothing to see here, folks. Move along.” Or they’ll do that, and then five minutes later put up another post about some new product or section or layout change, and their readers will reply that, no, bozo, that was four days thirteen hours six minutes and 24 seconds ago. God. And then another post (or update) to say, “Oh. Readers have said this is old. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along.” Whether or not it was designed like this from the beginning isn’t relevant. What is, is how Apple has turned these outages into huge traffic-drivers, unpaid advertising and word-of-mouth, and, consequently, money-makers.

And so on and so on, and this is how brand mythology works.

Even if the Apple Store really does have a crappy backend, and these outages are out of necessity, there is a lesson to be learned here. What happens when your site goes down, or your business is closed? What are customers greeted with? Do they get a default 404 page, a crappy handwritten sign sloppily taped to the door, or a fancy post-it note?

Which one do you think will increase the chances they’ll be back later?

Reasons Not To Buy A Zune This Christmas: 2007

To commemorate last night’s official announcement of the next generation of Microsoft’s Zune music player (not available until mid-November!), here is an updated version of my popular post from last year, “Reasons Not To Get A Zune This Christmas.” Changes are in red, and replacements have been stricken.

First, a little primer: This week Microsoft released generation 2 of their Zune music player in order to directly compete with Apple’s commanding lead in the personal audio market. They still want some of that big, big pie that Apple made not too many years ago, and has, for the most part, kept all to itself. The Zune is the most recent in the long list of supposed failed “iPod Killers”, and honestly, if any company could kill the iPod, it would probably be Microsoft Apple itself. But never fear Apple faithful - I simply do not see that happening anytime soon. But we haven’t reached the commentary phase yet. I am still being objective. So back to the point - what is the Zune? Simply put, it is a portable music player that comes with an 80GB hard drive (and a 4 and 8GB iPod Nano-like version). It has a three (point two!)-inch color screen, plays video, shows your photos, and allows Wi-Fi transferring of songs to other Zune players nearby (and synching with your computer). The Zune comes in three four colors - white, black, green, pink, and brown red, and is controlled by what looks like an iPod clickwheel a feminine hygiene product but is actually just four directional buttons on a circular disc a touch-sensitive directional hygiene product. Microsoft has created updated the Zune Marketplace - like the iTunes Store - for purchasing your music (and later, movies). There is also jukebox/syncing software that lets you manage playlists and listen to music on your PC (it is not currently still not Mac-compatible). Oh, and FM radio, I guess. Woo.

Okay, enough of the unbiased description. Now is where the review part of the review happens. Disclosure: I do not have a Zune. I have not seen or touched one in person. I touched one. It was traumatic. If you want to send me one to do a more proper “review” please go right ahead. I can be contacted at kevin at frivolousmotion dot com. What this means is I am speaking nothing but the truth. Buy a Zune at your own risk, but not after reading this review all the way through. If you don’t, you will regret it. And, even if you do read it, and decide “Hey, it doesn’t sound that bad,” you’ll probably regret it. You will most certainly still regret it.

So here goes. I am now going to abandon paragraphs and things for the super-popular list format.

1. Brown? What?!! What kind of retro-hipster freaks are you targeting Brown to? Are you planning on making Zune the “Official Media Player of the UPS” for crying out loud?! Eww.
   They killed Brown. No more poop jokes. Now, just Maxi Pad jokes (see above).
2. It is bigger than the current iPod (even compared to the 80GB 160GB version).
3. It is heavier than the current iPod (even compared to the 80GB 160GB version).
4. It has a shorter battery life than the current iPod (which doesn’t even begin to approach the 24-hour life of the new iPod Nano). I haven’t heard any battery life claims yet.
   
5. Crippled Wi-Fi sharing that restricts shared music to three plays or three days before deactivating and prompting you to purchase it. This applies even if you are the artist who recorded the song and want to share it with your Zune-carrying friends, and even though the Zune Marketplace will be filled with DRM-free music. Someone else said, “Microsoft puts the DRM in DRM-free.”
   

   Corollary to 5: Where are you going to find someone else with a Zune so that you can share? Are you seriously going to approach a stranger and try to send them the newest Timberlake tune? Do you want that random guy/girl on the subway to punch you in the face? (Worst pickup line of the new millenium: Is that a Zune in your pocket...) But seriously, for Microsoft to make the main feature of the device (the file sharing) something that relies completely on the device becoming ubiquitous is a major gamble. Without it, the Zune is basically a bigger, less pretty, and more socially irresponsible iPod.

6. What looks like a clickwheel ain’t a clickwheel. It is a multidirectional click pad (four poles, plus center) that works in a context-sensitive way context- and touch- sensitive panty liner. What does that mean? It means that you won’t always know what to push to do what you want. Sometimes left will go back a song, sometimes it might changes menus, sometimes it might vote for Al Gore. Not cool. And because you have to flip the player on its side to watch video, that means the directions switch by 90 degrees. Confused yet?
7. Wait, you have to turn it to watch videos? Whatever, I do this on iPhone and it’s not a big deal.
   
8. Installing the Zune sucks.
   
9. You can’t use real money in the Zune Marketplace. You have to buy blocks of points (79 points equals 99 cents - easy conversion, right?) in increments of $10 (starting at $5 for 400 points). How much music do you have to buy to totally use up all your points? I won’t do the math, but the answer is: A lot.
10. The application crashes all the time. Hopefully not anymore!
    
11. If you buy a subscription plan (something like $15 a month lets you listen to unlimited tracks - though you can’t burn them to disc or keep them if you stop your subscription), certain tracks from what sounds like a lot of albums aren’t available. Meaning, you need to plop down at least five bucks to purchase the popular tunes individually. That is not cool. EDIT: I have no gripe about the subscription model - lots of places do it like that. But disabling certain songs unless you purchase them individually is not cool.
    
12. None of the songs you bought in the iTunes store are playable on the Zune.
13. None of the songs you bought for other players via Microsoft’s OWN PlayForSure format are playable on the Zune. This is absolutely insane.
14. It doesn’t have calendars, contacts, podcasts, notes, games, etc. Not that I use those, but for some people those things are big. Sound the sirens! Zune supports podcasts!
    
15. Lots of the album art is too small for the screen, and it looks bad when scaled.
16. No Mac support. I suppose it could work if you have a new one and can boot XP from it. But I’m not sure about that. This is an oversight that goes way beyond competition, and way beyond PC marketshare. There’s a lot of potential users (Zunies? Zunesters? Zuners? Zunesketeers?) who happen to use Macs at home, and may have older-gen iPods and looking for a replacement. And what about all the people who have recently switched to Mac after trying and loving an iPod? Doesn’t MS want to win them back? Guess not.
17. No small version. The iPod Nano is the biggest selling mp3 player, and the iPod didn’t really start to take off until the Mini was released. Why couldn’t Microsoft have developed a cute little device for the kiddies?
    
18. EDIT: No true smart playlists. Way to give power users the boot. I guess these are just ultra-hidden.

EDIT - I just read this on O’Reilly:

Feel uncomfortable with Microsoft's watching your every move in Zune? Opt out. Say "No." Stand up for your rights.

Unless you make the affirmative choice to keep Microsoft out, you are by default enrolled in Microsoft's "Zune Customer Experience Improvement Program." This program assumes you want to improve Microsoft's bottom line (and nosiness) by allowing it to monitor your Zune software usage.

There’s more, but for now I think that will suffice. Maybe if I actually try one out I’ll post some more thoughts. Ultimately, I think this is a case of too little - too late (again). Microsoft has introduced another line of less-functional, less powerful versions of a mega-popular product, and included basically no innovations only one innovation that is seriously crippled to begin with! If they had truly wanted to compete with Apple for a share of the market, we should have seen a cool-looking device (the new ones look much better than the first generation, but that’s only because they look a lot more like iPods now) that offered more disk space with a slimmer profile, better syncing, more options and features, even cheaper music(!) and eliminated some of the crazy DRM that pisses me off about Apple from time to time. Instead MS has agreed to pay Universal a dollar for every Zune sold. Clearly they aren’t bending over backwards for the consumers (as Apple appears to do by fighting to keep prices stable) - it looks like the opposite, in fact, and anything that doesn’t immediately suggest that Microsoft is a full year or more behind Apple and playing a ridiculously flawed game of catch-up.

Please don’t get anyone a Zune for Christmas. If they ask for one (which they might, poor souls), say it is too much money (which it is) and buy them something else cool. Then, sneak a fabulous iPod Shuffle in their stocking (only $79 and awesome! I’ve touched it, so I know.) Really. Don’t make this a bad Christmas for anyone.

Buying a Zune = Coal in your stocking next year and Baby Jesus Crying.

Still true. Don’t be tempted.

Starbucks iTunes Store Now Open

This morning when I hit up Starbucks to grab an Odwalla Super Protein Pumpkin drink for breakfast, it was like the coffeshop had turned into an entirely new place overnight. New music displays on the counter, big posters, and a nice-looking LCD screen with information about what song is currently playing. Apple and Starbucks really went all out in this partnership. The Starbucks-branded iTunes Wi-Fi store worked as directed, and downloads move really fast. Here’s hoping that similar partnerships will start popping up all over the place.

Imagine being able to instantly download the newest hit song playing on an episode of Grey’s Anatomy from the comfort of your couch. Or being able to do this anywhere, any time music is playing.