Zune Thoughts - Daily News, Views, Rants and Raves

"Blake Robinson here. I’ve been a Zune user from the beginning despite resounding clamor railing against my support. It’s a decent device that gets the job done as well as anything else out there. So what if you put too much stock into the wireless sharing function. It might be useless and I’ve still yet to “squirt” a single track at anyone, but I did finally see a Zune in the wild (owned by a cute girl who I would have gladly squirted). Nevertheless, I still dig the interface and despite the fact that it weighs as much a cinder block, I still carry it around like a jackass. I can live with that. My problem with you stems from your ridiculous and asinine decision to not support OS X."

Blake over at CrunchGear is mighty ticked off that the Zune doesn't work with his Mac. In fact, he seemed somehow surprised that Microsoft isn't supporting the Mac. I'm not sure why - given the small size of the Zune team, the fact that they're just over one year old as a team, and given that they have ONE product on the market...why would anyone think that Mac support would be a critical deliverable in the first generation? Or, really, ever for that matter? The iPod wouldn't have been a success if they hadn't made iTunes Windows-compatible, but Microsoft isn't in any such position with the Zune: they don't need Mac compatibility in order for it to be a smash success.

I'm not saying Microsoft should never release an OS X version of the Zune software, but given the fact that the product has been on the market for seven months now and we have yet to see even one significant new feature or enhancement via firmware or desktop software update, it seems clear the team is massively resource constrained and they can't deliver the experience they need to for Windows users. If given a choice between delivering something better to the bulk of the buying public or catering to a small percentage of people (honestly, how many Mac owners would even give the Zune a chance?)...where would you spend your resources? Sorry Blake, guess you should have bought an iPod.

"I was going to pre-order a Zune player, but I checked to see if it would work with a Mac, and apparently not. Arrrgh. What kind of competitor has Microsoft become. What if someone prefers a Mac desktop, thinks it's possible to do better than the iPod, and wants to give Zune a whirl? I have to use a PC? Oy oy. NFW. What if my opinion influences others? I imagine that many of the opinion leaders in this market already use Macs. I doubt if I'm willing to dust off the PC just to try out their audio player."

The above quote is from Dave Winer, and represents an interesting aspect of the online world. Proportionately, the number of Mac users among the digital "elite" (I use that word with a slight rolling of the eyes) seems higher than the general computer-using populace, and once you factor in the echo chamber that is the blogosphere, you end up with a lot of people complaining that something is a really big deal when it's probably not. Reality check: if you're using a Mac, you're using a platform that only 3-4% of the rest of the computer using world is on. That means that when a company decides which platform they want to target to, you know, make money, they're going to go with the mainstream platform that the majority is using. I'm not Mac bashing, that's just reality. And if you factor in that Microsoft is the company creating the Zune, are you really surprised that they're not going to support the Mac right out of the gate? And given that most Mac users really enjoy the unified experience of using everything Apple, is there really a burning desire for Mac-using iPod owners to try the Zune? I have a hard time believing the numbers would be big enough to matter.

On the other hand, a lot of musicians/creative types use Macs, so if Microsoft is trying to target them, lacking Mac support will certainly hurt that effort. How mainstream is Microsoft really going with the Zune? It's tough to say, because the marketing message seems to fluctuate randomly back and forth between "we want cool underground music fan types" to "we want Joe Average to buy these". Is anyone else feeling confused about who the target market is for the Zune?