All You Can Eat...

With Your EARS. Ew...

So yeah, Zune. Microsoft's iPod. I have never owned an MP3 player with more than a gig of storage. I haven't completely felt the urge, though I've got to say, wandering up and down the aisles of CD's at Target, the temptation grows. I can only imagine the terror that grips employees of Best Buy, Frys or (collective gasp) Waterloo Records. I've really become enamored with the idea of the Zune Pass. Assuming that per year, there are more than 12 CDs I would ever want to listen to, $15 a month works out to be a good deal. I also feel it would be convenient to just download any music I want off the Internet, without stopping to pay the piper or whatnot. I could even load songs to my 60 gig (do they make a 60? apparently not yet) music player, and not really listen to them if I didn't want to. I could bask in the luxury of having access to music that I hadn't pared down to less than 200 songs. I could even try listening to entire albums by artists, shock of shock. Or just make multiple playlists for multiple occasions, and not really have to worry about space or cost of legality. Naturally, I could do all this with equipment and services that don't have the word "Zune" in the name, but somehow the Zune plan and Zune hardware and Zune software working together seems like it would produce fewer headaches.

I ran this idea by a friend of mine, and the first thing he told me was "the sharing thing is useless", like that's a big reason to go with an iPod instead. I'll agree with him, theres really no one else around with a Zune, and the "three listens in three days" limitation kinda bites, though I can see the rationale for it. Of course, the Zune Pass means that, mostly, the limitation doesn't apply to me (I'm already "renting" the song anyway), but really, either way, I don't care about sharing. My question to him remains, though, how does a bad sharing plan make the Zune worse than something with no sharing plan at all? Surely the advantages must be noted that, though its currently a useless feature, the Zune does have WiFi connectablitly. And, for the same price as an equal sized iPod, I can see myself investing in the POTENTIAL of this magic uplink protocol.

The dream scenario, of course, is this: I'm walking through the mall at some point in the not so distant future, and a song plays over the intercom that I enjoy. I pull out my Zune, connect to the hypothetical mall's hypothetical wireless network, and transfer the song (or indeed, the whole album, and possibly other works in the artist's discography) directly to my Zune, adding it to my shuffle list, where it will pop up randomly and surprise me.

Speaking of added features, the thing also has a radio receiver. And it's got a widescreen (tallscreen?) display. I suppose the only possible downside to the device over Apple's offering is the Microsoft branding, but I've even found myself looking at the X-Box 360 with lusty eyes, and I've resigned myself to buying a new computer with Vista in the future. Microsoft may be evil, but they're good at being evil, so who am I to judge?

As near as I can tell, the only advantage the iPod has over the Zune, other than Kleenex level brand recognition, is the fact that iPods do not come in BROWN. iPods, like most other Apple devices, come in either black or white, or a Starburst-like assortment of colors if you buy one of the nano or mini or electron microscope models. The Zune launched in three colors, differentiating itself from the competition. They chose the iPod mimicing Ivory White; the edgy and cool Charcoal Black; and a color that can only be described as TURD BROWN. Seriously, BROWN electronics? Even disregarding the fact that it's the color of excrement (and it really is, shade and everything, like if you'd passed a white Zune through your colon), since when are we making brown machines? They didn't even do that when we were using real wood for cases. We painted them, so it wasn't brown. I mean, when you're rushing to compete with a product that defines an industry, you shouldn't make the case that your product is comparable to poop FOR THE ENEMY. Leave that to your half assed Wi-Fi implementation, please.

By the way, I picked up The WarSun Prophecies, the third book of Penny Arcade compilations, so this post may have been channeling my inner Tycho. I love the way the guy writes. And heck, he's even one of the more vocal independant (i.e. not Bill Gates) fans of the Zune.

But seriously, I got the idea to get one on my own, because the display model at work taunts me.