Apple aficionados have been overtly and covertly enjoying the failure of Microsoft Zune. The Zune is ugly and buggy and I see no reason to defend it or Microsoft. But I'd been having a discussion with a fellow blogger and here's why I think the iPod is no great shakes either. The following was posted in the comments section of Zak's blog. (http://www.kidvai.com/zak/jottings.html).----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I fail to see how the Zune being a shitty product makes the iPod any better? Ok, let me put it another way, the iPod is crap, the Zune is crappier, hope that satisfies you. Let me take a stab at what is wrong with iPod-iTunes and you can call me a liar.
1. The iPod to computer transfer needs to be unlocked. It's my iPod and my songs and my computer, i'll do whatever I want with them, I don't want 'big brother' Apple telling me how to behave, thank you. (Funny, how the pursuit of money makes a company that was inherently anti-1984 into exactly that).
2. Get rid of the DRM crap, LET ME USE WHAT I WANT, HOW I WANT IT. Fairplay? Not for me it ain’t fair.
3. Get rid of the software that's even crappier than iTunes (if that was possible), Apple Quicktime. I'll play the videos I want on my iPod in the format I want them. Quicktime is just bad. There are far better media players and encoders, I don't want just Mpeg4. This might be getting repetitive but, I WANT TO USE IT MY OWN WAY, QUIT TELLING ME WHAT TO DO.
4. Provide REMOVABLE batteries. 5 generations and those idiots at Apple still haven't figured that out. It will not spoil the 'industrial' design of the case whatever that means, and even if it does, I don't care. My Video iPod plays video for 2 1/2 - 3 hours at most (forget Apple’s claims), so I need a replaceable battery or a better battery.
5. As successive generations of iPods come along Apple wants to give the consumer less and less. My 5th doesn't even come with a charger, and the cloth cover is a joke. A charger for my $400, please !
6. Build it so it doesn't scratch. My PSP doesn't, why do I have to wear gloves to operate my iPod?
7. There is a whirring hard disk in there (at least those without the flash drive) beef up the resistance to thumps, bumps, and pressure, or provide us with a clear rubber casing to protect our expensive investments, this is not the same as point 5. And why do I say this, I’ve had a HDD crash on one of my iPods.
8. Stop coming up with new restrictions on uses and users, and lift the old ones. Specifically, don't make small changes that cause third party software to quit working. I use 3rd party software to do what Apple doesn't allow me to do, but with iTunes 7 that's been restricted. It will be gotten over inevitably, but quit already.
9. Sloooow syncing. It takes ages to get updated. Plug it in and forget it, the annoying ‘Do not disconnect’ thing makes me want to break the damn thing. Why can’t I sync and use the iPod at the same time, my Pocket PC does it (oh, but then it uses Windows!).
Not only that but if a problem occurs during syncing, you never know, it just keeps displaying the damn message till eternity. AND I’m not done with syncing yet. If I just make a minor change in iTunes like putting in ratings for my songs, it’ll take as much time to update that small piece of information as it does to update an entire song. Something is wrong here Apple.
10. Order of appearance in iPod. Why don’t my songs appear in my iPod in the same order as in my iTunes. I have audiobooks with sometimes a 100 different parts, they never appear quite in the correct order in the iPod, no matter how I name them, or place them in playlists or whatever.
11. iTunes 7 (add around 5 points about iTunes 7 !), so just think of any 5 bad things about software you can think of, it’ll fit iTunes. Here’s my 5:
1. "Unknown error 0x666D743F" (as someone pointed out, note the 666 !), it gave me this a couple of times right off the bat.
2. A lot of the painstakingly typed info in my database (and a few playlists, not all for some reason) suddenly disappeared after installing iTunes 7.
3. Resurce Hog to the power of 10. Its often using 100MB of my RAM, even when NOT playing a song!
4. Try and play videos in iTunes. It stutters and splutters like an old
5. The preview thumbnails of videos get constructed from zero every time I start iTunes, and it goes without saying that they take an eternity to appear.
