Welcome to My Social Nightmare

In the words of Alice Cooper: "Welcome to my nightmare. I think you're gonna like it. I think you're gonna feel like you belong."

My sense of belonging is that experience shared by so many Windows users: The crash. Complete and total. The first two times I used the new Zune software this morning, the computer completely turned off—once while setting the preferences and another while switching songs—without even a blue screen. The crashes are hard on my Outlook data file, among other things.

The shutdowns don't exactly make me feel warm and fuzzy as I should feel about the Zune software either.

Pesky problems aside, the new Zune software is a great improvement over Version 1. Microsoft has done a complete rewrite of the code—and divorced it from dependence on Windows Media Player. Whew, it's great to be single again!

The great divorce should have been greater. Since Zune supports oodles of media file types anyway, Microsoft should have released a Zune client for the Mac. Maybe the Microsoft bean counters couldn't rationalize the development cost.

But the psychological benefits would be priceless if Microsoft could have established a Mac foothold for Zune, Zune software and the Zune marketplace. Surely there are some Mac users that would like to rent rather than to buy music—even if the Zune Marketplace catalog is only about half the size of iTunes. For Mac users with Xbox 360s, Zune is a more natural fit than iPod/iTunes.

In early October, I did a major conversion. After years of buying music from the iTunes Music Store, I replaced about three-quarters of the rights-protected content with DRM-free music from the Amazon MP3 music store. My library of about 4,900 songs is a mix of 192kbps and 256kbps MP3s, iTunes DRM-free 256kbps AACs, 256kbps AAC files that I ripped and DRM-free iTunes MP4 videos.

The Zune software comfortably plays all the formats, including the MP4 videos. I may get a Zune Marketplace subscription, for stuff I want to try but not necessarily buy. I like being able to take my music on any device.

The new Zune software is no iTunes wannabe, nor does it need to be. Microsoft opted for a default three-pane view that I find easier to navigate than iTunes—even with the delightful Coverflow.

The software is unobtrusive almost to a fault. List sorting controls are nested, as are many others. I couldn't find a graphic equalizer or even a mention of one in the online documentation, nor does there appear to be a crossfade option. I would want to see both, if neither is there.

Still, the Zune software's simplicity is compelling in the way iTunes used to be. The early iTunes was great media player software, but the application is so bloated now it might as well be called Windows Media Player 12. Windows Media Player and iTunes share too many of the same complexity shortcomings.

Over at Zune.net, people are asking for more—and some of what they want is the customization and control available in the older Zune software. Be careful what you ask for, folks. Microsoft may have erred on the side of too little, but too much is worse.

The default Zune player's skin colors are too effeminate for my tastes. But my overall satisfaction with the software excuses the skins, which aren't that bad. I like the "Now Playing" library mosaic.

Audio response, even without graphic equalizer, is excellent. I'm an audiophile, such that I can easily tell the difference between Apple's 128kbps AAC (advanced audio coding) files, which are muddy, and pretty much anything else. That said, my aging ears stop at 192kbps WMA (Windows Media Audio) or 256kbps MP3—at least on my computer. I would have to listen hard to tell the difference, if I could, with CD audio.

The Zune software is taxing. On my laptop, the Zune software averages about 85MB to 100MB of memory and cycles the CPU more than any other application. The software is even more of a system hog than Firefox. Overall system responsiveness is slower when the Zune software is open, and that's on a notebook with 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo processor and 2GB of RAM. I suspect, the response problem is the graphics overhead. The Gateway Tablet PC I'm using today only has 128MB of dedicated graphics memory, with another 797MB shared with system memory. Or maybe the software is just buggy.

I took a more cursory look at the Zune Marketplace, which is hugely improved over Version 1. The layout is cleaner, and there is loads more artist information. Microsoft seems to be heavily relying on social sharing for music discovery. Marketplace has more of a music editor's/director's touch, but it could use even more of it. Zune Marketplace offers plenty of DRM-free MP3s, but Microsoft isn't exactly promoting them. There should be an easy to search for or filter DRM-subscription, DRM-download and DRM-free tracks.

As much as I like the new software and store, there's a sense that this is the Version 1 and last year's release was the beta. There is plenty to like, but way too much to complain about. Microsoft is going to need at least another half version to get the software and experience right. My prediction: Microsoft will release another major software update when the Zune Social Web site goes out of beta.

I have yet to update my first-gen Zune music player, but that would be my next project. Microsoft didn't choose to send me a second-gen device to test.

I actually tried to buy a Zune last night. The local Target had three black 4GB second-gen Zunes on display. My eyes widened when the cashier scanned the Zune and it rang up as $0. Things were really looking up. Some promotions are just too irresistible. Naturally, the Zune wasn't in the POS system, since the first sale date was today. He couldn't sell the device.

I'm joining the social and will use the Zune software for the foreseeable future. The Social is a refreshing change from iTunes/iPod. Hopefully, I won't be the oldest person on the Zune Social Web site. Maybe Alice Cooper will join, and I can feel 16 again.

Related Posts:

• The Problem with Zune, Microsoft Watch, Nov. 12, 2007
• Microsoft's Marketing Makeover, Microsoft Watch, Nov. 9, 2007
• What a Long Strange Trip It's Been, Microsoft Watch, Nov. 2, 2007
• Zune Gets More Social, Microsoft Watch, Oct. 3, 2007
• MTV Gets Real, Microsoft Gets Punk'd, Microsoft Watch, Aug. 22, 2007
• Is That 1 Million Zunes Shipped or Sold?, Microsoft Watch, May 29, 2007
• McCartney: Zune Scores, iTunes Misses?, Microsoft Watch, May 22, 2007
• Zune: It's Not a Fire Sale, Yet, Microsoft Watch, April 30, 2007
• What Apple DRM-Free Means to Microsoft, Microsoft Watch, April 2, 2007
• Jobs Calls for DRM Freedom, Microsoft Watch, Feb. 6, 2007
• Allchin's Windows Media Device Lament, Microsoft Watch, Jan. 21, 2007
• Microsoft's Connected Lifestyle, Microsoft Watch, Jan. 7, 2007
• Whoa, Zune Is Social, Microsoft Watch, Jan. 1, 2007
• Welcome to My Social, Microsoft Watch, Dec. 25, 2006
• Zune Chips Away at iPod, Microsoft Watch, Dec. 18, 2006
• Microsoft's Music Madness, Microsoft Watch, Nov. 27, 2006
• Zune Goes to War, Microsoft Watch, Nov. 14, 2006