A while ago woot.com had a deal on refurbished Zunes. I got me a 30 GB white one and people were like “What in the hells man? You have a Mac!”
Right they were, I do have a mac. But it was 30Gbs of sweet mp3 storage for a hundred bucks! Who could pass that up? (if I read a single comment that says “I would” I swear…)
So what do I think? Has it been worth it? Read on if you are so brave.
Zune on Mac
Or a Mac on Zune, or two Zunes on a Mac with some iPods watching. Sorry, had to get that out of the way. Right, so using my Zune on my Macbook pro has been interesting. Mainly because there is no software for Macs and no hardware support for Macs. That left me two options for syncing it. Bootcamp or Parallels.
Parallels to the rescue
I couldn’t very well use boot camp because windows doesn’t know how to read Mac partitions. For the record the partitions used in Tiger and Leopard are way beyond those used in windows. Seriously, indexed file system.
As a result Windows wouldn’t be able to read my music collection or any of my videos. So I loaded up Parallels and then setup my Music folder as a network share. Not a network drive mind you because the Zune software doesn’t support network drives (WTF?!) but it works as a shared folder.
It then took extra a extra long time to download my library. It’s like 22 GBs so I guess I can understand that. Plus it has to go through a virtual machine and that certainly doesn’t help the thing go any faster.
The Software
Even after the update the software isn’t all that impressive. I want to merge a few albums that are labeled incorrectly, so I should be able to drag them onto each other right? Sort of, do so and the software gives a nice message “Are you sure you want to merge these albums?” the answer is yes so I hit yes and then…nothing happens. So..ok, management is a pain but then again it is on iTunes too. The particular problem probably has to do with the fact that it’s a network drive or something but it still shouldn’t happen. It might work better if I created a seperate partition for all my media and then shared accessed that directly from a windows boot.
Because there is no mac software
I don’t bother syncing my Zune very much, it takes so long to boot into windows and then, hey, Im using windows and that could discourage anybody. Lets move on from that obvious issue and talk about some features
iPod Video vs Zune
The Zune is better because
- Wide screen video is awesome compared to the iPod Video
- Easy to change the feel of the zune, select different backgrounds on the quick
- Listen to the radio
- Sync wirelessly! (Yes I have gotten it to work under parallels. If you need help figuring that out just leave a comment.
- Non-scratch finish
- Wirelessly share songs with other zunes* (I’ve never actually met another person with a zune so that hasn’t mattered yet)
- Price: Mine was 100 bucks
The iPod Video is better because
- More compatible
- Thinner than my Zune (new Zune’s excluded)
- Click wheel is nice
- More expensive
The conclusion
I really like my Zune and when I see someone’s iPod video I feel like I have a superior product even if I have to do a lot of work to get the thing syncing properly on my Mac. I don’t have to sync it very much anyway so it’s not a big big deal. Sure the software sucks too but the Zune is nice to actually use. Watching a movie on an airplane is actually doable with a zune because the screen is nice and big.
Bonus: Zune Wishlist
I may like the Zune right now but there are some features that I would really like added
- Accelerometer: If I turn the screen I want my video and options and pictures to all turn with it
- Some Mac software: I know Microsoft thinks people with Macs won’t ever buy a Zune but that is obviously not true because look at me. I think a lot of people won’t buy a Zune simply because there isn’t any OS X support for it.
- Did I mention software for the Mac? Yeah, make it a universal binary too because if you try to write to my home directory…so help me..
- Access to Content: This is a long shot but I sure would like to be able to just drop mp3s onto the Zune just like I would a usb drive. I know no one wants to enable that because they think everyone will steal mp3s. Let me make this more clear though: No Pirate has ever even been slowed down by silly DRM built into music players. The only person you’re hurting is the consumer who doesn’t no how to bypass your silly anti-copying measures.. Let me repeat that: Complicating the music transfer process so that I can’t easily backup mp3s to multiple computers only stops consumers, not pirates.
That’s all.
