New Media Development

Today Apple hosted their long awaited event announcing updates to their Mac Book and Mac Book Pro notebooks. A friend of mine asked me if I was going to be pissed if they massively upped the ante on the performance and storage of the machine. I don’t think so but lets break down the updates and see.

1. One thing I am happy about is that I got a system with the OLD keyboard on it. Having used the chicklet keyboard on the Mac Book and the Air I have to say it would quickly become the bane of my existence if I had it on my Pro.
   I do not like it here or there
   I do not like it anywhere
   I do not like the chicklet keyboard
   I do not like it, Steve I Am
    
2. An advanced graphics card was expected and is only really put to the test while gaming or doing high end graphics. I don’t do either of these on a consistent basis so no huge loss there.
    
3. Getting rid of the button on the track pad is something I HATE. The first thing I did on my old notebook was turn off the touch pad clicking feature so this is a huge win for the older model.
    
4. By putting all connections on the side, they have actually reduced the number of devices you can connect. In the new version you lose 1 usb port, the firewire 400 port, and the DVI connector in lieu of the mini display port (Apple proprietary and will require an additional purchase for non-Apple displays).
    
5. Being able to quickly swap the drive like you could with the MacBooks is a nice new touch.
    
6. The new MBP can now have double the hard drive space, double the RAM, and 4X the graphics capacity of my current MBP. However, it is a good $700 more than what I paid for my MBP. Also, my model is a 17 inch display while the new models will only be 15.4 inch or 13 inch.
   UPDATE: In the QA session it was mentioned the 17″ model is being refreshed as well but no details on specs or price were given under the new design. At the Apple store the current 17″ model is still for sale but is unchanged in terms of specs, design, and the $2800 price tag. Roughly a $1000 more than what I paid for a refurbished model.

Bottom Line: I am far happier now than I was before the announcements. The new additions either don’t apply to me or I wouldn’t want them.

Well, there really is no verdict on the Zune. The issue is that I don’t use portable MP3 players like I did then I had a 45 minute commute each way to work. Unless I am making the 3 hour drive to the office, I don’t really touch them at all. That makes it hard for me to determine if the Zune is a step forward or backwards.

On the plus side, the social is nice. Purchasing tracks is easier. Overall use of the system is good. Videos play faster and in wide screen. Overall it’s a solid platform that does exactly what it says it will do.

On the down side, it is not as machine agnostic as I would like. (i.e. it only works on Windows) The interface is hard to navigate when you have a very large music collection like mine. Navigating while driving is close to impossible but something I could get used to. The software lacks major search functionality and there are not enough people in the Social that I want to share with to make me keep it open. Playlists are clunky and a complete lack of rating system makes smart playlists a joke. I also just don’t like how it won’t play with other software to manage my podcasts and other things.

Now for the best part. A week after I have registered the device, I get my first “Welcome to Zune” e-mail. This is the guide I should have had on day one telling me how to use the software to it’s advantage. Just this week I have gotten part 2 of that e-mail and part 3 comes next week. This is a complete fail on Microsoft’s part by keeping usability information from the customer. It only makes me want to use the software less and less.

I am not going to get rid of the device for some time and give it more of a test run. My lack of time with the device is a big deterant and I have gotten away from using the iPod as well. It may be that my need for a portable player is gone and I just need something to store my music which the Zune does very well. But in time I know the lack of scroll wheel will get me then I will look to upgrade. Maybe after the Apple announcements on Sept 9th.

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One thing for sure is the software is different. The lack of any normal menu bar may throw some off but the fact that the environment mirrors the open menu structure of the device is a nice integration. However, that’s pretty much where the nice part wears off.

OK, let me be a little more specific here. The Social aspect of it is still very nice. I like that my friends can see what I am playing. MSoft can suggest similar artists in the marketplace for me to check out. Even the ability to listen to beamed songs is nice.

On the flip side, it seems like the software is trying to constantly force me into listening to song in a traditional manner. By artist or Album. Shuffle exists but is just hard to find. Even scrolling to find an artist is a fine art. One place they could have made up for this is in the search feature.

Search, however, is massively broken. Any term I search for looks equally into my library as it does the marketplace. So I am often given items I already own. Double clicking on the song, in my mind, should play the song. Not so here. A double click will bring you back to the top of your library. Not to the song you clicked on, the top of the library.

Podcasts also lack a distinct sense of usability. If I give control of my podcatching to Zune, it is a joy. If I want to use another podcatcher like Juice or integrate PodNova then just forget it. Zune Software must be the center of the Zune universe or podcasts don’t function properly. Oh and why is my Zune Software trying to download somethign when my Zune isn’t even connected? Software updates should happen in the normal fashion and not something that prevents me from closing the software.

In the end, the software is just very clunky, slow to sync items, and is just not very intuitive to the files on my machine. Lets hope the device menus show some ray of usability.

For weeks up until I got the Zune one of the things I kept reading was that registering the software and device was a pain. I am not sure if I am the exception to the rule or that I understand the process but it didn’t seem any more painful to me than registering an iPod or creating an iTunes account.

The software is not great out of the box but I will go into that more tomorrow. The install was very straight forward but the multiple reboots seemed unnecessary. I also don’t like that you can’t import your Podcasts from something like PodNova or use it with a 3rd party pod-catcher like Juice. But I will admit “The Social” does keep me interested. The down side is that so few people in this area have Zunes that it looks like my social interactions will be limited to online.

It took about 20 minutes to get the system running . However, syncing almost 4000 song from my existing collection took well over 4 hours and actually restarted after 2. Not good tho subsequent syncs are a lot faster because they are just content updates. After finally getting the songs on there I was actually able to “use” the device and see how it works.

Initial impressions, it’s nice but I can already see problems. The fact there is no scroll wheel is a HUGE problem. I can’t select exact points in a song to pump to. Only flick back and forth to predefined points. Also, I can tell the interface will be hard to navigate while I am driving. It kinda wants to lock you into traditional Albums or spend a lot of time creating the playlists you want.

Speaking of which, it looks like any song rating system is missing. Either that or it is not accessible from the Zune interface. Also, albums with similar names don’t seem to be grouping together making it harder to find songs I like.

First day is over and I have to say I am not overtly impressed. I like it and can see some cool things in it but it just hasn’t “wowed” me yet.

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MP3 players are not new to me at all. Even before the iPod came out, I bought an EMPEG in-dash MP3 player for my car in 1997. I mean, what geeky guy could pass up a Linux box installed in a Civic with 28 Gigs worth of music. At the point, I converted my entire CD collection to MP3, loaded up the Empeg, and took my music everywhere.

But as drive failures continued, Rio discontinued servicing and SONICBlue went bankrupt, I started to seek out an alternative in 2002. In walks the iPod. 15 Gig was less than the 28 I had and letting iTunes control my music after I had complete control over files and menus was not welcome. But at least it didn’t break down every 6 months or so. I then sold the Empeg to pay for a new head unit in the car and the iPod.

Fast forward to 2008 when the iPod finally failed from one too many drops. Normally I would just buy an 80 Gig Classic and go on but fate has intervened. I ended up winning an 80 Gig Zune through some luck which will replace the iPod.

Will it be better? How painful will it be to set up? How will it compare to the iTunes experience? Will it really matter seeing how I rarely use my iPods anymore? Well we will all find out in this week long series. The Zune arrived today and I will post over the course of the week my impressions compared to my other MP3 devices.

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