Zune HD vs iPod Touch: Showdown

Created by admin under General Discussion

Currently, the world has eagerly sat in anticipation of Microsoft’s second attempt at the music player market with the newly launched Zune HD. Interestingly enough; the Zune was shipped software-wise dead to customers before Zune Marketplace went online. Customers were enticed by the overall ability to see what they had purchased and left with a further eagerness to see how Marketplace would perform with their new Zunes.

The traditional competitor to the Zune had been the iPod touch. With the launch of the new Zune HD and new generations of iPod Touches, Apple and Microsoft started a new round of battling amongst media players.

The Zune was considered an outlier in the general portable music player market with its software, hardware and marketing concept. Generally speaking, if you wanted reliability, style and ease of function, people just automatically clicked with Apple products, namely the iPod Touch. The Zune was not immune to the problems people faced with weak video support coupled with the lacking Wi-Fi capabilities.

Together with the fact that it did not sync very well with protected content using Windows Media Player or its own in-built Zune Marketplace media player; the Zune was at a disadvantage in comparison to the iPod. With Apple’s continued dominance in the market with it’s’ iPod line, the Zune took a heavy beating in sales and market share.

However, Microsoft did not give up hope completely; rather it took these complaints to heart and launched the Zune HD. The new Zune HD features a stronger Wi-Fi component, although present in all of Apple’s recent offerings, the added bonus of an HD radio tuner is an edge over Apple’s iPod offerings. The tantalizing fact about this HD radio tuner and the streaming Wi-Fi is that the new Zunes seem to push this idea of sharing music. Something that iPod Touch seems to actively ignore; even though Apple provides the wireless features and the software to do so.

It seems that the Zune HD is poised to recapture the music player market by being something new. The screen size, the HD tuner, the improved Marketplace, better media integration along with aggressive pricing means that the Zune HD is a viable competitor to the iPod Touch; however, there is still something up Apple’s sleeve that knocks the Zune down a peg, the AppStore.

Although more expensive, more resource intensive, and filled with more power hungry hardware, the iPod Touch has the AppStore. Although coming up short against the Zune in many performance areas, the beauty of the iPod Touch is that almost any deficiency can be swallowed with the availability of 60,000 and more apps.

The AppStore takes the iPod Touch to a whole new level. With almost 16 free apps being downloaded by iPod Touch users every month, the accessibility and the convenience of the AppStore cannot be ignored. The Zune Marketplace yet again actively ignores this aspect of customer feedback and development. The growth of APIs and SDKs, etc means that a huge potential developer base is marginalized. This is what the Zune needs, the development of killer apps that make it a competitor to the iPod Touch in terms of usage and user friendliness.

At one point, hardware alone was enough to make an impact on the sales of a music player; however, software is now becoming equally as important. The AppStore covers the flaws and dings of the iPod Touch wonderfully using its apps. The Zune HD needs something similar to the AppStore where the die-hard fans of Microsoft hardware can develop killer apps for the Zune HD.

However, the technology surrounding media and music players is constantly changing. What constitutes a successful media player today may change by next week, next month, or next year. So just stay tuned! What do you think; is the iPod Touch better or Zune HD? Please feel free to leave comments and feedback below.