Creative Zen
Creative wanted to simplify things, to aim for the ease-of-use found in its IPod rivals. So with its latest player, there's no more moving songs around within a playlist. No more treating albums and artists as objects so you can collapse them for easy navigation or move a full album of tracks with a few clicks. Gone. Poof. No more. And no "advanced menus" option that brings these features back.
Creative really dropped the ball here. How, exactly, do you sell this device? With a powerful interface, you could pitch it as the power user's MP3 player. Without it, the Zen Touch just comes off as a slightly larger, slightly heavier IPod. Sure, it's $30 cheaper and it's got 24 hours of battery life. But that's not going to put a dent in IPod sales, is it? Especially not when people pick it up and realize it still uses pick-list commands for many of its functions. Looks a lot like a poor IPod knock-off, doesn't it?
Quick Hits
RealNetworks Hacks ITunes: All this uproar over Real's Harmony technology certainly is amusing. The story so far: Real releases a beta version of its RealPlayer software that lets you download protected tracks bought at RealPlayer Music store to Apple's IPod players. Apple accuses Real of resorting to "hacker-like tactics" and mentions that, oh-by-the-way, this feature just might break when it updates its IPod software. Real maintains that what it's doing is perfectly legal.
This will probably end in an instant messaging wars-style standoff, where Apple keeps locking RealPlayer users out as the two companies head to court. I'm not sure what Apple's worried about, though. Would people stop buying IPods if they could play RealPlayer Music Store downloads on them? Does anyone seriously believe that IPod owners would desert the ITunes Music store for Real's offering? Come on, Apple: Just license FairPlay and get it over with. The IPod and ITunes are strong enough to compete without being tied together.
New Musicmatch: Lost in all the Harmony hullabaloo was the release of Musicmatch 9, which features a new premium service called Musicmatch On Demand. My colleague Ed Albro has spent more time with it than I have, so you'll want to read his Today @ PC World blog posting for his evaluation.