Missing the point

I read Robert Scoble's post last week comparing the iPod to Zune. If nothing else, I usually find something interesting or thought provoking in Robert's posts. In this one, I found it interesting that his conclusion is that when compared to an iPod, "the Zune abjectly fails." The reason for this failure, in his opinion, is that there is no killer feature to differentiate Zune from the iPod.



I could critique and defend each of the points Robert made. But, it occurred to me that Robert is missing the point of Zune. There is no one magic bullet that is going to make Zune (or any other player for that matter) suddenly topple the iPod. What will be successful is a product that excels at the fundamentals while adding new features only when it makes sense for the user. Sure, software matters. Integration matters. Design matters. And, marketing matters. As Robert points out, it is the little things that matter and which will lead to long term success.


Digging a little deeper, the reason I think we'll be successful is that we focused on the essentials and I think we got the details right. Zune only does 5 things. It is first and foremost a great music player. Before we can even think about any other features, it had to be best in class in terms of playing back music. We thought long and hard about better ways to find and play your music.



The user first notices this when they use the UI to navigate to their tracks. Unlike the iPod, which is hierarchical and inflexible, Zune allows you to make selections by navigating up and down as well as left and right. This means that you don't have to go all the way back to the main menu to change your selections. Instead, you can go to the previous choices by simply selecting right or left. This is far quicker (and intuitive in my opinion) than other methods of navigation. Robert criticizes the lack of a scroll wheel, but an actuated button it necessary to have when navigation on two axis. It does have advantages, too. For example, scrolling a long list on an iPod can be tedious. Zune has smart scroll functionality where all you have to do is hold the button down to scroll through long lists. Once you find the song you are looking for and you press play, we use the gorgeous screen to display the album art. These are the little details that matter to the user. If I told you I could make it easier to find and play your music and make it more enjoyable by showing you big bright album art, would you find that compelling? Of course you would.



In each of the core scenarios, we didn't try to boil the ocean. Instead, we thought of cool improvements. In video and slideshow modes, we automatically turn the screen sideways and controls become contextual. In the radio (a feature iPod doesn't have by the way), we have one push preset and seeking. And, yes we have sharing. We added a feature that we think users will think it cool. Music was meant to be shared and talked about. We thought that having to put someone else's earbuds in your ears was a bad way to do it (and kind of gross). Is this the "killer feature" Robert wants to see? Who knows. It is pretty cool though.



Robert does talk a lot about the upgradeability of Zune. In some ways he hints that that is the killer feature. He might be right. Anyone who's tried to upgrade their player in the past would probably agree it is difficult at best and a disaster at worst. The upgrade feature is not only seamless, but practical. The thing about it is that now that it is painless, we can add features in the future and the experience of getting them will be painless. You want a podcasting client, not a problem. You want a video-cast system, we can do that. You want something we haven't even thought about, we can probably do that too. The point is that we do the basic things really, really well and if we need to add something we can.



Let me say this one more time. If anyone thinks they are going to walk in and immediately take 51% marketshare from Apple, they are sorely mistaken. The iPod is a great product (I own 5 of them). However, we're kidding ourselves if we say that there isn't room to improve. Robert talks about an offsite where he saw Dave (Zunster) present. I hosted that offsite (and if you're reading Robert, I'm a little miffed you don't remember getting the invite from me). We learned (and continue to learn) from the competition. That's where Zune gets it right; focus on the key scenarios, innovate where it makes sense for the users, and upgrade if necessary. That is going to be the key to success.



PS - sharing actually is a killer feature.