With The New iPod Announcements, Is There Anything Left For Zune?

I'll admit it - the Apple offers yesterday impressed the heck out of me. I'm possibly a week away from buying me an iPhone.

I'll admit it … the frustration of a year of Zune WiFi with no real purpose eclipsed by Apple actually beating Zune to the wireless punch has been hard.

Is there any reason to buy anything other than an iPod right now? What role does the Zune have anymore?

We're going to chop this off into 2 chunks: 1) What Zune does NOW that iPod don't do yet. 2) What Zune could do soon …

What Zune does NOW that iPod don't do yet.

Subscription music gets a bad rep by those who haven't used it yet. It's a win/win for the consumer and the content owner and will only grow is scope and impact. Zune does it TODAY and Jobs still doesn't ever think he'll see the iPod doing that. Bad move in my mind.

Although the software is slow, you can throw, right now, pretty much any video or audio format at the Zune software and watch it on your Zune when you desire. No third party software, no hacks …

You can plug your Zune into your Xbox and watch and/or listen to anything on it.

And that's what you can do today …

What Zune could do soon …

The much Techmemed Wifi iTunes Store doesn't do Podcasts yet, despite Steve's impressive Podcast numbers at the beginning of his speech. We know that Microsoft chose WiFi for Zune for the potential past swapping files. Imagine these WiFi scenarios …

User "A" shares a Podcast with user "B." When user B syncs their Zune with the computer, it notices that a Podcast was shared and asks the user if they want to subscribe to it. Powerful.

User "A" is stuck in an airport, and possibly for a long time. They want something to listen to and/or watch for their extended stay. They log into the airport WiFi and grab some Podcast content accordingly.

User "A" is heading on a flight and wants to pick the movies they'll watch. They download the movies through the already existing movie rental infrastructure and sync with their Zune.

And the list goes on and on (and on) …

Yes, Apple was impressive, but Zune's place is still there.

I'll bet good money there will be some big meetings at Zune Headquarters regarding what comes next based on Apple's moves. Competition is a good thing.

And so is the Zune.

Updated: Some additional thoughts on this topic at Zunerama.

Technorati Tags: zune, microsoft, apple, ipod