I watched a VGA video of the Zune interface and yes, it’s really nice (review). It resembles Sony PSP’s UI in principle (able to scroll menus horizontally and vertically at any time). What I like from the Zune except its “next-gen” interface (feels like an upgrade from Win95 to WinXP compared to the iPod’s interface — while the rest of the mp3 market is still resembling Win3.1 (Creative, Sandisk) or DOS in terms of usability), is its ability to play iPod videos and AAC music in addition to WMV/WMA and mp3. Its 3″ screen seems very nice and the radio functionality with RDS too.

However, there are a few things that I really hate about the Zune:
1. No DivX ability, the most common video format.
2. Doesn’t work with WMP. Requires its brand new DRM algorithm (not even the previously Microsoft endorsed DRM format) and accompanied application. This sucks, because it divides the DRM’ed market even more (there should only be one DRM standard).
3. No EXIF support for images (orientation problems).
4. Doesn’t work with Mac OS X (client application available only for XP/Vista).
5. Its 3×3 rule feels sour (you can be sent via wifi a song that you can play either 3 times or keep for up to 3 days). Unfortunately it does this for all songs and so it breaks the licensing of Creative Commons songs.
6. No Bluetooth audio! It would have been better if they included Bluetooth 2.0+EDR (for file exchanging that would be about 200 KB/sec and it would save battery life) with A2DP/AVRCP support instead of WiFi. But I guess they went with WiFi because they wanted compatibility with the XBox 360. Personally, I feel screwed over this.
7. Battery life is not that great, especially for video (4 hours).
8. No kickstand. Why do companies forget to add this much needed piece of plastic on their video devices?
9. No extras: games, voice recording, calendar, notes, contacts etc.
10. Apparently, no lyrics support. Neither Gapless playback support.
11. Can’t be used as a USB drive.

It kinda sucks that my OSX’s Bluetooth stopped working properly. I can’t seem to be able to send files anymore to my PocketPCs – not even do a pair again. It seems that a recent OSX update has broken something.

And depending how many days you have your OSX unrebooted, Safari can get really slow (especially tab switching)…

Update: A bit of google search reveals that users who have upgraded to 10.4.8 have had similar BT problems to mine, but usually only the ones who have had created custom BT ports. Users who haven’t done that in the past seems that their BT still works fine. This is an OSX 10.4.8 bug as far as I am concerned.