New Zunes for Christmas, and Maybe a Little Foreign Love

We expected it, but it's nice to have it confirmed: Microsoft's next Zune players will launch by the end of the year.

For the most part, it seems as if the focus will be on making the new Zunes do things that it should have done (or done right) in the first place.

The new Zunes will feature podcast support, "expanded" video support (more codecs?) and better (though unspecified) use of Wi-Fi. (Sharing without the three-plays-or-three-days "feature?" Unlikely. Buying music from the Zune store wirelessly? Possibly. Syncing with a computer sans cables? Oh please oh please oh please.)

(Rumour also has it that one of the new Zune players will be an iPod shuffle competitor that's even tinier. The player will essentially be an SD card with a sleeve that has the player's controls. Sounds a little too small and fragile to me -- the shuffle and Creative's Zen Stone is about as small as I want to go -- but let's see if and how this plays out.)

Like I said, these are the things the Zune player should have had at launch. (It's ironic that Microsoft, whose products usually suffer from too many features, would release something with fewer features than expected.) If they'd worked more on standout features and less on appeasing record companies, they might have hit their target of one millon Zunes earlier. Because while I'm generally ambivalent to the Zune, it's really not that far behind the iPod from a usability point of view. The sound quality's about the same (to my ears), and its size, weight, interface and navigation controls are each just a few notches below that of the iPod. (Mind you, since the iPod gets so many things just right, those few notches feel far more significant.) If there were something markedly more convenient about the Zune -- say, wireless synching -- that just might make it a deal-maker for folks who might otherwise get an iPod. Which is what Microsoft wants, no?

Anyway, the other bit of news is that Microsoft will release Zunes outside of the U.S. when the company "feels it has an appealing product to offer those demographics." I'm a bit perplexed at this tidbit. Is there some reason the Zune is less appealing to Canadians than Americans?