Found a flickr account with this photo from inside Microsoft’s Zune department, of an “Amnesty” bucket with some iPods in it. Reading the comments is hilarious.

I love how Apple supporters are so defensive. God forbid there should be competition in the marketplace! Or that the Zune team should poke fun at Apple. Because Apple never does that.

<sarcasm>Yes, we should all own an iPod and do the exact same thing. Clearly iTunes is the best software out there.</sarcasm>

Ugh. This is the sort of fanboy-ism that I hate. It’s the same thing that drives Mac vs. PC debates. Look, use whatever OS/platform you want. I don’t care. What’s ironic is that Apple totally advertises that you can run Windows on your Mac, yet makes fun of Windows/PCs constantly. Which is it, Apple?

If you follow my blog, you know I sold my iPod a while back and bought a Zune. I did this because I was fed up with iTunes being a complete performance joke. Argue with me all you want, but plenty of other people are running into similiar problems with iTunes on Windows. I really like my Zune, but it isn’t without its faults. I wish the Zune team was a little more “open” to communication about their software, as there are some fairly simple tweaks they could make that would help immensely (see my post for some examples.) I have even more bulletpoint items that I don’t like about the Zune, but overall, I’m more happy with it than I was with my iPod.

And one thing I noticed when I first listened to my Zune was how crisp/fuller songs sounded. These were the same format (AAC) being played on my iPod and my Zune.. and the Zune would almost always sound better. According to this YouTube video and this forum post, maybe I’m not crazy. It appears the Zune does have better sound quality in general than the iPod. Yay Zune.

I am looking forward to what the future holds for both Zune and iPod… competition can only be a good thing in this area. Do you really only want Apple-based digital audio players out there on the market? (And before someone mentions Creative and the other companies with DAPs… yeah, right, like they’re even in the same league as iPod/Zune.)

Now playing: Tom Petty - Yer So Bad