How Much of a Threat is The Zune to the Apple iPod

The Apple iPod recently celebrated its 5th birthday at a time not long after during the summer there was a slight worry that uptake of iPods was slower than expected and was slowing down in general. Then along came Apple to announce the 2nd Generation iPods Nano and the upgraded iPod Video plus incredibly small new Shuffle. We were all aware that MicroSoft were developing the Zune hoping for it to rival and take over the enormous market share in MP3 players that Apple currently enjoy. But are there any reasons to purchase a Zune over an iPod?

Well at first glance it would appear not. The capacity is the same as the lower model iPod Video at 30GB, there is a video screen much like the Video iPod. So what is so different that will convinced buyers looking at the two and deciding what to buy that the Zune is the better choice. For a start a big part of the Zune is that it has wireless sharing capabilities allowing you to send your music to another Zune and download without connecting cables this is a massive bonus for fellow Zune owners who want to share tracks and video footage and also Microsoft in the USA have introduced unlimited downloads for just $14.99 a month something that Apple are yet to introduce for their users of iTunes.

The Zune also comes with an excellent portrait mode allowing you to turn your Zune sideways and watch video swith an image and picture more conducive to easy viewing something that Apple iPod Users have lng been calling for. Add to all these positives the fact that the Zune comes with a built in FM Radio and suddenly it is starting to look like a serious competitor next to the Video iPod after all! Nick Segrue of www.mp3additions.co.uk

Nick is the founder and Managing Director of http://www.mp3additions.co.uk one of the UK's largest suppliers of iPod accessories online.