David Pogue’s New York Times review of the new Samgsung iPod nano-challenger, the Z5, is actually pretty spot on (though why for the love of God can he NOT do his own battery tests?!). Towards the end though, there is this bit of inanity:
MUSIC STORE INTEGRATION No. At Samsung’s suggestion, I tested the Z5 with Rhapsody’s store, which is available directly from the copy of Windows Media Player provided by the Z5’s installer. After banging my head on the keyboard for an hour, unable to get it to work, a Rhapsody rep finally let me know that, in fact, Rhapsody’s subscription store doesn’t work in Media Player — only with Rhapsody’s own software jukebox. (So much for the Microsoft “Plays for Sure” logo. Try “Plays for Some People.”)
Now, perhaps I should be blaming Samsung for sending this particularly clueless customer of theirs to WiMP instead of Rhapsody’s own client, but for the technology reporter of the New York Times to be clueless enough about Rhapsody to try to run it from inside WiMP is just absurd. While I generally like Pogue, this example just feeds the flames of the “David Pogue is an Apple shill!” slurs—and given his clear lack of knowledge or understanding about iTunes alternatives (and a complete lack of a sense that he should be embarrassed by that?!), I guess I would just have to agree.