You don't get it. WiFi sync is not useless in my opinion. I would love it, love it, love it, if Apple would implement WiFi sync for all non-media data on my iPhone -- you know, calendars, contacts, um, ahem, notes and to-do lists!!!!
Here is the deal: You calculate 125MB at 40 Mbps -- which you won't get, you'll get 36 max, maybe 40 if you stand right by your WiFi router the whole sync, which is like having to stand right by your Mac. That is a finite number of megabytes transmitted using a finite transfer speed given in bits. Saying a 125MB WiFi sync on g will take about 25 seconds is like saying, I have to get 10 miles from point A to B, the speed limit the whole way is 60 MPH, so it will take me ten minutes to get there. But you have to find your car keys, go out and start your car, back out of the parking space, pull out onto the highway, accelerate up to maximum speed limit, slow down for lane-changers, deal with various traffic-related reduction off your maximum speed limit, park at your destination, turn off the car, take the keys out, lock the car, and walk inside.
Sync'ing is not the same as transferring bits from one place to the other in a vacuum. It's not even the same as a file copy over WiFi. Which you should try. If you have a couple 802.11g Macs on a home WiFi g network, copy 125MB of data over WiFi, record the time from initiate copy to copy finished and see if it comes anywhere near even 36 Mbps. It won't. There's security, connection negotiation, check-summing, all this involved.
Sync'ing is worse. Sync'ing has to verify allowable connection, like logging in, to the master device, the computer; it has to determine what has changed and what hasn't, and that can be wonky in and of itself -- ever notice iTunes recopying 4 or 5 songs you know you haven't touched? Well, you did something somewhere causing iTunes to think they changed, you just have no idea what, but it will recopy them. A few songs, no big deal. 400MB video file it decides to recopy, whole different story. Okay, so now we know what's needs to be copied, to be sync'ed. Now we have to have a discussion about where that stuff goes. First we have to find out if we even have room to copy. Sure, there's 10GB open. But we have to ask and get an answer, don't we? Then we have to put the right stuff in the right place and then we have to tell the Zune what it is we put and where we put it and we have to ask the Zune to check and report back that it understood what we told it and verify indeed it did as instructed. Then we have to update the computer side about recent little WiFi sync. Then we have to say bye-bye in a clean manner.
For small bits of text-based data, like calendar items, contacts, this is not such a big deal over WiFi. It's quick to send and easy to verify. But for media, not so. Flip a bit in a 5MB song transfer and we trash the whole song. Won't play. So we have to really examine that file to make sure it's the same as resides on the master, the computer.
Just as WiFi is good for copying word processing files around your house, WiFi is fine for sync'ing simple, small amounts of data, mostly ASCII strings, with a high tolerance for error. But you don't want to ship big, say, Photoshop files around your house via WiFi. Not if you do it all the time.
As for Bluetooth, it can actually be faster for certain kinds of file transfers. Although sync'ing is still a different business. At any rate, it still keeps you parked near your Mac.
WiFi sync'ing rich media to/from media players is a poor user experience. It is a checkbox item on the feature list at the expense of good design.
Do you buy that much music between syncs? I plug my iPod to my Mac just about every day, at most I move over 1-2 podcasts and maybe 1-2 songs. And when I plug in the iPod, I usually use the computer for several minutes, and in that case even Bluetooth would be fast enough to sync that content over.
Using WiFi, 125MB would take about 25 seconds. How would that work? Well, I could start the computer, and start the sync. I would then start to head out the door, and by the time I close my front-door, the sync would be finished. With a cable, I would have to wait by the computer until the sync is finished.
And, at least Zune offers this feature, whereas iPod does not. Don't like wireless syncing? Then don't use it, and use the cable. That way there would be no real difference between the Zune and the iPod. As far as syncing goes, the Zune offers all the features iPod does, while offering something extra that iPod does not offer. Doesn't that mean that as far as syncing goes, Zune beats the iPod?
And it would be radically different if you used a cable? Why?
