Zune Thoughts - Daily News, Views, Rants and Raves

Quick reminder, contest for the Gomadic 2-in-1 Charger ends this Friday. You can check out the details and the thread here. DO NOT reply to this posting as your entry won't count unless it is to the original contest thread. Thanks!

"[W]ith the impending release of the Windows Phone 7 Series, which will include full Zune HD functionality in its "Music + Video" hub, I've begun to wonder if Microsoft will phase out the Zune as a standalone music player. Here's one clue: Microsoft developer Michael Klucher on Tuesday put up a blog post about the upcoming XNA Game Studio 4.0. Thus far, XNA Game Studio has been primarily used to develop casual games for the Xbox 360 and, more recently, to create games for the Zune HD. ... Long story short, Klucher confirmed that XNA Game Studio 4.0 will support game development on Windows Phone 7 Series phones, but not on the Zune HD."

Well that's a kicker. Microsoft really isn't going to roll out the Zune HD app plan like they said they would? It's hard to see a silver lining in what is essentially Microsoft cutting off any hopes of a Zune HD app store, at least for this generation. Microsoft's Klucher confirmed that current XNA 3.1 code will continue to work with the device, but the features in XNA 4.0, like 3D APIs, Xbox Live integration, and the cool cross-platform Windows/Xbox/WinPhone7 game porting won't be coming. There's talk of a Zune HD2 in the works, which would follow Apple's lead in providing an experience similar to WinPhone7 without a cellular radio (i.e. iPhone to iPod Touch), but Microsoft has made no announcements yet. Personally, I prefer having a dedicated device for music and video, rather than feeling like they're tacked on as an application which needs to be loaded each time I search for a song, but it appears that device convergence is the direction the market is heading.

"The current version of the XNA Game Studio suite (3.1) allows developers to build games that can run on Windows PCs, Xbox 360 and Zune media player devices. Version 4.0 is going to support Windows PCs, Xbox 360 consoles and Windows Phone 7 Series phones (but not the Zune HD), according to a blog post by Michael Klucher, Lead Program Manger for the XNA Development Platform."

OK, this is a bit of a head-scratcher for me. What I thought was going to happen was that when the Windows phone 7 ecosystem kicked off at the end of this year, we'd see a Windows Marketplace for Mobile that would address both the Windows phone 7 users and the Zune HD users. In fact, the millions of Zune HDs out there would serve as a good base for developers to code for. Instead, it's looking like XNA Game Studio Suite 4.0 isn't going to allow the Zune HD as a target platform...so now I'm completely confused. Microsoft doesn't want apps for the Zune HD? Or their plan is to continue the painfully slow process of building their app catalog one app at a time, all developed internally?

Or is it that second-generation Zune HD (presumably coming out in the fall of this year) will have a bigger screen running at WVGA resolution (800 x 480) and essentially be a Windows phone 7 without the phone components? And that's what Microsoft wants developers to code for - but not the Zune HD. If so, that sort of sucks - that leaves all the current Zune HD owners out in the cold in terms of apps. Is that really Microsoft's plan? What do you think?

Haven't had a chance to install the Facebook app on your Zune HD yet? Or don't have a Zune HD and want to see this app in action? My friend Matt Miller shot a video - an especially geeky one since he shot it in his car while the Zune HD was connected over WiFi to his Palm Pre - that walks you through the whole thing.

A quick note to let you know that I've updated the International Zune User's Guide. I spent a couple of hours on Saturday going through every part of the article, seeing what was new, and what was the same, updating it for the Zune HD era we now live in. About a month ago I had my buddy Grahm Skee from ABI send me a couple of Zune Pass cards in the mail - the one-month pre-paid cards that sell for $14.99 - and guess what? They worked! So if you live outside the USA and want a Zune Pass, this is the only way I'm aware of for you to get it. Sadly, there's still no way to get any video content other than music videos - hell, I can't even watch the movie trailers. Really Zune team? Even the movie trailers have to be IP-blocked? Sheesh. :-(

“When Stian, a friend of mine, came to me a few days ago and told me I could now find his music on various online music services I just had to find out how. It's no secret that record companies are becoming more and more uselss with most of them being sadistic about both stealing the artist's money and chase pirates, but I was unaware of just how easy it had become to publish music on your own.”

I don’t necessarily entirely agree with this statement over at AnythingButIpod but I think that most of us can agree that the music industry is a dinosaur that does as much to hold back artists today as it does to promote them. For a few years now I’ve wondered why many artists would really want to go the route of a big record company. For every successful artist that shows up on the radio there are hundreds of failures.

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The Gomadic chargers are very slick, and we recently did a Quick Look on the 2-in-1 Charger pictured above. If you aren't familiar, the system uses what they call "Tip Exchange" so all you need is one cable and a tip for each device, instead of having to carry around separate charging cables. They pretty much cover every device know to man, or at least it seems that way (the brand list is here).

Now the folks at Gomadic are being generous enough to give away four (4) of their 2-in-1 Charging cables as well as two tips to be chosen by each winner. Since Gomadic has such wide coverage on devices, this is a network-wide contest. To win, all you have to do is go to the Tip Exchange page and pick two of the charging tips you want to go with your 2-in-1 Charger. Post the two numbers along with a reply to this post and you are entered. You MUST post the two tip numbers in your reply or your entry won't be counted.

One post per person, and the contest closes on Friday the 19th of March at 12pm Pacific time, GMT -7. This contest is world-wide with Gomadic providing the shipping. Remember that all first posts in our system are held in moderation, so if this contest entry is your first post, please wait up to 48 hours before getting concerned if your post hasn't shown up yet - it will. Winners will be contacted via private forum message, so have email notifications turned on. Winners will have 72 hours to claim their prize.

As of last night, the Zune HD Facebook app was still busted for me - updates not loading, news feeds not loading, etc. This morning, surprisingly, it all started to work - without a new version of the app. That tells us that it wasn't a problem with the application itself - which I guessed at - but instead a problem with Facebook itself, or something between Facebook and the Zune HD application. The Zune team has made some vague statements about Zune and Facebook engineers addressing the problem, but they've provided no details about what actually went wrong. Regardless of whose fault it was, or why this happened in the first place, it's unfortunate to see the Zune HD getting more bad press related to apps - and this is the second botched app release in a row now, after the Twitter curse-word blow-up (which most people made into a bigger deal than it really was).

Ultimately this highlights again how broken the Zune team's approach to apps is: they can't continue to release apps one by one, relying on internal resources to build up their app selection. The only thing that makes any sense is to open up the Zune HD to third-party developers, give them the ability to make money in a marketplace, and let them have it it. I suspect we'll hear some good news on this front when MIX10 happens in a couple of weeks - the root problem here is that Zune HD app plan was out of sync with the Windows phone 7 series app plan, and the only thing that makes any sense is for them to come together into one big happy "develop for our two device type" family. Guess we'll have to wait and see!

After a long wait, the Zune HD app is finally available - good thing I opened my Twitter client tonight! You should see it in Marketplace > Apps now, but if you don't, it will likely appear shortly. I downloaded it and decided to take it for a spin. After waiting 10 seconds for it to start - seriously Zune team, you've got to fix the awful app load time - I entered my Facebook log-on information using the shockingly impressive keyboard. I don't use my Zune HD for much Web browsing, so I haven't used the keyboard since it was first added, and they've definitely improved it since launch. After logging in, you'll be presented with your wall and most recent status update. You can pivot left or right and choose from photos, status updates, or news feed. Unfortunately, nothing loads for me. I waited several minutes, but none of those three feeds showed me any information. Not a great first experience.

I pivoted over to the profile tab, and this was more functional. It loaded my status update, and I could see my info and uploaded photos. More photos and impressions after the break. Read more...

MaximumPC has done an interesting side by side comparison of the big three options out there for music organization on your home PC. To be honest, most people will have a hard time really making much of a selection based on the software and are far more likely to be choosing based on what their device of choice is. In the case of the iPod and Zune, we’re mostly tied to using the software designed for it.

But if you don’t like your options with your current software solution, it’s certainly not impossible to use a different program to manage your media and a different one to load your player. The three that MaximumPC looks at are iTunes (of course), Zune, and Songbird. Read more...