Is the wireless feature in Zune really so original? Anyone with a Bluetooth mobile phone can do it today, with kids around the world already heavy users in schools, transferring content between phones to and from their mates.

    
   Image from www.zunenation.com – Gates and Jobs collide

Have you got a mobile phone, preferably a relatively modern one, with Bluetooth? If so, you can do what Microsofts Zune can do, which is to squirt content from one phone to another, pretty much of any brand you can think of.

But before we get into the details, what about some of Microsofts new ways of describing wireless transfer? 

Squirt, or squirting does seem like a rather silly sounding name for the wireless transfer feature. It almost sounds they tried too hard to be cool, and it actually almost sounds like something else altogether. After all, Zune is a swear word in French Canadian, a word that refers to the male member. What is it with Microsoft and their faux pas in naming things?

Wed need to find out if a French Canadian is in the Zune development team. If so, he (or she) is likely to one to have come up with this squirting business, and not informed their superiors what it really meant, dont you think?

I had a think about it for 5 minutes. What kind of word is better than squirt, but could mean the same thing, is actually used to describe a wireless transfer of sorts already, and actually sounds cool?

How about zap, as in let me zap you the latest song just as people zap the TV with the remote control. Oh well, maybe theyll change the descriptor for squirting content to zapping it with the Zune 2. Until then, Microsoft wants you to squirt, and squirt often, in the direction of as many fellow Zune owners as you can find.

Ok, enough of the funny business. What about wireless transfer between devices available today? Well, as mentioned earlier, its Bluetooth with the latest phones. Modern smartphones from the last 12 months can all easily play mp3s, video files and more.

If those files are loaded onto your phone by you, instead of having downloaded them from your phone operators store for music, ringtones and other content, youll likely have your content in non-DRM format.

Turn on your phones Bluetooth, get your friend to do the same (if both phones dont already have Bluetooth on), go to the song or video you want to send, then go to the options and choose to send it via Bluetooth.

Your phone will do a quick search, show all the Bluetooth users in close proximity, and after you choose the right person (who will or at least should know the Bluetooth name of their phone, usually the phones model number), your friends phone will ask if it wants to accept the transfer.

They click yes, and the squirting, zapping or simply wireless transfer begins. After generally much less than a minute, depending on the size of the content you have elected to transfer/zap/squirt, its done.

Your friend has the content. Its that simple, and its hardly a Microsoft innovation or a Microsoft first. Kids by the millions with phones at school do it every day. All that Microsoft has done is to use Wi-Fi instead of Bluetooth, and thats it. Is this really that big of a deal, especially with Apple’s next iPod likely to have a similar feature that’ll probably be better implemented?

Microsoft thinks it is. Clearly, they have crossed over into the Twilight Zune.

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Entry was posted on Thursday, November 16th, 2006 at 7:08 am under Cell phones, Media players, Technology, Tips and advice.

Read more entries by Alex Zaharov-Reutt.
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