Zune HD launches with promises of Twitter and Facebook apps
Microsoft has officially launched the latest iteration of its Zune media player, and there were actually a few surprises that came along with it.
The launch of the new Microsoft Zune HD has been known to be Sept. 15 for some time now, but details on what exactly the new media player would do had remained sketchy at best. While rumors had circulated that Microsoft was courting iPhone application developers, there was never any hard evidence that the Zune HD would even support applications. Well, now it seems that the applications portion of the story was true, but the part about courting third-party application developers may have been quite a bit off the mark.
According to TechFlash, the Zune HD will indeed be getting applications, but at this time Microsoft is planning to keep the development in-house. In those situations where they do want to work with a third-party developer, it will be a close relationship with the Redmond,WA-based software giant. In other words, you won’t be seeing the Wild West frontier mentality that we have seen grow up around the iPhone, iPod Touch, Google Android and the Palm webOS. At this time there will be no independent software development kit (SDK), although Microsoft does not rule that out for down the road a ways.
Part of the reason behind this decision is because the Windows Mobile 7 team is currently working on an app store, and Microsoft did not want two separate teams working on essentially the same project, and eventually launching two versions of the same thing. You can extrapolate from this nugget of information that the Zune HD will work with the Windows Mobile 7 app store, but that isn’t a certainty at this point.
What is known is that Microsoft plans to have Twitter and Facebook apps for the Zune HD by the end of the year. Considering the slogan for the Zune when it launched in 2006 was “Welcome to the Social”, it seems somewhat ironic that the new Zune has dumped the old concept of sharing songs with other Zune owners, but brought in actual social networking. Guess you could say it’s the same song, just a slightly different beat.
The Zune HD is priced at $219.99 for 16GB at $219.99 and $289.99 for the 32GB version. Features of the new device include a built-in HD radio, an OLED screen, and HD video output.
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