Zune HD to get Xvid, Smart DJ (on Device), and Facebook this spring!

[Zuniq]

Originally Posted by syst3m

Check your ZuneHD box, does it say Apps on it? On mine it just says games, which is exactly what was XNA was intended for. Apps are a bonus in my opinion, and we should be happy that there are plans for some. Yea the waiting sucks, but what ever modifications they had to make to XNA will help with future apps.

You have a point there, but games are apps too...entertaining apps...so why not other apps? Anyway, it would be good if we even had games...12 mediocre titles are not something revolutionary and competitive for this category of product..i think only 3 of them are actually "advanced" games which use the Tegra chip at its full potential...

[CrowdAds]

[Zendude]

Well, I pulled the trigger today. It should be arriving next week. I usually wait for core features I require, but since Xvid has been promised, I made my purchase. My main use will be music and videos. Everything extra is icing IMO. Looking forward to it!

[ZHDuser]

Originally Posted by DaveMac-MS

We JUST announce a bunch of new functionality coming to the device at CES. We're also working on a bunch of stuff not-yet-released. The fact that we're working on all these "bunches of stuff" is the reason why other "bunches of stuff" hasn't yet been released.

Remember a few months ago when everyone was asking me why we don't add Xvid support to the device? We were and I couldn't tell you. Just like I'm not going to tell you what we're working on right now.



Sure I have. See my paragraph above. Explanation: 1) we've been fully taxed resource-wise getting to where we are, 2) we haven't announced everything we're currently working on, 3) we don't (generally) pre-announce features. So - I've explained why we haven't got a Pandora or Shoutcast app now, but I'm ruling nothing in and nothing out for the future.



<sigh> No, actually there's been _nothing_ I've said to lead you to believe that there is "no chance" of a YouTube app. I've said there are challenges - I've explained them as best I can (as a non-lawyer), but I also said that I agreed with you that YouTube would be a great app to have. I never said anything further - for all you know, we could be shipping a YT app tomorrow.



You can do exactly what you're doing - which is making sure we know there is consistent and considerable demand for the app. The absence of YT has nothing to do with payments.

Here - I'll open the kimono a bit, perhaps a little too much.

Remember that ALL apps for the Zune HD are written in XNA. The XNA software development kit was designed to allow developers to write games, right? Notice how the majority of apps for Zune HD are games - especially the home-grown ones? The hardware, drivers and SDK are all tailored to develop games.

So - how did we develop Twitter? What about Facebook? The weather app? The calculator? Yes, we had to make fairly substantial updates to the SDK to support non-game apps. We've had to develop libraries to support the keyboard, internet access, menus, app GUI, etc... When you ask about YouTube or Pandora or ShoutCAST - you're talking not just about keyboards and GUI and menus, but streaming audio or video over HTTP via an SDK designed for video game development.

Legal and competitive issues aside, the work to do some of these apps would be very non-trivial. No comment as to what we're spending our time doing these days - you'll find out soon enough, but please understand the scope of the problem before pounding on us too hard.

Oh - and for those conspiracy theorists out there who'll claim this is all a bunch of hooey and that we don't currently have a YT app because of some Google-Microsoft thing, recall that YT is not yet profitable, so by definition it is unprofitable and likely more unprofitable with more use. By that line of thought, it would actually be to a competitor's advantage to drive _more_ traffic and content to YT, thus increasing its' unprofitability.

There, chew on that one, conspiracy theorists...



Hmm, posted my conspiracy theory post too early. See above.

You guys need to let go of this one. We could be releasing a YT app tomorrow, we could be releasing one in 6 months time, or we could be deciding whether to do one at all.

Here's a deal I'll make you all - if we decide, or otherwise have our hand forced, to NEVER do a YT app (or allow YT to develop one on our platform), I'll come out and say as much on this forum. Fair?

In the meantime, assume that nothing is off the table and ya' boy DMac is doing his thing up in Redmond to bring as much cool to Zune HD as his little Aussie ass can. Hows that?

Cheers, Dave.

I just found this site, think it's great, and am really happy to see that I can directly talk to someone who works on the development of the Zune itself! I recently bought a ZuneHD and love it! But there are a couple things I personally would change about it, and I really don't mean to complain at all, just tell ya my opinion (as if it matters ).
I'd really like to see some variation in the web browser itself. What we have now reminds me of what Sony put in their PSP for the browser, and to be honest, I don't much care for it. I'd love something with tabbed browsing and flash (but I understand the flash restrictions at the moment). Although, isn't all the hardware itself compatible with flash, it's just that the firmware isn't yet? Or is flash simply too sluggish all around? Anywho, I'd love tabbed browsing. I'd also really like maybe a Mozilla Firefox App? Or an IE App since both of those have tabbed browsing. That's my big thing, I hate having to leave the page that I'm on just to see a different one. For example, right now on my PC I've got 8 tabs open.
Also, an update to the Marketplace would be great! That is, the marketplace that's built into the ZuneHD. I'd love to be able to buy MS Points right on my Zune so that I can buy music more easily. It'd be sweet! But I do understand the fact that you guys designed the apps mostly for games, and as such they are in an XNA format. But is there anyway to break that format and maybe have a Firmware update so that you guys could start designing with a different format? Like with OpenZDK (which I don't use as it voids your warranty), someone managed to figure out a way to develop third party apps without XNA formatting. If you guys did that, it seems like it'd solve a lot of problems, and we could have far more Utility apps, which I really think are a lot better.
I'd love to see an E-Reader app, I think a Bible app would do very well also. I chose the ZuneHD over the Ipod touch, but I think you guys could put up much more competition if you started revealing more apps for this great device! The apps seem to be the deal breakers. For example, a guitar tuner app is very popular on the Ipod, stuff like that could really bring the ZuneHD into a whole new light. I'm sure you already know that though. Just wanted to post my thoughts!
Thanks!
~ZHDuser

[NSILMike]

Originally Posted by ZHDuser

I just found this site, think it's great, and am really happy to see that I can directly talk to someone who works on the development of the Zune itself! I recently bought a ZuneHD and love it! But there are a couple things I personally would change about it, and I really don't mean to complain at all, just tell ya my opinion (as if it matters ).
I'd really like to see some variation in the web browser itself. What we have now reminds me of what Sony put in their PSP for the browser, and to be honest, I don't much care for it. I'd love something with tabbed browsing and flash (but I understand the flash restrictions at the moment). Although, isn't all the hardware itself compatible with flash, it's just that the firmware isn't yet? Or is flash simply too sluggish all around? Anywho, I'd love tabbed browsing. I'd also really like maybe a Mozilla Firefox App? Or an IE App since both of those have tabbed browsing. That's my big thing, I hate having to leave the page that I'm on just to see a different one. For example, right now on my PC I've got 8 tabs open.
Also, an update to the Marketplace would be great! That is, the marketplace that's built into the ZuneHD. I'd love to be able to buy MS Points right on my Zune so that I can buy music more easily. It'd be sweet! But I do understand the fact that you guys designed the apps mostly for games, and as such they are in an XNA format. But is there anyway to break that format and maybe have a Firmware update so that you guys could start designing with a different format? Like with OpenZDK (which I don't use as it voids your warranty), someone managed to figure out a way to develop third party apps without XNA formatting. If you guys did that, it seems like it'd solve a lot of problems, and we could have far more Utility apps, which I really think are a lot better.
I'd love to see an E-Reader app, I think a Bible app would do very well also. I chose the ZuneHD over the Ipod touch, but I think you guys could put up much more competition if you started revealing more apps for this great device! The apps seem to be the deal breakers. For example, a guitar tuner app is very popular on the Ipod, stuff like that could really bring the ZuneHD into a whole new light. I'm sure you already know that though. Just wanted to post my thoughts!
Thanks!
~ZHDuser

1) The browser is based on a core mobile browser (WinCE and IE6... I think it's 6...) Making more than cosmetic changes is very likely to be a serious effort -as in beyond the zune team. Watch the MS mobile browser strategy...that has to happen first, then it can generally come to zune with much less zune team effort. 2) See 1, plus even if the hardware can handle it, it still allegedly eats battery time. 3) The war of the browsers is intense...I doubt a FF app would ever happen... 4) Buying points right on the device would be cool...but I'd be very leery of this. Folks lose their zunes too easily, and so the security you'd need could be intense.