Microsoft released their first Zune player on November 14, 2006. One year later, their flash-based Zune 4 and 8 ($149-$199) and disk-based Zune 80 ($249), have been added to the original, now called the Zune 30 ($199) . The Zune 80 also has a larger, 3.2″ screen.
Zune’s new software now includes support for podcasts. You can browse for them and subscribe to them easily, and the player will download new subscriptions whenever you sync it (which can now be done with the built-in WiFi). A firmware update for the old Zune will install new software features. The Zune Marketplace is their online music store.
The new 8 MB Flash Zune player ($199), supports MP3, WMA, WMA lossless, PlaysForSure DRM-ed audio, and its own DRM format for Zune Pass subscriptions. Zune also includes a built-in FM tuner (for listening, not recording). It also plays back video and displays photos on its 1.8-inch 320-by-240-pixel screen, and now supports h.264 and MPEG-4 encoding in addition to WMV.
To set up a Zune for wireless syncing, you first select the appropriate wireless network using the PC you’ll sync the Zune with. Then enter the appropriate security key, and you should be good to go.
Microsoft is buying Paris-based Openwave, and the company’s mobile music platform, Musiwave, in order to integrate it with the Zune platform, notes Telephony.
Openwave’s music unit has built relationships with record labels, device makers and mobile operators with its online and wireless downloadable music service. Musiwave’s focus is primarily in Europe, where it counts Vodafone and several other major operators among its customers, but it has landed one deal in North America with Telus.
The deal would give Microsoft its first presence in the mobile distribution space, creating a wireless compliment to the PC-based music services it offers for its Zune music player.
T-Mobile now offers instant mobile access to over 500,000 music tracks, with Musicwave. Available to download onto a range of more than 30 handsets, whether 2.5G or 3G, on pay-as-you-go or contract, the Mobile Jukebox tracks are ‘dual download’, so there are two versions of each music file.
Both Sprint and Verizon Wireless have announced full-track music downloads over their EV-DO networks, Sprint is partnering with Groove Mobile while Verizon links up with Microsoft.
AT&T offers Pandora internet radio on select phones. With Pandora users just type in a song or artist that they like, and, within seconds, Pandora delivers a personalized radio station over the air to wireless customers’ handsets with songs that fit the same sound and style. Pandora is available for a free trial for the first five days and then costs $8.99 a month. iPhone users can activate their new iPhones using Apple’s iTunes software running on a PC or Macs.
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