Archive for September, 2009
Teamwork, Microsoft, Teamwork.
The new Zune 4.0 software was released recently, and I love it. It looks pretty damn sexy and is very functional (especially the Quickplay and Smart DJ options). However there’s one thing that still pisses me off – the Zune is completely in its own world, despite being from Microsoft.
To point out a few things…
1. the Zune doesn’t work with Windows Media Player. What the heck? This confused the nuts out of me when I first got my Zune. Here I have in my hand, a Microsoft Zune Mp3 Player, and it doesn’t work with Microsoft Windows Media Player? OK… I guess I can live with the fact that I have to get YET another media player onto my desktop. but that’s not the end of it.
2. the Zune software has its own library. WMP and Media Center share their libraries, and in Win 7 they share it with the “global” libraries, but the Zune doesn’t. So now I got to go setting up and managing a separate library. great. Also, I can’t really remember but, I think the Zune library has its own method of managing album art which doesn’t carry outside of the Zune software.
3. Zune software doesn’t send Now Playing information to Live Messenger. ok not so important, but still what the heck. Even iTunes is able to do this. So is winamp. and foobar (with the help of a plugin).
Update: My mistake. this does work now. Not sure why it didn’t work earlier.
These are just small examples of how certain Microsoft products don’t work well with each other. I think it’s a disappointing waste. Another similar situation is with the Xbox and Windows PC. Both are powerful gaming platforms, yet they seem to compete with each other. But that’s a story for another day.
On a more positive note, at least somethings are finally coming together – win 7’s shared libraries, Windows Live Essentials, the Zune HD might be sharing an app store with WiMo, and also has some integration with Xbox Live.
