Five Zune HD functions Apple should adopt

The more time I spend with my Zune HD, the more I like it. Sound quality aside--and I know opinions differ dramatically here, but I'm stuck with my ears and my preferences--there are a bunch of features that make Apple's products seem like they've fallen behind the curve. Here are five things in particular that I miss when I use my iPhone or one of my iPods:

Zune Pass: Apple has long maintained that people want to own rather than rent their music. I counter that a subscription-based music service, combined with a state-of-the-art player, is one of those features that you have to try before you realize how fantastic it is. It reminds me of the first time I beta-tested the Xbox Live gaming service back in 2002--I didn't understand how addictive online console gaming could be until I spent eight hours playing Moto GP without even looking at the clock.
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Zune HD will be a music player, not a super-device

After months of increasingly wild rumors, CNET's Ina Fried got the official scoop yesterday: Microsoft is, indeed, releasing the Zune HD this fall. The device will feature an OLED touchscreen, high-definition video output (with an optional addon), a version of Internet Explorer (it sounds similar to the version planned for Windows Mobile 6.5, which uses the core IE6 engine but adds Flash support, as well as some technology from IE8 to better support JavaScript), and HD Radio.

I spoke to the Zune marketing team this morning, and they didn't have much to say beyond those points. In fact, they weren't originally planning on saying anything until later this summer, but felt they needed to set expectations for Zune customers in light of all the rumors.

Here's why: The Zune HD isn't going to be the super-device that some geeks had been hoping for. It will play games--just like today's Zunes, which ship with a couple simple games--but it won't be a full-fledged gaming device like the Sony PlayStation Portable or Nintendo DS.
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Star Guitar iPhone app helps you learn guitar, write songs

I've been playing around with a new iPhone app, Star Guitar, for the last day or so, and it's a sophisticated piece of work that could help beginning guitar players learn how chords fit together into songs, as well as give more experienced songwriters a quick way to record their ideas when they don't have a guitar handy.

Released last week by Amidio, the creators of the Noise.io Pro synthesizer application for the iPhone, Star Guitar is based around a calculator-like interface that lets you choose from 144 chords.

The designers had to be very clever to fit that many chords on a single screen--essentially, you start by picking one of the seven natural-tone letters (A through G), then adding various modifications (flat or sharp, seventh, major, and suspended fourth). You might have to consult the help screen to figure out exactly which combination of buttons will create a particular chord--for example, a G6 is created by hitting "G" and "major"--but for the most part, if you know your chords, it's fairly intuitive.
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Job posting reveals Zune-Xbox integration

Zune speculation is an armchair sport here in the tech sector of the Pacific Northwest (especially when we're all housebound because of a few inches of snow), and today Todd Bishop at TechFlash posted some interesting excerpts from the Zune team's job listings. Based on his post, it looks like the Zune Marketplace will begin to use the back-end from Musiwave, the European provider of music for mobile phones that Microsoft acquired a little more than a year ago--and if that doesn't point to a Zune service for mobile phones, nothing does--and will continue to feature DRM (couched in ever-so-reassuring phrases like "to let consumers enjoy music in new and interesting ways").
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