Zune HD gets new and updated apps, longs for so much more

The Zune HD isn't quite dead yet after all and it looks like Microsoft has finally added a few new apps for those with the O.G. Metro UI-based touchscreen device. Inside the Circle gives us the full dirt on what to expect when you fire up your Zune this morning and it's pretty great; you're getting seven new games which is phenomenal and two new apps including a Calendar. In addition to those, three apps have seen updates as well. Here's the full list:

• New Apps
• Finger Paint
• Calendar

• Updated Apps/Games
• Echoes
• Email
• Penalty! Flick Soccer

• Games
• Trash Throw
• Slider Puzzle
• ColorSpill
• Splatter Bug
• Vine Climb
• Decoder Ring
• Tug-O-War

It's awesome to see Microsoft still supporting their little-iPod-Touch-competitor-that-could and we're frankly impressed by this wave of new downloadable goodies. Now, about that Windows Phone-based Zune we've been wanting so badly...

Via: LiveSide.net

Source: Inside the Circle

Stream video from SkyDrive directly within the Pictures Hub with a click

As much as we try to offer the absolutely best coverage of all things Windows Phone, we have to admit MobileTechWorld has been on a roll with the latest Mango 7712 update and have unearthed quite a few very cool secrets. Previously the site discovered how to stream music and video content on your SkyDrive to your phone by using the Office Hub's new SkyDrive implementation. While that feature was quite cool, we still felt it sorely needed some spit shine to make the whole experience more seamless and, you know, to avoid using the Office Hub just to get your music and videos. Luckily at least part of that has been answered with a new method discovered to stream your videos directly within the Pictures Hub and as a bonus it's all done on the SkyDrive-side of the equation.

All you have to do is upload your videos to a folder in SkyDrive then change that folder's type from the default 'Documents' to 'Photos'. Then make sure you have SkyDrive syncing setup on your phone, navigate to the Pictures Hub, tap on the folder and you should be able to stream your videos directly from there. Now don't go crazy uploading your entire video library to SkyDrive just to stream it all as there are a few caveats to this. First of all, SkyDrive has a 100 MB limit per file so unless you're going to be chopping up your 1080p copy of Gone with the Wind into 30 or more clips we recommend you avoid longer videos. Second is that Windows Phone can only natively stream .mp4 videos so those ripped YouTube videos of dogs talking and fails aren't going to work.

That being said, this is definitely a big improvement over using the Office Hub and IE9 to view your media and this gives us just a little bit of hope that Microsoft is working on adding SkyDrive streaming to the Music+Videos Hub as well.

Via: 1800PocketPC
Source: MobileTechWorld

UberMusic for Android skinnable as Zune lookalike, Google Music left high and dry

Ever since Windows Phone launched late last year, there has been a serious amount of tech nerd love towards the still-sexy Metro UI. Now one of the most high quality reproductions of the Metro UI has made its way onto the Android Market for users everywhere to enjoy. We talked about UberMusic before when it was lacking a name, and the impressive quality seems to have held up from the early video developer Federico Carnales recorded. If you know your Android, that name should ring a bell if you've seen his incredible work on the LauncherPro app.

We think it's pretty phenomenal that Android developers are trying to mimic Windows Phone's good looks, and that platform has proven it is flexible enough to do just about anything. However, the presence of UberMusic does remind us of a certain point: the full Zune experience is still completely absent from other platforms. We've said that Zune needs to get Bing'd and invade as many platforms as it possibly can (even a Zune Pass-only app would do) if it wants to gain any sort of real traction against iTunes. UberMusic is a reminder to us that Microsoft has won in some areas (in this case, the Metro UI) but still needs to work hard in others.

If you happen to have an Android device floating around, you can pick up UberMusic for a fair $3.49 from the Android Market right here (the hands-on video is embedded below). To everyone else, just unlock your phone and open the Music+Videos Hub and we don't think you'll be very jealous of this app!

Via: Engadget
Source: Android Market (UberMusic)

Quick Tip: Listen to music with Zune in any web browser, no device required

Here's a Quick Tip!

Sure, Spotify is the new hotness in the social music service world but one of the biggest limitations we see with the service is the lack of any other portals for you to access music. Currently if you're with the free ad-supported service the only option you have is the desktop software; only if you pay extra do you get access to smartphone apps (but Windows Phone is currently out of the picture). Well if you have a Windows Phone than you're probably more interested in Zune anyway and we have good news for you: to listen to music, all you need is a web browser.

Yes that's right, all you have to do is browse on over to Zune.net in any Silverlight-supporting browser and you can listen to all of the music you want if you have a Zune Pass. At $15/month the service is more expensive than Spotify's basic free service, but you do get 10 DRM-free song donwloads each month (worth about $10 on its own) and really amazing integration with your Windows Phone. If you want to see how Zune Pass fares, go get the 14-day free trial.

Rumor: Future Microsoft OS to run phones, PCs, tablets, consoles--and may leave 'Windows' in the dust

That image you see above is Microsoft's plan for the future: one ecosystem across multiple devices. It's an extremely bold dream, and Windows Phone has undoubtedly been the catalyst for Microsoft's ambition. It's clear the even slight success Windows Phone has received has translated over to Microsoft's plans including the incredible work done on Windows 8.

However according to This is my next's Nilay Patel, Microsoft is plotting even bigger moves in the future for their post-Windows 8 operating system. Here's a quote from the article (bold emphasis ours):

What we’ve been told is that Microsoft is planning to somehow harmonize not only Windows for PCs and Windows Phone, but also the Xbox operating system sometime within the next four years — a timeframe that perfectly lines up with both the end of the Xbox 360′s 10-year lifecycle and the end of Windows 8′s expected three-year run. That would mean Microsoft’s next next OS will run on PCs, tablets, phones, and the next-gen Xbox when it hits sometime in 2015 / 2016.

Patel goes on to say his sources have also confirmed that the Windows brand may be ditched in favor of something new. That means we could be looking at a big revolutionary step forward for all of Microsoft's platforms by 2016 that may not even carry over the now 25-year old brand. We thought Windows 8 was the revolution-- instead it could be the Darwinian stepping stone to Microsoft's future. Color us excited.

Source: This is my next

Say Hello to the Future of Microsoft

Microsoft kicked off their annual Worldwide Partners Conference today and at the end of CEO Steve Ballmer's keynote he presented the image you see above. Microsoft appears to have finally achieved their goal of "three screens" offering a unified Windows experience. On the left you have the completely revamped Windows 8, on the right there's the new Xbox 360 UI redesign, and in the middle is of course Windows Phone.

It's an extremely powerful image to behold and now Microsoft has finally become unified. Let's hope for the best in this new age of Microsoft.

Image Credit: Winrumors

Microsoft planning seamless ecosystem, Xbox Live is "the pervasive media service across devices"

In an interview with Seattle Times, Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business group Vice President of Global Marketing brought along a lot more than just his lofty job title. Mike Delman was primarily being quizzed about Xbox Live's big moves to become a content service thanks to those E3 announcements, but we also got a few tidbits about multimedia on Windows Phone and Windows 8, and how Microsoft plans to stitch all of it together:

Live has been successful on the Windows Phone. Live will be built into the PC. It will be the service where you get your entertainment. We were talking about it — you will not just see consoles and handhelds at this show next year, this show's going to morph into other devices.

[...]

If we have that and the PCs to leverage, that will be a big Live base. It's our job to make "buy a movie in one place and play it everywhere, buy a game in one place and play it everywhere." Making things portable will be a big focus of ours.

[...]

There will be a lot of similarities [for Windows 8] in design and service philosophy. Whether it's us or Apple or anybody else, people want to be able to navigate through multiple devices in a certain ecosystem very seamlessly so we're committed to that.

[...]

Xbox Live will the pervasive media service across devices.

[...]

We have a ton of assets. Unifying the assets will be good for us and good for consumers.

We're hearing quite a lot of ecosystem talk in those excerpts which isn't surprising. When you look at Windows 8 and the new Xbox 360 UI, both of them are ready to join Windows Phone in some Metro-y goodness soon. That itself was a big hint that Microsoft is taking some bold steps to redefine themselves. But it also appears we got a major hint that the Xbox Live name is going to be present in Windows 8 and may encompass much more than just gaming--it also appears to be swallowing up multimedia like music and movies. This could add some credibility to the rumors of Zune being broken down into Xbox Live and other services too.

What do we know for certain? This is exactly the reason why we (and probably many of you) jumped on the Windows Phone bandwagon: the seamless ecosystem. Microsoft's back, baby.

Via: WMPoweruser
Source: Seattle Times

Joe Belfiore Promises Zune Pass and More Services to be Available in New Regions

There's been a lot of frustration about Microsoft's lack of full feature support for Windows Phone outside of the United States and the United Kingdom regions. Luckily our go-to Windows Phone VP Joe Belfiore may have shed some light on a bright future while responding to a few questions a few days ago. As evidenced by the two tweets above, Zune features are currently in progress for expanded worldwide support and Belfiore also hinted that Bing features like Speech recognition are in the works. Let's hope for sooner rather than later.

Via: 1800PocketPC
Source: Twitter (1) (2)

Smart DJ, Podcast Integration, More Changes to Music + Videos Hub Confirmed for Mango

  

Yesterday, Microsoft took to the Windows Phone Blog and gave us one of the first looks at a new Mango feature, with many more promised to come in the next few months before Mango's launch. That Mango feature is one we've been looking forward to for a while: a refreshed Music + Videos Hub.

First we'll start off with something we're all familiar with now, which is the deeper podcasts support to be included in the update. Gone are the days of waiting for podcasts to download on your PC and then waiting again for them to transfer over. Instead you now have the option of downloading, subscribing, and editing your settings for that podcast series straight from the Hub, something that we will definitely be making use of in the future. They also confirmed that video podcasts are in fact supported and can even be streamed directly from the Marketplace instead of waiting for the download to complete. Another important option they mentioned was that podcast downloading (and presumably streaming) would default to Wi-Fi only but users will have the option to remove that limit and use cellular data as well. Finally there's the question of what will actually be managing your podcast subscriptions, the phone or the PC? Well you choose one or the other "to make things as simple as possible" in Microsoft's words. There are quite a few more features, but if you want to know more we suggest you read our take on the feature in our hands-on with the Windows Phone Mango emulator.

  

Now we can get to the new stuff like the highly-anticipated OG smart playlist system, Smart DJ which is also confirmed as an included feature of Mango. Of course, Smart DJ works best when paired with Zune Pass because you have an unlimited playlist tailored to what you like. Pretty snazzy. As to where the Smart DJ feature is going to be included in the Hub, Microsoft's Josh Phillips described it best:

We’ve sprinkled the Smart DJ feature all over the Music + Videos Hub: It’s available from artist cards, the music player, and every artist, album, and song in your collection via the tap-and-hold menu. Since we have a hunch that you’re really going to like Smart DJ mixes, we’ve add them to the History pivot and made them pinable to the Start screen, so you can quickly find favorite mixes again.

So as you can tell, Smart DJ is poised to become a big part of your Windows Phone music listening experience, and adding those playlists to the History pivot should really encourage you to go back to those and listen again to find new music.

Speaking of the History pivot, there have been a bunch of additional nip and tucks around the Music + Videos Hub. The History and New pivots are now vertical scrolling lists instead of wide panoramas and will also now show up to 25 items in each section compared to the previous 8. Also the Shuffle All Music button that was previously found next to the 'Music' section in the menu pivot of the Hub can now be found in an appbar below in order to make it stand out more (far left screenshot above). Also the playback controls in the Now Playing screen have been moved around for the same reason, so now Like, Shuffle and Repeat live alongside the album art (middle screenshot). The drop-down controls have also been tweaked, which now features larger buttons and more information;  tapping on the song/artist will now send you to directly the Now Playing screen. Also the lock screen will now feature always-present controls when playing music and are transparent to be on top of your background. Speaking of the lock screen, artist images can now be set to the background image and the artist images themselves have been improved by making them slightly darker in order to see the controls more easily. Also the now playing queue will include the artist names of any songs coming up and you can also now create and save playlists on-device.  Zune Pass users will also see a new icon to tell them if they're streaming music from the service. Finally, the default video player will include a full-screen mode and video scrubbing for full control of your watching experience.

Wow that is seriously a ton of new stuff in just one Hub. Are you excited for the new-and-improved Music + Videos Hub?

Source: Windows Phone Blog