Gizmodo
Now that the Zune 2 features and services are all known, we should look ahead to what's coming in Zune 3—at least, what we want to come in Zune 3. It's not to say that we're not satisfied with Wi-Fi syncing and Windows Media Center content support, it's that, well, it's capable of so much more. Here's what we want in Zune 3:
• Xbox 360 support: How about streaming content from your Zune onto your 360 via Wi-Fi? How about watching content you've downloaded or rented from your 360 with your Zune on the go?
• iTunes Syncing/Compatibility: This is a long shot, but it would be fantastic for people who had either an iPhone or an iPod to be able to manage both their Zune music libraries and their Apple music libraries in one place without re-importing their stuff every time.
• Kill the 3 Play Limitation: You know what we're talking about. At the very least, let's up it to 10 plays.
• Playlist sharing: Think of sending a digital mix tape to your friends
• More codec support: OGG, FLAC
• Kiosk downloads: That old rumor about hearing a song at a store (say Starbucks) and immediately being able to download that song to your Zune via a kiosk.
• Wi-Fi Music Store: Not a huge priority for us, but it's somewhat cool.
• Gaming: We know it's not coming, but being able to play some puzzle or arcade games on the Zune—especially multiplayer ones with other Zunes over Wi-Fi—would be great.
• Zune Phone: Again, a while off, but imagine all the Zune sharing features but nation-wide, over the cellular network.
• Audible support: As of now, the new Zunes still don't support Audible. It's not that important to us, but some people enjoy books on tape.
What do you want to see?
Comments
Disk-access (like using a flash drive) and AAC (for all of my M4P's ripped to M4As) would pretty much be the complete top of my list.
zune is plain MEH to me... i have always been a Micro$oft hater
WIFI with built in web browser and touch screen, FTW!
Good start Jason.
Add BLUETOOTH for an increasingly good selection of stereo headphones available.
a radio, oh wait, it's the iPod that needs one.
That Zune 3, if implemented, would be badass. I'd be highly interested in it.
Cue Apple haters in 3...2...
-CoverFlow that actually works (Cupertino - don't put it in if it won't actually run smoothly)
-AAC support was an original alleged feature of the first Zune but J must have been talking out of his bald middle-aged ass on that one.
-PlaysForSure
I prefer a touch screen similar to the ipod touch and make the who front surface a LCD rather then partial like the ipod touch. Or keep the current control method, move the two buttons to the top and add to more. So that we can use it like a gaming system.
Uh, Zunes already support AAC. Like, the original ones, even.
Here:
[www.zune.net]
The Zune 1 and 2 already support AAC.
Apple logo on the back perhaps....
i wish for bigger market share and better advertising campaigns... that's definitely something they can learn from apple
Start from scratch and make this:
Touch screen digital media player, flash based, combined with a PDA with WIFI, Bluetooth, with Internet browser, compact flash slot for expandibility, some VoIP program for making calls on Wifi. I mean how hard would it be to add an Internet browser to this?
@JasonC: Oops, brain fart. Thanks.
What I want on the next Ipod.
Apple TV Syncing
--why the hell doesn't it do that? Seriously.
Windows Media/"Insert Linux program" syncing.
--It's made by apple, why shouldn't it support other systems.
Any beaming of any content whatsoever to another Ipod.
--At least let it send photos....
Calendar Sharing
--Hey jim, Wanna go to the Indians ALDS game? sure send me the date on my ipod.
More codec support
--wmv,wma all that fun stuff
Free downloads at the Mythical Apple Stores
--I should just plug in my ipod/phone and be able to download the track of the day at the apple store right.
Wi-fi, damn got that. Fuck.
--fuck
Gaming
--no more pussy games...
iphone
--not some shit phone i can't unlock, that is called a touchscreen brick.
How about a bookstore on itunes
--I know its called iTUNES but the screen is now big enough to say this is legitimate. you're staring at the damn thing 19 hours a day anyway right.
No i'm not trying to prove a point.
I can't understand the lack of Bluetooth, both in the new Zune and the latest iPods. Wireless headphones are fantastic!
For the moment, however, I'd settle for Microsoft offering TV shows and movies. What the hell is that big screen for, anyway?
At the very least, it should have a built-in mini-toaster. On demand, it should be able to spit out warm little cracker-sized pieces of toasted bread.
A melted butter dispenser and a cinnamon shaker built-in wouldn't hurt either.
I'd agree with adding disk access, but its not a big issue for me... personally all the additions of a phone and gaming seem like its just taking away from the aspect that its a music device. I don't want my cell phone to die, or my game to not get saved, or not be able to listen to music because I was doing something else that drained the battery. I'd rather carry around two small devices...and as for my number one thing about zune 3? I'd like to see it be able to work with all media players, and you can still have the zune software to buy music from them (i don't mean also able to buy from itunes) and do restore/repair/updates...and yes more file formats. If the opening of the Amazon mp3 has taught us anything, its that people want freedom with their gear and files. If I buy a song, I want it to work and have the freedom to burn it or load it to any device I want. Power to the people...or in this case, the social.
zunes already support AAC
My top 5 wish list includes...
- Grab/sync podcasts over wifi...without having to use your PC like Zune2 initially will.
- Movie/TV Shows in Zune MarketPlace
- Wifi Store access to Zune MarketPlace
- High Resolution JPEG & PhotoHD support so that you don't have to transcode and create duplicates as much.
- MSN Direct data service that uses Zune's FM
How about a damn wifi switch?
Already said, but hard drive support
I would want it to be able to run as a mass storage device, have FLAC suport, DivX/XviD easily, and bluetooth for sound and syncing.
The only one I care about on that list is XBOX360 support. The Zune80 will have everything I need other than that. I have all my movies in H.264, so the new Zune will play them without encoding now! I would need a Zune360 (360GB) to fit all of my music and movies on it, lol...
I remember an article from maybe as long ago as 10 years that put forth the theory that M$ never got anything right until version 3. Windows 3.1 was the first really usable windows product. Windows XP was the third modern OS after NT and 2000. Excel, Word etc.. all got to version 3 before being really usable. So maybe just maybe the Zune3 will be the iPod killer after all.
3 things that would get me to buy one:
1) line out
2) drag and drop for music
3) option to navigate and play by folder as well as by tag
Syncing is annoying when you have way more music than fits on a player, and browsing 80GB of albums all in one giant list is cumbersome. I like to split up my music collection by album genre (like classical, pop, soundtrack, etc.) and then browse whole albums of that genre.
For someone who has used a Zune before, when you search by genre, does it list whole albums or just single tracks? I can't imagine ever wanting to browse 80GB of tracks instead of albums.
I'd like to see some of these features but I could do without a lot of them.
I'd much rather see MS allow for Audioscrobbler support, also I'd love to see a (BIG) update to the Zune software so it doesn't fuck up in Windows Vista for me anymore (basically, it reads C:Users and C:Documents and Settings\Users essentially getting two of each track, and I've tried turning one or the other off and everything. Nothing helps)
@pagercam:
I would say i have to agree, it seems they make it craptacular that when the third iteration of it comes out it will blow the competition away. Heres looking at you Xbox 3.
in addition to what they have...
-Drag and drop mp3 management (disk access)
-250gb HDD (by the time it comes out, that'll be available)
-hardware wifi switch would be cool
-divx support :)
-full integration to Xbox Live and content
i agree with the audio book support, also make your harddrive accessible like the ipod is scratch that...no more hard drive..FLASH! all the way. and for god's sake change your software a bit. i love my zune but the damn software is so damn ugly, i was hoping they would change that for the zune 2. and if you ever think of making a zunephone learn from apples mistake and do not tie yourself down to one wireless carrier. and on yea 3rd PARTY APPS!!...ok i've gone too far.
Well, to those saying change the app... we'll have to see how the new Zune app plays out when it is released.
As-disk support would be great, even as a separate partition. The reason for not doing that is controlling everything on the filesystem and obfuscation, exactly why the iPod does it too.
Hardware WiFi switch would be nice to have, by why? AFAIK, unless you specifically go to social, it shouldn't randomly try to find people, does it?
What I want is .mkv support and SOFT SUBTITLES. Forever I've been asking portable media players to support soft subtitles for those who like to watch movies from OTHER COUNTRIES. Seems like only the PMPs from Korea seem to have this as a standard feature.
Add last.fm support. That'd make my day.
BLUETOOTH!
wtf. i dont understand how bluetooth is not standard on music players yet. what's the deal?
i realize apple needs to have silhouetted earbud cables for their ipod ads, but if microsoft wants to grab some marketshare, shouldn't BT be at the top of their list?
they give it wifi but no bluetooth? i guess i'll just keep using my crappy cell phone as a music player.
Ok, this is what Zune 3 needs-
1- Bluetooth on the wi-fi chip. I own stereo bluetooth headphones, and i don't want to have to use an audio dongle to listen to them
2-Ability to sync movies and TV shows from both the zune marketplace and the xbox 360. Syncing with media center is great, because i already have a dual tuner working in media center for me, so 1.99 per show is no-go for me, but I can understand why many people want it. Music purchases should also be able to be made from your 360, because that would be a convenient feature.
3-Games. I know they already said they won't do this, but it would be awesome if you could either sync some xbox live arcade games or buy zune games on the zune marketplace, xbox 360 and the zune itself via wi-fi
4-a wi-fi store along with syncing with your zune software from any wi-fi hotspot, not just your home wi-fi. This wouldn't just be cool, it would also be convenient. Oh, and if they really want it to work well, they also need to make it so that the zune software will automatically download any new music downloaded over wi-fi. This would be another important feature, because it would make the zune an even easier to use product than the Ipod or Iphone, because with those products, after purchasing songs over wi-fi, to use them in itunes, you have to dock your Ipod/Iphone and download them off of your PMP, not off of a server, which can be slower and less convenient.
5-An accelerometer or another type of sensor to tilt pictures and video the right way. This can be kind of annoying when you have a picture that is landscape, but gets formatted in a weird way and ends up being portrait. If not that, then at least an option to rotate video and pictures from the center button options mnenu
Can't Microsoft design something of there own, this thing looks just like an iPod with the circular dial. Microsoft is know for copying design and products and clearly realy on other cutting edge compaines. Didn't they also copy Apples iTunes, and arn't they coming out with a phone too?
Sharing playlistins is already possible on the current Zune. I have done it a few times.
Bluetooth is at the top of my list for future Zunes and doing something more substantial with the wifi maybe not web surfing but like a bloglines client or windows live integration.
I think the Zune desperately needs a higher screen resolution. I mean, come on, the Zune 80 has the same resolution as the iPod classic -- with a .7" bigger screen. What's the point of a bigger screen if it's not being used to its full potential?
Also, when the Zune supports gaming (note that I say "when", not "if"), it'll probably be based on some form of the XNA framework, so it'd be nice if, like the Xbox 360, games that you've personally coded in XNA could be played on the device. That'd be sweet.
Finally, what about some sort of Media Search? Or has this been done before? (With an on screen keyboard navigated via Zune Pad, similar to the one on the PSP.)
Just a few thoughts.
if zune supported flac that'd be fucking amazing. i have everything in WMA lossess, since i read up on it and it was proven to be slightly better then Apple lossless (on top of my using windows, it only makes sense).
-flac support
-bigger then 80 gigs (but im fine with that for now)
-zune marketplace wifi access
-gapless playback
-play list sharing (wifi dj)
-more video codecs
otherwise looks fine, zune team is doing a pretty good job for being newly assembled team
I won't ever consider buying a Zune until I can swap content between it and 360 freely.
Ok, this is what Zune 3 needs-
1- Bluetooth on the wi-fi chip. I own stereo bluetooth headphones, and i don't want to have to use an audio dongle to listen to them
2-Ability to sync movies and TV shows from both the zune marketplace and the xbox 360. Syncing with media center is great, because i already have a dual tuner working in media center for me, so 1.99 per show is no-go for me, but I can understand why many people want it. Music purchases should also be able to be made from your 360, because that would be a convenient feature.
3-Games. I know they already said they won't do this, but it would be awesome if you could either sync some xbox live arcade games or buy zune games on the zune marketplace, xbox 360 and the zune itself via wi-fi
4-a wi-fi store along with syncing with your zune software from any wi-fi hotspot, not just your home wi-fi. This wouldn't just be cool, it would also be convenient. Oh, and if they really want it to work well, they also need to make it so that the zune software will automatically download any new music downloaded over wi-fi. This would be another important feature, because it would make the zune an even easier to use product than the Ipod or Iphone, because with those products, after purchasing songs over wi-fi, to use them in itunes, you have to dock your Ipod/Iphone and download them off of your PMP, not off of a server, which can be slower and less convenient.
5-An accelerometer or another type of sensor to tilt pictures and video the right way. This can be kind of annoying when you have a picture that is landscape, but gets formatted in a weird way and ends up being portrait. If not that, then at least an option to rotate video and pictures from the center button options menu
6-Ability to view media center Live from your zune, this way you can watch tv and view content from your pc from any wi-fi hotspot. this would only need software, no hardware, so with some coding and a lot of testing, this can be done. It would be similar to products such as locationfree player for the PSP or slingbox for your PC
Ok, this is what Zune 3 needs that can also be put on the current zune lineup and the zune 80, 8 and 4-
1- Bluetooth on the wi-fi chip. I own stereo bluetooth headphones, and i don't want to have to use an audio dongle to listen to them
2-Ability to sync movies and TV shows from both the zune marketplace and the xbox 360. Syncing with media center is great, because i already have a dual tuner working in media center for me, so 1.99 per show is no-go for me, but I can understand why many people want it. Music purchases should also be able to be made from your 360, because that would be a convenient feature.
3-Games. I know they already said they won't do this, but it would be awesome if you could either sync some xbox live arcade games or buy zune games on the zune marketplace, xbox 360 and the zune itself via wi-fi
4-a wi-fi store along with syncing with your zune software from any wi-fi hotspot, not just your home wi-fi. This wouldn't just be cool, it would also be convenient. Oh, and if they really want it to work well, they also need to make it so that the zune software will automatically download any new music downloaded over wi-fi. This would be another important feature, because it would make the zune an even easier to use product than the Ipod or Iphone, because with those products, after purchasing songs over wi-fi, to use them in itunes, you have to dock your Ipod/Iphone and download them off of your PMP, not off of a server, which can be slower and less convenient.
5-An accelerometer or another type of sensor to tilt pictures and video the right way. This can be kind of annoying when you have a picture that is landscape, but gets formatted in a weird way and ends up being portrait. If not that, then at least an option to rotate video and pictures from the center button options menu
6-Ability to view media center Live from your zune, this way you can watch tv and view content from your pc from any wi-fi hotspot. this would only need software, no hardware, so with some coding and a lot of testing, this can be done. It would be similar to products such as locationfree player for the PSP or slingbox for your PC
I think unlimited play for 3 days is better than 3 plays in unlimited days. Does anyone share my viewpoint?
I'd like my Pocket PC phone to gain an 80GB (or 16mb of flash memory) and Zune Wi-fi capabilities, and have its media player replaced with the Zune interface. It should have stereo Bluetooth and keep its Voice Command capabilities.
That there would be perfect for me.
@burnblue: 3 days would be good. I mean it would be impossible for them to implement unlimited because they would get the entire music industry down on them, but a few days would be nice... even if it is only 1.
Top 3:
160GB hard drive, so I can carry all my tunes. I'll bet that's coming to Zune2, a few months after release...
Bluetooth 2.0 EDR A2DP, so I can listen wirelessly. That's gonna need new h/w...so Zune3...
Internet radio streaming over WiFi, so I can chill to Groove Salad while lounging around my pad.
BLUETOOTH DAMNIT
@Longshot: Eh wrong article buddy this is ZUNEland!
I have a few:
Usable as a Sideshow device.
Can play a select number of X BOX Live Arcade Games.
WiFi Connectivity to X BOX as secondary display (ala. PSP).
SD Card input, to use a portable photograph storage center for trips.
WiFi Store (Really, i thought it was coming).
720 or 640x480 screen (i don't think the current specs reveal res, but I'm not sure).
Sideshow device!!!
Lightweight web browser.
A second size option for the larger Zune 2 (80 and 120, for example).
A small number of controls on the side for in-pocket use.
A 16 gig Zune Slim right from the onset. I thought that was going to happen for Zune 2.
A Hybrid connector, which has USB in the center, and along the edge the proprietary connectors, so you can use a Zune dock, but when your away, you can use a standard USB connector.
Windows Media Center Internet TV Integration (I know its in beta, but by next year, it should be ready).
Media Center control. I have no idea how, but that would be awesome to use it as a controller for your media center. No reason at all, just a gimmick.
More codec support is needed, but considering PC's are getting pretty fast, converting will take less and less time, to the point that Movies take just as much time as song ripping, so that isnt too big of a deal.
Otherwise, the Zune 2 has everything i need right now.
But i still have to wait for Creative's Vision:M or Vision:W replacement before i make any player purchase.
The 3-plays limit makes no sense whatsoever in an environment that includes a subscription model.
When sharing between 2 Zunes that are both subscribers, subscription tracks should be automatically unlimited!
Similarly, why not enable the Zune store for wireless downloading? If I'm a subscriber, then I could reload my 4 or 8 GB Zune with any available tracks from a Wi-Fi connection. It's the mythical jukebox in the sky!
That would be a feature set that goes above and beyond iPod/iTunes, since Apple's so keen on the pay-per-track model.
a clock??