Zune firmware update 1.3 due for mid-March

It takes a certain amount of spirit to be a Zune user in the first place, so when the few, the proud discovered odd bugs in their precious "social" DAPs, and then learned that Microsoft was not only not fixing these problems, but not even confirming a fix was in the works, you can imagine the outcry was rather vocal. Well, the Zune Insider blog has finally spoken up on the subject, and is promising a 1.3 firmware update around March 20th to fix the most obvious of problems, such as Zune Marketplace content skipping, FM tuner battery drainage, and syncing hassles. Unfortunately, the other vocal half of the social, the ones with few bugs, but a whole lot of feature requests, is going to get shafted with this update -- still no wireless syncing, still no podcasting, still no transmogrifier. At least Microsoft has confirmed those requests, and says the Zune team is "working on making Zune better," and not just blowing all the Zune cash on hip-cool ads.

[Thanks, Mike]

[Joe Smith @ Feb 28th 2007 6:04PM]

why get a zune when you can get a creative?

[Bob @ Feb 28th 2007 6:37PM]

Clearly you are not aware of the concept of personal preference.

[rob @ Feb 28th 2007 6:14PM]

Nice Calvin & Hobbes reference.

[Sammy @ Feb 28th 2007 6:19PM]

That's good news. I've been waiting for an update.I don't care much about the skipping(don't even notice it) but the radio/battery thing comes as good news to me. I didn't even know that it drained battery during sleep mode. I've had no syncing hassles though. I just hope the next update has more to do with features. I really want podcasting, a clock, and a way to but audio e-books on it. That's all I really care for. The best I can do is just hope.

[BAMF @ Feb 28th 2007 6:44PM]

There's no clock on the Zune?!

From the little hands-on time I've had with the Zune, I am pretty impressed. Currently I have a 60gb 5G iPod. The Zune's screen is sharper and I like the interface better. However, I will not buy one until 1) they support WMA Lossless and 2) they come out with a larger capacity than 30gb. Well, that isn't even a huge issue because it can be upgraded to 40, 60, or 80gb. Oh, and 3) WiFi on this thing is useless until they enable wireless sync, music store, or unrestricted trading of DRM-free tracks to other Zunes.

[AKBlade13 @ Feb 28th 2007 7:14PM]

1) they support WMA Lossless and 2) they come out with a larger capacity than 30gb. Well, that isn't even a huge issue because it can be upgraded to 40, 60, or 80gb. Oh, and 3) WiFi on this thing is useless until they enable wireless sync, music store, or unrestricted trading of DRM-free tracks to other Zunes.

THANK YOU!

I wish MS would actually cash in on these ideas...and also make it OSX compatible while their at it.

AKBlade13

[jollyllama @ Mar 1st 2007 9:08PM]

Ok, I'll bite.

"Zune Insider is a site for everyone. Nobody says that everybody on there is an actual Zune user."

Oh, come on. You think people hang around zuneinsider just to see what's kicking in the social? Who cares about Zunes other than Zune owners? When was the last time you hung out on a Nikon/Canon/Pentax/whatever message board just for fun?

"For all you know, those "I'm gonna switch back" people probaly are Ipod lovers who have been spurting off some of the Zune flaws they've heard of. Just because they love their ipod so much."

A little paranoid, don't you think? If you read the comments, you'll see that they aren't just people coming in and posting "zune is teh suxor, ipod rulz!" but are reasonably well articulated complaints about serious shortcomings of the Zune and its software.

[jollyllama @ Feb 28th 2007 7:34PM]

Wow, the comments over at zuneinsider are pretty astounding, afterall, those are supposed to be the fans, right? It's filled with people talking about how mad they are that they're not getting the features they thought were forthcoming, and folks threatening to bail to iPods. Welcome to the social.

[michael @ Feb 28th 2007 7:22PM]

Zune Insider is a site for everyone. Nobody says that everybody on there is an actual Zune user. For all you know, those "I'm gonna switch back" people probaly are Ipod lovers who have been spurting off some of the Zune flaws they've heard of. Just because they love their ipod so much.

[Ezekiel Mihelcic @ Feb 28th 2007 8:18PM]

The thing is, I bought this for the same price as an iPod. I didn't get all the features promised, but I got more features than available on the iPod. As far as I'm concerned, that is a good deal. I'm happy with my Zune, and I just hope for more feature updates, unlike this one.

[murc @ Feb 28th 2007 8:23PM]

I dont know why everyon wants a clock on the Zune...if your like most people...you have your cell on you all the time...which has a clock...do you really need more then one clock on you at all times? :/

[BAMF @ Feb 28th 2007 10:28PM]

True, most people do have a cell phone on them at all times. I just think that adding the code to display the clock is a no-brainer... why not have it? Obviously, the Zune has an internal clock, or else 3x3 would not work. I'm not saying it's a deal breaker, I'm just shocked that this is not an option.

[Dave95 @ Feb 28th 2007 10:40PM]

murc

People are not requesting a clock so they can check the time, it's so you can use it as a sleep timer, set the alarm etc. I listen Audio-books on my iPod at night, and set the timer to shut off if I fall asleep.

[tbirdman @ Feb 28th 2007 8:27PM]

a clock would be cool, i have expierenced probs while sincing. the zune comes up with connected while your trying to sinc and isn't really a prob, just a massive annoyance. when i listened to the radio i have wondered if it was just me or if the battery wasn't getting as good of life as advirtised. i'd go as far to say that it gets better battery life playing vids then radio.

[Dan @ Feb 28th 2007 8:50PM]

Daily here I read folks asking why a cell phone or other small pocket device might have a camera, or GPS, or etc.
People, we've been striving to attain god-like abilities for a long time. Given the option, many of us humans are going to want all the help we can get, gadgetwise. Several generations down the road, all this gadgetry will be implanted or genetically built in pre birth. Upgrades by pill.

[Shawn O @ Feb 28th 2007 8:53PM]

I must be really old school, I actually use this old bit of tech called a watch, it tells the time and everything. It's crazy because you actually put it on your wrist and you can take it everywhere. You don't even have to fish your mobile or DAP out of your pocket to check the time.

[SOSdan @ Feb 28th 2007 10:03PM]

OOH! NEE! COH! DEH!

No, seriously. Is it really hard to add unicode support?
Come one, Microsoft. I know you got more balls than that.

[Woody56292 @ Feb 28th 2007 10:41PM]

you know, I love my zune device, but I am growing tired of the lack of feature updates and sucky software. Somebody needs to develop an open-source software program for zune and maybe figure out a way to hack the zune device to allow more features.

[Dinraj Pradeep @ Feb 28th 2007 10:52PM]

Feedyourzune takes care of the podcasting for me.
http://feedyourzune.com/

[dabomb @ Feb 28th 2007 11:00PM]

I need a freakin time, alarm clock, calendar, address book,...... on ma freakin zune.
p.s zune rocks!!

[Caleb @ Feb 28th 2007 11:04PM]

im still not sure why everyone hates the zune. it jsut launched 4 months ago, and everyone's expecting it to be as good as the iPod. apple's been making iPod's for how long? they've got experience. they're in their fifth generation ipod. AT LAUNCH, the zune was competition for the ipod. true, there are problems and such, but microsoft's only been making this thing for 4 months. i say time and user input will make the zune better and more reliable. it may not become as popular as the ipod, just cause apple has gotten a ginormous leap on microsoft, but it may nibble away at apple's dap market, just as macs are now nibbling away at the pc market.

[Stranger @ Mar 1st 2007 9:20AM]

Caleb, a lot of people hate on the zune because it's made by MS. Other hate because it's not an iPod.

But some of us dislike it because we see wasted potential. It has a bloody wifi-chip in it, let's use that chip to its full capacity, including wireless syncing and sharing. At the moment the wifi-chip is a bloody worthless joke while it could have been a _real_ killer feature.

I don't know, but somehow it feels like MS have started to screw up a bit to often, from the media playback support in Xbox 360 to the wifi in Zune to UAC in Vista. Not all things are bad, but to many to make me feel really at ease.

[An o' Neamus @ Mar 1st 2007 11:45AM]

Well, I must say that I share the general sentiment here that the Zune (name copied from an Amiga software development tool - too wierd a name to be coincidental) totally failed as an iPod competitor. Why? Because it's lame. I have several players (Creative, Apple etc.) and this apart from the pretty menus has got to be the least exciting player I've ever used. I got it to develop software for it, as I'm a long-time Windows CE developer, and maybe one day I might be able to... At the moment it has sat unused since a day or two after I bought it in November. Why? Because it does nothing that my other players don't do a whole lot better (give me a break the WiFi is *completely* useless), and most things worse (or not at all). And it's so loaded to the gills with restrictions, it makes you feel like you did something wrong by deciding to own it. Ok, so it's pretty and it feels nice, but WTF(!) 3 months with nothing but a lame bug fix (that *may* be out in another 3 weeks or so) that should have been done before or shortly after day 1.

I write (commercial) Windows CE software for a living and I can tell you that I BY MYSELF could have done a lot more in the last 3 months to make this player more exciting... Probably Microsoft don't care, and will just wait for some anti-trust opportunity to force this mediocre (apart from the pretty menus) player onto people who used to have a better choice (or a choice at all)...

WTF is this Zune development team actually doing? I know what can be done with 1 person and limited resources. MS has billions of dollars and can make a team of whatever size it likes, and this is the best they can do? At least they don't surprise us... 5 years to make a new skin for Windows and 3 months to patch a music player so that it can play music without skipping... HAHAHAHA

Oh yeah, just in case anybody forgot, the Zune released last November *is* the Zune v2 or should we call it by it's former name Personal Media Centre? So Zune v2 will actually be PMC v3...

Apple has had years to practice (and believe me they still need some!)? So has Microsoft. Let's not forget that this isn't the beginning of Microsoft's attempts to make personal media player OS's or online music stores...

[Jeff Foster @ Mar 1st 2007 2:07PM]

er... people actually own Zunes?

i thought MS stopped making them after they realized what a huge market failure the zune was.

:P

[coprock @ Mar 1st 2007 8:52PM]

The Zune does most things worse? Funny, my impression of Zune's audio quality vs. the ipod was that Zune sounded better. This impression was also substantiated by tests in PC World showing lower noise levels. I guess audio quality does not matter any more with itunes 128 encoded AAC files.

Less restrictive wifi capabilities are only two or three firmware updates away.

Regarding Zune's software and its critics, no one seems to remember buying a Gen 2 Ipod for pc in 2002. Musicmatch was the software that came with it. It didn't work at all and was so bloated it crashed most pcs. Thank god for eph pod that worked simply. How long did it take apple to introduce itunes for pc? a year?

Each to its own. It's nice to have choices.

[Ultimaichijouji @ Mar 2nd 2007 9:19PM]

Where is my damn unicode support, Microsoft?

[B-Mo @ Mar 3rd 2007 12:49AM]

As a zune owner I'm quite pleased with what I got. A portable media player that looks good with a sharp screen, all with a finish that won't scratch if I breathe hard enough. If I wanted a portable hard drive, I would've bought a portable hard drive. If I wanted a clock, I would've bought a clock. I don't see what's so big about these "I do everything" devices where more resources are put into doing everything mediocre at best instead of doing just a few things exceptionally well. Eventually that day will come, but not now. Are there any phones out on the market with 80 gig hard drives and a 1600X1200 display that folds into the size smaller than an empty pack of lucky strikes? Complain about that.

Just because I'm not getting every feature that coincides with every rumor on the series of tubes, doesn't mean I was promised them. Folks know what they're getting themselves into, or are they the kind of people that buy land in florida and complain about living in a swamp?

[crystal_3 @ Mar 5th 2007 7:23PM]

I own a Zune and I've posted on the Zuneinsider Blog. Yes, some of us are quite angry. We bought something for the same price as an iPod and didn't get the features we were promised. I'm ready to bail, too. I believed that a comparably-priced device would have comparable features. It doesn't. It's not all fanboys complaining.

[Chuck @ Feb 28th 2007 8:47PM]

What features were you promised? If you were promised them, they were on the box, or advertised, or in some sort of contract. If there were rumours on the web, that's on you.

Things that I want on my Zune:
Podcasting - not a huge deal, I get them with other software for now
Wireless sharing - Ok, you got me here, a lot of the marketplace tracks aren't sendable. But if I've bought a cd and ripped it (how I used to do it), I can send/loan it to a friend. Or send an entire playlist, I like that a lot.
Zune Pass - Probably my favorite thing.
Video Marketplace - Again, not a huge deal, I wouldn't be buying much content here anyway (it adds up). If there was a subscription style I'd look into it. Or better yet, a few advertisements for an episode of 24 or something would rock. Quite a few of the bigs already do this on their own websites, check out nbc's heroes or fox's 24. I just wish those were portable.

[crystal_3 @ Mar 6th 2007 9:05AM]

The DJ feature was hyped before release and it shipped without it. Also, a bookmarking feature to keep my place in podcasts. It's a pain when you have to fast forward to where you left off in an hour + podcast, if you can even remember where you were.

[Daniel Kirk @ Mar 12th 2007 3:14PM]

Look, for those who want or think they need PIM functions, get a damn PocketPC/BlackBerry/Treo/clue. A digital media player -- and I can't believe I'm finding it necessary to point this out -- PLAYS... DIGITAL... MEDIA. It ain't a clock, it ain't an egg timer, it ain't a calendar, it ain't a vibrator for yer grandma.

It doesn't need timer functions, because aside from alarm clock stuff, it's simply easier to turn the thing on or turn the thing off yourself. And for alarm clock functions -- unless you're sleeping with earbuds in, in which case you SHOULDN'T wake up... EVER -- you'll be plugging the thing into an external system like the ones from Altec Lansing, VAF or another third-party manufacturer, who will undoubtedly put alarm functions in their devices. No need, and no reason, to build them into the Zune.

Sure, we'd all like to see more features. Let's just hold out for features that would actually be USEFUL on the device. *cough*unlike wifi*cough*