Zune HD Twitter app now live UPDATE: it censors tweets!
By Nilay Patel 
posted December 16th 2009 6:03PM
posted December 16th 2009 6:03PM
Update: Turns out there's a bigger problem here than just poor performance -- as reader Scott Zero points out, it censors naughty words out of tweets in your timeline. (Seriously -- here's his original tweet that we've highlighted above.) Sure, it's a free app, but this kind of active content censorship just rubs us the wrong way -- even worse than Apple's various Twitter-related App Store shenanigans. Bleh.
Weak.
@Steve Jobs
..like Steve Jobs.
I apologize.
this is no good at all
@rusty
Sorry to threadjack, but does anyone know if the Zune HD (or the earlier Zune for that matter) has unicode support and/or gapless playback for mp3's? Thinking of getting one for Xmas present, but it must support filenames & ID3v2.x tags w/ Unicode characters. TIA.
@d00b I know that the Zune HD supports unicode, however I'm not sure if the older zunes do.
@d00b
I believe that they added Unicode support to the older models when the HD came out.
@rusty why? do your tired eyes long to see every profane word that graces Twitter?
but I do suppose having an option to turn off/on censoring would be great. something which could be implemented in the simplest of updates
@yyandrew It's one thing for the owner of a website to institute language filters (after all a website is the owner's house, so you go by the owners rules).
The PRINCIPLE of censoring language on an app made to access external content is a different story.
@Dafrety
Though they technically support unicode, the font on the old Zunes don't include most Asian characters, making it pointless since that's what a lot of people wanted it for.
If I had a Zune HD and a love for for twitter, I would love this. Neither one is presently in existence.
@HardToBelieve:
Why would you love it?
The app sucks as of now; hopefully MSFT will fix that soon.
@Kirtay
Why would I (if I were a huge Twitter fan) love to know that progress is being made for an app that competently handles Twitter? Do you want to know how dumb of a question you just asked?
@HardToBelieve:
Haha, that didn't come out right. I meant, being an avid twitter user (reader?) and hearing Nilay's complaints about speed (which other users seemed to have debunked), this would just be a frustrating experience for now.
Of course one would be glad for the _effort_, just not the initial implementation.
@Kirtay
Makes since now. The actually progress towards completion is what would make me happy. Not the app itself.
Well at least it LOOKS good!
Looks pretty good, wish I had a Zune HD to try it tout though :(
My iPhone 3G is starting to feel a little dated, it has that "as fast as it was when you bought it, but feels slow cause you know somethig better is out there-itis."
@7egend
Wait, let me guess, WIndows user?
LOL
Used it for about 40 seconds. Nothing to drool over, to be honest. I'm not a Twitter user, so this is pretty pointless to me, but I guess it's important to someone somewhere...
Installed it a few hours ago and it hasn't been laggy for me. It took awhile to update the first time but other than that it works fine.
It's nice. I'm not getting that laginess, personally... So maybe it's just because you guys have a ridiculous amount of tweets?
Because TweetDeck on my iPod touch will lag whenever I get swamped.
Anyways, it's pretty nice!
http://www.touchzune.com has more info on it soon.
@Jonathan K:
That would explain it; Nilay probably has hundreds.
Glad to see Microsoft has not done a bad job, but rather a good one; interface looks sick.
@Kirtay Yeah it does look good. It's bringing me one step closer to using my iPod touch basically none. Definitely one of my best purchases of the last few years...
Anyways, like I said, tens of thousands of tweets (estimate) per day is not normal...
Woot?
@(Unverified)
yes?
@w00t lol
First the slow app loading, slow browser and now this.
I get the feeling that the tegra processor is weak. I mean it's still using the old ARM11 core!
@Titanium Man
Well to be fair with the last update the Web Browser became a LOT faster. There were other speed improvements, though I'm not sure if that translated into faster loading apps. I haven't timed those personally.
I have seen the iphone/touch side by side with a ZuneHD and the latter's WiFi abilities are extemely S L O W. This may be the basic issue not the app itself.
@IRJ I own both (32gb 3g iPod touch and the Zune HD) and I can't say I've seen this problem...
Where is my Enterprise Network Support?
This Twitter nonsense has got to stop somewhere.
No one outside of marketing-circles, corporate boardrooms of companies that are trying to look "hip" or ego maniacs that think the world revolves around them, gives a rat's ass about Twitter.
@Hazdaz
What do you expect from a generation of end-users who wholeheartedly embrace a line of consumer electronics that start with the letter 'I'... It's all about 'them' - LOL!
These are extremely narcissistic times, and Twitter feeds that 'I' mentality for those who simply can't get enough of themselves, and their singular importance in the world.
@Hazdaz The same could be said about blogs and forum posters. Reality of it is, if people are using it, then making an application to leverage it makes sense.
@astralbodies
But that's the whole thing - no one cares about reading someone's Tweet about dropping a deuce at 4:23AM. The whole popularity of this ridiculous technology is based solely on 60 year old corporate executives that are trying to latch onto anything and everything that they THINK "young people" care about... so they write an app for it, or integrate it into their website, or some of idiotic tie-in.
This is like how a bunch of companies changed their name and added ".COM" when the internet really hit mass acceptance back in the DotCom days.
And yes, I agree with you that it's not that much different than blogs and online forums, but you don't see companies tripping over themselves trying to make apps to access Engadget's comments page from their phone or toaster or automatic pet feeder, and yet you just know that there is some aging exec at some consumer electronics company right now thinking about integrating Twitter into his company's shower radio or other similar nonsense. And hell, at least this site (and other forums/blogs) have information/news that we are commenting about - Twitter is just useless comments about nothing.
@Hazdaz
I started using Twitter, but the main purpose for me is that several programs I use release update information on Twitter. Cyanogen does this and it helps me keep my G1 up to date. I don't get people who twit every time they take a dump though.
@Hazdaz well, even if you think this whole thing is based on some 60 year old execs predictions of what is cool - the fact of the matter is, Twitter is popular and has taken off. so that means that this 60 year exec was right.
but yea, I agree Twitter, blogs, and etc, only feed this narcissistic generation
@Hazdaz Jeez man, Twitter is not about 'ego maniacs' but about community. I use Twitter to communicate with my friends, some overseas, most too busy with their families to meet up with me. But it keeps us in contact on a daily base without being too intrusive. Nothing to do with 'ego maniacs'. That's bullshit.
@pjhaas
Maybe your friends or family aren't willing to say it to you, but no one gives a crap about someone's stupid 140-character Tweets. No one cares that someone is "at McDonald's now eating a BigMac" or "got appointment for a prostate exam" or "just fed the cat".
How can it possibly be about "community" when you can't have a 2-way conversation? If you actually want to communicate with someone you call them, send them a letter, or shoot them over an email. Hell, even a TXT message at least offers up the opportunity to communicate BACK to someone and have a brief conversation. Twitter is just a way to feed someone's ego - "hey look at me, I'm important enough that people are 'tracking' me and reading what I say, but I'm so important that I don't have to bother with any of their opinions or comments, it's all about ME, ME, ME!"
Ugh.
@Hazdaz Or maybe his friends and family genuinely don't share your sentiment, you judgmental prick.
@Hazdaz
Ok, you've clearly never actually used twitter, or you would know that
1. most tweets aren't about someone's mundane daily activities
2. if that is what someone's tweeting about, those following them do so by choice and therefore actually are interested in exactly that
3. you can reply publicly to tweets via @ replies
4. you can send direct (private) messages
next time try actually understanding something before you start telling others they don't.
Funny...
It's working very well for me.
Thanks ZUNE HD Team!
Just tried it, it's alright... now let the rest of the world develop stuff for it
If I buy a zune HD from the USA and get it shipped to the EU where I live, will it work there?
@MoonWalkerCTE
Probably NOT...
@DaHarder Yeah, if you use a fake US address.
@MoonWalkerCTE Short answer: Kind of.
Long answer: Well, the media playback functionality of the Zune HD will work, however the radio, social and marketplace will not work. The Zune HD has a HD Radio receiver inside it, which is incompatible with the EU-wide DAB radio broadcast system. With no EU Social or Marketplace, thanks to copyright restrictions, you can't use any of the more unique features of the Zune, nor buy music over WiFi, take advantage of the Zune Pass or, probably most importantly; download applications.
So if you can forgo applications, or, since they are free; find them somewhere online off Microsoft's severs or intend to develop your own using the current XNA update or any future MS IDE updates, then you could probably get away with it.
Just be aware that if Microsoft DO bring the Zune HD over to Europe, it wont be 198 EUR for the 32GB Platinum, it'll most likely be 290 EUR, since currency conversion usually means very little when releasing products in Europe. So, are those features worth the *potential* 100 EUR price increase?
(I say potential as, hell, Microsoft could be good to us. That's even if they do bring the Zune HD over here. They may not. Sure wish Microsoft would let us know already.)
@MoonWalkerCTE
Set your Windows location to US and make a US zune account. Works for me; unless this is because I'm Canadian and Microsoft decided to "unofficially" support us.
@MoonWalkerCTE
Download zInternational. I live in Australia and it worked for me :)
Cue iPod Touch and iPhone fanboys.
Also, @Nilay, comments differ from your lag issues. Try logging into a normal twitter account (you're not normal, of course [:) and see if you still get lag?
This POS still needs to be around free WIFI. Pathetic. Begging like a dog for free WIFI...
needs 3G.