Zune HD hacked, OpenZDK now available to developers

Well, it looks like the first 64GB Zune HDs landing in customers' hands may not be the biggest Zune news today after all. As proudly announced the ZuneBoards website, the Zune HD -- and all earlier Zunes, although the potential there is a tad more limited -- "have been hacked." While obviously not the first hack of any sort for the devices, this is described as the "first true hack," and it has made the concurrently-released OpenZDK possible. That effectively gives developers "access to everything XNA withheld before," which more or less opens to doors to any type of application that can run on the Zune hardware -- games, emulators, app stores, you name it. Of course, there's not a ton for average Zune users to play with at the moment, but developers can find all they need to get cracking at the source link below.

[Thanks, jhoeforth & Dilpickle1]

[Mr Tea Posted Apr 17th 2010 12:04PM]

So, I got this on my Zune HD 16GB, not much to look at right now and the two example apps seem to really like rebooting the player. Still, I'm pretty hopeful we'll finally see some good stuff come out now for the Zune. Anyone else get this running, problems with rebooting?

[ynksbsbll2 Posted Apr 17th 2010 12:39PM]

@Mr Tea
No rebooting on my end, and even previously installed XNA apps no longer reboot my player.

[TCrimson05 Posted Apr 17th 2010 12:08PM]

@LetsHaveWaffles

lol quite ironic...it's like he's got nothing better to do.

[Gandalf20000 Posted Apr 17th 2010 3:11PM]

Wow. This is great news. I really like the Zune HD, but there are practically no apps for it whatsoever... You have PGR and a few other apps, but that's it. This might be a turning point for the Zune...

[Hiro11 Posted Apr 17th 2010 5:14PM]

I'd like a few more apps, but I'm already very happy with my Zune HD. Yes, it has a great interface, great sound quality and great music archiving capabilities, but for huge music fans like me it takes a Zune Pass and AV dock to unlock it's true potential. The wifi Marketplace, SmartDJ/curated playlists/channels and tight integration with allmusic.com allow pretty much the perfect music browsing experience. Add in native hd avi out and it's a damned fine bit of hardware.

[lavoroux Posted Apr 18th 2010 7:34AM]

Oh ! Microsoft better designs Zune HD as a cellphone so I would buy
If want a PMP no choice but the iTouch