Microsoft exec says Zune software coming to the Mac | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft exec says Zune software coming to the Mac

appleinsider.com

16 pointsevo_912 comments

It will be welcomed by all three Mac users who happen to have a Zune...

I'm one of the three, so this is good news for me.

Honestly if the port is good then it's good news for Mac users in general, the Zune software is, in my opinion, a better music player than iTunes, independent of whether or not one owns a Zune device.

I'm also a fan of the subscription service.

Zune.net has worked on Mac with Silverlight for ages.

Given that WP7 doesn't support email, contact, or calendar sync with your computer even on windows, I'm guessing this is just for firmware updates and maybe Zune downloadable content?

Don't get too excited. Zune on PC makes very heavy use of WPF, which would be epic to port.

I thought I remember reading that it doesn't use WPF at all, but uses the same internal-only framework (Iris?) as Media Center?

Do you mean Splash?

Windows Phone 7 supports sync with the cloud for all of these. Having to plug your device in for anything other than transfer of large files (like music and video) or charging is an aberration.

Useful for Windows Phone 7 ... Wired has some scenarios for where this would be useful: you're a heavy user of Office, Windows Live, or XBox Live.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/10/how-and-why-youd-use-...

iTunes on Windows and Zune on Mac: a race to the bottom.

If it allows syncing of iTunes content and pain-free access to the address book (I'm trusting that WP7 supports CalDAV natively) I would consider switching from my iPhone. I mostly use my phone as an DMP and web browsing device, so I'm not that particular about a lot of the features that bind people to one platform or another.

So what is the best iTunes alternative on Mac and/or Zune/WMP alternative on Windows? Why are the alternatives better?

I'm curious what others run instead because on Mac I have personally had no issues what-so-ever with iTunes and i have a pretty large library (over 100g). In the past I've run iTunes on my work machine (PC XP) for a long time too since I'm familiar with it and I haven't had much trouble with that either.

Wow, who edited that article? a 5 year-old?

Seriously? Why do they still call it "Zune?" I thought Zune had failed.

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