All Articles Tagged Microsoft

UPDATE: XNA Game Studio is the Zune SDK? B’okay…

Has Microsoft been approaching successful iPhone developers, offering “a bucket of money” for them to port their popular apps over to the new Zune HD platform? That’s what Daring Fireball is hearing:

I got an email from the developer of an iPhone Twitter client. He was contacted by Microsoft a few months ago, with an offer to port his app to the Zune in exchange for “a bucket of money”. He turned them down, but assumes, as I do, that Microsoft reached out to the developers of multiple popular iPhone apps.

There’s no way of knowing how many iPhone devs have gone “Zune for pay” at this point, but it’s a smart move by Microsoft, since they’re trying to compete directly with the iPod touch and apps are a huge part of the iPod touch’s appeal.

The iPod touch, however, has had a public SDK and apps since version OS 2.0 was announced and subsequently released over a year ago. Apple’s platform therefore has a huge lead and Microsoft is again left more competitive with previous years’ offerings. In any event, here’s hoping Microsoft does release a public Zune HD SDK of their own at some point — and that they finally, finally, decide to share a consistent platform between Zune and Windows Mobile 7…

According to sibling site WMExperts, Microsoft has released a developers guide for porting iPhone apps to — shock and horror — Windows Mobile.

Can’t blame them, though, 65,000 apps via a unified, on-device store, fart apps and rejected apps aside, is a huge competitive gap to make up, especially when your previous generation was stuck in a Windows 95-style user experience.

Selfishly, we hope the competition helps force out those fart apps and get those rejected apps back into Apple’s iTunes App Store where they belong…

Yahoo! and Microsoft have just announced a 10-year search deal where Microsoft’s newly re-branded Bing service will take over web searches for the venerable Yahoo! For its part, Yahoo! will get 88% of ad-based search revenue for 5 years and the ability to sell ads to some Microsoft search sites as well and limited access to user data.

Um, okay. Is that a good deal? Even if it doesn’t face any regulatory or approval problems, the deal won’t close until next year and then will take up to a couple of years to get up and running.

So, impact on the iPhone and iPhone users in the short term is likely nothing. Although, like Jacob’s nemesis on Lost, it could mean Microsoft has finally found a loophole to get their Bing search service onto the iPhone…

Currently the iPhone offers too search options via Settings > Safari: Google and Yahoo. Will Apple be switching that to Google and Bing?

Either Microsoft thinks it’s still April 1, or they really are going to open Microsoft Stores right next door to Apple Stores. Gizmodo provides the quote:

And stay tuned, because we’re going to have some retail stores opened up that are opened up right next door to Apple stores this fall. Stay tuned, just stay tuned.

Tuned to what, Comedy Central? We’ve made fun of this before — and rightly so — but it seems Microsoft is again entering a business just because Apple or Google are in it. And is that really sound strategy in anything outside a Hollywood parody? (Starring Will Farrel, ‘natch).

Sony Style Stores haven’t hit the mark yet, and Microsoft Stores selling shrink-wrap Windows 7 with free Songsmith classes…? Sigh. Apple needs competition. Good, focused competition that builds successful core business on top of successful core business.

We don’t see Google Stores opening up next door, do we? Microsoft, if you’re going to clone something, clone the focus. Please.

Was Apple’s just released App Store announcement — and Steve Jobs’ remark about how difficult it will be for others to catch up — conveniently timed to preempt Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference where, according to our sibling site WMExperts, details of Windows Marketplace for Mobiles are emerging?

1.5 billion downloads, 100,000 developers, and 65,000 apps is a good old Jobsian gut punch to knock the wind of out any Microsoft news about WinMo 6.0 support, Windows Marketplace Business Center, and whatever else comes out from the folks up in Redmond.

It also combines in a very tidy roshambo to Verizon’s recent revelation that, according to Engadget Mobile, BlackBerry App World or Windows Marketplace won’t be built into devices on that carrier(?!)… and we won’t go much further on that bone-headed, short-sighted, anti-openness news since our cursing would get Parental Control level 17+ slapped on this post…

Despite frequent, repeated denials from Microsoft that they aren’t making a Zune Phone to pit against Apple’s iPhone juggernaut, our sibling site WMExperts keeps compiling evidence that Microsoft might be doing just that.

The latest is that Pink (as it’s code-named) has an ad agency, will be based on Windows Mobile 7 but have it’s own proprietary UI layer, should be available next year-ish, and provide Zune, My Phone, and Windows Marketplace for Mobiles functionality.

So have Microsoft’s previous denials been based on crossed fingers and the “truthiness” of actually making a Zune HD Phone? Or as TiPb has been predicting, an Xbox Phone?

Let’s face it, Microsoft would be negligent and borderline daft not to integrate the technologies and leverage the brand of Xbox.

Oh, wait…

In a write up nonchalantly titled “Lies, damn lies, statistics, and Apple…“, our good friend Phil Nickinson over at sister-site WMExperts rightly points out that Apple gave Windows Mobile a full on shunning during the WWDC 2009 keynote:

Windows Mobile isn’t even mentioned. Sure, Microsoft hasn’t yet launched its dedicated app store, Windows Marketplace for Mobile. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t stores from which to buy apps – ahem, here’s one – and it’s an insult to all of the developers of the 20,000 Windows Mobile applications available.

Windows 7 did get a mention (and a ribbing, as usual, from OS X head Bertrand Serlet), but in the smartphone space…?

Nothing.

That might seem callous from Apple’s part — but here’s the worse problem for Microsoft: Windows Mobile was missing from a lot of post-WWDC analyst and media commentary as well.

Apple still owns significant smartphone mind-share and the Palm Pre has captured the attention of the blogsphere and, since RIM is holding fast, that’s coming at the expense of Microsoft (and maybe Android, which was last year’s next big thing).

Realistically, with so many platforms now, when someone writes “Apple iPhone and…” “BlackBerry and…” and now “Palm Pre and…” there’s only room for so many others in the sentence, and those places are becoming increasingly competitive.

With Windows Mobile 7 pushed out until 2010, and 6.5 not in consumer hands yet either, and with iPhone 3G S about to hit, things might not be changing any time soon either…

So, two and a half years ago Microsoft released what was basically their version of the 2005 video iPod. Now, some two years after Apple released the iPod touch, WMExperts (via Engagdet and CNET) tells us Microsoft has confirmed… the Zune HD, a wide screen, capacitive, solid-state media player.

At 272×480, it’s not quite as wide as the iPhone’s 320×480, much less the high-end Windows Mobile handsets like the Touch HD’s 480×800. But like we said, it is capacitive (which is strangely still unsupported by WinPho) and what pixels it has are OLED, which will hopefully motivate Apple to give the next generation iPhone the same treatment.

Other features include HD radio support and something nobody can believe they didn’t do from the outset: integrate it with the Xbox product line.

We’re still left wondering, however, is this really a business Microsoft needs to be in? Wouldn’t Zune resources have been better used to get Windows Mobile 7 out last year instead of next when it could be, you know, competitive?!

Microsoft produces Windows, the operating system of choice for most iPhone users, and Exchange ActiveSync, the push data system Apple (and Google!) have licensed for business users. They also make Sync, the integration system found in Ford cars, which has just gotten an update.

TWICE (via CNET) lists all sorts of interesting info on the update, but the really interesting part is what’s revealed about future updates, including support for Pandora streaming internet radio, and… the iPhone:

“We’ll be able to link you to your Internet in the car. If you brought an iPhone into the vehicle, you could interact with that through voice. You could then read your email by voice,” said Joe Berry, Ford business and product development director for Sync, referring to a future version of Sync.

Good news for Ford owners… eventually.

(Thanks to the Reptile for the tip!)

Okay, if you buy an empty iPod Classic, have never owned a CD or bought a piece of music in your life, and are determine to immediately fill that 120GBs to the brim, then $30K iTunes will cost you.

However, if you’ve already got a sizable CD collection, or music collection of any kind — even your own compositions — or want to carry around class lectures or other forms of audio or — hey — video maybe, well, it can cost much, much less. Maybe even less than the $15 a month Microsoft would rather you cough up to them for a ZunePass subscription.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not against the subscription model. I don’t think it can hold a candle to the iPhone and iPod touches coup de grace — online streaming music for (pretty much) free — but for some users subscription is the way to go. (Especially now in the DRM-free world where Microsoft shutting down PlaysForSure didn’t threaten to destroy large and dearly-paid for music collections, right Microsoft?). What I am against is bland, ultimately not compelling advertising. Ars Technica lays it out:

As of November 2008, the Zune Pass allows its users to keep any 10 songs per month. In other words, if you wanted 30,000 songs for keeps, just like the iTunes Store, you would have to wait 250 years. The cost would be a whopping $45,000, however. In other words, it’s only really worth it if you’re OK with the fact that you have to keep paying the monthly fee to keep access to the songs that you don’t yet own. Otherwise, iTunes (or any other à la carte model) is the way to go.

And again, the iPhone and iPod touch (for which Microsoft has no competitive offering since they keep denying the ZunePhone and Zune HD is still vaporware) can do better, cheaper with free internet radio apps.

Unless you want an extra $15+ bill tacked onto your monthly services overhead?

(Thanks Matt for the tip!)