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Zune HD Unveiled, Set For Fall Release

Posted by Soulskill on from the for-sufficiently-small-values-of-h dept.

Several readers have written to mention that Microsoft has confirmed and unveiled the Zune HD. It has a "3.3-inch, 480 x 272 OLED capacitive touchscreen display, built-in HD Radio receiver, HD output," and it makes use of multi-touch input. More details will be forthcoming at E3, including how the device interacts with Xbox Live. Reader johnjaydk notes a PCWorld article that asks whether the Zune HD will be capable of competing with the iPod Touch. Quoting: "... the real competition between the Zune HD and the iPod Touch will come down to software. The new Zune will be based on a custom version of Windows CE, while the iPod Touch runs on the already popular iPhone platform, for which thousands of applications are available."

2 of 410 comments (clear)

  1. It's coming to Europe by CNETNate · · Score: 5, Informative

    Zunes are also finally coming to Europe as well, which marks the first time Microsoft has announced the US exclusivity on the Zune is being dropped. Understandably, the US press has perhaps overlooked this fact, but if you live here in Europe, it's possibly bigger news than the Zune HD being announced.

  2. Re:Lousy screen, Low Storage by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 5, Informative

    So you need a digital certificate from Apple. Big deal. Once you get it ($99 developer fee - much cheaper than Visual Studio)

    This is very different from what you've said in your original post up the thread:

    You can develop iPhone/iTouch software and deploy it without any involvement by Apple. Just connect the computer with the application to your device.

    You're also factually incorrect regarding the pricing. XNA Game Studio 3.0 (which is the VS edition that you'd use for Zune game development) is a free download, and you do not need to pay to run XNA games on Zune (Xbox is a different story, but we aren't talking about that here).