Jason Hasselkus

On the 13th of November I plugged in my Zune, signed in to Zune Marketplace and was asked to upgrade my software. Normally I hesitate to upgrade my software, hoping that if I don’t I’ll miss some bug that was introduced due to some unknown error. Another reason, is that I run Windows Vista on my home PC, and it doesn’t really perform like I had expected, so I try to do as little as possible so I don’t upset it. With that being said I did end up going ahead and selecting “OK” to the upgrade.
To my pleasant surprise, the new Zune software blew me away. I use to think that Microsoft was playing a distant second to Apple in terms of UI design and overall sexiness, but that has all changed. Not only is the desktop software very nice, but the update to the firmware on the Zune device, is really awesome. The look of the interface is updated, with some really nice glowing features, and moving between playlists, and albums seems to be much faster. I am not experiencing the lag and skip that I previously had. The really big deal in the upgrade is the ability to listen to Podcasts. I wish Microsoft would have come up with a better name than copying the Apple Podcast name, but I guess you need to go with what sells.
So I thank Microsoft for putting out something that really is much better than what they had before. The software is great and it’s much nicer for the user to use. Maybe with this new look and the flash Zune hitting the market, Microsoft can finally start taking a bite out of Apple.