Zune was one of the underdogs in the MP3 game that did a full turn around and really stepped up to show that they can hold their own. Now one could easily argue that because Microsoft is a huge software giant that if they throw enough money at it, surely than can make it work over time. Well that might be true but if it wasn’t for huge companies throwing money at something they want to do then we wouldn’t have the Sony Playstation or the Microsoft Xbox.

Zune has transformed from the ugly fat bricks to sleek and shiny thin media players that do not fail to impress. I had the pleasure of owning a first gen Halo edition Zune 30gb. It was all I could ever hope for until I found a fatal flaw, like most Microsoft hardware has, the damn thing would shut off whenever it got too hot. Go on, scour the internet to see if Microsoft ever addressed this issue, can’t find any articles? Cause Microsoft denied the issue even happened! It sucked, cause I worked in a dry cleaners with 110 degree heat and that damn thing was my only lifeline and it would shut off every 5 minutes. Needless to say I got rid of that irritating thing and went to an 80gb iPod Classic...

But that got stolen…FFFFUUUUUUUUU…

So I got the Zune 2nd gen 8gb. I was hooked! An amazing feel, great fluid motion… wait, what the hell is squirting and squircle? Argh! Damn it Microsoft, really? Way to take some really cool ideas and fuck them up royally! A user could find another zune user that had “the social” enabled and would squirt, I mean send the user a song that he/she wanted. Pretty cool, I found myself stalking on buses and trains looking to find users and send them the most insane rock music I had at the time (which wasn’t much). It was fun, but a huge complaint was only having the sent songs for 3 days or 3 plays, whichever came first. OK, yeah we all know that DRM is BS but come on, it was a great idea! Well complaints piled up so Microsoft terminated the feature, but then they did something that was epic…

Zune 4.0 is the most amazing proprietary music software one could bundle with a mp3 player! That’s right, I said it! I love Zune 4.0, it makes iTunes look like crap! Zune 4.0 is hip and still clean. It is live but it’s not cluttered. It doesn’t feel mechanical but it still feels pratical, you can’t ask for a better software bundle. Now Apple did create the mp3 proprietary software bundling game, but Microsoft perfected it. The now playing screensaver was the best thing they could have done, streaming pics and bios of artists while playing music is epic! And when running dual screens is the icing on the cake!

Now the rumors are piling in about the possibility of a Zune phone and Zune being expanded outside of the US, if Apple keeps taking the linent approach, releasing trash such as the #itampon, then we are going to watch Microsoft take an inch and run a mile all over Apple’s territory. Microsoft is becoming a bigger threat with each new launch, and they certainly have the money to keep beefing up this product.

So what do you think? Ask me, Email me, just tell me and lets make a discussion out of it!