The Zune music player was originally launched in November 2006 as market rival for Apple iPod, but since its release the Zune’s sales still falls well behind from iPod. Battling up Apple iTouch this time with Zune HD will be a compromising task, since iTouch have seen tremendous sales since its release –which Apple revealed 13 million iPod Touches up until December last year.
Apple iPod Touch have increased its popularity with due to iTunes App Store, specifically Apple marketing iTouch as a gaming device. The artwork shows a one-button touchscreen design, how would this Zune design mesh with Microsoft’s recent move to bring games to the Zune?
The HD suffix may only be a marketing buzzword or could be line feature for the new Zune, with some speculations of NVIDIA chipsets capable of 720fps and advance 3D effects.
Its still unclear to us, how would the new Zune HD would come up, but in terms of feature offerings, if it’s only to sports the capabilities of playing HD videos and nothing more (assuming common features of player) the thing are users will still have to stay on their wonder iPod.
I think Microsoft will need to answers some of these questions; will older Zune owners have their latest firmware updates? Is there any enhancement on Zune video and audio streaming capabilities with new Web browser? And App Store-like video services necessary to make an HD screen worth something? And something we think to be necessary like a Bluetooth access?
Still we can play around with these rumors, but let’s see for the further updates on the following days on this continuing battle –Zune vs. iPod.