Lips (plus some Zune love)?

Almost as if someone from Microsoft was reading my previous post, they released a brand new game at E3 that may breathe some life into the Zune: Lips.

Lips is basically a karaoke machine that uses your Xbox 360 as that huge cabinet thing that karaoke machines usually are. There will be songs that come along with the game, but the biggest feature will be the fact that you can plug in your Zune (or iPod) and sing along with your favorite songs that are on that device.

From what I understand, if you want the authentic karaoke feel that comes with the words on the screen, you will have to add the lyrics yourself.

Here is an interesting point that I happened to see in reading about this: What about streaming media? Think of the way sharing media  between your PC and the Xbox 360. Being able to watch movies and play music across the house using that service (if you set it up) is very convenient. Now think of being able to play every song in your collection in Lips, not just the limited space on your mp3 player of choice. 

This whole thing is very interesting and I cannot wait to see how it unravels.

Zune: My love/hate relationship

Alright, alright. Time to come clean. I have a Zune. To keep with the labeling that the iPod users, I would say that I have the 1st gen, 30gb Zune. What might be more surprising is this; I absolutely love it. If your asking, yes, I have had an iPod before. I like the Zune better.

Now, it is a love/hate relationship. For starters, I hate the Zune software. It’s such a memory hog, especially on my older Windows computer. Along with this comes the fact that it only works with that software. Now, being a semi-heavy Ubuntu user, this comes as a hassle. Whenever I want to sync a new album to my Zune, I either have to plug in my laptop with Windows on it or restart and choose Xp instead of Ubuntu at the GRUB dual-boot menu.

Ok, Wine 1.0. Some reason, it gives a weird error during the installation. So close, yet so far. Also, I don’t think there are too many fans of a Windows MP3 player that use Linux. I might be wrong, but for how long the Zune has been out, I would have guessed to see at least one open-source alternative.

But! The Zune has wifi! What can we use that for? Um…sending pictures? That is the most I’ve used the Zune’s wireless for. Oh, but I can sync wirelessly. Well that’s good. Until I drain the battery doing this, in which case I plug it in via USB to charge. I suppose I could use a wall charger, but it just seems unneccessary.

Pros now though:

• I love the album art. Yes, I know, iPod (Touch) has this, and they have coverflow! I really don’t like the idea of changing from portrait to landscape just to see album art. I realize the other iPods do as well, but I like the Zune’s big display, regardless of which generation it is.
• Radio – I don’t use it much, but I do.
• Wallpapers – As an enthusiast (I have more than 2k wallpapers for my computers), I think I may like this the most. I change the background on my Zune at least once a week.

So, do I have suggestions? Well, I think it would seem pretty easy to create a browser for the Zune. Using the center button to be able to “click” links, change the address, use the up and down to scroll through a site or through your bookmarks, left and right to go back and forward. This would also give us a reason to use the wireless chip that is in the Zune for something more than sampling music.

Also, Zune Marketplace integration. If you can buy songs via Itunes on the iPod, then why not do the same with Zune? I probably wouldn’t use it, but there is another reason to use the wifi.

These two simple things may drive sales a bit. I mean, I’m considering buying a 1st gen iPhone (assuming prices will go down because of former users wanting to upgrade to the iPhone 3g, which is only $200) just to have the wireless browsing capability. Mind you, I’m at a University where if you are on campus, you are in a hotspot. Also, I already have AT&T.

So Microsoft, instead of letting me see what my friends who happen to have a Zune and an Xbox 360 what they are playing via “Zune Tag,” do something meaningful with your product; the only thing even remotely close to an “iPod killer.”