Microsoft announced today that the new incarnation of the Zune will feature a touch screen, HD radio and HD video out (720p), among other things. The Zune HD will also feature a Web browser with a QWERTY keyboard. Strangely absent from the list of new features is bluetooth support.
At this time, that’s about all that’s been officially released about the Zune HD, but I’ll be interested to see how this shapes up. I honestly don’t understand why bluetooth (A2DP) is not being added to the new Zune, as that’s one of the big ticket items still missing from the iPhone and iPod Touch. If Microsoft were to introduce more high-quality games and add support for bluetooth stereo headsets and bluetooth file transfer, the Zune HD could finally begin to rival the iPod.
I have to admit, though, that the HD radio tuner built in is kind of cool. I still think that Microsoft needs to develop its own app store for the Zune, though.
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I’ve been using my old zune with the JayBird Bluetooth wireless headphones and so far the only compaint I had about them was that they didn’t have built in A2DP stereo bluetooth. I had to use the adapter to pair.
Those headphones look pretty cool, but there’s no way I’m going to drop $160 on a pair of headphones. Especially when I already have a stereo Bluetooth headset.
At this point, it’s not that big of a deal, because the iPhone still doesn’t support Bluetooth for anything but phone features, either; but the rumor is that iPhone 3.0 firmware will support A2DP Bluetooth.