Next Zune HD may have Windows Phone roots

Microsoft may have designed Windows Phone 7 Series from the ground up, but the company's not done taking pages from the Apple playbook.

ZDNet reports on a few tips that Microsoft's working on a "Zune HD2" that would be similar to the iPod Touch. That means it would likely be based on Windows Phone 7 Series, just without the phone capabilities. Not much more was revealed about this rumored device, except that it could ship later this year.

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To base the next Zune on Windows Phone 7 Series seems like a good idea. The Zune HD was generally praised for its design and user interface, but lagged behind the iPod Touch in its Web browsing experience, lacking tabs and history and rendering pages a bit slower than Apple's highly worshiped devices. More importantly, the Zune HD never made a big push into apps, offering only a handful of ad-supported, in-house developed games, plus a few utilities including Facebook and Twitter.

By sharing the same structure as Windows Phone 7 Series, Microsoft's media players could support more apps, and there's a better chance the Web experience will be given more attention.

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Indeed, ZDNet's report mainly focuses on how Microsoft is pushing game developers toward XNA Game Studio 4.0, a development tool that supports Windows PCs, the Xbox 360 and Windows Phone 7 Series devices, but not the Zune HD. Microsoft will still support Zune game development with the previous XNA version, 3.1, but wants developers to also port their games to WinPho7. If Microsoft is actually building a phone-based Zune, games developed with the newest version of XNA Game Studio could also theoretically support a new media player. Of course, Microsoft hasn't said anything of the sort.

As an Xbox 360 and Windows PC owner, I'd definitely be interested in a portable device that played nicely with the computer and game console, even if it wasn't a phone. A device that lets me play Xbox games on the road is good enough.

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