Download Your Microsoft Zune App for Windows Phone 7 and Your Desktop

By Julia on January 2, 2011, 6:34 pm

Microsoft has regularly trailed behind Google and its now-partner Yahoo in search. The desire to take share from Google has led the Windows developer to lose hundreds of millions of dollars and take radical steps such as its Bing cashbacks, where Microsoft paid for discounts on devices and other products bought after a Bing search.

Microsoft Zune for Windows Phone 7

This should come as no surprise as the iPod touch has yet to have any competition when it comes to a media player that offers a multitude of apps. Sure the Zune HD has a handful apps and they are quite good, but that’s not the platform of the future for Microsoft. Windows Phone 7 is the platform of the future and it of course runs the popular Zune software. The sooner Microsoft delivers the Zune 7 running Windows Phone 7, the more users will start embracing the new OS. Developers have started warming up to Windows Phone 7 and a new contract-free Zune is just the medicine needed to seriously ramp up developer interest.

Ovi Suite -Another Zune Competitor

Like Apple’s iTunes or Microsoft’s Zune Desktop, the Ovi Suite provides smartphone users with a way to download music, synchronize media between a computer and phone, backup a phone’s data, and update software on a phone.

The raw installation packages or XAP files could be downloaded freely shortly after the phone platform hit the market. The Zune client downloads XML files with the package locations for the purpose of enabling application installation and browsing, XAPs and XML are both served without restriction. The XAPs allow the compiled code to be examined by anyone and even though this poses a reverse engineering risk, it didn’t enable piracy right away. On the XDA-developers forum a guide was released a few days ago of how to modify these XAPs and allow it to deploy and run. The post came and went and the forum admins even deleted it, but even so, this made it clear that developers were searching for ways to work around the DRM and pirate the apps.

 

Zune for Mac

This Zune integration poses a problem for Mac users as Microsoft does not have a Mac version of its Zune syncing software. In lieu of re-packaging the Zune software for OS X, Microsoft released specialized connector software that will take care of your basic syncing needs. The Mac connector was made available shortly after the Windows launch and enabled syncing for those handful of users that have a Windows Phone handset with a Mac.