7 ms·

As somewhat of a Zune fanatic, it always makes me happy to see a new Metro-inspired UI, but every one of these Zune-inspired projects falls short when compared

As somewhat of a Zune fanatic, it always makes me happy to see a new Metro-inspired UI, but every one of these Zune-inspired projects falls short when compared to the actual Zune application, which imo is the absolutely pinnacle of music players. It presents your music library in a way that to me is aesthetically pleasing and entirely intuitive. The three column layout, with sorting options for each, is ideal. Filtering does not dump you into a new page. It's hard to describe what makes it so pleasant to use, but no application I've found yet comes close. I encourage anyone with a local music collection to go download Zune and give it a try.

Novosell 2y ago
Might Dopamine be of interest? It has a similar 3 pane interface at least. https://digimezzo.github.io/site/software https://digimezzo.github.io/site/software
- losses 2y ago
  Dopamine is indeed a good software, but the version on non-Windows operating systems is based on Electron. I think that's really overkill for a music player.
vips7L 2y ago
I saw this cool metro theme for JavaFX a while back: https://www.pixelduke.com/java-javafx-theme-jmetro/ https://www.pixelduke.com/java-javafx-theme-jmetro/
Mountain_Skies 2y ago
About a dozen years ago my employer wanted an intranet app for our mobile devices. Initially I was disappointed to have been assigned to create the Blackberry app because even though it was by far the most common phone in use by our employees, I could see the writing on the wall with Android and the iphone taking over. But I was also given free reign on the UI, which I borrowed very heavily from the Zune's UI. While it was well received, RIM really started falling apart around that time, which accelerated the replacing of the company issued Blackberries with BYOD. I was sad to see it go but also glad to be freed of the frustration of dealing with RIM and their often offline 'signing server'.
Rinzler89 2y ago
IMHO Xbox 360, Zune, Windows 7-10 Mobile and Metro were very good UX implementations at their time, and bizarrely far superior to the touch mode Windows 11 offers today on tablets. WTF Microsoft, why are you regressing on all fronts?! Zune never took off because it came too late and was going against a market already dominated by the iPod, and Metro was hated since Microsoft shoved it down the throats of desktop users with Windows 8, even though it was wonderful to use on tablets, except Windows tablets of the time sucked major ballsack since they were powered by anemic Intel Atom CPUs trying to run a full desktop OS compared to the ARM iPads running a mobile OS.
- jitl 2y ago
  Surface Pro with Windows 8 was pretty good, great performance on that device. I did a lot of sketching and some D&D world building with the pencil :). But the UX had a lot of frustrating spots where you still end up using Windows 95 UI because Microsoft didn’t care to update everything.
- philistine 2y ago
  Zune never took off because Apple unveiled iPhone soon after. When all the news and talks are about this iPod killer from Microsoft and then Apple themselves release a truly groundbreaking iPod killer themselves, you look foolish. Zune really got done in by marketing.
  - Rinzler89 2y ago
    Definitely. But even if the iPhone were to be delayed there's no way Zune would have made a significant dent in iPod's market. It was already the established player and the user base was already locked in with hundreds of $ in iTunes purchases. The usets weren't gonna throw that away no matter how much better Zune would have been. iPod's market dominance wasn't in some UX magic that couldn't be replicated or braten by competitors, it was in the iTunes purchases that made it comfy to own specific songs and also locked users in.
    - qingcharles 2y ago
ralphc 2y ago
Where can I get the Zune download? Searching on Zune just shows me the hardware.
- alavry 2y ago
  Copies of the installer are on archive.org - try one of these: https://archive.org/details/zune-package_202204 https://archive.org/details/zune-package_202204 https://archive.org/details/zunepackage_4.8.2345.0 https://archive.org/details/zunepackage_4.8.2345.0
BenFranklin100 2y ago
Can you download Zune for Windows 11? I have a couple of Zunes I would love to put back in service.

Novosell 2y ago

Might Dopamine be of interest? It has a similar 3 pane interface at least. https://digimezzo.github.io/site/software https://digimezzo.github.io/site/software

losses 2y ago
Dopamine is indeed a good software, but the version on non-Windows operating systems is based on Electron. I think that's really overkill for a music player.

vips7L 2y ago

I saw this cool metro theme for JavaFX a while back: https://www.pixelduke.com/java-javafx-theme-jmetro/ https://www.pixelduke.com/java-javafx-theme-jmetro/

Mountain_Skies 2y ago

About a dozen years ago my employer wanted an intranet app for our mobile devices. Initially I was disappointed to have been assigned to create the Blackberry app because even though it was by far the most common phone in use by our employees, I could see the writing on the wall with Android and the iphone taking over. But I was also given free reign on the UI, which I borrowed very heavily from the Zune's UI. While it was well received, RIM really started falling apart around that time, which accelerated the replacing of the company issued Blackberries with BYOD. I was sad to see it go but also glad to be freed of the frustration of dealing with RIM and their often offline 'signing server'.

Rinzler89 2y ago

IMHO Xbox 360, Zune, Windows 7-10 Mobile and Metro were very good UX implementations at their time, and bizarrely far superior to the touch mode Windows 11 offers today on tablets. WTF Microsoft, why are you regressing on all fronts?! Zune never took off because it came too late and was going against a market already dominated by the iPod, and Metro was hated since Microsoft shoved it down the throats of desktop users with Windows 8, even though it was wonderful to use on tablets, except Windows tablets of the time sucked major ballsack since they were powered by anemic Intel Atom CPUs trying to run a full desktop OS compared to the ARM iPads running a mobile OS.

jitl 2y ago
Surface Pro with Windows 8 was pretty good, great performance on that device. I did a lot of sketching and some D&D world building with the pencil :). But the UX had a lot of frustrating spots where you still end up using Windows 95 UI because Microsoft didn’t care to update everything.
philistine 2y ago
Zune never took off because Apple unveiled iPhone soon after. When all the news and talks are about this iPod killer from Microsoft and then Apple themselves release a truly groundbreaking iPod killer themselves, you look foolish. Zune really got done in by marketing.
- Rinzler89 2y ago
  Definitely. But even if the iPhone were to be delayed there's no way Zune would have made a significant dent in iPod's market. It was already the established player and the user base was already locked in with hundreds of $ in iTunes purchases. The usets weren't gonna throw that away no matter how much better Zune would have been. iPod's market dominance wasn't in some UX magic that couldn't be replicated or braten by competitors, it was in the iTunes purchases that made it comfy to own specific songs and also locked users in.
  - qingcharles 2y ago

ralphc 2y ago

Where can I get the Zune download? Searching on Zune just shows me the hardware.

alavry 2y ago
Copies of the installer are on archive.org - try one of these: https://archive.org/details/zune-package_202204 https://archive.org/details/zune-package_202204 https://archive.org/details/zunepackage_4.8.2345.0 https://archive.org/details/zunepackage_4.8.2345.0

BenFranklin100 2y ago

Can you download Zune for Windows 11? I have a couple of Zunes I would love to put back in service.