Zune (coming out in stores on the 14th of November) just came out with some really interesting features that replicate a number of my thesis ideas around music sharing between devices. You can locate other wifi-enabled devices in your surroundings and send them songs or pictures. (something iPod doesn’t have yet i believe).
Obviously this has some silli DRM restrictions such as “3 plays in 3 days” so that if you send someone a song you have 3 days to play that song 3 times and then it just remains as meta-data in a “community” section, but in general I can genuinely say that this is a very interesting interface and product. There’s something nice about the personalized background and the large emphasis on content, album covers and the near disappearance of the navigation.
Well done Microsoft!
