Zune Thoughts - Daily News, Views, Rants and Raves

"Stillwater has developed a firmware update to make its existing Kicker-brand ZK500 Zune-docking speaker system compatible with the new Zune HD. Consumers who bought the $249-everday speaker system after Microsoft released the Zune HD in September are eligible for a free firmware update. Consumers who bought their speaker system before the Zune HD's release must pay $40. In either case, the system must be sent in to Stillwater to make the upgrade. Stillwater will cover all shipping costs."

Good news for ZK500 owners, though it's a shame they didn't use the Zune-as-a-firmware-host method for updating the ZK-500 dock. Having to send your dock back kind of sucks, though it's nice that the $40 is all it costs you since Stillwater is covering the shipping costs both ways.

There's a Zune HD firmware update that has just been released - it will take your Zune HD from 4.1 to 4.3...I don't know why they skipped 4.2, nor do I know what this firmware update adds or fixes. There's no information about this firmware update at Zune Insider. My Zune HD didn't automatically detect the new firmware update - I had to go into Settings > Device > Player Update in order to get it. It installed without a hitch, but I don't know what's been changed. If anyone has any information, please share!

It's firmware update day! According to the Zune Insider, there aren't any new features in this firmware update, but it does contain a fix for the Zune 30/80 battery life issues - and believe it or not this is the first I've heard of the Zune 80 having the same sort of battery life problem as the Zune 30. That might explain why my Zune 80 battery went dead overnight not too long ago. Other improvements in this firmware update are improved device recognition and improved stability and reliability on sync (both USB connect and wirelessly connect).

Here's the firmware update on my Zune 30 (when I did the Zune 8 firmware update it was exactly the same):



I'd update my Zune 80 as well, but the battery on it is dead - and I haven't used it since I charged it up a few days ago. Yeah, looks like I need the fix!

It looks like the Zune team is doing some last minute fixing/improving before the launch tomorrow. When I docked my Zune 30 I saw the above message: it updated the firmware to 2.2. The same deal for my Zune 8 - it was updated to firmware 2.2, though I had to reboot the Zune before the firmware update would work - it kept failing saying it couldn't connect to my Zune. Strangely enough, no such firmware update was found for the Zune 80. I doubt they'd have the firmware be out of sync on a per-device basis, so I suspect we'll see the 2.2 firmware update for the Zune 80 in short order.