Zune feedback

As you may have heard Zune v3 is out, I spent a long time playing with it to provide my feedback one¦more time.

First thought: Zune software is still a piece of sh*t!

But I have to say this is no more the worst software ever written by Microsoft, it is a bit better now, but still full of crappy features and the UI s*x badly. First, I always wonder myself: “why the hell did they create a NEW media player ???”.
Windows Media Player v11 - Zune v3 - Hello?
Marketplace?? Why not simply add a new “Social” tab on WMP ??

So that is the point, I start this feedback exactly like my previous one: “both Zune software and firmware can do a lot better”.

Having said that I will start with what I like on this new version:

• The “Add to now playing list” feature on device. Best.Thing.Ever! they finally get rid of the “Quick list” stupid feature (it was soooo useless!)
• Games are officially supported!
• Time displayed on device main screen
• Zune is now able to go back to current song after viewing some pictures.
• Find Zune buddy by Live ID: Now, on your "my social" page you can see if any of your Windows Live contacts have a Zune Card and add them as friend.
• Picks are great and allow you to get personalized recommendations.
• I can’t talk about Channels as I don’t have a Zune Pass but this seems very nice.

Now here is my list of suggestions :

* Device:

• Add some auto playlists please
  • Last sync (a bit like the “date added” view in software). When I have a lot of music in my Zune it become hard to find the last synced music.
  • Favorites songs, the one tagged as “heart”.
• Snooze mode. Not a big deal but this would be a nice addition.
• Screensaver: why not? my Zune at home is always docked and can’t stop itself, so it would be nice to have a screensaver coming – or to be able to enter sleep mode while docked.

* Software:

• Add a Folders view (like Windows Media Player) tags are nice but a great part of my collection is not tagged so I have difficulties to browse my music. This is also a big problem with compilations which generate me thousands of artists entries with only one album/song. I would love to have a setting “Do not display artists with less than X songs in artists view”. See also next bullet.
• Add a live search box (like in WMP library).
• I would like to get some stats of my library (number of albums, songs, artists, most played song, album, artist, ….)
• Now playing screen is interesting (and really beautiful with artists shots and stats) but… I would need a party mode, where I can see the current playlist, sort, move and add new music. It would be like a “Now playing” + collection view.

Also it seems to me there is a bug: while playing just one song (not an album), then browse to another song and "add to now playing list": it turns out that the song is queue after the whole album of the current playing song. I would need to add songs one by one to the current playing list, what do you think ?

Don’t get me wrong my goal is not to flame Zune but to bring ideas and feedback to make it better. I like my Zune, but to me the Zune Software is a total mistake.

If a Microsoft guy or better someone from the Zune Team read this, I would love to be a beta tester and bring my feedback, do you have a beta program ?

As an MVP + Windows Live Butterfly let me say I am strong on feedback.