A few weeks ago there was information that Microsoft was changing Zune Music Pass terms and now we see that they have confirmed several changes that include dropping the price $5 per month. I am a major Zune Musc Pass fan and have an annual subscription that provides me with 10 songs per month to keep. Starting next week, on 3 October, the $14.99 Zune Music Pass offering with 10 songs will no longer be available to new subscribers.
While I do like that I can keep 10 songs a month, I rarely ever do anything with those songs other than listen to them on my Windows Phone or Zune HD and about 1/2 the time I forget to “purchase” the songs anyway. I prefer to stream music or download it through a subscription (you still get unlimited downloads with supported devices) so this new Zune Pass program now matches all of the other $10/month mobile music clients like Spotify, Slacker Radio, Rdio, and more.
Canada will also be getting access to the Zune Music Pass on 3 October so our friends to the north can enjoy what we have here in the U.S.
Microsoft also revealed that streaming music videos will be coming to the Zune Music Pass and their PC software. Later this year you will be able to stream these videos to a Xbox 360.
Matthew Miller started using a Pilot 1000 in 1997 and has been writing news, reviews, and opinion pieces ever since.
Disclosure
Matthew Miller
Matthew is a professional naval architect by day and a mobile gadget freak at all other times. He purchases his own devices and then sells them on eBay or Craigslist to buy more. Many other devices are sent for review on a 30-day loaner basis and then returned to the carrier or manufacturer. If any are provided as “long term loaner units” this will be clearly disclosed in his reviews.
Biography
Matthew Miller
Matthew Miller started using a mobile devices in 1997 and has been writing news, reviews, and opinion pieces ever since. He is a co-host with GigaOM's Kevin Tofel on the MobileTechRoundup podcast and an author of three Wiley Companion series books. Matthew started using mobile devices with a US Robotics Pilot 1000 and has owned over 125 different devices running Palm, Linux, Symbian, Newton, BlackBerry, iOS, Android, webOS, Windows Mobile, and Windows Phone operating systems. His current collection includes an HTC Radar 4G, Dell Venue Pro, Apple iPad 2, HTC Flyer, Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Nokia N9, Apple iPhone 4S, MacBook Pro, and many more, along with tons of accessories and classic devices like the Apple Newton MessagePad 2100 and Sony CLIE UX50. Matthew can be found on various discussion forums under the user name of "palmsolo".
