The Zune HD Facebook App is Finally Working for Me

As of last night, the Zune HD Facebook app was still busted for me - updates not loading, news feeds not loading, etc. This morning, surprisingly, it all started to work - without a new version of the app. That tells us that it wasn't a problem with the application itself - which I guessed at - but instead a problem with Facebook itself, or something between Facebook and the Zune HD application. The Zune team has made some vague statements about Zune and Facebook engineers addressing the problem, but they've provided no details about what actually went wrong. Regardless of whose fault it was, or why this happened in the first place, it's unfortunate to see the Zune HD getting more bad press related to apps - and this is the second botched app release in a row now, after the Twitter curse-word blow-up (which most people made into a bigger deal than it really was).

Ultimately this highlights again how broken the Zune team's approach to apps is: they can't continue to release apps one by one, relying on internal resources to build up their app selection. The only thing that makes any sense is to open up the Zune HD to third-party developers, give them the ability to make money in a marketplace, and let them have it it. I suspect we'll hear some good news on this front when MIX10 happens in a couple of weeks - the root problem here is that Zune HD app plan was out of sync with the Windows phone 7 series app plan, and the only thing that makes any sense is for them to come together into one big happy "develop for our two device type" family. Guess we'll have to wait and see!