Marketplace in Canada

[ImmortalWarrior]

So I finally have the marketplace in Canada. I have never been one to buy digital copies of music but I like that I now have the opportunity. I can load up my zune desktop software and see the marketplace for music as of today, but there is no marketplace option on my Focus yet (mango). It lists:

Music
videos
podcasts
radio

That's it. No marketplace option. I also cannot access podcasts through the zune software. I was under the impression I could use the zune software to easily find and subscribe to podcasts with simply my phone, but I have to manually copy the rss feed still.

My question is, does anyone in Canada have these two features yet? Podcasts in marketplace and the marketplace access for WP7.

 

[bilzkh]

I subscribed Zune pass today as well, and no marketplace on my phone yet.

But it seems that they're going live in phases: Early morning there was the Zune Pass page, but no way to access subscription, then afternoon I could subscribe but didn't have access to Marketplace on Zune desktop, and early evening got Marketplace functionality on Zune desktop.

Fingers crossed, but we should see it on our phones reasonably soon...

 

[ImmortalWarrior]

I now have partial access to the marketplace on my phone, but I am still missing a few capabilities. I don't have podcasts yet, which I anticipate the most, and Smart DJ says

"We are having trouble creating this Smart DJ mix. In settings, make sure to the Connect to Zune option is turned on, and connect your phone to your PC."

It is turned on, and I did connect it. I also have an image of Metallica on the background now and even though I get the artist image for some others, the Metallica one won't change (even though I have played other artists, while on wifi as well) and the lock screen won't display them anyways. It just displays a red/grey placeholder background.

 

[fc000]

I've also got the music marketplace working on Zune desktop software, but so far, nothing has shown up on my Focus.

 

[bilzkh]

Alright I got marketplace on my phone now as well, I can search, stream & download songs using my phone. Feels awesome.

 

[ImmortalWarrior]

Yep it's nice. Gotta try not to do it too much with Canada's bullsh*t data caps. And don't bother calling your carrier about visual voice mail. I went in to Rogers the other day to check on it, the guy there was like, "Well I know we have it for iPhone (no sh*t sherlock) but I don't think we have it for Android", as he was looking at my homescreen... I didn't even bother correcting him. How dare these companies claim to have phone experts.

So anyways, I called Rogers and asked. The guy there told me the same thing, iPhone has it, but Canadian carriers don't even support visual voicemail for Android (if android supports it anyways) and said that we are not likely to see it for Windows Phone anytime soon. He then commented on my plan from 2007, which gives me 500 mbs of data, 150 anytime minutes, Unlimited network local calling, Unlimited evenings and weekends, unlimited texts (sms, mms, incoming and outgoing), enhanced voicemail and call display for $67 after taxes, as being "extremely good" and I shouldn't change it...

Sucks for us because I see what the US gets, plans with like 12 gigs of Data and unlimited. We don't even have the choice for unlimited and the most I think I've seen is 1 gig of data.

No streaming on the networks for us.

 

[ImmortalWarrior]

Also, I still don't have podcasts on either my phone marketplace or the desktop marketplace and several artists in my zune that have images, don't show on the lock screen like the others. I would think it was because it hadn't downloaded them yet, but some of them have and show in zune, just not on the lock screen or the tile. Weird.