We've all been a bit up in arms about the apparent lack of a push for apps on the Zune HD given the platform's obvious strengths, but news from Daring Fireball seems to suggest that may not be the whole story. According to John Gruber, after publishing a short story on the ZHD and Microsoft's seeming lack of developer interest, he was contacted by an iPhone dev who claimed to have been pinged by Redmond to code for the new device. According to the source -- a Twitter client-maker -- he was asked to port his software to the Zune platform for "a bucket of money," though he ultimately declined the offer. Details beyond that fact are scarce, though apparently this dev is "certain" the offer was for the Zune. We won't argue for the benefits of having your application on two high-profile devices (clearly a personal decision), but it is extremely encouraging to hear that Microsoft sees the need to bring more than just basic functionality to a device like the Zune HD. Now, it's just a question of how smartly they go about it.

[Via The iPhone Blog]