We’ve been there. A good glass of wine in hand, but no idea what to pair it with.

Oh sure, the cheese or food choice is a snap. There are PLENTY of apps for that. But what about the music? Now the iPhone has you covered.

Hope Family Wines has released Wine DJ – a streaming music app that matches music with your spirits. Not too surprisingly, the only wines featured are those produced by the Paso Robles winery, but you can probably substitute in any Cabernet Sauvignon for their Liberty School and still have satisfactory results.

Once you choose the wine, you’ll be presented with a series of sliders to help you set the tone of the evening, then the music will begin playing. Hear a song you like? There’s a convenient button to purchase a copy from the iTunes store.

Sorry folks, can’t let you know how the wine goes with the tunes. But the music choice is pretty good. 

Content providers have a new way to make money from the iPhone. Apple has announced that free apps can now have a microtransaction component.

That might not sound real significant at first blush. Apple has let paid apps sell small items for nominal amounts for a while now (The top-selling “Tap Tap Revenge 3” game, for example, sells a six-pack of additional songs for $2.99.) This is just an extension of that policy, right?

On the surface, sure, but this also makes upconverting users of free demos a much easier process – as it’s something that can be done within the demo itself, rather than requiring users to exit, search for the product in the App store and hope they don’t lose momentum (or get distracted by something else) along the way.

It’s also a handy way to make money off of apps that aren’t looking to convert people to a premium version. Studios, for instance, that offer free apps promoting elements of an upcoming film could charge for ringtones or exclusive clips.

Naysayers call it nickel-and-diming, but the long tail potential of these small transactions is considerable. Korea and China have built an entire gaming industry off of them – giving away the core game for free, but charging players for little things like armor and weapon upgrades.

Games and movies on the iPhone and iPod Touch may be a much different experience in the months or years to come. Apple has received a patent on a head-mounted laser video display, which could make any video application on Apple’s portable devices a more immersive experience.

The patent, first reported by Gawker, has been three years in the making, it appears – and is unique from other personal viewing apparatus in that it separates the laser engine from the headgear. In other words, these could be much lighter than other simulated screen glasses. 

Of course, there’s no guarantee that Apple will move forward with the idea. The company kills more projects as it rolls out. But with so many sub-par products in the category on the market, it would be interesting to see if Apple can get them right. And what it plans to do with them. 

Microsoft is not a company of fools. It knew the Zune was going to get pummeled by the iPod – and it knows that the Zune HD will never knock the iPod Touch or iPhone off of their throne. But it also knows there are a lot of people more interested in a good personal media player than an all-in-one device – and for them, Microsoft has hit the sweet spot.

While the Zune HD isn’t quite a home run for the company, it’s a solid triple – and has quickly become the strongest competitor on the market to Apple’s PMP empire. Priced fairly at $220 for the 16GB model and $290 for the 32GB one, the device is stylish, ultra-light and ultra-powerful. It boasts a solid battery life. And, come mid-December, it could be a tough item to find on store shelves.

One of the Zune HD’s major attractions is its 3.3-inch OLED screen, which offers a sharper picture than anything you’ll find on the iPhone. Like many competitive devices, the screen is touch sensitive and offers a 16:9 (widescreen) ratio. Ironically, videos shown on the Zune HD itself do not appear in high definition.

Most people won’t realize it, though. Video on the player is crisp and clear. As with  a high-end TV, though, it’s best watched in a darkened room. The Zune HD’s highly reflective screen makes outdoor viewing (and some indoor viewing) a bit challenging – and sometimes impossible.

To get true HD from the Zune HD, you’ll need a $90 dock (sold separately). With this, users can output 720p video from the device to their HDTV. The functionality is a big selling point for the Zune device – and it’s a feature that really shines. Videos look spectacular – and the interface works surprisingly well on the big screen, despite its shortcomings on the player itself.

The player’s interface is one of the Zune HD’s more notable stumbles. It’s minimalist, but perhaps a bit too much so. Figuring out how to navigate among choices isn’t as intuitive as some competitors, including Apple.

Despite my digital home here at Variety, I’m a pretty entertainment-agnostic guy. I like movies. I like music. I like video games. Heck, I even like books – both the old fashioned kind and in electronic form.

I’m not a big fan of fan alienation, though – which the music industry is up to once again.

After waging war with their fan base for years over digital music (and offering no viable legal ways for fans to use their MP3 players until iTunes came around), the industry is finding new ways to look ridiculous.

Music royalty groups ASCAP and BMI are reportedly trying to strong-arm online music stores into paying royalties for the short previews that people listen to as they mull whether to buy a song.

I’ll say that again, since I had to read it two or three times to believe it myself. The music industry wants users to (ultimately) pay for 30-second song samples.

That’s akin to tacking a surcharge on to movie tickets to watch the trailers. Or asking broadcast networks to pay a royalty for music used during a commercial to promote the CD itself.

What’s particularly sad is this inane cash-grab is wrapped up with a legitimate grievance – that composers receive no royalties for music used in movies and TV shows that are downloaded.

Guys, if you want people to pay attention to real problems, you need to stop making a fuss about non-existent ones. It’s hard to get any public backing when your customer base hates you. 

The Zune HD, Microsoft’s redesign of its portable music player, has finally hit store shelves, right on the heels of Apple’s new line of iPods.

The features are pretty well known by this point:

• Built-in HD Radio receiver
• HD video output capabilities (720p)
• OLED touch screen, allowing you to flip through music, movies and other content
• Wi-fi
• Internet browser optimized for multi-touch

There’s also the addition of an advisor AI called Smart DJ, which will make suggestions for others songs or artists you might enjoy. Imagine if Pandora and Apple’s “Genius” had a love child.

Simply enter an artist’s name and it will build a playlist around that artist – pulling suggestions not only from your own music, but from the 6 million tracks in the Zune marketplace. (If you’re not a Zune Pass subscriber, you can still see the songs it suggests, in case you’d like to buy them a la carte.)

Yeah, Steve Jobs made his triumphant return to the stage – and, admittedly, it was good to see him up there – but a lot of the big announcements people were hoping to hear from Apple today never happened.

Apple tablet computer? Not a word. Beatles music on iTunes? Nary a whisper. Cameras added to the iPod Touch? Nope. Sorry.

Sure, there were a few new announcements, but not the knock your socks off sort of stuff that people were hoping for. If you missed the news or the live-blogs, here are the highlights:

A couple of nuggets about the folks at Apple today to add to the swirling speculations about the company.

While most folks were expecting Apple to announce its tablet computer before the end of the year, a pair of ‘very reliable sources’ are telling both theloop and daringfireball that the all-in-one portable machine won’t hit until sometime in 2010. 

Internet rumors are a dime a dozen, but both of these sites have historically been spot on with news of Apple products, so their rumor-busting is worth a mention. It’s not a guarantee, but if you’ve been waiting for the news, you might want to take a breath and settle in.

Meanwhile, there’s word that Apple is planning a keynote for early September with a music focus, though nothing has been confirmed yet. That would make sense as Microsoft’s Zune HD has been confirmed for a Sept. 15 launch. (The company will have both 16GB and 32GB versions available for $219 and $289, respectively.)

Apple, historically, has introduced new iPods each fall, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see Apple try to undercut the Zune HD’s debut with some upgrades to the iPod Touch. Maybe the addition of a camera this time?

Netflix has a hit with its streaming video service – and it may be looking to seal its dominance.

MultiChannel News, citing unnamed industry executives, reports the company plans to offer its “Watch Instantly” service on both the Apple iPhone (and iPod Touch) and Nintendo Wii. In both cases, the service would likely be streamed over local Wi-Fi connections – meaning you won’t be able to use AT&T’s 3G network to watch films on the go.

Netflix declined to comment on the story.

Netflix currently offers over 12,000 films and tv shows via the service (and will soon be adding ABC’s hit series “Lost,” “Desperate Housewives” and “Grey’s Anatomy”. What began as a streaming service that only targeted computer monitors has rapidly expanded, with the company now streaming its service onto Microsoft’s Xbox, Tivo’s DVRs, Blu-Ray players from LF and Samsung, several Internet-enabled television sets and Roku’s $99 Digital Media Player.

It’s the Xbox relationship that has been working particularly well for Netflix. In the first three months of the two companies’ relationship, 1 million Xbox Live members downloaded and activated the Netflix application to their video game system. In those same three months, users watched 1.5 billion minutes of streaming movies and tv shows.

Blockbuster, meanwhile, has not found the same traction for its OnDemand streaming movie service. That company did, however, recently struck a deal with Samsung to be a part of its Web-enabled TVs and Blu-Ray players starting this fall.

The Weekly World News, that supermarket tabloid that doesn’t even pretend to care about the truth, has come to the iPhone. The company behind Bat Boy, regular Bigfoot updates and UFO news you won’t find elsewhere has put together an app for the device showcasing some of its greatest covers.

Sadly, the offerings are pretty sparse for your 99 cents. You can peruse 24 classic covers, but the real fun is the ability to swap faces from your photos with the ones on the covers. (My wife was more than a little unhappy to see her face on a page with the headline “Captured Alien is 500 Years Old!” Personally, I giggled like I was being treated with nitrous oxide.)

The covers (altered or otherwise) can be shared with friends, which may land me in further trouble.

Granted, it’s a silly waste of time and money, but it’s no worse than 50 percent of the other apps on the market today.