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17 Oct 2006
Apple chief executive Steve Jobs has rubbished claims that Microsoft's Zune media player will pose a serious threat to the iPod's market dominance.
Jobs dismissed the wireless music sharing technology that Microsoft is touting as a major selling point of Zune, which is due to ship in the US by Christmas.
"It takes forever. By the time you've gone through all that, the girl's got up and left," Jobs told Newsweek.
"You're much better off taking one of your earbuds out and putting it in her ear. Then you're connected with about two feet of headphone cable."
Asked whether he was worried that Microsoft's marketing clout behind the Zune might be able to eclipse Apple's iPod, Jobs stated simply: "In a word. No."
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Do you agree?
Microsoft Vs. Apple
In my opinion, Microsoft has messed up by limiting wireless transfers of songs to being played at the most 3 times in 3 days. This portrays to me that Microsoft is trying to get you hooked on new music, and then in turn make you buy music from their website. Bad move, and I'll tell you why: If Microsoft had made the wireless transfers work to where you could keep the songs forever, then sales of the zune would have gone crazy. Everybody would get them so everybody would have people to share music with. Especially since you could earn well over $250 back in very little time in terms of shared music, so it would almost seem to be a gift instead of a purchase. However, Microsoft has apparently opted to try and take over the internet music industry instead of pursuing to sell mp3 players. Well now they are not going to get either market...Not many people are going to buy a Zune when they could get an Ipod for the same price with all the same features/all songs previously downloaded compatible/Itunes variety in songs, shows, and movies. Itunes has the online media market on lockdown and sampling music with wireless zunes isn't going to stop that. It seems Microsoft has just made a quick attempt to copy Apple and steal some of their thunder but I just don't see it happening, Tyler
Posted by: Tyler Morgan 15 Nov 2006
in response to KeithF
Well, it's windows, so yeah. Yeah it certainly will. It's also important to notice that the virus infected ipods were captured in retail and preshipping. Only a minute few actually made it into customer hands, yet the media turns it into a circus, because everyone loves to gun for apple. For a smaller company with a relatively tiny marketshare (in the computer realm, anyway) Apple draws a whole lot of heat from you microsoft fanboys. Oh, the Zune has a harddrive too, so it's going to suffer from the same setbacks. Oh, and it's a new device, so there's probably going to be bugs to work out in the first couple of years and three or four builds, Oh, and so what if it says it will work with vista. Up until a month ago, Vista wasn't even working with Vista, even though it was supposed to come out almost two years ago, Oh, and the wifi is going to suck the battery dry. Don't even think it won't. It's a tiny battery, much like the ipod's, the same poly lithium technology, but they're also going to try to power a wifi adapter with the same bit of juice. If you're upset about your ipod's battery, don't hold much more hope for the Zune's. If the only thing the wifi does is share music TEMPORARILY between players like iTunes does over a network, it's a waste. You can't keep the songs and you can only listen to them while you're near the owner. They're probably also not going to be transferred or streamed at top quality, so you're actually (probably) going to be better off just splitting the headphones. Oh, and the interface sucks. I couldn't even figure out how to work the volume. It's clunky, unweildy, and all the other synonyms for "just generally crappy" I can think of. Oh, and they seem to think they're going to just throw up the music store infrastructure in several months and it's going to work smashingly. If m$ can, more power to them; it took apple at least four full versions of iTunes to get ITMS running smoothly. And it's ugly. There's just something wrong when people believe a newcomer to a thoroughly entrenched market is going to just dominate. It took the ipod six years to climb to where it's at now. Oh, and this all assumes that Steve doesn't have the next gen ipod hiding in his sleeve, ready to blow the Zune out of the water the moment it hits widespread release. That would be the only reason I can think of for Steve to be so utterly dismissive of the competition. Or maybe he's an egomaniac. Either way, IMHO, he's got a little more clout in his complacence than M$ does in it's assertion that the Zune is going to rule the digital music player market.
Posted by: JessB 09 Nov 2006
iPod has the added feature
of transporting virus's to PC's. Does Zune offer that?
Posted by: KeithF 18 Oct 2006
Another Microsoft "me-too" Product
I think that Wireless sharing is a feature that only a few people will use. Other than that it kind of looks like the ipod but not as elegant. ....at least someone finally made an MP3 player in translucent brown.
Posted by: Tim Germann 17 Oct 2006
Microsoft Will Win the battle
Microsoft is the best i love the Zune; i got a Nano at is was a waste of money. Keep it goin Microsoft
Posted by: Haroon Hussain 17 Oct 2006
As if
...you can't just do the same thing on the Zune. Let's face it, that's not a reason that Ipod is better, you could as easily share headphones on a Zune as you could anything else. Nice try Jobs, the feature may seem useless and you could say that, but, it is still a feature the iPod doesn't have. Headphone sharing isn't new, I remember doing it on the bus with tape players in middle school.
Posted by: Danielson 17 Oct 2006
please...
asking steve jobs to comment on the zune is like asking Al Gore to comment on how well George Bush is doing. Who cares what Jobs says? iPod is an overpriced harddrive which is designed to fail in 3 years. i got an ipod as a present and the battery died in 2 months. since i didn't have a receipt to get the battery returned, i was told to bugger off. apple should be worried. zune will work with Vista and Xbox 360 and is the only device that lets you do any sort of sharing on the fly. So what if it takes a few minutes. the point is, it can do it. what can ipod do other than look pretty, cost a fortune and break if you breathe on it the wrong way. talk about hype... sheesh. take another hit of acid Jobs and leave the real development to the experts
Posted by: Dieter Hammer 17 Oct 2006