Comments on: Where do new iPods leave Zune?

CNET News' Ina Fried offers a quick take on what Apple's announcements mean for Microsoft's just-introduced line of Zune players.

[dascha1]

If you ask me it's a wash since neither are on-the-edge to make $ anymore... http://accessmusicnetwork.com

[whas8020]

not making $ anymore? last I checked the number that matters is this:

iPod - 73+% market share
Zune - 2.4%

One thing that did surprise me is that they didn't lower the entry level iPod Nano price point to $99, that would have been a psychological barrier to break through. Similarly for the iPod Touch for $199 would have done that, then again, maybe they want you to buy the iPhone instead...

The real trick that Apple is using is its ingenious Archetype Branding:

http://businessmindhacks.com/post/apples-magician-archetype-branding-revisited-good-news-bad-news

[dascha1]

Looks like you're following it alright, though I can't imagine the market of music-on-demand as you've eluded towards, maybe it's time for the 3rd dimension to come alive now.

[gagahput3ra]

In short : Microsoft is ******.

[Seaspray0]

Sorry, the most you can grant is 5 stars, even if you considered them exceptional and wanted to grant them 6.

[bethieedward]

Don't forget -- apple is announcing HD tv shows for apple TV (and the PC) today -- but Microsoft has already had HD TV shows and HD movies on the Xbox for awhile.. and the TV set is where you really care about that. Who cares if you have HD tv shows on your ipod.

[samkass]

And Apple's had the AppleTV even longer to attach to a television, too. But here's where video on the iPod shines: people who travel. When I go on a business trip, having a couple of movies on a Touch and a video-out cable, I can watch my own movies on the hotel television as well as watching them on the Touch's screen. Then hook up to the hotel wireless and listen to Pandora (the service that Zune's channels wants to be), which is one of the 3000 apps available. Zune is pretty much just for hard-core Microsoft fan-boys these days.

[catch23]

@samkass
Lets see, XBox360 came out in 2005, AppleTV in 07....
So Apple has had it 'longer' only in the imagined, revisionist history of moronic fan-boys.
I guess it is the only way anyone can say Apple is 'better'... Sad, really

[JuggerNaut]

Ummm... iTunes content is not limited to your iPod; hence making you Mac or Apple TV the killer TV-enabled devices!

[Antemeridian]

Hmmm . . . loosely related thought, but will shake to shuffle be disabled by the hold button. Hopefully, or the gym is going to get a lot more disjointed.

[memogonzalezj]

you are such a apple fanboy Ina... really... spend $199 on a new nano with a new user interface?? come on!!! and there's a reason they are called mp3 players.. not muntifunction-device-to forget everything else-thingies... too much features make the device complicated, be a master of one thing.. not a student of all...

[pairof9s--2008]

...and your point would be that you can't play or figure out how to play music on an iPod??? You know what's worse than an Apple fanboy...someone who ******* about Apple fanboys!

[ducttape36]

zune actually has had games unofficially supported for a long time, with users creating new ones every day, you can find a lot of them here: http://www.zuneboards.com/forums/download-completed-games-174/
hopefully now that it is officially supported the community will grow like xbox live did.

[Maclover1]

bethieedward, um there is this device called AppleTV that uses iTunes content, and you hook it up to your TV. Amazing!!!!! Believe it or not some people hook their PC's/Macs to the TV and play content from that as well.

All of which produce 1/1000th of the noise the 360 does and have 1000x more content than Xbox Live. Incredible I know.

[catch23]

1000X more? Lie much?
Must be that 'reality distortion' crap...

[da_alman]

You are comparing apples to oranges. While the 360 has media content. It's still primarily used for video games.

[Seaspray0]

yes, it does. It's about as popular as the apple "lisa". Sales are a microscopic fraction of what they were supposed to be. I don't expect AppleTV to stay in the lineup for much longer.

[jughead56]

memogonzalezj, Ina is a fangirl now...gender change right?

[terminalblue]

i lol'd

[dozierredraider]

What im surprised at is the fact that Apple didn't include Blue-tooth or Wi-fi for the ipods. The touch has wi-fi but not bluetooth. I work out all the time and I use my blue-tooth headphones connected to my phone and it works great. I was hoping that Apple would include that because it would have been a major gain.

[dozierredraider]

What im surprised at is the fact that Apple didn't include Blue-tooth or Wi-fi for the ipods. The touch has wi-fi but not bluetooth. I work out all the time and I use my blue-tooth headphones connected to my phone and it works great. I was hoping that Apple would include that because it would have been a major gain.

[uhpl508]

I don't own an iPod or Zune, I never have. But I have Zune Pass and use it at home, so for me, buying a Zune is a no brainer. There probably isn't that many people with the same setup though.

[Kev_Orng]

What I'm surprised about it that the 3rd-place Zune continues to get more coverage, pro and con, than the second place Sandisk.

And the Sandisk is STILL kicking the Zune around the block.

[ducttape36]

thats cause apple vs microsoft is way more interesting than apple vs sandisk. its not fair the it results in microsoft getting more coverage, but thats just the way it is. they are easily comparable in price too.

[Anthony Frausto-Robledo]

I agree. I would rather not see the press stir up another Apple vs Microsoft war when in fact others are more deserving of being considered competitive and innovative and can actually compete with Apple.

[RMarch]

People just seem to be very biased to Apple. Plain and simple.

On the merits, the Zune 8/16 and 120 beats the Ipod Classic / Nano. You can not compare the 120 to the classic - the Zune 120 blows it away with its screen. The Zune 8/16 has the edge on the Nano as well, with WiFi access / syncing.

Now to the more subjective part. Zune 3.0 software is simply better than iTunes. Now that MS has filled in all the gaps from the v 1.0 software, there is really no comparison. I know I may get flamed for this, but I do believe people who love iTunes have never used Zune 2.5 (soon to be even better with 3.0) for much if at all.

Zune Pass, Zune Pass, Zune Pass! Subscription music is absolutely the best. This is the big differentiator - but still many people do not seem to get it. Microsoft can stick around in this game chipping away at Apple for exactly as long as Steve Jobs decides not to bring subscription to iTunes. If MS has not convinced people why this is so awsome and economical before then, they are done. No doubt the Apple brain wave machine will be able to convince people overnight that it is the greatest thing ever and Apple inveted it. It was another close call this year - Microsoft be warned, you have one year to live unless you can convince people in a simple way why this is awsome (an no, for now I will not go into the virtues of Zune Pass - for another post).

Apple is of course not behind MS everywhere. The Touch is a different segment and MS is not playing. Content is better, but not by as much as Apple would have you believe.

I waited for this announcement, and I will be adding another Zune to the stable. It just has more in the Zune 8/16/120 vs. iPod Classic/Nano battle. Simple.

[protagonistic]

You don't seem to get it. Many people do not see the value in paying for something that lasts only as long as you keep subscribing. Why would I pay a monthly fee when radio is free? Actually, everything you mention is pretty much a subjective observation. The real problem for the Zune is that MS feels that it is the feature list while Apple takes the approach that it is the features that people actually use that matter.

Anyway, that is my subjective evaluation. And I don't have a Zune and my five year old iPod sits on my desk as a backup boot device. If I do get another player it will probably be another iPod because I am familiar with them and Zune offers no compelling reason to switch to it.

[Zarland]

Has anybody gotten tired of the more or less same ipod design from 8 years ago yet? I know apple is spending millions of $$$ to convince people that a rectangle with wheel in it is cool, but come on, for 8 years?

Just how ?cool? can ipod be?

[Galaxy5]

When you find something that works, I don't see a problem with sticking to it. The form follows the function - the iPod is easily operated with one hand, sight unseen. I'm not sure what value changing the design would bring - and the iPod Touch/iPhone have already left the click wheel behind anyway.

[Super2online]

I'm pretty happy about the new Zunes. Things are really starting to get interesting now. For the most part on the smaller Zunes, they match or exceed iPods. Microsoft will sell more of the smaller ones because the economy is not what it used to be. My opinion is that it will take one more full upgrade by both parties to put Microsoft on a level playing field, and that they are really looking forward to that upgrade.

[RMarch]

One other point sparked by Zarland's comment about getting tired of the same iPod design. Actually I go back to the first Rio 300 (32 MB!) in1998 that I owned. 10 years later, the basic concept is not changed and will not changed, because at the end of the day they play music.

Yes they can do video and some gaming, but there is simply a limit to what can be done in this form factor beyond listening to music. It is now safe to say, if the 5th gen iPod is any thinner, it won't exist (unless the LHC accelerator at CERN discovers another spacial dimension when they turn it on tomorrow). Apple is up against a wall in the Nano / Shuffle category. That means its days will be numbered. Today is perfect proof. They have begun recycling designs. That is the kiss of death. My wife is fairly technical but I am sure she will not be able to tell the difference shopping in a store this Christmas between the Gen 2 and new Gen 4 Nano. For that matter, the Zune 8/16 and the Ipod Nano practically look the same to a non-techy.

It can not hold it's lead forever as there is not an infinite amount of innovation in a music player of such a small form factor. Their market share will get peeled back in time - history proves it.

Sony had the portable CD music player market locked up. Same as Apple now. It is not that Sony totally lost it's way, it was just that you could only do so much with a portable CD player. Eventually it gets commoditized. Sony already lost massive market share in the mid 90's in its portable CD business from others (the iPod simply finished the job - they were already long gone). It is not a perfect parallel because the service behind the devices (iTunes / Zune Marketplace) create a stickiness that was not there in the past, but that will fade too.

[NewsReader_]

Competition is a wonderful thing. Microsoft is giving Apple a run for its money with a very compelling combination of hardware and services.

If you already have an iPod or Zune, you probably will not switch. But if you are buying your first MP3 player and see both of these on the shelf next to each other, you will have a hard choice to make (unless you just blindly go for a brand name)

[jairo_lopez]

"you will have a hard choice to make (unless you just blindly go for a brand name)" Or Fashion, as CNET perfectly puts it. "I want an iPod because everybody has one..."

[Seaspray0]

If you were comparing price/performance/features, then I would agree to an extent. However, you have overlooked some very important factors: marketing and conformity. Apple has had a headstart and done a better job marketing. And, for the same reason many people buy windows based computers, they will get the ipod. It will give them a sense of "my mp3 player will be compatable with what everyone else uses".

[MonkeyTrainer]

"Subscription music is more than just a feature in the Zune world."

All 2.8 percent of it.

[stuxstu]

Wait... Aren't Apple Fanboi's always claiming that Apples single digit desktop/notebook market is not a sign it is also ran? Oh but the iPod/Zune is completely acceptable... Gee, MS came out with a MP3 player and has a small market percentage... Hmm, how about MS is not the one charging to update a just a couple year old device. My orginal Zune 30 will get update to v3.0.... How about that iPod anything you bought 2 years ago?

The only thing missing for me from the Zune is using it as a hard drive. I will not update to the Zune 120 (or whatever) until that happens. I just live with my continually updated Zune 30.

Enjoy being ripped off by Apple.....

[scottwilkins]

Too bad both Apple and MS aren't concerned about audio quality (well MS is a little bit with the better ear phones...) Just about all other MP3 players sound so much better it's sad that these 2 sell so well.

[smilin:)]

Pretty biased article there dude. Let me mention just a FEW...

You are basically saying
look they are all the same price....but ipod touch as all these nifty features (yet it's not the same price!). Make up your mind. You're welcome to compare apples to oranges but don't try to pass it off as apples to apples.

You're also almost completely ignoring the wifi capabilities of the zune. The $149 zune has it and the $149 ipod doesn't. Period.

What about song tagging? Oh yeah you have to go by a high def radio for your car to get it then go back home to get your tagged songs. The Zune does it right there on the spot with the built in FM tuner....which leads to:

The ipod still doesn't have a FM tuner.

What about wireless sync? You still have to plug your ipod in to sync. I can leave my Zune downstairs in a cradle plugged into my home stereo and it gets updates from the PC upstairs. Or leave it in my car plugged into a cigarette lighter and it's still updated.

What about wireless song transmission? Anytime I take a flight somewhere (I always take the zune travelling) I find at least a handful of other zunes out there and I'll occassionally bum an album. Most of my friends all went the Zune route too (once the 8 came out). I can snag a whole album in like 2 minutes from them.

Apple adding HD TV to a Nano? Are you serious? HD on that tiny screen? Besides you can rip just about any video you want to the Zune. There are even apps for moving Tivo recordings over. The Zune marketplace does offer video you know.

Lets also not overstate things. Voice recording? Really? You want voice recording in your iPod? What for?

How about the case? Did they replace that crappy case or is it still all plastic? The zune is metal with a solid scratch resistant glass screen. The scroll wheel was also clever in it's time but "flicking" the squircle on the Zune is much faster for navigating around. It's especially easy for long lists (with that nice long screen in portrait mode....that I see apple is now copying).

*********************
Finally lets do a REAL comparison of prices. If you want the new nano features it will cost you $149-$249. If I want the new Zune features it will cost me 5 minutes to download the update. Why don't you go stick that in your article smart guy!
*********************

[LaptuaZ]

w00t, whats funny is that I only have 1 friend that still owns an iPod due to the fact that he got it for xmas, he wishes he had a zune, esp when we are in the car and we are all swapping our songs around and he can do nothing but spin his wheel and wish he got updates for his iPod that were half as cool as the Zune.

Its also pretty funny that when someone compares an iPod to a Zune, some how the touch always seems to come in the mix, the touch is its own failed device, I dont think I have ever seen anyone with a touch now that I think about it. Anyone that wants a real mp3 player will actually do research and find the Zune to be a better choice anyways, those that dont, just want to fit in with their friends...which are now all starting to get the Zune.

The Zune channles are going to be awesome, I hope more local places make channles to listen to while I am at the mall waiting around for my wife to shop, thats a good time to listen to music and find some new stuff while im doing it!

[wzone]

Im completely with you on this. IPods used to be cool, but for atleast the last 2 years there have been better players on the market. I have a creative and everyone I have shown it to has been amazed at how good it looks and performs..... Just marketing hype and fanbois like Ina