How Microsoft’s Zune can kill Apple’s iPod

Apple’s new iPod Nano resembles “a shrunken version of the beloved [iPod mini], which was once my favorite iPod; it had rounded metal edges that made it a delight to hold. You rolled it around in your hand like Captain Queeg’s steel spheres. So to speak. It also has the old Mini colors. The iPod haters insist that the appeal is shallow — you’re just paying money for fancy colors! Well, welcome to America, Karl Marx Jr. Here’s something to annoy you even more: I got a new Nano because it matched the color of my car. Deal with it,” James Lileks writes for The Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Lileks writes, “There’s also a pink version to match the popular pink RAZR, because Apple is not stupid. Pink moves the merch. Microsoft, however, is ready to strike back. Pictures of the new Zune Mp3 player have been released. There’s a white model and a black model, just like the iPod, but the Zune has a third color to complete with the Nano’s bright metallic hues.”

“Brown,” Lileks writes. “They say the Zune’s an iPod killer. It’s all clear now: It’s going to bore it to death.”

Full article here.

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45 Comments

  1. Since the Zune is only music at this point (save for your own homegrown or web-based video content), it is a music device – but so is the nano.

    Apple is positioning the nano against the Zune, and for pure music, the nano will win hands down.

    The iPod video is if one really wants music and movies or TV, etc… The Zune? Not a player in this market, but sure is bulky and large enough, but isn’t ready for this, so get an iPod video.

    This is Apple’s goal – pit the nano vs. the Zune, and let the iPod video stand alone.

    Should work just fine.

  2. If you follow the $229.99 link at gizmodo, read the comments at the bottom of the page. I feel sorry for all the posters whom are looking forward to the Zune. These people think that Microsoft really knows how to enter a new market. Microsoft has never been sucessful at entering a new market! And they say that Apple users drink the kool-ade!

  3. “Yes, the Zune will likely suck, but they did pick that color for a reason.”

    From the photos I’ve seen, the result of their effort to use an appealing color is something very unappealing. For whatever reason, the materials, the finish, it looks awful. I like dark brown, but either it photographs very poorly or someone made a huge mistake.

  4. One thing you will notice about Apple products, they are bilaterally symmetrical. Meaning they can be used either right or left handed. The mouse has always worked for left or right, including being able to switch the primary button to either side. MicroShaft stuff is notoriously right centric, the “ergonomic” mouse that only fits the right hand, for instance. The photo of the Zune, again is right hand biased.

    http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/portable-media/zunes-final-price-22999-msrp-202066.php.

    As a left hander and an Apple user I doubly reject the Zune
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