“The highlight of my day had to be the ten or so minutes I spent with Steve Jobs in an exclusive interview on CNBC just after his speech,” Jim Goldman reports for CNBC.
“Don’t underestimate the power of the new iTunes movie rental service,” Goldman writes. “I asked Jobs whether this meant the format war between Blu-ray and HD-DVD was over, with Apple the big winner. Clearly, he said, Blu-ray won, but in the new world order of instant online movie rentals, in HD, no one will care about what format is where. Funny how fast tech can move.”
“Signing all the major studios is no small feat either. Warner Bros., Universal, 20th Century Fox, Sony Pictures, Paramount — they’ve all jumped on board iTunes. Substantially all of Hollywood. AppleTV, take two, has a real shot. The power of technology. The power of Apple and Steve Jobs,” Goldman writes.
“I told Jobs that I had sat down with Microsoft’s Robbie Bach last week at the Consumer Electronics Show. I mentioned that Bach was particularly optimistic about the new Zune, that it was now a worthy alternative to Apple’s iPod. Asked Jobs: ‘Was he inebriated? Do you even know anyone who owns a Zune?'” Goldman writes.
Full article, with video of Goldman’s interview with Jobs (beyond flaky in Safari – for the life of them, CNBC still can’t seem to embed video properly – try Firefox instead), here.
It’s possible that Apple sold more iPods in the last 90 days than the total number of Zunes Microsoft will ever sell in the entire life of their derivative product line.
I know one person that owns a Zune. She got a 30 GB one (Brown, naturally) on sale for something like $99.
Before the box arrived, she referred to it “some mp3 player”. That tells you something about the branding.
You guys are looking in the wrong places for Zunes. Try the local home. Those poor drooling bastards wearing football helmets on the short bus might have one. As usual, your best bet is to look at the bottom of the local public shitter.
Any man who calls himself Robbie deserves to be in charge of the zune at Micro$oft.
MS has threatened to put it on sale in Canada – the problem remains that “zune” is an en francais slang expression for male or female genitalia. Micro$oft has or should have know this for the past 2 years. They can expect to have their “zune” turned back at the border or to have the name covered up – maybe they could come up with something original – like – like – toshiba.
3-4 years ago GM had a similar problem with the name for one of its Buicks (laCrosse, if memory serves., which was slang for masturbation. GM promptly changed the name to something else before the car shipped into the Canadian market- a smart move by a responsible corporation.
Given Robbie and Balmey continue to refer to the zune’s ability to “squirt” one can only imagine the reaction of parents and police when Robbie demos the pink zune (vagina) to a bunch of kids and rattles on about it squirting.
Let the complaints begin – heads up Best Buy and Future Shop because the citizens will be coming after you for displaying this offensive crap.
for all of us that have to stare carry around out our fat pudgy counterparts.
look at you, youre so fat… u disgust me. why cant you be like macbook air? super thin and sexy? would it kill you to shed a few peripherals?!
I have seen one. One that was owned by a 13 year old kid. You know, at 13 your brain has not actually finished developing.
I had a chance to fiddle with it. It’s not only ugly looking but the UI is abysmally atrocious.
Oh, almost forgot Ford – they really need to be associated with the zune product name in Canada – it will do wonders for its declining market share.
good boy Robbie!
Not anyone with a bit of sense anyway.
By the way, I thought MDN had done away with the Bakla Obama ads.
My brother in law is a huge Apple hater. His wife got him an 8g Zune for Christmas. Two days later I asked how he liked it. His Response? He wants to return it because you have to use Microsofts music player to use it.
This is the guy that hates Apple because of itunes and now he is stuck with a Zune that has to use Microcrap music player. Not to mention that there were only about 30 accessories available for the Zune instead of the 30,000 for the iPod. He hates iPods, but now I think he hates Zune more.
How ironic.
I asked the kid working at FYE if they sold many of the accessories for the Zune that were behind the counter. He had that “hell, no” look in his eyes, but naturally he said “a few”.
Then he said the other kid working there had one (which explained his dilemma) and that kid walked up and showed it to me.
He explained that he didn’t want to be locked in to iTunes with songs that could only be played on an iPod.
We both looked at him and said that he could burn them to CD.
Matter of fact, he didn’t even know that you could rip songs from CDs into iTunes.
I swear he put the Zune back in his pants, turned around and walked off like he was gonna cry. Honestly, I felt bad. He probably worked all summer to by that POS. AND HE WASN’T EVEN LISTENING TO IT!!!
by? I meant “bi”.
Stupid, stupid, stupid!
Just the Zune that I saw in the stall at a public restroom recently.
Ballmer’s Grandfather owns one! He said so!
“Asked Jobs: “Was he inebriated?”… “
Classic…. I literally LOLed.
I love dicks who think they are “against the norm”, or “establishment” or “won’t buy into the status quo” so they get a Zune. Yeah I have a colleague like that too.
It’s sort of like saying, “I like crap because everyone else likes good stuff, so I win”, but you lose.
I own one, that’s who.
Welcome to the Social.
Are all brothers-in-law stupid apple haters?
Why isn’t this called the “AirBook”?
Good one TowerTone. Poor kid, maybe he can make a bundle selling it at eBay. Lets see its worth about 10 bucks, shipping ground ups about 5 bucks. So he can make a big 5 bucks! Awesome. hehe
I’m kind of a mac newbie, could someone tell me why I can’t get cnbc.com? It just gives me what looks like a mobile version of the website.
Does anyone out there know a Zune Tang?
Anyone…?
In November my girlfriend told me her dad might buy Zunes for her and her siblings. I bought her a eight gig Nano on Black Friday and told her dad about it. He still bought her brother and sister 80 gig Zunes for Christmas, and I gave the Nano I had been saving. After using both, he is now plaining on buying Nanos for himself and his wife.
What happened to Zune Tang. Wait, he’s probably trying to figure out how Apple made such a sexy new notebook computer. And how Apple could have sold more than 4 million iPhones. Or how Apple actually has WiFi in iPods that actually does something.
Remind me what the WiFi in a Zune does other than suck the battery life out of a Zune?
I think I know 2 or 3 people who own a Zune. But they all work for Microsoft, and I believe one or more of them got it for free. So that’s not really saying anything. I once saw a guy on the bus with a Zune. Once. (I live in SF – possibly the most gadget-concentrated city in the world – and I take public transit every day, so I see a lot of people.)
LOL… looks like the “zunescene” forum regulars panties are all in a bunch over SJ comment. I believe their entire massive user forum base, which is about 10 people are all having a fit. haha….
anti-creative cretin,
You never cease to amaze and baffle me.